Michael DePaul

The contributions in this volume make an important effort to resurrect a rather old fashioned form of foundationalism. They defend the position that there are some beliefs that are justified, and are not themselves justified by any further beliefs. This epistemic foundationalism has been the subject of rigorous attack by a wide range of theorists in recent years, leading to the impression that foundationalism is a thing of the past. DePaul argues that it is precisely the volume and virulence of the assaults which points directly to the strength and coherence of the position.

I’m not sure one even needs to think a state of affairs is true for us to take attitudinal pleasure in it. We surely take pleasure in imagining states of affairs. In such a case, we are well aware that the state of affairs that is the object of our enjoyment does not obtain. What is the proper account of the pleasure we take from imagining? I am fairly sure this is not a type of sensory pleasure. Would it make sense to say that what S is attitudinally pleased by is the state of affairs consisting of S’s imagining p rather than p? I don’t think this will do. It seems possible for S to take pleasure in the imagined state of affairs, p, but not in the state of affairs of S’s imagining p. Consider the case of Chastity, who has had a puritanical upbringing. One day Chastity imagines a torrid romantic encounter with one of her co-workers. Quite in spite of herself, Chastity is pleased by the state of affairs which she merely imagines. But her upbringing has left its mark on her, so she feels very guilty about allowing her thoughts to run in such an unwholesome direction. Chastity is pained by the state of affairs consisting in her imagining the encounter.

I seek to defend coherentist methods of theory construction in normative ethics, specifically J. Rawls' method of reflective equilibrium, on the basis of a naturalistic theory of epistemic justification. The dissertation consists of four chapters. The first chapter is essentially a taxonomic discussion of approaches which might be taken towards the construction of theories of such epistemological notions as justification, knowledge or rational belief and such moral notions as right action or justice. The taxonomy extends that presented by R. M. Chisholm in his discussions of the problems of the criterion so that coherentist and classical intuitionist approaches are included in addition to methodism, particularism and scepticism. My aim in the second chapter is to argue that the statements which make up a moral theory are objectively valid, i.e., either true or false. The chapter begins with a consideration of the view that the purpose of moral and epistemological theories is to explicate the supervenience of moral and epistemological properties. I then critically evaluate N. Daniels's so called "piggy-back" argument. In conclude by presenting an alternative defense of the objectivity of moral judgements which stresses the similarities between moral and epistemological theories. In the third chapter I respond to R. Brandt's version of the standard objection to coherentist methods, i.e., that they are unacceptable since there is no guarantee that the theory such methods lead to will be true. I do not attempt to show that reflective equilibrium provides the sort of guarantee Brandt wants, but rather to show that it is the only method which leads one to rational moral beliefs. I begin the fourth chapter with a refutation of N. Daniels's argument that the method of wide reflective equilibrium is incompatible with intuitionism, since it is incompatible with intuitionism's inherent foundationalism. I conclude the chapter by suggesting a way in which one might account for the justification of propositions accepted in reflective equilibrium on the basis of a reliability theory of justification, and show that according to this account moral knowledge would be intuitional