Abstract
Transcendental arguments against skepticism argue that the skeptical argument depends on, as a necessary condition for its formulation, the falsehood—or, more weakly, the unbelievability—of the skeptical hypothesis. In this chapter, I offer a series of arguments that the skeptic’s hypothesis needs to presuppose the moral or practical rationality of the subject, requiring either the existence of an external world with certain features (strongest arguments), the falsehood of the skeptical hypothesis (strong arguments), or the subject’s belief in such a world (weak arguments). In all the proposed transcendental arguments, the states of the agent requiring the falsehood or unbelievability of the skeptical hypothesis are not representational states such as the beliefs the skeptic asks the subject to doubt. I begin with an argument from rational agency, and I then investigate the sense of moral obligation, moral motives, and virtues in the vat, and argue that although the skeptic needs to presuppose the rational and moral agency of the subject, the skeptical hypothesis denies or undermines the subject’s agency. I end by considering whether the skeptic can retreat to Pyrrhonian skepticism to save the skeptical project, and I conclude that he cannot.
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Notes
- 1.
See Immanuel Kant, “Refutation of Idealism,” in Critique of Pure Reason (2nd edition). Kant did not apply the term “transcendental argument” to the form of argument he presents there, but it is common to call it a transcendental argument in contemporary philosophy.
- 2.
A famous variation of the Kantian-style argument is Hilary Putnam’s anti-skeptical argument in “Brains in a Vat” (1981). Putnam uses his semantic externalism to argue that a being that can raise the question, “Am I a brain in a vat?” is not a brain in a vat. When we think “brain” or “vat” we are thinking about brains and vats in an external world because we are causally connected to that world. But a being that has never had contact with external objects is not asking a question about those objects when thinking “brain” and “vat.”
- 3.
There are widely differing views about the practical relevance of skepticism. At one extreme, Greco (2000) argues that the real skeptical problem is purely theoretical and has nothing to do with doubt. But doubt is the focus of most ancient and modern skepticism, although there is dispute about the relevance of skeptical doubt to ordinary life. Some commentators claim that for the ancient skeptics, doubt was a practical matter, whereas it was purely methodological for Descartes. Gail Fine disputes this position in “Descartes and Ancient Skepticism: Reheated Cabbage?” (Fine 2000), arguing that Descartes and the Pyrrhonists were much closer to each other in their views than is generally realized. Both understood skepticism as affecting practical life, and both attempted to prevent skeptical doubts from leading to inaction.
- 4.
What I mean by semantic externalism is the view that the meaning of a term is determined in part by factors external to the speaker’s mind, such as the way the world is. Two persons could be in the same mental state and use the same term in thought or speech, yet they could be thinking about and talking about different things.
- 5.
This option is modeled on the argument of Hilary Putnam mentioned in footnote 2 of this chapter.
- 6.
The argument above applies to any interpretation of the Categorical Imperative that is de dicto. For example, I might will the following: Help suffering people. But even though my will in that case is good in a sense—clearly it is better than having the de dicto will that suffering people be harmed—nonetheless, such a will is not the will of an agent unless it governs particular acts.
- 7.
- 8.
I defend this view in Zagzebski (1996).
- 9.
Matthew Hodge suggested to me that it could also be a partial solution to the problem of natural evil. The only natural evil any of us would have to worry about in the vat would be our own.
- 10.
Of course, beliefs have value other than their truth value, but it is the truth value that is the focus of the skeptical attack.
- 11.
Since the Categorical Imperative is not a proposition, the sense of knowledge used here must be broader than propositional knowledge.
- 12.
See Williams (1993), especially Chapter 4.
- 13.
I wrote an earlier version of this chapter many years ago and it was never published. I remembered how much Peter Klein liked to talk about the Pyrrhonists, and so I decided that completing this chapter with reference to Pyrrhonian skepticism would be a fitting tribute to him.
References
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Zagzebski, L. (2019). The Moral Transcendental Argument against Skepticism. In: Fitelson, B., Borges, R., Braden, C. (eds) Themes from Klein. Synthese Library, vol 404. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04522-7_8
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