Tamaki Komada

The True and the Good addresses the Problem of Truth’s Value: Why ought we to care about truth? It focuses on how Aristotelian views, which treat truth as a non-normative property (e.g., correspondence theory or deflationism), can answer this problem. Wrenn proposes a state-given account called “Strong Virtue Theory.” It maintains that we morally ought to care about truth because Truthfulness is a moral virtue that promotes overall good. In this paper, I examine a possible problem for Strong Virtue Theory that is related to desiring “pointless truths”—such as the truth about the exact number of blades of grass in a backyard. Wrenn discusses pointless truths in Chapter 6 as a challenge to (what I will call) the “intrinsic value view”—the view that we ought to care about truth because it is intrinsically valuable (Section 2). However, a similar issue confronts Wrenn’s view, i.e., whether desiring pointless truths is Truthful (Section 3). Wrenn considers two possible responses—one that permits the desire for pointless truths as Truthful and one that does not. However, both responses face serious problems. This analysis reveals a difficulty for Strong Virtue Theory (Section 4).

This commentary critically examines Barnes’ ameliorative skepticism about health, which is a distinctive form of skepticism. While we agree with Barnes that health is indeed messy, involving biological, normative, societal, and phenomenological factors in a complex manner that defies simplistic explanation, we do not think that health is messy in a distinctive way. We argue that health is in fact remarkably similar to another messy phenomenon that is familiar to philosophers (i.e. truth), and that an existing philosophical account of another messy phenomenon (i.e. pluralism about truth) can be applied to health.