In Search of the Trinity: A Dilemma for Parfit’s Conciliatory Project

I outline a dilemma for Derek Parfit’s project to vindicate moral realism. In On What Matters, Parfit argues that the best versions of three of the main moral traditions agree on a set of moral principles, which should make us more confident about the prospects of truth in ethics. I show that the result of this Convergence Argument can be interpreted in two ways. Either there remain three separate and deontically equivalent theories or there remains just one theory, the Triple Theory. Both interpretations fail to deliver what Parfit is looking for. The first interpretation leads to a situation of underdetermination of theory choice that gives rise to a skeptical challenge. The second interpretation jettisons Parfit’s Conciliatory Project, that is, the reconciliation of the three moral traditions. The dilemma, I contend, is the result of Parfit failing to resolve two antithetical lines of thought. His search for the Trinity of moral theorizing must thus fail.

Bias

This chapter offers an account of central issues and themes in feminist philosophical reflections on bias and objectivity. Some feminists have argued that objectivity is an unachievable and thus inappropriate epistemic norm for human beings. But at the same time, these feminists have criticized philosophy for displaying masculinist bias. This complex critique faces a problem I’ve called the “Bias Paradox” and that Helen Longino calls an “Essential Tension:” how we can criticize partiality at the same time we acknowledge its ubiquity. I explain Longino’s proposed “social empiricist” solution, and contrast it with my own. I argue for a re-conception of “bias” as a normatively neutral epistemic inclination. Biases, in this sense, play a crucial constructive role in the development of human knowledge by solving the problem of underdetermination of theory by evidence. The biases we (correctly) regard as morally bad, such as social prejudice, involve the operation of neutral biases in unpropitious natural or social environments.

Philosophical aspects of cosmology

The development of cosmological theories has been accompanied by philosophical debates inspired by the contrasts between cosmology and other areas of physics. This chapter reviews aspects of these debates from a historical perspective, beginning with debates about whether the uniqueness of the universe implies that cosmology needs a distinctive methodology. Underdetermination of theory by the evidence is particularly challenging due to horizons and inaccessible physics. Theories of the ‘origin’ of the universe do not have the same structure as other physical theories. Recent debates have focused on how to evaluate theories that predict a multiverse, in particular regarding the significance of fine-tuning and how to conduct anthropic reasoning.

Unconceived alternatives and another argument for instrumentalism

Selective skepticism in relation to fundamental scientific theories and criticism of the inference to the best explanation as an eliminative approach to substantiate hypotheses, enable K. Stanford to interpret and combine in his own way the classical arguments against the scientific realism – the arguments of the pessimistic meta-induction and that of the underdetermination of theory by data. Despite the fact that his justification of the instrumentalist interpretation of scientific knowledge is just another version of the argument «from error», K. Stanford’s book should be recommended to a scientific realism could be. Reflection on the book: Stanford K. Exceeding Our Grasp: Science, History, and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives. Oxford University Press, 2006.

Foundations of Interreligious Dialogue

This chapter is less concerned with foundations as such than with the different kinds of dialogues undertaken at various levels between different religions as well as between religions and science and philosophy. The beliefs and dogmas at stake often dead-end these dialogues or lead to misunderstandings. “Spirituality” as a common trait of all religions supposedly uniting them in opposition to scientific materialism is a misleading concept. Religions deemed similar, such as monotheistic faiths, when analyzed in terms of their meanings and effects, are actually very different. However, different traditions, even when they diverge across space and time, can reveal interesting convergences in their philosophical teachings. The primeval infra-linguistic foundations of the sacred at the origins of humanity have been passed down through the millennia in different ways according to their different cultural histories. The ethical and legal issues arising from the role of science and technology today make it imperative to seize opportunities for dialogue. Faced with these new issues, religions and philosophies must collaborate in their attempts to address them. Consequently, their traditional role in the genealogy of ethics needs to be overhauled. This may be achieved through efforts to construct an empirically based universal ethics rather than a purely theoretical one that is limited to specific religious or philosophical doctrines. The success of these efforts is not guaranteed; however, they may be facilitated by the underdetermination of decisions by their motivations, an argument adapted from the concept of underdetermination of theory by facts.

Reasonable Disagreement and Rational Group Inquiry

ABSTRACTAccording to one widely held view, a belief is fully justified only if it holds up against the strongest available counterarguments, and we can be appropriately confident that it does hold up only if there is free and open critical discussion of those beliefs between us and our epistemic peers. In this paper I argue that this common picture of ideal rational group inquiry interacts with epistemic problems concerning reasonable disagreement in a way that makes those problems particularly difficult to resolve. By focusing on this idealized context, we get a clearer picture of the epistemic principles at issue. In the end, I argue that the best way to resolve the resulting epistemic conflicts is by appeal to the underdetermination of theory by evidence together with a principle of epistemic conservatism.