Abstract
It is often assumed that theorizing in terms of natural properties is more objectively valuable than theorizing in terms of non-natural properties. But this assumption faces an explanatory challenge: explain the greater objective value of theorizing in terms of natural properties. In this paper, I answer that challenge by proposing and exploring three different accounts of the objective value of naturalness. Two appeal to constitutive natures: it is part of the constitutive nature of explanation, or of objective value, that theorizing in terms of natural properties is more objectively valuable. The third appeals to the theoretical role that naturalness plays.
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Notes
Note the following standard link between natural properties and natural predicates: a natural property is a property which a natural predicate expresses.
So by ‘gratural properties’, I mean some given collection of properties—including gerrymandered properties like, perhaps, is an electron or a cow—which may be used to formulate theories. The specific collection of properties, which count as gratural, will vary from example to example in this paper: context will always make clear exactly what non-natural properties are in the collection of gratural properties at issue. And by ‘non-natural properties’, I mean the collection of all non-natural properties whatsoever.
Note that objectivism is formulated in terms of naturalness rather than in terms of relative naturalness. I formulated it that way in order to keep things simple: the notion of relative naturalness introduces complications which are largely irrelevant to the issues that I discuss here. The only exception occurs in Sect. 3.1: I propose a postulate about naturalness, that postulate faces a problem, and that problem can be solved by reformulating the postulate in terms of relative naturalness. In footnote 9, I discuss this in detail.
Note that objective value, of the sort which I discuss in this paper—including the metaphysically primitive and normatively primitive kinds of objective value discussed in Sect. 3.1—helps explain why theories should satisfy various theoretical virtues. It is not the case that objective value should matter, to us, only because of various theoretical virtues to which it corresponds. Rather, theoretical virtues should matter because of objective value. The reason why theories should be predictive, for instance, is that predictiveness is an objectively valuable feature of theories; and that is why we should care about predictiveness. Similarly, theories should illuminate various phenomena because it is objectively valuable to do so; and that is why we should care about illumination. So ultimately, facts about objective value ground facts about which theoretical virtues there are, and why theories should have those virtues (thanks to a reviewer for pressing this point).
A simplistic answer to the comparative challenge: it is more objectively valuable to theorize in terms of natural properties than to theorize in terms of gratural properties because the former properties exist while the latter properties do not. For two reasons, unfortunately, this answer is unattractive. First, relativists can respond by simply rephrasing the comparative challenge as follows: why think that natural properties, but not gratural properties, exist? Second, since predicates like ‘grue’ and ‘is an electron or a cow’ seem to be meaningful, gratural properties seem to exist: they are the semantic values of gratural predicates.
Similarly for other properties, like is a weed (thanks to a reviewer for this example). This property makes for genuine similarity among objects which share it, and genuine dissimilarity among objects which differ over it: weeds tend to play similar roles in society, for example, insofar as they tend to be removed from curated outdoor spaces. The property is a weed imbues its bearers with causal powers: the presence of a weed in someone’s lawn, for instance, may cause that person to remove that weed. The property is a weed is explanatory: for example, the fact that an object is a weed explains why that object is not sold at plant stores along with, say, flowers. The property is a weed is a reference magnet for our predicate ‘is a weed’. And arguably, the property is a weed cannot be defined in terms of any properties which are more basic than it: that property cannot be defined as a big disjunction of all the plants which count as weeds, for instance, because what it is to be a weed is partially a social matter, so there are ways of being a weed—in merely possible societies—for which such a disjunction would not account.
I remain neutral as to what, exactly, a constitutive nature is. The phrase “it is part of the constitutive nature of x that p” can be understood in either of two ways. First, it can be understood in terms of essences: p is part of the essence of x. Second, it can be understood in terms of axioms about x, or basic metaphysical laws or conditions that x satisfies: p is one of those basic, bottom-level axioms, laws, or conditions. So one need not subscribe to essences or essentialist explanation, in order to endorse these ‘constitutive nature’ answers to the comparative challenge.
I remain neutral as to how, exactly, explanation should be analyzed. According to my preferred approach, explanation should be analyzed in terms of structural equation models (Halpern & Pearl, 2005; Wilhelm, 2021; Wilson, 2018; Woodward, 2003). But in what follows, I will not rely on that particular approach to explanation. Other approaches could be used instead.
To keep things simple, I am skipping over some complications here. Strictly speaking, there may well be explanations in which nositive charge features. For instance, the fact that a given electron is nositively charged may well ground—and so explain—the fact that the electron is nositively charged or a cow. So plausibly, some explanations feature explanans propositions which invoke gratural properties: in particular, explanations of facts that invoke gratural properties themselves. But that does not affect my main points. For the natural explanans postulate can be modified so as to accommodate examples like these. Here is one modified version of the natural explanans postulate: it is part of the constitutive nature of explanation that the explanans propositions invoke properties at least as natural as the properties invoked in the explanandum. And here is another: it is part of the constitutive nature of explanation that the explanans propositions invoke properties which are approximately as natural as the properties invoked in the explanandum.
Say that x is grue just in case x is green before the year 3000 or x is blue at all other times.
To put it another way, according to this view, the fact that explanation is more objectively valuable than grexplanation (i) does not reduce to any other normative facts, but (ii) might reduce to facts of another sort, such as non-normative physical facts.
At this point, one might be wondering: why believe in these posits that fans of objectivism keep making—about objective value, primitive metaphysical facts, primitive normative facts, and so on—in the first place? I discuss this in more detail later. But for now: basically, given how our best philosophical theories of value actually work, it seems plausible to think that these posits hold; this is discussed in Sect. 3.2. And at the very least, these posits show that objectivism is a stable position; this is discussed in Sect. 5.
Kvanvig (2003, p. 202) can be read as endorsing this view. Roughly put, understanding is valuable, according to Kvanvig, because it is constituted by subjectively justified true beliefs that are systematized and organized. Though the justification of the true beliefs is subjective, according to Kvanvig, the value of their systematization and organization can still be objective.
One might wonder: why should we care about this sort of objective value? The answer to this question depends, of course, on the meaning of the word ‘should’ invoked. For suppose that this particular instance of ‘should’ refers to the kind of normativity corresponding to objective value. Then the self-preference postulate provides a nice answer to the question: we should care about objective value because that follows, directly, from what ‘should’ and ‘objective value’ mean; their meanings are such that they prefer themselves over other value systems, in the way explained earlier. Alternatively, suppose that this instance of ‘should’ refers to a different, more subjective kind of normativity, like the kind associated with why we should—for practical purposes—construct theories which satisfy various theoretical virtues. Then the best answer to this question draws directly from the discussion in footnote 4: we should care about objective value because of its correspondence to facts about what the theoretical virtues are. For more discussion, see (Parfit, 2011). And for more discussion of how the meanings of the words in these sorts of challenges matter to how objectivists can respond, see the remarks of Schaffer and Sider in (Sider, 2022).
See Sect. 5, however, for some ways in which the challenges might continue.
It is worth flagging that these claims are controversial. Armstrong (1997), Lewis (1983), and Sider (2011), for instance, may well deny that properties like is true and is a belief are natural in the sense at issue here, since those properties may well be non-fundamental. For the sorts of reasons mentioned in Sect. 2, however, I think that this denial is problematic. Properties like is a belief have many characteristic features of natural properties. Similarly for other properties, like is true. It is needlessly restrictive to endorse the view that all natural properties are, for instance, fundamental: the non-fundamental realm seems to feature many properties which are natural.
For a developed, detailed version of this point—which addresses many different relativist objections to standard theories of naturalness—see (Sider, 2022). Note that Sider cites discussion with Jonathan Schaffer.
For versions of this challenge, see (Dasgupta, 2018; Loewer, forthcoming).
Note that the list (1)–(3) may not be exhaustive. The rader is welcome to add their own preferred claims about objective value—and how natural properties relate to those claims—to that list.
Explanatory priority monism suits the structural account quite nicely, because explanatory priority monism countenances precisely the sorts of complex, holistic, interconnected explanations which the structural account endorses.
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Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Shamik Dasgupta, two anonymous referees, and especially Ted Sider, for much helpful feedback and discussion.
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Wilhelm, I. The Value of Naturalness. Erkenn (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-023-00720-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-023-00720-4