Justification Theory: Preliminary Questions

[Nimzo]

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.

(1) Simply arguing that particularism is false is not an argument for methodism; there is a third alternative, namely skepticism.
(2) Your argument that particularism is “circular” is not an argument against the truth of particularism. Circularity does not entail falsity.
(3) You have not actually demonstrated that particularism is circular at all. Particularism simply is the view that one can know that one holds a justified belief without knowing how it is justified. Your slippery slope argument assumes that the particularist has to explain how his beliefs are justified, but that is the assumption of methodism! A theistic particularist would not say that “we are justified to believe in God because of the sensus divinitatis” – at least not until she has developed criteria for justification. A theistic particularist might say “belief in God is an instance of justified belief”. The methodist can cry all she likes that the theist doesn’t know how theism is a justified belief, but the obvious response is “So what? – I am not a methodist.”

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.

A no defeaters clause looks like this:

• S is justified (J) in believing p if S and p satisfy [some set of justification criteria] provided that S has no defeaters for p (i.e. provided S does not hold some other justified belief q which entails ¬p or ¬Jp).

Given such a clause, no matter what the set of justification criteria, the set of justified beliefs held by S will be consistent. So, consistency is not a strong enough criterion to come to a conclusion about what the correct justification criteria are.

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.

In which case, I can’t see why a theist should take your epistemological challenge seriously, given that there is no obligation on your view to meet the challenge. The claim that unless someone meets your particular view of rationality they will cause harm is only relevant if there is a real obligation not to cause harm – in which case, your view is contradictory.

Normativity is natural and exists in the cognitive systems of beings.

I am using normativity in terms of there being a real standard of rationality that intelligent beings ought to meet. You are using normativity in a different sense, unless you care to retract your view that there are only “hypothetical oughts”.

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.

You are applying justification in a normative fashion; this necessarily entails that we must deal with the notions of responsibility and obligation. Our whole discussion is about a confused term, so that is not a reason not to use the words (which to me are less confused than justification). Moral goodness is also a normative property anyway, so it equally involves notions of responsibility and obligation.

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.

Again you are talking about “more” and “stronger” desires – what is it about the quantity and strength of desires that has anything to do with morality? What is it about harm that makes it something that we should avoid. And what do you mean by “thwarting” them? I really struggle to see how your “desirism” has anything to do with how we should or should not act. (Obligation need not have anything to do with reprimand by the way, though I agree that it only makes sense within the context of relationships between persons, be they human or divine.)

EDIT: Some important ¬ symbols didn't make it first time round, and typos abounded.