On Reasons to Believe Things

Sorry that so many of my posts lately have been rough, loose, and sometimes cryptic notes; I've been pressed for time when at the computer. Here's another. It would be nice to have some workable taxonomy of the the way reasons relate to what they support, one based on structural links between the reason and thing believed rather than on content. Here's a rough first attempt.

One way in which reasons for believing X might be related to X is directly: that is, the reason (defeasibly or indefeasibly) implies X (either on its own or with additional assumptions regarded as plausible). So let's call those implicative reasons.

Another way might be this. Some (relatively rare) feature or quality is taken to be desirable, and X has it. (For instance, you might think that a good explanation of moral practices should also explain ordinary etiquette; and if this is hard to find, and X allows you to explain both moral practices and ordinary etiquette, that might be taken as a reason for believing X.) Let's call those desiderative reasons, because they tell us that the thing believed conforms to certain independent desiderata.

I think we can add a third genre. A moral realist might think his moral realism to be a reason for believing some form of aesthetic realism, because they are alike, despite not thinking that moral realism implies (defeasibly or otherwise) aesthetic realism and despite not thinking that being like moral realism is itself a desideratum for an aesthetic theory. We can say that this sort of reason is an extrapolative reason, because it says that a plausible extrapolation from the original reason would, on some supposed principle of extrapolation, include the thing to be believed. I suspect that extrapolative reasons are incidental byproducts of particular combinations of implicative and desiderative reasons, but I haven't thought it through completely.

Am I missing any? And no doubt there are important structural subgenres (e.g., based on the type of implication for implicative reasons, on the type of of means-end reasoning for desiderative reasons, and on the underlying principle of extrapolation for extrapolative reasons). Are any of those of special note?

Charming

I'm sure I've actually come across this before (although perhaps did not really recognize it), and I've definitely watched the relevant episode, but Wikipedia introduced me today to the Politician's Syllogism:

We must do something.
This is something.
Therefore, we must do this.

The article attributes it to the "Party Games" episode of Yes, Minister!; I don't recall it from the show, for some reason, but it certainly fits with the story of that episode. It's certainly both a better name and a better fallacy than most fallacies you run across in fallacy lists.

It's interesting to think of how one might analyze the fallacy here, though, since it seems to me that one could analyze it in several different ways. What do you think?

Moral Certainty, Probability, and Liguori

There's a discussion going on at "Disputations" on moral certainty (here and here), and in particular with this definition from Alphonsus Liguori:

An opinion of sentiment that is morally certain, is that which excludes all prudent fear of falsity; so that the contrary opinion is regarded as wholly improbable.

This is how I would suggest parsing this.

First, we have to understand that the key issue for cases of conscience is prudence. Prudence makes a double showing here. First it appears explicitly: what is morally certain excludes all prudent fear of falsity. But it also appears implicitly: that the contrary opinion is regarded as wholly improbable. (In fact, I think that this definition is deliberately redundant -- it is a parallelism, and both clauses are two ways of making the same point.)

In other words, we are not talking of probability in our usual sense here (it is not chance of being correct, although there are etymological and historical connections between the two senses); it's a technical term. And Liguori, actually in the very passage where he gives the above definition, gives a meaning to it:


Saint Alphonsus Liguori, or, Extracts, translated from the Moral theology of the above Romish saint By Alfonso Maria de' Liguori, Richard Paul Blakeney

(I am, by the way not comfortable getting Liguori from Blakeney; but Blakeney gives the Latin and one could in principle check that against Liguori's Latin. It's difficult to find translations of important passages of Liguori into English online, and I don't have the time to stumble through on my own. One makes do with what one has.) So here we get an idea of what probability is: a moral opinion is probable when there is "some intrinsic reason or extrinsic authority" to which a prudent person, although in doubt, might assent. (The 'extrinsic authority' here would be the authority of someone with a reputation for good judgment in difficult moral matters; and this weighing of authorities is what the casuists usually talked about in discussing probability. But, as Liguori says here, the reasons inherent to the case itself also may play a major role.)

Second, morally certain opinions occur on a spectrum of probable opinions about whether a given act would be wrong:

(a) tenuiter probabilis (slightly probable): based on some reason a prudent person would have to take into account, but not such a one as would cause a prudent person to assent to it.
(a) probabilis: based on some reason that would cause a prudent person to assent to it, although there might still be doubt.
(b) probabilior: based on some reason that would cause a prudent person to assent to it, but with some prudent fear of the contrary being true (i.e., the better of two probable opinions)
(c) probabilissima: based on some reason that would cause a prudent person to assent to it, such that the contrary is only tenuiter probabilis.
(d) moraliter certa: based on some reason that would cause a prudent person to assent to it, such that the contrary is not even tenuiter probabilis.


Tuta (safe) and tutior (safer) have to do with how much is at stake, morally. Liguori's ultimate conclusion in all this will be his aequiprobabilism: that it is morally certain that when one opinion is more probable than the other, we should follow the more probable, but when two opinions are both probable, neither definitely more than the other, then you may choose as you see fit. That is, if you have good reason to think one way definitely more prudent than the other, you should follow the more prudent way; but if both can be prudently followed, even if one is riskier, morally speaking, you may make your own judgment. It's part of Liguori's battle with tutiorism, the view that you should always follow the view that risks less morally; in his view it is wicked to try to circumvent prudence by imposing obligations solely with a view to avoid even approaching the possibility of sinning -- it is morally wrong to treat one thing as obligatory when something contrary to it is also prudent, even if riskier. For one thing, he thinks that this can often lead to the wrong course of action; for another, prudence is prudence. For another, the context for all of this is confession and spiritual direction; your confessor, however, is not your judge, and it is not his business to decide matters of genuine controversy. And all of this does require that there be genuine controversy, not in the sense that people disagree, but that people with a reputation for good and sober judgment in moral matters, giving reasons a prudent person might accept, disagree.

So 'morally certain' in Liguori's sense is not about likelihood of error; it is about what reasons can be brought for and against a moral position to see if it is consistent with good judgment. Thus I think people are conflating two different senses of 'moral certainty' in this passage. In one, something that is morally certain is 'certain enough to act on'; in another, Liguori's, it is more like 'definitely the only prudent option'.

In any case, all of this is unnecessary for the broader discussion of which it is a part; the Church has a test -- I will not say it is always simple to apply, but it is straightforward to state and doesn't require digging into confessors' manuals. Is torture morally permissible? Of course, if you can torture someone charitably and consistently with the love of the God to whose image they are made. If torturing them would impede or hinder that love for them and for God, then it is wrong. And if it is simply inconsistent with them, it is wicked. And there's very little room for doubt as to the results of such a test here -- I would say no room, except that, human beings what they are, there will be people who will take a word and stretch it to things to which it doesn't rationally apply. But that aside, it's pretty clear that torturing someone is not a way to love them.

ADDED LATER: It would be better for everyone if all those who have opinions that are at most tenuiter probabilis, and all those who have principles that are tutiorist, were to bow out. That would mean very few people left in the discussion, I am afraid. But, of course, nobody thinks the opinion to which they are inclined is tenuiter probabilis, and tutiorists always think that they are the last bastion of righteousness (and these days never think of themselves as tutiorist). It's a discussion guaranteed to be artificially sustained, regardless of anything, including the danger of scandal.

Michelangelo on Dante, by way of Longfellow

Quite the convocation of greatness. Longfellow's version of Michelangelo's poem on Dante:

Dante

What should be said of him cannot be said;
By too great splendor is his name attended;
To blame is easier than those who him offended,
Than reach the faintest glory round him shed.
This man descended to the doomed and dead
For our instruction; then to God ascended;
Heaven opened wide to him its portals splendid,
Who from his country's, closed against him, fled.
Ungrateful land! To its own prejudice
Nurse of his fortunes; and this showeth well
That the most perfect most of grief shall see.
Among a thousand proofs let one suffice,
That as his exile hath no parallel,
Ne'er walked the earth a greater man than he.

Some Rought Thoughts on Rational Grounds

The following is all very rough. I recently came across a statement of this sort:

"This argument...is clearly valid, and so if there are rational grounds for accepting its premises, to that extent there are rational grounds for accepting the conclusion...." (from here)

This sounds plausible enough, and might be meant in a reasonable sense, but it's worth noting that the inference here is not generally valid. 'Rational grounds' as a modality works like possibility (indeed, it is one possible interpretation of Lozenge in, if I'm not mistaken, D4-type modal systems). For, of course, you can have rational grounds on both sides of a question; and even if you didn't, your rational grounds might be too weak to do anything with it. And quite commonly if the following sort of argument is valid (where T is the truth operator)

Ta
Tb
Therefore Tc

you can't be sure from the form alone that the following argument is also valid (where lozenge is the rational-grounds-for-accepting operator):

◊a
◊b
Therefore ◊c

(Ta with Tb, because they validly yield Tc, by supposition, would also allow a possibility-preserving conclusion, ◊c; but ◊a with ◊b isn't possibility-preserving in every case that Ta with Tb is.) And the logical reason is fairly obvious; ◊ indicates that there is a domain where it is true. But it doesn't guarantee that everything, or, indeed, anything it is applied to in an argument is in the same domain.

So, for instance, if this is valid:

if p, q
p
Therefore q

you can't also assume that the following is valid:

There are rational grounds for believing that if p, q
There are rational grounds for believing that p
Therefore there are rational grounds for believing that q

It might be the case, for all we know, that our evidence leads in inconsistent directions: our rational grounds in the first premise might also be rational grounds for ~p; or our rational grounds in the second premise might also be rational grounds for ~(if p, q). Likewise, the combination of the rational grounds in the first premise with the rational grounds in the second premise might not, in fact, be rational grounds for ((if p,q) & p). For instance, you might have rational grounds for accepting that if Malebranche influenced Hume, Hume was Catholic, based on Malebranche's own, very Catholic, philosophy, and you might have rational grounds for accepting that Malebranche influenced Hume, based on Hume's own statements; but the latter might also completely rule out the possibility that Hume was Catholic. (A more complicated example, possibly: Fogelin's interpretation of Hume on miracles, which seems to trade on this.)

What you actually need is the following first premise:

If there are rational grounds for p, there are rational grounds for q.

And this is a different premise. So what we would really need in this sort of argument is not the rational grounds for thinking that (if p, q) is true -- but we would need to know that rational grounds for thinking that p bring with them, so to speak, the rational grounds for thinking that q, either because our rational grounds are actually rational grounds for accepting p and for accepting q, or, if the grounds are different in the two cases, because the existence of rational grounds for accepting p implies the existence of rational grounds for accepting q (which is different from the truth of p implying the truth of q).

Of course, when you say, "There are rational grounds for accepting that p," you could just be taking that always to mean or imply that we can presume that p is true. But that's not how we usually mean it.

Berkeley, Common Sense, and Moral Theory

Kenny on Berkeley and common sense (x-posted here):

Berkeley's project is, as he famously put it, to "think with the learned, and speak with the vulgar." His metaphysical system, he is well aware, bears no resemblance whatsoever to common sense. Nevertheless, he claims, his system preserves the correctness of common sense within its own domain. Is he correct?

My answer would be Yes, and that this is right is particularly noticeable when we actually get into the details of how Berkeley's view handles skepticism. I don't have much time to lay them out at the moment, but long story short: what Berkeley does is preserve the common-sensical view of the world as the explanandum. It is nonsense to say that any scientific or philosophical advance will show that, for instance, the sky isn't really blue. There's no sense of 'really' that can bear that distinction. The fact that it looks blue is the fact that we start with; any other explanation will simply be irrelevant. It could very well be the case that the causal explanation of this explanandum will be much, much more complicated, or much stranger than you would have thought; but failure to preserve common sense "within its own domain," as Kenny puts it, is a failure to retain relevance: you've swapped out your original explananda for something else entirely.

This actually seems to me to be a serious and fundamental difference between the sort of case Berkeley has in mind and the moral case that Richard has in mind. In a moral theory common sense does not serve as the explanandum; or, to be more exact, it only does so in a moral psychology, not in an ethics. So it doesn't seem to me that you can preserve an analogy very well across the cases. But it's the sort of thing that reminds one of the painful loss of Berkeley's sequel to the Principles, where he had laid out his own moral theory. (Berkeley wrote it out in manuscript, but the manuscript was lost and he never rewrote it.) Berkeley was a utilitarian himself, so perhaps he would have had a view of the matter similar to Richard's.

Four Poem Re-Drafts

How Strange Is That?

I felt I fell in love with you today; how strange is that?
Waiting for the bus we stopped and stayed to chat,
when suddenly and subito my head was overturned,
unbalancing my body, making blood to burn.
I'm not even sure I really caught your name!
What mischievous cupid is playing this game,
that uncanny things, ungrounded, maddening, and swift
can throw the world off kilter, make the earth to shift!
That meeting you but once, but for a little while,
I am haunted by your eyes, the flashing of your smile!
That though I hardly know you, nonetheless my brain
spins out imaginations as though your heart were gained!
But swiftly comes its death as swiftly came its birth,
and if it passes thus away, what is such feeling worth?
The merest little fizzle, a frenzy in heated brain,
and after sudden torrent nothing will remain
but strange, wry self-suspicion, memories that will fade,
and the quiet gravestone where this madness has been laid.

Heart's Leap

You are a summer morning,
golden day,
the roses brightly blooming on the way,
a vision for rejoicing,
sunrise-smile,
life and breath renewing on the final mile,
mercy's fire burning,
warmth of flame,
heart's upward leaping at music in the Name.

Thunderstorm

Lightning cracks the air,
rifting night with fire:
God takes up His pen
and flicks it down the page.
The mark it leaves is madness
drawn with ink of light;
above us clouds still rumble
and glower with His grace.

Bounded Book

I am not so clearly dead
that you can roll me over,
nor am I yet a mouldered corpse
that rests beneath the clover.
My name still echoes in the minds
of people far and distant;
my life was not a leaping splash,
the breath of but an instant,
but hope outreaching to the skies
with prayered hands and dusty:
I worked to build this bounded book
that is not yet grown musty.
And though it be a simple thing,
and not a godlike glory,
no tomb has yet encircled me,
no headstone ends my story.