Is Strong Foundationalism a Viable Account of Moral Justification?

  Aaron D. Cobb

The death of foundationalism produced a dilemma for the epistemologist: either accept a thoroughly entrenched skepticism or espouse a rival account of justification.   The credibility of coherentism followed from embracing one of the horns of this dilemma and failing to consider competing justificatory accounts as viable alternatives.  But sophisticated versions of modest foundationalism (MF) and resurrected constructions of strong foundationalism (SF) provide new reasons to question the default status of coherentism both in epistemology and in moral philosophy. [1]  

All foundationalist positions require that (1) there are non-inferential, basic beliefs, and (2) all other beliefs are derived from the basic beliefs.  But both MF and SF deny that the inferential relationships between basic beliefs and derivative beliefs must be deductively valid. [2]  

The epistemological and practical implications of these resilient foundational accounts of justification warrant both careful analysis and further development.  While the significance of MF and SF in epistemology is well documented and hotly debated, the practical implications of these positions in moral philosophy are relatively underdeveloped and, as a consequence, coherentism still enjoys a favored status. [3]  

One of the most popular versions of coherentism is Wide Reflective Equilibrium (WRE). [4]   Norman Daniels’s account of justification invokes the doctrines of mutual support and coherence across a broad range of beliefs.  This system of beliefs include beliefs about particular cases; about rules and principles and virtues and how to apply or act on them; about the right-making properties of actions, policies, and institutions; about the conflict between consequentialist and deontological views; about partiality and impartiality and the moral point of view; about motivation, moral development, strains of moral commitment, and the limits of ethics; about the nature of persons; about the role or function of ethics in our lives; about the implications of game theory, decision theory, and accounts of rationality for morality; about the ways we should reply to moral skepticism and moral disagreement and about moral justification itself (Daniels 1996: 230).

By casting the net sufficiently wide, Daniels illustrates the daunting nature of justification in moral philosophy.  “Justification in ethics rest, I have long thought, on a broad coherentist approach involving beliefs at many levels.  Though we may be committed to some views quite firmly, no beliefs are beyond revision (Daniels 1996: 230).”  Daniels is not alone in defending this doctrine. [5]

But popularity is a poor index of truth, and the necessity and tenability of coherentism cannot simply be assumed when competing interpretations are available.  Both MF and SF are rival accounts of justification that must be weighed against WRE, and cannot be rationally rejected except in light of the evidence.  It will become clear that the evidence points away from coherentism and towards a different conclusion.

In this paper I will illustrate the various ways in which a person can repudiate a coherentist account of justification in moral philosophy.  Forsaking coherentism and accepting foundationalism is both important and essential to providing a normative and authoritative justificatory structure for moral beliefs.  To substantiate these claims, I must respond to certain objections advanced against epistemic foundationalism.  I will demonstrate how certain modest foundationalist positions avoid these salient objections.  But MF overlooks the necessity of strong foundations in moral justification.  So, the arguments in this paper establish the following: (1) MF and SF offer rival accounts of justification which surpass the current default position of coherentism; (2) SF is a superior normative account of justification in moral epistemology; and (3) This has implications for the realm of practical ethics. 

Objections to Foundationalism

The objections to foundationalism typically fall into three categories. [6]   Some have charged that incorrigible foundations of moral belief are unavailable.  Others have challenged the assertion that indefeasible foundations could sustain the structure of all non-basic moral beliefs.  Even if available, these foundations are meager, at best.  Still others maintain that these foundations are an unnecessary ground for moral justification.

 Elements of the first two objections are located in Daniels’s attempt to refute foundationalism.  His primary concern is unavailability of basic beliefs.  He comments, “We are missing the little story that gets told about why we should pay homage to [considered moral judgments] and indirectly to the principles that systematize them (Daniels 1996: 26).”  And elsewhere he maintains that “if we try to construe a considered moral judgment as an attempt to report a moral fact, we have no causal story to tell about reliability and many reasons to suspect unreliability (Daniels 1979: 270).” [7]   If one draws support for moral foundations by an analogy with perception regarding the external world, then one must tell a story about how moral properties attach to the external world in such a way that one can directly apprehend their nature. [8]   No such story seems available.

 A second challenge to foundationalism implicit in Daniels’s attempt to defend coherentism is the claim that all beliefs are revisable.  “WRE does not merely systematize some determinate set of judgments.  There is no set of judgments that is held more or less fixed as there would be on a foundationalist approach, even one without foundations (Daniel 1996: 27).”  It is obvious, given the wide range of beliefs one must cohere within WRE, whatever account of justification one espouses must be sufficient to accommodate the inherent complexity of moral discourse. 

 It seems that those of foundationalist persuasion are stuck in a dilemma: either there are foundational moral beliefs, in which we are at a loss to account for their status, or there are no foundational beliefs, in which case epistemic foundationalism is not a suitable model for moral epistemology.  When the problem is stated this way, the choice to embrace coherentism seems reasonable.

 It gets worse for the foundationalist, though.  A coherentist might grant that there is a plausible epistemic story to tell about how foundational beliefs get their status and then argue in the following fashion:

(1)    If there are moral foundations, then they must account for moral complexity;

(2)    If foundational beliefs are unrevisable, then they can’t account for moral complexity;

(3)    If they don’t account for moral complexity, then they do no philosophical work;

(4)    If they do no philosophical work, then they should be abandoned;

(5)    Foundational beliefs are unrevisable;

(6)    Foundational beliefs can’t account for moral complexity (from 2 and 5);

(7)    Therefore, foundationalism should be abandoned (from 3, 4, and 6).

So, a foundationalist is committed either to an implausible epistemology or to a concept that does no philosophical work.  This argument provides the incentive to adopt a non-foundationalist account of moral justification.  Daniels invokes coherentism and extends it to the realm of practical ethics.

Modest Foundationalist Responses

 In order for a foundationalist to counter the above argument, he must deny one of the premises.  An obvious candidate for denial is premise (5).  Daniels’s account assumes that foundationalism is committed to the unrevisability of certain epistemically privileged beliefs.  While it is true of some foundationalist positions, it is not the posture of modest foundationalism.  MF holds that a basic, non-inferential moral belief is defeasible.  Without premise (5), the conclusions in (6) and (7) do not follow.  A foundationalism that can shoulder the burden of moral complexity does some philosophical work and cannot be dismissed so expeditiously. 

Robert Audi’s Modest Foundationalism

Robert Audi constructs a modest foundationalism by revising and expanding the epistemological implications of W.D. Ross’s intuitionism. [9]   His interpretation corrects three significant misapprehensions of intuitionism.  First, moral intuitions are not the product of an occult faculty.  Second, one’s basic intuitions can be revised.  Third, these intuitions do not have to be true.  The upshot of this project is the following characterization of basic moral beliefs: they are non-inferential cognitions which are firmly held, formed in light of an adequate understanding of their propositional objects, and are relatively pretheoretical (Audi 1997: 40-43.)

These intuitions are self-evident in a very specific way.  

A self-evident proposition is (roughly) a truth such that understanding it will meet two conditions: that understanding is (1) sufficient for one’s being justified in believing it (i.e., for having justification for believing it, whether one in fact believes it or not)—this is why such a truth is evident in itself—and (2) sufficient for knowing that proposition provided one believes it on the basis of understanding it (Audi 1997: 45). 

Two clarifications are needed.  First, understanding the self-evident proposition need not entail one’s believing the proposition to be true.  Second, the understanding must be adequate.  “Adequacy here implies not only seeing what the proposition says but also being able to apply it to some appropriate cases, being able to see some of its logical implications, and comprehending its elements and some of their relations (Audi 1997: 45)

Audi advances an epistemically internalist argument whereby one has direct access to one’s moral intuitions.  These beliefs are .”not justified by their relationship with other beliefs, but rather are known without being inferred from other premises.  For example, that torturing a child for pleasure is wrong can be known without being inferred from any premises.  Direct awareness of one’s intuitions does not necessitate infallibile intuitions. Audi distinguishes between immediately self-evident beliefs, which are known readily and admit of degrees of obviousness, and mediately self-evident beliefs, which are grasped through the medium of reflection.  This medium allows the capacity for error within self-evident intuitions.

Audi provides a plausible foundationalist account of moral justification by utilizing conclusions of reflection along with an internalist story of epistemic privilege.  The strengths of this approach are two-fold: (1) it can make room for justified moral intuitions which are uncertain, and (2) this wide ground provides good reason to believe that it can justify a whole stock of inferred beliefs.  He provides a framework that can account for moral complexity by laying defeasible foundational beliefs. 

A possible objection to Audi’s argument is this: internalism does not work for moral justification because moral judgments and intuitions are disanalogous with perception.  That I have internal access to the fact that I am having a headache is significantly different than internal awareness of the intuition that torturing a child for fun is wrong.  The latter seems intrinsically normative, whereas the first lacks this component.  In order for Audi’s main arguments to succeed, however, an internalist story must be equally true of moral intuitions. [10]

Roger Ebertz: WRE as Modest Foundationalism [11]

An indirect way to confront Daniels’s objections to foundationalism is to demonstrate that WRE is best construed as MF.  If this reconstruction captures the essential attributes of WRE accurately, then Daniels’s objections discredit his own account.

Roger Ebertz defends this thesis by claiming that “the crucial question is whether or not justification requires special justificatory input beyond relationships between beliefs (Ebertz 1993: 202).”  Pure coherentists hold that justified belief is dependent on considerations of coherence alone and this coherence is sufficient for justification (Ebertz 1993: 201).  With this background, Ebertz contends that WRE cannot be considered a coherentist account.

WRE cannot be a purely coherentist story because both considered moral judgments and common presumptions within WRE actually function as modest foundations.  That is, the test to determine the overall coherence of a system is always dependent upon whether the system fits with “considered moral judgments we are committed to at that point in the reflective process (Ebertz 1993: 204).”  Common presumptions also seem to be foundational because, “presumptions play the role of criteria in virtue of being deeply ingrained in our society and our consciousness…[Because] of this they have a kind of guiding force in the construction of livable principles which does not arise from their coherence with other beliefs (Ebertz 1993: 205-206).” 

Ebertz concludes that if considered moral judgments and common presumptions were simply a part of a coherence account they wouldn’t be able to fulfill the function they are accorded within the system.  If they are to accomplish their purpose, they must be considered modest foundations.  If this is true, then Daniels’s misgivings about foundationalism in general are misgivings about his own account. 

A Strong Foundationalist Response

The modest foundationalist dismissed the coherentist’s objections by rejecting premise (5) and maintaining that foundational beliefs are both self-evident and revisable.  SF maintains that foundational beliefs are incorrigible.  So, a strong foundationalist must reject premise (2) instead of premise (5).  He must maintain against the modest foundationalist that basic beliefs must be incorrigible, and against the coherentist that these foundations are sufficient to bear the weight of moral complexity. 

Rejecting MF

There are three main objections to counter the modest foundationalist assertion that foundational beliefs are revisable.  The appeal of MF arises from its accurate portrayal of the nature of the human capacity for error and the uncertainty inherent in moral discourse.  SF seems committed to an implausible view of persons that does not take into account these factors.  If SF relies upon an internalist story of epistemic access, however, then uncertainty and human fallibility are still relevant considerations.  Uncertainty is a factor when determining the cause of the moral intuition or in knowing how to apply a specific intuition.  But this does not negate the certainty that one is experiencing an intuition at a specific time. 

Second, if basic beliefs are revisable, they must be revisable in light of evidence.  What evidence could provide reason for one to believe that, for example, torturing children for fun isjustifiable?  It is unlikely that any evidence one could produce would provide sufficient evidence.  Certain intuitions compel one’s allegiance to the extent that they are incapable of being revised.

Third, MF holds that basic beliefs are only probable.  If they are probable, then they are probable in relation to a body of evidence.  But if a belief is probable in relation to a body of evidence, then it is inferred.  Thus, it could not be a basic belief.  Therefore, basic beliefs must be certain rather than probable. [12]  

Rejecting Premise (2)

In addition to arguing against MF, SF must also argue against coherentism by demonstrating that incorrigible foundations are sufficient to support the whole stock of moral beliefs.  If SF held that all inferential relationships between basic beliefs and derivative beliefs must be deductively valid, this would make SF implausible.  The fact that humans are prone to error, that humankind is shaped by its cultural framework, that there are deep disagreements over fundamental conceptions of the good life, and that there are various, competing considerations relevant to the question of how to apply certain principles to specific circumstances, is ample evidence that deductive inferences will not provide adequate means for justifying inferred beliefs.  But SF does not subscribe to this view.  The only necessary feature of SF is that basic beliefs must be indefeasible; there can be uncertainty in the inferences to non-basic beliefs. 

SF is a position about justification at a particular point in time. [13]   Carolyn Simon maintains that

 There is, however, no reason to think (and some good reasons not to think) that moral truth is amenable to anything like axiomatization.  Rational intuitionism asserts only that some moral claims are synthetic a priori truths.  The truth of this claim does not entail how many truths of this sort there are, how general they are, and to what extent they will give us definite moral guidance on every question we would like answered. [14]

The only thing that SF requires is the following: a belief at time X is justified only if this belief rests upon a structure of supporting beliefs which can be traced back to certainties as their foundation.  Therefore, the premise that unrevisable foundational beliefs cannot justify the whole stock of moral beliefs does not necessarily follow.  The possibility remains open that incorrigible beliefs can justify inferred moral beliefs.

Objections to Coherentism

The first objection to coherentism can be called the alternative coherent theories objection.  The coherence of any particular

system does not preclude the possibility of any other equally coherent system.  If there are two equally coherent systems, and

coherence is the test by which we countenance a belief as justified, then these systems are of equal value.  It is hard to see how

this does not reduce to relativism.  The coherentist must provide a detailed story for choosing between equally coherent

systems.  Furthermore, in offering such a story, the coherentist must not rely implicitly upon modest foundations. [15]

A second objection questions the validity of the claim that all beliefs are revisable. [16]   Jeff McMahan maintains

that this is, “counterintuitive” and “alien to moral life and reflection (McMahan 2000: 104).”  It is counterintuitive because a

coherence account does not recognize the inherent cogency of certain beliefs.  He asserts, “It is because some of our moral

beliefs compel our allegiance independently of their inferential relations to other beliefs that coherence seems a distant, perhaps

impossible goal (McMahan 2000: 104).”

A Final Objection to SF

Despite these objections, coherentists can maintain that the domain of practical ethics often requires making decisions without knowledge of moral foundations.  Since SF holds that these decisions must rest on moral certainties to be justified, it follows that perhaps all decisions made within this realm are morally unjustified.  This strikes the coherentist as implausible, so he rejects the justificatory structure entailing this absurdity.

Perhaps the coherentist has accurately portrayed the consequences of SF for practical ethics, but this is hardly a reason to adopt coherentism as true.  The coherentist has not offered any positive reasons to tailor moral justification so that it accords with our epistemic situation.  Moreover, it is not obvious that the decisions required within the realm of practical ethics must be made without the requisite knowledge of foundational beliefs.  The coherentist must substantiate these claims.

Implications for Practical Ethics 

SF provides a justificatory structure that is available and sufficient for moral discourse in real-time, recognizes the plurality of moral principles, the complexity of the practical problems in ethical discourse, the fact of conflicting moral principles, and the capacity for error in human judgment.  Coherentism must no longer be considered the default position of justification in ethics.

The implications of this account are far reaching.  Solving practical problems in real-time no longer necessitates coherentism as a justificatory method.  If you have found my criticisms convincing, practical ethics might do well to seek and find its foundational moorings.  This does not dismiss moral complexity or the difficulty people face in making moral decisions regarding practical issues.  Rather, it retains the complexity of moral discourse at the level of application; deciding how to apply general principles, and weighing the various contingent features of the situation provides ample ambiguity and uncertainty.   This requires moral imagination, deliberative and dialogical decision-making, and a representative community of decision-makers.  But in whatever decisions are made, the ultimate justification for a moral belief is derivative of basic beliefs supporting the whole structure.  Strong foundations are both necessary for moral philosophy and sufficient to ground all moral beliefs.