Abstract
What are the rules of the metaphysical game? And how are the rules, whatever they are, to be justified? Above all, the rules should be fair. They should be rules that we metaphysicians would all accept, and thus should be justifiable to all rational persons engaged in metaphysical inquiry. Borrowing from Rawls’s conception of justice as fairness, I develop a model for determining and justifying the rules of metaphysics as a going concern.
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Notes
The distinction of interest between ‘rules’ and ‘norms’ is between the norms as they actually exist and rules that express possible norms, which may be legislated to ensure compliance with some ideal. For instance, it may be that the manner in which wealth is distributed within a society is unfair, despite being norm-governed. Accordingly, if fairness in wealth distribution is valued, then the norms must be overturned for a set of rules that do better. The situation is similar in metaphysics. Metaphysics has aims. Exactly what these aims are depends on what metaphysics is. I won’t take a stand on this issue yet (though see Sect. 3.1). The point is just this: for a given set of aims we can imagine various rules, each of which expresses a possible norm geared toward ensuring the efficient achievement of defined metaphysical ends. We may then wonder whether the norms of metaphysics best ensure the successful attainment of those ends, or whether there is some possible set of rules that would do better.
The Rawslian model is not an account of what the methods of metaphysics are and so does not compete with any such account; it is rather a decision procedure for selecting a set of methodological norms.
Debates that may be stalemated include the debate between presentism and eternalism; the debate over persistence and the debate over unrestricted versus restricted composition. I discuss some of these debates in Sect. 4.
A similar point is made by Wilson (2013).
As Wilson (2013) notes, our understanding of metaphysical methodology is still rudimentary. Of course, inroads have been made. There is an important project investigating the role of scientific virtues in metaphysical theory choice (Baker 2003; Nolan 1997, forthcoming). There is also a recent debate over the status of methodology in ontology (see Schaffer 2009). And there is the project of defending metaphysics against positivist and neo-positivist scepticism (for the latest incarnation of this debate, see Ladyman and Ross 2007; Maclaurin and Dyke 2012, 2013). This work does not, however, speak to the development of a framework for justifying the norms of metaphysics. Rather, the literature cited focuses on the relationship between science and metaphysics and/or on whether or not metaphysics is a legitimate form of investigation.
Ideally, individuals would have a list of all possible principles of justice. For obvious reasons, however, Rawls (1999, pp. 126–127) restricts his statement of the original position to a list of the most likely principles of justice.
The model outlined below is not beholden to these assumptions. The model may be run with any set of participants selected for their common epistemic aims. Still, these simplifying assumptions will be necessary in Sect. 4 when the model is applied.
If metaphysics is pseudo-artistic, then the metaphysicians won’t be definable in terms of what they are trying to know. I do not, however, have the space to discuss non-epistemic versions of the metaphysical original position here.
While I find it plausible that the Ladyman and Ross project and the Ramsay–Lewis–Carnap project both fall under the broader disciplinary practice of searching for general and fundamental truths, this could be denied. Denying this would force one toward the idea that metaphysics is really a group of sub-disciplines connected by a family resemblance relation, as discussed briefly in footnote 10.
It could be argued that these more fine-grained issues about the nature of metaphysics cannot be so easily set aside. Apparent disagreement among metaphysicians about the best way to search for the fundamental and general truths may, in the end, reveal that metaphysics is a cluster of sub-disciplines, each of which is both distinct from each other and distinct from other forms of rational investigation, and each of which possesses its own unique set of aims. If metaphysics is a cluster of sub-disciplines, then it is doubtful that there is a single class of individuals who are the metaphysicians. That said, we can still make sharp distinctions between individuals based on the sub-discipline of metaphysics in which they are involved, and based on each peculiar motivational set. We can, that is, identify the metaphysicians\(_1\), the metaphysicians\(_2\) ... the metaphysicians\(_n\). Each group will then attend its own metaphysical original position in order to determine the rules for metaphysics\(_1\), metaphysics\(_2\) ... metaphysics\(_n\) respectively. As we shall see below, that’s fine. The model I outline is flexible enough to allow for its use across a range of sub-disciplinary instances of metaphysics just as easily as if metaphysics were a single discipline, though the results in each instance of the model may vary substantially from one another.
One might worry that too much information has been occluded. Perhaps it is necessary to know one’s opinions on some metaphysical disputes in order to be in a position to make decisions about the norms of metaphysics. If so, then the model can be made more specific, by focusing in on a particular metaphysical dispute: D. The norms of D are to be determined by abstracting away from the knowledge agents have of their opinions on that dispute. Opinions on other disputes are, however, allowed. The trouble with this way of proceeding, however, is that many metaphysical disputes are strongly connected to one another (at least at some level). So information about disputes other than D might be inadmissible.
What about logic? When the agents are arguing from within the original position to whatever principles of metaphysics they ultimately accept, they must be deploying some rules of inference. But which rules? It is tempting to say: the one correct logic, whatever that might be! But that won’t fly with anti-realists about the one correct logic, and they are sometimes metaphysicians too. So, better: agents in the original position have knowledge of all the logics, and use whichever logic they all agree is most apt for their current argument about the normative principles of metaphysics.
I have focused here on general scientific and metaphysical knowledge. It may be that, in order to make informed decisions about the methodology of metaphysics, all of human knowledge must be included, assuming that there is knowledge outside of these two domains (e.g. moral knowledge, political knowledge and so on). Widening the knowledge that agents have within the metaphysical original position in this way will make it more difficult to get methodological naturalism out as a principle of metaphysics (see Sect. 4.1 below), since it may be that we have to unify with more than just science. Still, something like the weak naturalism I consider should be recoverable even in this situation.
There’s a general epistemic problem here. The basic principles of metaphysics are the ones we would all agree to in the metaphysical original position. But you might think that such a state is epistemically inaccessible: how do we know what we would all agree to? Perhaps our judgements about this are being filtered through the same biases that the original position is supposed to remove. So our very judgements about the original position cannot be trusted. That’s a problem, but it’s a problem for Rawls too and so I set it aside for now.
It could turn out that there is no single, unified discipline that is metaphysics and no set of sub-disciplines that are crisply delineable either. One manner in which metaphysics may fail to be a distinct discipline or a distinct set of sub-disciplines is if there turns out to be no strong way to split the difference between scientific and metaphysical investigation. For instance, it may be that there is no residue for metaphysics over and above a certain clutch of debates in the special sciences. In this situation, the model developed here could either be applied to science, or it could be applied to philosophy more generally, if the relevant debates within science are ones that philosophers, and not scientists, should take on. Note that for the model to be applied to philosophy, an account of what philosophy is must be given, at which point the same options become available: philosophy is a single discipline, a set of sub-disciplines, or no distinct discipline at all. If pressed to take the last option, then we may be forced to fall back again and again, until we reach a point where the goal is to determine the rules of all rational investigation. Presumably, in this scenario, the rule-makers will be (something like) the class of individuals who are motivated to gain knowledge about the world.
Being pushed all the way back to the class of individuals whose goal it is to learn about the world may be no bad thing. For I am confident that with work (much more work than I can carry out in a single paper), the model outlined below will apply even here, at the limit and that once it is applied, rules will flow on down to whatever is left of metaphysical investigation. Indeed, applying the model at these giddy heights of abstract generalisation opens up quite an exciting prospect. Once we’ve pushed the boundaries of the model all the way out to the class of individuals who are motivated to gain knowledge about the world we may find a deep unification with Rawls’s theory of justice. In both cases the driving force behind the original position may turn out to be rational self-interest. Rational self-interest, for Rawls, dictates the decisions made about distribution of wealth. It may also dictate decisions about the best way to generate knowledge, since that is a commodity like any other to be desired and used; justice and epistemology may enjoy justificatory integration in the abstract.
Alongside the social-justice-like structure of determining the principle of metaphysics, there are also the actual social justice issues of metaphysical methodology. Who do we take seriously as metaphysicians, and how do we come to take them seriously in this way? Which topics fall under the rubric of ‘general metaphysics’? And which topics count as ‘specialised metaphysics’? Which books get reviewed, and by whom? Which articles get responded to and why? Who is treated how at workshops and who is invited to which selective conferences and why? A method for determining the ground rules for metaphysical methodology ought to also get a handle on these issues. The Rawlsian paradigm is well-placed to do so.
Here’s a reason to be pessimistic: suppose that I develop a metaphysical theory using classical logic. My opponent claims that I am being unfair, because they endorse a non-classical logic. I shift my ground: all I need is consistency. But it turns out my opponent is a dialethist. So I am still being unfair. I shift my ground again: I just require the one-true logic! But my opponent is also an anti-realist about the one true logic. So on it goes. On the one hand, that the model can be applied even to a case such as this is impressive. On the other hand, I worry that there will be no way to settle on the most basic of methodological principles: namely, which logic to use. But here is the beginning of a solution: for most disputes we can, for the purposes of argumentation, settle on a logic acceptable to both sides. So that is what we ought to do. It is only when what’s at stake is the very logic being used that matters become difficult. Even here, though, we can perhaps agree on a logic to use for the purposes of argumentation; a ladder that we can ultimately kick away if we need to, when all is said and done.
Methodological naturalism in my sense is not the view that science trumps all. Nor does it rule out non-natural metaphysics tout court. It only does so when the relevant metaphysics is scientifically naive. Endorsing methodological naturalism does not thereby immediately commit one to a Ladyman and Ross-type vision of naturalized metaphysics, according to which metaphysics is in the business of unifying science. Rather, the naturalized metaphysics imagined here is weaker than that: it is merely required to render itself compatible with science and to integrate scientific and metaphysical theories wherever possible. There is plenty of scope within this weaker conception of naturalized metaphysics for metaphysics that is independent of science; not so for Ladyman and Ross. If Ladyman and Ross’s account of metaphysics is used to set up the metaphysical original position something much stronger than the methodological naturalism proposed here would likely fall out.
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Acknowledgments
I am very grateful to Jamin Asay, Christopher Daly, Thomas Dougherty, Raamy Majeed, David Ripley and three anonymous referees for this journal for comments on earlier drafts of the paper. I am also grateful to Miri Albahari, John Bigelow, David Braddon-Mitchell, Rachael Briggs, Mark Colyvan, Mauro Dorato, Peter Evans, Suzy Killmister, Kristie Miller, Bradley Monton, James Norton, Greg Restall, Michael Rubin, Caroline West, Robbie Williams and the audience at the 2012 Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference for extremely useful discussion on the ideas behind “Metaphysics as Fairness”.
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Baron, S. Metaphysics as fairness. Synthese 193, 2237–2259 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0842-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0842-x