Here, I confront the most popular objection to foundationalism: That foundational beliefs must be “arbitrary”.* [*Based on: “Arbitrary Foundations?”, Philosophical Forum 34 (2003): 141-52.] 1. Foundationalism Foundationalists hold two theses: (i) there are certain beliefs with “foundational” justification, i.e., justification that does not depend upon one’s having justification for any other beliefs; (ii) all other justified beliefs are based on those foundations. Thesis (i) is the controversial part.
People also seem to think ethical intuitionism is weird and "arbitrary" wheras something like natural rights of utilitarianism is not. We have intuitions about lots of ethical facts, but some are dismissed while others are kept. Is that not arbitrary? I'm reminded of a quote from Ethical Intuitionism pp. 250 - 251 where you say:
"I have been a moral realist for as long as I can remember. I think the reason is roughly this: it seems to me that certain things, such as pain and suffering to take the clearest example, are bad. I don't think I'm just making that up, and I don't think that is just an arbitrary personal preference of mine. If I put my finger in a flame, I have a certain experience, and I can directly see something about it (about the experience) that is bad. Furthermore, if it is bad when I experience pain, it seems that it must also be bad when someone else experiences pain. Therefore, I should not inflict such pain on others, any more than they should inflict it on me. So there is at least one example of a rational moral principle.
But I was not always an intuitionist: when I first learned of the theory, in the form espoused by W. D. Ross, I thought that it rendered ethics unacceptably arbitrary. Ross had given a list of several different 'prima facie duties' that we have, such as the duty to keep promises, the duty to avoid causing harm, the duty to show gratitude for benefits given to us, and so on. Ross had no account of why these things were all duties, other than that it just seemed so to most people; nor had he any account of how to resolve conflicts between prima facie duties in particular cases, other than to just use one's best judgment. It seemed to me that this rendered most moral judgments doubly arbitrary: there was arbitrariness both in the general principles of duty themselves, and in their application to particular circumstances.
I am not sure, now, why I thought these things. If someone had asked me, 'Do you think that every belief requires an infinite series of arguments in order to be justified?' I would surely have said no. So what was 'arbitrary' about Ross' ethical views could not have been the mere fact that he advanced some claims without argument. I think I would have been satisfied, or at least less inclined to make the 'arbitrariness' objection, if Ross had stated a single ethical principle from which all other ethical principles could be logically derived—as, for example, the utilitarians do. No one makes the charge of arbitrariness against utilitarians. But this makes little sense-if a single foundational ethical principle may be non-arbitrary, why not two? Or six? Or a hundred?"
My interpretation of the arbitrariness was that you could sort of whimsically pick which beliefs you want to be the foundational beliefs - or perhaps less strongly, there could be multiple, inconsistent sets of foundational beliefs.
Suppose a belief B is justified by B' which is in turn justified by B'', and so on. Suppose also that we are not sure if the sequence of justificatory beliefs terminates but we know that even if it did not terminate, at each stage the reasoning justifying the previous belief is valid (for e.g. we are sure that no prior justificatory reasons would be repeated, etc). In that case, would we be justified in believing B?
Very interesting. Does it mean I should stop citing the münchhausen trilemma?
This shows that there is more to argument than logic. Logic alone can only evaluate premises if they (or their negations) lead to a contradiction. If a premise is not a theorem of logic (or a negation of one), logic can’t say whether it is true or false, only that if it is true, it entails a conclusion.
I'm having trouble thinking of foundational beliefs, though. Lacking imagination, I guess. Maybe the example of utilitarianism's basic evaluation should satisfy me? Utilitarians could consider that to be foundational. But is it because they have this sort of justification in mind, or because they have inferred it from their experiences and various consequentialist arguments? Does it make sense to think of it as foundational if belief required seeing arguments? Can the reasons for belief be different from the reasons for considering it foundational? Or am I recapitulating the fallacy the article tries to clear up, where the reason for believing something is just some evidence, and the reason for thinking of it as foundational is because there is direct evidence for it? I should re-read later. I am probably confused.
I guess the laws of thought are foundational? But they are sort of circular, because we define propositions as statements that conform to those axioms, but the axioms also take propositions as primitive. I’m thinking of the analysis of the Liar's Paradox in Paradox Lost.
People also seem to think ethical intuitionism is weird and "arbitrary" wheras something like natural rights of utilitarianism is not. We have intuitions about lots of ethical facts, but some are dismissed while others are kept. Is that not arbitrary? I'm reminded of a quote from Ethical Intuitionism pp. 250 - 251 where you say:
"I have been a moral realist for as long as I can remember. I think the reason is roughly this: it seems to me that certain things, such as pain and suffering to take the clearest example, are bad. I don't think I'm just making that up, and I don't think that is just an arbitrary personal preference of mine. If I put my finger in a flame, I have a certain experience, and I can directly see something about it (about the experience) that is bad. Furthermore, if it is bad when I experience pain, it seems that it must also be bad when someone else experiences pain. Therefore, I should not inflict such pain on others, any more than they should inflict it on me. So there is at least one example of a rational moral principle.
But I was not always an intuitionist: when I first learned of the theory, in the form espoused by W. D. Ross, I thought that it rendered ethics unacceptably arbitrary. Ross had given a list of several different 'prima facie duties' that we have, such as the duty to keep promises, the duty to avoid causing harm, the duty to show gratitude for benefits given to us, and so on. Ross had no account of why these things were all duties, other than that it just seemed so to most people; nor had he any account of how to resolve conflicts between prima facie duties in particular cases, other than to just use one's best judgment. It seemed to me that this rendered most moral judgments doubly arbitrary: there was arbitrariness both in the general principles of duty themselves, and in their application to particular circumstances.
I am not sure, now, why I thought these things. If someone had asked me, 'Do you think that every belief requires an infinite series of arguments in order to be justified?' I would surely have said no. So what was 'arbitrary' about Ross' ethical views could not have been the mere fact that he advanced some claims without argument. I think I would have been satisfied, or at least less inclined to make the 'arbitrariness' objection, if Ross had stated a single ethical principle from which all other ethical principles could be logically derived—as, for example, the utilitarians do. No one makes the charge of arbitrariness against utilitarians. But this makes little sense-if a single foundational ethical principle may be non-arbitrary, why not two? Or six? Or a hundred?"
My interpretation of the arbitrariness was that you could sort of whimsically pick which beliefs you want to be the foundational beliefs - or perhaps less strongly, there could be multiple, inconsistent sets of foundational beliefs.
Suppose a belief B is justified by B' which is in turn justified by B'', and so on. Suppose also that we are not sure if the sequence of justificatory beliefs terminates but we know that even if it did not terminate, at each stage the reasoning justifying the previous belief is valid (for e.g. we are sure that no prior justificatory reasons would be repeated, etc). In that case, would we be justified in believing B?
Very interesting. Does it mean I should stop citing the münchhausen trilemma?
This shows that there is more to argument than logic. Logic alone can only evaluate premises if they (or their negations) lead to a contradiction. If a premise is not a theorem of logic (or a negation of one), logic can’t say whether it is true or false, only that if it is true, it entails a conclusion.
I'm having trouble thinking of foundational beliefs, though. Lacking imagination, I guess. Maybe the example of utilitarianism's basic evaluation should satisfy me? Utilitarians could consider that to be foundational. But is it because they have this sort of justification in mind, or because they have inferred it from their experiences and various consequentialist arguments? Does it make sense to think of it as foundational if belief required seeing arguments? Can the reasons for belief be different from the reasons for considering it foundational? Or am I recapitulating the fallacy the article tries to clear up, where the reason for believing something is just some evidence, and the reason for thinking of it as foundational is because there is direct evidence for it? I should re-read later. I am probably confused.
I guess the laws of thought are foundational? But they are sort of circular, because we define propositions as statements that conform to those axioms, but the axioms also take propositions as primitive. I’m thinking of the analysis of the Liar's Paradox in Paradox Lost.