Rationality

The Is-Ought/Naturalistic fallacy has come up a number of times in my intro classes this semester.  First, it’s worth pointing out that I have had trouble finding clear definitions of these things – even the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy goes so far as to mention that the definitions are not agreed upon amongst professional philosophers.  The problem I have in mind, though, is basically this: It is a mistake to think that something is morally permissible just because it is natural and it is a mistake to think that something is morally wrong because it is unnatural.

So stated it seems clear to me that those are mistakes and should be avoided.  One reason is that ‘natural’ is not a well-defined term or, at least, it is certainly not used consistently by the ‘folk’.  The go to example would be homosexuality – some conservatives think it’s unnatural and might thereby conclude that it is immoral; some liberals think it’s natural and might thereby conclude that it is moral.  The uses of ‘natural’ are different in each case.  The former might be not much more than a synonym for disgust (i.e., it’s gross, so it’s unnatural), while the latter might be an appeal to the observations of homosexuality in non-human animals.  I don’t think either interpretation of ‘natural’ warrants the conclusions drawn.

The second reason against such arguments is the fact that counter-examples abound.  I might find the sight of a needle puncturing one’s skin (e.g., to administer a flu vaccine) to be gross and unnatural, but I wouldn’t thereby consider it immoral.  I might notice that in their natural habitats chimpanzees throw their feces at one another, but I wouldn’t thereby consider such acts morally permissible in human beings.  Thankfully these kinds of examples suffice to curtail the use of similar arguments among my students (e.g., we naturally eat meat, so it is morally permissible).

However, there is a deeper problem that is not so easily resolved.  The “is-ought fallacy” is not quite the same as the “natural, ergo moral” arguments above.  In short, the claim is that it is a mistake to derive an ‘ought’ statement from an ‘is’ statement, that ethical conclusions cannot be drawn from factual statements.  It is not as clear to me that this is really a fallacy – perhaps a topic for my next post.

I finally got the course evaluations back from the Intro Phil classes I taught last semester… sadly only about 12 people out of 150 bothered to fill them out.  The good news is that the feedback was nearly all positive.  The main complaint was about the textbook, which is the one part of the course I have no power to change (although I suppose I could use all online readings), though I would certainly choose a different book if I could.  The only substantive complaint was that my grading practice wasn’t clear, which I can understand to a degree.

My favorite compliment was that I “do great drawings” which is just absolutely false… when I have to draw something like Plato’s cave I wonder if I’m just making things worse!  I must assume that comment was from one of my more sarcastic students.  Someone said I “relate” to the students, which is nice.  Another said they liked that I was always on time to class… which only makes me wonder if other teachers are often late… I’m pretty sure I’m paid to be on time.  The rest were just generally nice things that make me feel all warm and fuzzy.  I only wish more students had filled it out – it’s not too surprising that the ones that did were happy with me and the class, since they were the ones that actually listened to me when I told them to go home and fill out the evaluation online.

In ‘81 Dretske wrote an article called “the Pragmatic Dimension of Knowledge,” in which he draws some interesting conclusions about the nature of knowledge.  His article is particularly useful in teaching intro kids because he illustrates his point using a number of good analogies.  His general claim is that knowledge is absolute… but what does that mean?

First he relates knowledge and justification to boiling water.  One cannot, he says, boil water better than someone else.  Either it is boiling or it isn’t – it has reached 100 degrees or it hasn’t.  One can boil water at a higher temperature than someone else, but it is still just boiling.  In the same way, one cannot know something better than someone else.  That is, if you and I both know that today is Tuesday, you cannot know it better than I.  Either we know it or we don’t – either we have sufficient justification such that our belief (that today is Tuesday) counts as knowledge or we don’t.  You might have more (or better, or different) justification than I, but you don’t thereby know it better.

He makes the same point with another anaology: pregnancy.  A woman is either pregnant or not pregnant.  One cannot be pregnant better than someone else.  One might be further along or closer to giving birth than someone else, but both are still just pregnant.

Furthermore, he says knowledge is a relationally absolute term.  It is absolute, but only relative to a context. The words “flat” and “empty” are also relationally absolute.  Something is flat when it is a surface that has no bumps.  Something is empty when it is a space that contains no things.  In this sense they are absolute.  But they are ‘relational’ because we must ask “what counts as a bump?” (in the case of flatness) and “what counts as a thing?” (in the case of emptiness).

“Texas is flat” is true when compared to Wisconsin because we count mountains as “bumps,” but it is false when compared to a mirror because we count much smaller things (say, a pebble sized irregularity) as “bumps.”  “The room is empty” might be true when we are counting people as “things,” but not true when we count chalk dust as “things.”  The room may be said to be empty even though there is a peice of chalk in it, but my pocket may not be said to be empty when there is a peice of chalk in it.

So it is with knowledge.  Dretske defines knowledge as a true belief for which the subject’s evidence eliminates all relevant alternatives.  It is absolute since one must eliminate ALL such alternatives; it is ‘relational’ because in any situation we ask “what counts as a relevant alternative?”  Here things get a bit dicey.

If I say “I know that bird is a canary,” and my justification is it is a yellow bird and all canaries are yellow, then what might be a relevant alternative?  Since goldfinches are also yellow birds, then if I cannot eliminate the possibility that the bird is a goldfinch, then I do not know it is a canary.  If I can eliminate that possibility, then perhaps I do have knowledge that it is a canary.  The point is that some alternatives are usually (or perhaps always) irrelevant – for example, the possibility that I’m in the Matrix.  If I’m in the Matrix, then what I see is not a bird (it’s a computer generated image of a bird).  But since the Matrix possibility is not relevant, I need not eliminate it in order to have knowledge.

By giving an account of knowledge as being relationally absolute, Dretske confirms our intuitions that knowledge is an all or nothing affair, but still saves us from skeptical doubt.  Or so the story goes.