(May 8, 2011 at 10:20 am)Nimzo Wrote: OK, but you haven't answered my question of why the theist, or anyone, should take your methodist view rather than a particularist one.
You said it yourself: "our understanding of what justification is should be based on our answer to which beliefs we understand to be justified".
This approach is completely circular and uncritical in that what we consider justification is based on what we already believe to be justified, such as believing that we have a sensus divinitatis and then saying we are justified believing in god because of the sensus divinitatis with no examination of whether or not the presumed innate knowledge is true.
If you wanted to examine whether or not the sensus divinitatis was in fact real, as a particularist you would have to rely on other things you perceive to intuitively know in order to decide whether or not you were justified in believing in the sensus divinitatis, but these propositions that you perceived you intuitively knew could also only be examined in light of other propositions you perceived you intuitively knew and so on and so forth, ultimately one would run out of things they intuitively knew and have to resort to methodism regardless.
There are also a great many flaws in our 'intuitions' or common sense, if you wanted a purely empirical reason why the idea that we "just know" some things is an entirely useless basis for a theory of justification a quick trip down neuroscience lane would suffice - We are surprisingly terrible at intuiting things.
Quote: Well, presumably any theory of justification with a "no defeaters" clause is going to satisfy that condition. The condition also has nothing to do with whether the theory is actually a correct description of justification.
A no defeaters clause such as?
And I disagree that it has nothing to do with it. If a standard of evidence yields contradictory conclusions then dismissing it as sufficient for justification is very much relevant.
Quote:Right, but the whole question is whether we should have the desire to be "rational" according to your standard. A conditional "ought" isn't going to get you a normative standard.
Hypothetical oughts are the only ones that exist.
I couldn't say you simply should desire to be rational and I have no reason to, I can however say that people have a reason for action to promote a desire to be rational and people who care about others have a reason for action to themselves be rational as irrational beliefs tend to do more harm, people who want to achieve their goals have a desire to be instrumentally rational etc.
Normativity is natural and exists in the cognitive systems of beings.
Quote:I don't think you've given a reason here why there exists intellectual (which you set up as a subset of moral) responsibility. You've said you believe that we have one (and I agree), but being a methodist you need to show that you are justified in believing in one.
This is a bit of a side issue as I never intended to get into why it is morally good or bad to desire to be rational, I was more dealing with people who already claim that they are rational and already care about being rational (or claim to) but none the less:
Forget responsibility and obligation for a now, I tend to see them as rather confused terms, instead lets talk about it being morally good.
I believe it is morally good to desire to be rational as a desire to be rational is one that tends to promote more and/or stronger desires than it thwarts - People who are rational tend to make less decisions that cause unintended harm, amongst other things. If everyone were to desire to be justified in their beliefs there would be no people promoting anti-vaccination movements that, despite their intentions, do far more harm than good.
I do not believe that they are "obligated" to be rational in the sense that they are breaking some social or divine contract by failing to do so and should be reprimanded, only in the sense that people who do not desire to be rational tend to give other people reason for action to promote a desire to be rational. People who promote anti-vaccination give us reason for action to condemn irrationality and promote rationality.
Quote:I don't think you really mean this - I can have a desire that promotes lots of very strong desires to do morally wrong things. That I have a desire to do something says nothing about the moral status of the action I desire to do. I presume I am misunderstanding what you mean here.
You are only considering the 1st generation or 'direct' desires, that is your main fault in understanding me it seems, you need to consider the totality of the impact in my moral evaluation. If you have a desire that tends to promote desires that thwart more desires then you have a desire that tends to thwart desires.
For instance; You could have a desire for satisfaction and a belief that Jihad achieves this satisfaction, so you have reason for action to promote a desire to commit jihad, but a desire to commit Jihad is one that tends to thwart far more and stronger desires than it promotes, so in totality a desire to commit Jihad is one that thwarts more/stronger desires and is morally wrong.
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