Revisiting stance voluntarism: in defense of an active stance pluralism

Abstract

Bas van Fraassen’s stance voluntarism has raised the question of how to justify one’s own stance choice if one is to follow the voluntarist dictum that all rational stances, i.e. all those that don’t lead to ‘self-sabotage by one’s own lights’, are equally rational. van Fraassen’s response is that one justifies their stance choice based on one’s own values, but the problem is that those values only appeal to holders of the said stance and not others. In this paper I propose a pragmatist approach to justifying stance choice. I argue that we can provide stance-transcendent justification for our choice of stance based on its stance-transcendent benefits. Consequently, multiple stances having stance-transcendent benefits should all be embraced as it is the epistemically virtuous thing to do. I advocate a move away from the standard voluntarist position of being a stance monist in practice—i.e. defending and holding only one stance—while acknowledging other rational stances only begrudgingly. I defend an active stance pluralism where we strive to actively hold different (apparently conflicting) stances depending on the context. Where that’s not possible, I propose that we should at least enthusiastically encourage multiple stances (taken by others). In Sect. 1 I introduce epistemic stances via a discussion of stance empiricism and stance scientific realism. In Sect. 2 I discuss the problem of stance justification and explore a few different existing teleological proposals for stance choice. Finally in Sect. 3 based on numerous examples from science and philosophy, I argue for a pragmatic, active, normative stance pluralism. I conclude with some clarifications on the rationale behind active stance pluralism.

Appendices

Appendix 1: On Jamee elder’s response to Baumann

Elder (2019) starts by reconstructing Baumann’s argument. Following Baumann she talks specifically about an empiricist, but this could apply to the holder of any epistemic stance. Here is the part of her reconstruction relevant to our present purposes. Apparently following Baumann she says a voluntarist empiricist is committed to believing that:

(4) epistemic stances should only be adopted/held when an agent has epistemic reasons for doing so.” (3028) She goes on to say, “However, Baumann’s presentation of the objection suggests that our empiricist’s commitment to voluntarism also lead them to a further commitment: the belief that (5) epistemic stances may be adopted/held when an agent has no epistemic reasons for doing so. That is, if they do have reasons for adopting the stance, these reasons may well be non-epistemic, or epistemically irrelevant reasons. Assuming that the present case of the empiricist is such a case, then it follows that (6) the empiricist adopts the empiricist stance without having epistemic reasons for doing so. (3028)

She notes that (4) and (5) taken at face value contradict each other and this is the problem of irrationality with voluntarism. Her response is that this is based on equivocation between two senses of the term ‘epistemic reasons’: those applicable within the stance, and those outside. She argues that there are epistemic reasons for choosing an epistemic stance, but that these are internal to the stance—these are the ‘epistemic reasons’ referred to in (4) and include the likes of simplicity and universality (of explanations). These cannot apply at the meta-stance level according to the voluntarist. The ‘epistemic reasons’ in (5) however, refer to those at the meta-stance level. She underlines that according to the voluntarist, no meta-stance epistemic reasons are needed to justify stance choice. So, in alleging that the voluntarist is irrational because she does not have epistemic reasons for her choice of epistemic stance, Baumann is equivocating between the stance-level and meta-stance level reasons.

I contend that this is a strawman argument. On my reading of Baumann, first of all, he does not attribute the kind of apparent contradiction present in taking (4) and (5) together to the voluntarist, because he simply does not claim that the voluntarist does accept (4). Rather, he seems to argue that (4) is obviously true and should be accepted by everyone including the voluntarist, but that the voluntarist doesn’t accept (4). Crucially, on my reading of Baumann, the ‘epistemic reasons’ in (4) apply to the meta-stance level in his criticism. So essentially, I think Baumann’s complaint is about the central tenet of voluntarism itself, which is that there are no stance-transcendent epistemic reasons (going beyond the thin criteria of rationality discussed above) for stance choice. Elder raises this as a possible reading of Baumann but rejects it saying this would be a “new objection” that would be “an upstream problem with the assumptions made by voluntarism, rather than the downstream problem that accepting voluntarism leads to tension when one also adopts an epistemic stance.” (3033) However, it doesn’t make sense to think of voluntarism as an empty meta-stance, without involving any lower level (epistemic) stances. Being a voluntarist obviously involves taking a (or multiple) stance(s) and believing that there is an element of will in stance choice and that rationality permits multiple stances. If this is the case, then the difference between the ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’ problems disappears. Baumann is pointing to the apparent irrationality in the assumptions made by voluntarism (upstream) which means an irrationality in being voluntarist about adopting epistemic stances (downstream).

Appendix 2: On Curtis Forbes’ pragmatic account of stance choice

While the idea of suggesting stances to individuals or groups based on pragmatic considerations would make sense in a range of situations, I don’t think it applies to Forbes’ own examples. With respect to those examples, it is not clear how Forbes’ account is distinct from van Fraassen’s own account of stance rationality. In particular, it seems that Forbes describes through the case study just the kind of pragmatic coherence that the ‘no self-sabotage’ rule requires. What exactly is meant by self-sabotage here? In Chakravartty’s (2007) words, “Self-sabotage is broad enough to include such unfortunate circumstances as believing contradictions and probabilistically incoherent combinations, as one might do on the level of facts, but it may also include circumstances in which the stance one adopts has pragmatic failings, such as consisting in combinations of attitudes or policies that tend to undermine or conflict with one another.” (191) As I see it, Forbes’ case study illustrates (the absence of) such “pragmatic failings”. For instance, adopting an anti-realist stance while carrying out refined measurements of properties of unobservable charged particles as Weber did seems to exemplify such a pragmatic failing. It seems incoherent to maintain that you’re carefully measuring properties of particles that don’t exist. (Similarly with Maxwell’s and Helmholtz’s stance and goal choices.)

Forbes claims that although our stance choices depend on our values, it is not just rationality that underdetermines our stance choice; our values underdetermine stance choice as well, for “it is not always immediately obvious which stance best serves our values.” (3332) ‘Values’ is a broad term and I contend that although Forbes’ claim maybe true with respect to some values, it isn’t with respect to others. ‘Respect for science’ is a value for instance that is too broad to uniquely determine a stance. But if goals or activities can be taken as values as well—such as constructing explanations because you value that or working to predict novel phenomena because you value that—then it seems that values do determine stances. For instance, if you value explanation by postulation, you will have taken the metaphysical stance if you don’t wish to commit self-sabotage. So at least in the examples that Forbes gives of nineteenth century electrodynamics research, it seems that his account sits squarely within van Fraassen’s own account of rationality.

In keeping with van Fraassen’s idea of a stance in which the stance is not consequent to value choice or activity choice—a stance is a coherence of values, choice of activities, attitudes, and beliefs—the three scientists Forbes discusses seem to have indeed adopted a stance first. It’s not as though they started out with values/goals and then were told or realized along the way, that a certain epistemic stance would be best suited to their goals. As Forbes himself notes, all three of them were already committed to their respective stances. In fact, from the perspective of van Fraassen’s account of stances, their stance choice is what explains their goal/activity choices since stance choice is conceptually (although not temporally) prior to activity choice when it comes to the kind of activities discussed in the case study. As above, it seems to me that Weber’s activities for instance are enmeshed within the realist stance. So it’s not clear that Forbes’ examples show how his account can “help people make more well-informed choices about epistemic stances” (3332) if we’re talking about van Fraassenian stances. Also as observed earlier in the context of Baumann, for van Fraassen adopting a stance is a deliberative, philosophical activity independent of specific tasks, and the stance one ends up taking is global in its scope in that it directs all of the individual’s epistemic choices within the relevant domain.¹⁴ Having said that, I think Forbes’ point about adopting goal-specific stances is applicable in a range of situations and important—I have in fact argued that we can and should reimagine stance-taking in such a way that you take a stance to further specific values, goals, or activities. But it is important to acknowledge the departure from van Fraassen’s view.

In what situations would Forbes’ idea of suggesting stances to individuals or groups make sense? Consider the case of taking on a task unreflectively at first, without having taken a relevant stance. For instance, consider someone who follows someone else’s lead and is given tasks, such as a junior researcher, as opposed to scientists who pick out their stances after experience and philosophical reflection. Say, a junior researcher working in a lab is tasked with fine measurements of properties of some unobservable particles. Further, say that she hasn’t engaged in much philosophical reflection and doesn’t have a chosen stance of her own yet. She has no views whatsoever on whether to be ontologically committed to those particles. Here, Forbes’ pragmatic account of stance choice can help this researcher choose a stance that will best guide their efforts. This researcher can follow the lead of Weber for instance and take a realist stance to effectively carry out their tasks. However, in this case, the ‘no self-sabotage’ rule will also lead to the same stance.

Are there situations where the ‘no self-sabotage’ rule underdetermines stance choice and Forbes’ account is actually able to help? Yes. For Forbes’ account to do work that van Fraassen’s already doesn’t, an individual needs to have:

• Some relatively open-ended values that don’t constitute/uniquely determine a stance

• Picked out (or assigned) a goal or activity that doesn’t constitute/uniquely determine a stance

• Not already taken a relevant stance

Then, as Forbes suggests, such an individual can be helped by recommending a stance relevant to their activity. Forbes’ own examples don’t satisfy the second, and hence the third, criterion above and the case of the junior researcher doesn’t satisfy the second. Sandy Boucher (2018) discusses some scenarios where I think Forbes’ account would work. Among Boucher’s examples of pragmatic stance adoption is Einstein’s adoption of the realist stance for its motivational value discussed earlier. In Boucher’s words, “Without realism, scientists would not have the same drive or passion for their work. So for scientists, realism is to be assumed, rather than proven.” (525) For Einstein, a realist attitude is what drove his pursuit of science: realism for him was a “prescientific metaphysical assumption that is pragmatically justified on the basis of the positive motivational effects it has on the work of scientists.” (526) Note that here, the activity is science in general which obviously does not uniquely determine the realist stance. It looks like Einstein’s case fits Forbes’ account since Einstein’s adoption of the realist stance wasn’t entailed by his goals or other values like motivational power. Boucher in fact makes a point similar to Forbes’ with respect to the stance-value¹⁵ relationship: “Given that one values X, and it is an empirically verified fact that the only way that X can be realistically brought about is by employing the strategy S, one can draw the inference that one should adopt a stance that at least includes among its elements an inclination to advance the imperative “do S.”” (534).