Writing Philosophical Arguments

Philosophy isn’t just a form of creative writing. It’s an attempt to use good reasoning, and writing good philosophical arguments requires an understanding of good reasoning. Most people have an intuitive grasp of what “good reasoning” is, but this intuitive grasp is often insufficient. Our reasoning can be improved from experience and philosophy education. I will discuss three steps of writing good philosophical arguments:

10 Myths About Beliefs

There are many myths and misunderstandings that prevent clear thinking, good debate, and proper argumentation. I will discuss ten myths about beliefs, but first I will describe knowledge.

Knowledge, Justification, and Theoretical Virtues

We don’t always think about what really makes our beliefs justified or rational but we tend to be pretty good at identifying which beliefs are justified or rational anyway. We can often take a uncontroversial example of a justified belief then assess why another belief is or isn’t justified by how similar (or analogous) it is to the uncontroversial one. For example, the belief in the law of gravity is a good example of a highly justified belief. It is rational to hold such a belief (in part) because of how well it helps us predict the future. However, the belief that energy can be created or destroyed seems to be unjustified insofar as it has never helped us predict the future.

Four Terrible Ways to Argue

Philosophers have mentioned thousands of fallacies (errors in reasoning), but I will discuss four more in detail that I find to be very common. These fallacies are “terrible ways to argue.” I have already discussed several other fallacies in past posts, but here are four more that everyone needs to know about. To discuss these fallacies is to give tips for good argumentation, and they can help us identify errors in reasoning given by others. The four fallacies are the following:

1. Appeal to Ignorance
2. Equivocation
3. Reversal of Burden of Proof
4. Begging the Question

Four Requirements for Good Arguments

Formal logic can help us achieve clarity and relevant arguments, but there are other requirements for a good argument. Most philosophers seem to get caught up discussing “fallacies” (errors in reasoning) rather than “good reasoning.” I will discuss the following four requirements for writing good arguments and the corresponding fallacies for failing to achieve the requirements:

1. Supporting Evidence
2. Relevant Evidence
3. Consider all Viable Options
4. Charity

Objections to Moral Realism Part 2: Intuition is Unreliable

Many ethicists agree that moral philosophy requires the use of intuition. My argument for moral realism itself requires the use of intuition. However, philosophers will require that we justify our use of intuition. Some philosophers have argued that intuition is too mysterious or unreliable to be used for philosophy. I will present the case that intuition represents our tendency to be unable to verbalize various justifications. I will explain how our intuitions makes use of relatively reliable justifications, consider four objections against intuition, and I will attempt to explain why the objections are not convincing.

An Argument for Moral Realism

Moral realism is the view that some things “really matter” and have intrinsic value. I will argue that we have good reason to believe that at least one thing has intrinsic value, so we have good reason to believe moral realism is true. In particular, I will argue that we have good reason to accept that pain has intrinsic value. The evidence of intrinsic value requires us to accept that anti-realists will fail to explain our moral experiences involving pain. We have more reason to accept realism than anti-realism in so far as moral realism can better account for our moral experiences involving pain.

Chapter 3.12 “Moral Reality” by Mark Platts

Mark Platts is mostly concerned with defending moral realism from various objections, but he also endorses a specific form of moral realism, intuitionism, in order to make his defense of moral realism more specific. He makes it clear that he is interested in a form of moral realism in which moral facts are not reducible to nonmoral facts (283). He agrees that moral facts supervene (are dependent on) on nonmoral facts, but moral facts do not merely consist in the nonmoral facts (283). He lists three main aspects of intuitionism: First, intuitionism makes it clear that moral facts are not reducible to nonmoral facts. Two, intuitionism is compatible with a moral realist use of language. Three, intuitionism can admit that genuine moral dilemmas are possible.

Chapter 3.11 “Moral Theory and Explanatory Impotence” by Geoffrey Sayre-McCord

Geoffrey Sayre-McCord argues that we can confirm moral facts through observation, and that moral facts can be confirmed in a meaningful way. He admits that there is still some room for doubt. In order to justify moral facts, he takes a close look at epistemology in general. He suggests that theories must be able to explain our observations better than alternatives. In order to do this pragmatic considerations seem relevant, and if so, moral theories could be justified.

In the final section of Sayre-McCord’s article, he suggests a strategy to argue that moral values exist: If we accept epistemological values, then we might be able to prove that we also have to accept moral values.

Chapter 3.10 “Moral Explanations” by Nicholas L Sturgeon

Many philosophers of our past wanted philosophy to be as much like mathematics as possible. That would give us the highest form of knowledge and certainty. This task is now considered unrealistic. Instead, philosophers want philosophy to be as much like natural science as possible. Nicholas L Sturgeon provides an argument that ethics can be like science because moral facts can have causal power and can therefore be necessary facts in determining our observations.

Chapter 3.9 “How to be a Moral Realist” by Richard N Boyd Part 2

Objections to Moral Realism

In order to show that moral realism can be appealing, Boyd must first show why moral realism isn’t unappealing.

Right now moral antirealism is popular and there are many objections people give to moral realism in order to prove that realism is implausible. Boyd considers several objections and shows how the same kinds of objections could be used against scientific realism, but would fail. Boyd will argue that these objections fail against moral realism for the same reason that they would fail against scientific realism.

This section will only discuss the objections to moral realism. The next section will be Boyd’s response to the objections.

Chapter 3.9 “How to be a Moral Realist” by Richard N Boyd Part 1

We need to know how we thought of moral ideas, like good and bad. If we just made it up, then we should be moral antirealists. If we discovered that things can really be good or bad, then we should be moral realists.

If you think electrons are real, then you are a scientific realist. Entities theorized about science can be real despite the fact that we can’t experience the entities with our five senses. There are very plausible philosophical arguments that we should be scientific realists. Richard Boyd argues that in order to understand a plausible account of moral realism, we should understand a plausible account of scientific realism.

Chapter 3.8 “Values and Secondary Qualities” by John McDowell

John McDowell’s article presents an argument that (intrinsic) values are real.

Chapter 3.7 “Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life” by David Wiggins

David Wiggins wrote the first moral realist essay that I will discuss. In particular, Wiggens wants to know what it means to live a meaningful life and what kinds of things could have intrinsic value.

Chapter 3.6 “Ethics and Observation” by Gilbert Harman

Harman examines whether or not we can “observe” moral facts in the sense that we can observe scientific facts (119). If so, we can treat ethics as a natural science. Harman’s essay is related to a very important philosophical problem: Is the truth about moral facts relevant to our beliefs about moral facts? If our moral beliefs are unrelated to the truth about moral facts, then we have little reason to trust our moral beliefs.

Chapter 3.5 “The Subjectivity of Values” by J. L. Mackie

This article by J. L. Mackie presents one of the most extreme views about moral realism: Ethical judgments are are all false. This is known as nihilism or “error theory.” For example, ethical judgments about “goodness” are metaphysical (a claim about reality), but we are mistaken to think that our idea of “goodness” approximates reality. Even though Mackie’s view is an extreme, I find it to be one of the most plausible anti-realist positions to have. (That isn’t to say that I agree with it.)

Chapter 3.4 “Ethics, Mathematics, and Relativism” by Jonathan Lear

Jonathan Lear presents challenges to two forms of moral relativism: Cognitivist and noncognitivist.

Chapter 3.3 “Supervenience Revisited” by Simon Blackburn

Simply put, moral supervenience is the view that a description of nonmoral facts (such as physical and mental facts) is enough to determine whether an action is good or bad. If this is true, then that fact in itself seems like a problem for morality because we want to think that morality is about something more than just physical and mental facts. Let’s put that aside for a moment and take a look at the one of the important essays about moral supervenience:

Chapter 3.2 “Ethical Consistency” by Bernard Williams

Bernard Williams discusses the problem with having conflicting obligations and a potential contradiction that might be accepted if we accept conflicting obligations. He argues that two things we ought to do can conflict because choosing to do one of them will not absolve us of the fact that we also ought to do the other. A closer look at the logic involved can reveal why no contradiction will be accepted. I will present three objections to his argument. The first questions whether or not obligations can conflict, the second admits that nonmoral “oughts” might conflict while moral ones don’t, and the third questions whether or not we can reject that beliefs conflict but accept that “oughts” can conflict.

Chapter 3.1 “Critique of Ethics and Theology” by A. J. Ayer

The first contemporary essay that I will discuss is “Critique of Ethics and Theology” by A. J. Ayer.

A. J. Ayer provides us with the first noncognitive theory that is called “emotivism” (28-40) (Noncognitivists believe that moral statements have no truth value.) He suggests that everyday ethical judgments are not what we think. We think they are cognitive, but they are actually emotional expressions. To say, “Murder is wrong,” is actually something like saying, “murder!” in an angry voice. It shows an emotional dislike of murder.