Search

Most people believe some moral propositions are true. Most people would say that they know that rape is wrong, torturing people is wrong, and so on. But despite decades of intense epistemological study, philosophers cannot even provide a rudimentary sketch of moral knowledge. In my view, the fact that we have very strong epistemic confidence in some fundamental moral propositions and the fact that it is extremely difficult for us to provide even the basics of an account of moral knowledge gives us an important clue. Both of these facts stem from the very nature of moral knowledge. In this paper I provide an intuitionist account of moral knowledge. I try to remove misunderstanding and add to our understanding of the contemporary account of self-evident moral propositions. For a theory of moral knowledge to be acceptable it must explain both the moral knowledge we have and why it is so very difficult for us to explain. My theory meets both requirements.

The authors view the of the university as a system of values that is logically connected with the nature of knowledge as the subject, goal, and highest value of the university’s main scientific and educational activities. The key criterion of knowledge is the evidential validity. The article reveals its meaning from the position of Russian intuitionism, which combines the method of reflexive analysis with the tradition of ontological proof. The authors treat the meaning of absolute truth intuition as the basis of the value function of knowledge in relation to university education. In accordance with the essential orientation of universities to the reproduction of knowledge, that is the unconditional public good, they are qualified as missiotropic organizations. The University’s missiotropic axiologic is justified as a humanistic alternative to the capitalist ideal of global social harmony. Based on the methodological potential of the fundamental motivational matrix (FMM), the caste attributes of the latter are revealed. The specific nature of the appeal to moral responsibility in the context of corporate governance is revealed; the tendency to legalize ethical responsibility in connection with its instrumental understanding in the context of global market competition is noted.

Most physics theories are deterministic, with the notable exception of quantum mechanics which, however, comes plagued by the so-called measurement problem. This state of affairs might well be due to the inability of standard mathematics to "speak" of indeterminism, its inability to present us a worldview in which new information is created as time passes. In such a case, scientific determinism would only be an illusion due to the timeless mathematical language scientists use. To investigate this possibility it is necessary to develop an alternative mathematical language that is both powerful enough to allow scientists to compute predictions and compatible with indeterminism and the passage of time. We argue that intuitionistic mathematics provides such a language and we illustrate it in simple terms., First presented at the workshop "Experiencing Reality Directly" (Jerusalem, May 22-24, 2019)

This chapter traces out the implications of meta-ethical view defended in this book, and of quietism more broadly, for questions in moral epistemology. It begins by cataloguing some cases in which normative-ethical inquiry has been distorted by philosophers who have mistakenly treated metaphysics, semantics, and so on, as relevant to first-order ethics. The chapter then considers the upshots of pragmatist quietism for the question of how, if at all, to modify one’s ethical beliefs in the face of others’ disagreement. It then addresses the related issue of how much toleration we should extend to those whose ethical views we judge to be mistaken. It concludes by showing how the pragmatist quietism defended in this book is better equipped than some other objectivist views to reply to evolutionary and other debunking arguments.

Investigating the reliability of moral intuitions is not only one of the hot topics in moral psychology but also of high importance for philosophical questions. In a recent study, the influence of ...

The history of ethics often presupposes rationalist thinking on moral issues. An alternative to rationalism has been proposed by the social intuitionist model. This model suggests the bulk of our moral decisions are ‘gut reactions’ or intuitions. Unlike the rationalists, which support reasons and deliberation to draw moral conclusions, intuitionists argue such reasoning is used to support preconceived ethical decisions. This paper provides the first investigation to determine if intuitionism has any validity within business ethics. Using data from the Defining Issues Test and individual journal entries, results indicate discussion-based pedagogy improved the moral reasoning of participants but had very little influence over their beliefs. In short, the social intuitionist model is supported by this study. Most importantly, ethics education that focuses on peer-to-peer discussion can change how students’ reason about moral problems and should be heavily incorporated into classrooms.

In this paper, I present theoretical assumptions behind Teoria/Literatura, a multifaceted digital research and publishing project on 20th-century Polish literary thought. The point of departure is the conjecture that the tensions between the digital and the humanistic in present-day DH help bring out in full relief the cardinal conflict line in Polish literary theory – between formalism/structuralism on the one hand and phenomenology on the other. Conversely, the order of concepts in the corpus of Polish literary theory enables the researcher to pinpoint the relation of the humanistic and the digital (or formalist) within DH so that it might be challenged and/or upgraded. In the first section, I provide an overview of the project's strata and its wide-ranging goal, i.e., a corpus of Polish literary theory. In section two, I examine the way in which the structure of the corpus can help elucidate the general problem of the relation between the digital and the humanistic in DH. Specifically, I relate this issue to the quarrel in constructive mathematics between mathematical intuitionism and formalism. The third section is devoted to a synecdochal representation of the general problem of the duality of intuitionism and formalism – the visualisation of narrative temporality.

In 1928 Ivan Orlov published a remarkable paper which contains the first formulation of a relevant logic. The paper remained largely unknown to English-speakers until this discovery of relevant log...

Spinoza’s epistemology is complex, with both a rationalist and an intuitionist side. The key to understanding Spinoza’s epistemology is to focus on the notion of intuitive knowledge (scientia intui...

The debate between Einstein and Bergson is a salient episode in the history of modern physics and a telling example of the interaction between science and philosophy. This paper initially discusses five reasons why Bergson criticised Einstein for giving up absolute time. The most important one was Bergson’s commitment to an intuitionist, anti-Kantian metaphysics informed by common sense. Apart from that, he knew that the theory of special relativity permits “duration” (durée) in the form of the passage of proper time, to which Bergson referred as “real time”. Neither static eternalism (which excludes temporal passage) nor dynamic eternalism (which, like the former, claims the existence of the future) are acceptable from Bergson’s philosophical perspective, which acknowledges the role of temporal experience and everyday thinking in addition to science and metaphysics. He understood temporal passage as creation of new existence, anticipating what later became known as the growing block theory of time. The pointy relativistic variant of this theory, which divides the universe into blocks of growing past light cones, does justice to large parts of his philosophy, including the distinction between the actual and the virtual. Supporters of Bergson’s account of duration should adopt this theory of time.

In this article, after clarifying aspects of the claim to objectivity in the common moral judgments and general aspects of moral epistemology, I present and analyze the possibility of the existence and attainment of true moral beliefs, firstly, in skeptical positions contrary to this, as in the nihilistic perspective of error theory and in the subjectivist perspective of relativistic theories (social and individual), then, secondly, I present and analyze the traditional concept of moral knowledge in two favorable realist positions, the naturalist realism and the non-naturalist realism or intuitionism. A perspective normally considered contrary to obtaining true moral beliefs is the expressivist one, but I suggest and outline here how it, or at least some of its more sophisticated versions, can be epistemically friendly in the search for moral knowledge, in a more weak meaning of the concept.

The aim of this paper is to establish a phenomenological mathematical intuitionism that is based on fundamental phenomenological-epistemological principles. According to this intuitionism, mathematical intuitions are sui generis mental states, namely experiences that exhibit a distinctive phenomenal character. The focus is on two questions: what does it mean to undergo a mathematical intuition and what role do mathematical intuitions play in mathematical reasoning? While I crucially draw on Husserlian principles and adopt ideas we find in phenomenologically minded mathematicians such as Hermann Weyl and Kurt Gödel, the overall objective is systematic in nature: to offer a plausible approach towards mathematics.

Fil: Lassalle Casanave, Abel. Universidade Federal da Bahia; Brasil. Fil: Lassalle Casanave, Abel. Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico; Brasil. Fil: Pereira, Luiz Carlos. Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro; Brasil. Fil: Pereira, Luiz Carlos. Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro; Brasil. Fil: Pereira, Luiz Carlos. Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico; Brasil. Lassalle Casanave, A. y Pereira, L. C. (2020). A propósito del formalismo de Johann von Neumann. Metatheoria, 10(2), 51-59. En 1930, Johann von Neumann, junto con Rudolf Carnap y Arend Heyting, participó de un evento realizado en Königsberg llamado “Segundo Seminario sobre Epistemología de las Ciencias Exactas”. La idea por detrás de la reunión de esos tres investigadores era presentar un cuadro suficientemente fiel de los tres programas de fundamentación de la matemática existentes al momento: el formalismo, el logicismo y el intuicionismo. El principal objetivo de este artículo es proponer un análisis del texto “La fundamentación formalista de la matemática” presentado por von Neumann en el mencionado seminario. Tratamos de mostrar como desde la perspectiva de von Neumann el problema de la consistencia de las teorías matemáticas es resultado de la transformación de una cuestión genuinamente filosófica en una genuina cuestión lógico-matemática y como una prueba de consistencia podía ser vista como la solución del problema fundacional. En la parte final del texto, presentamos algunas consideraciones acerca de las pruebas de consistencia de Gerhard Gentzen y su importancia para la teoría contemporánea de la demostración. In 1930, Johann von Neumann, together with Rudolf Carnap and Arend Heyting, participated in a conference held in Königsberg, called “Second Seminar on the Epistemology of Exact Sciences”. The idea behind the reunion of these three researchers was to compose a fairly faithful picture of the three main foundational programs of mathematics at the time: formalism, logicism, and intuitionism. The main objective of this paper is to propose an analysis of the text “The Formalist Foundation of Mathematics” presented by von Neumann in this conferenc e. We show how, from von Neumann's perspective, the problem of the consistency of mathematical theories results from the transformation of a genuinely philosophical question into a genuinely logical-mathematical question and how a proof of consistency could be seen as the solution to the foundational problem. In the final part of the text, we present some considerations about Gerhard Gentzen’s consistency proofs and their importance to contemporary proof theory.

Reflective equilibrium (RE) has been criticized for various reasons ever since the publication of Rawls’A Theory of Justice. Recent empirical research into moral decision-making poses new challenges to RE because it questions the reliability of moral intuitions. This research might discredit moral intuitionism in general and RE in particular insofar as it ascribes epistemic value to moral intuitions. These findings suggest, for instance, that moral intuitions vary with cultural background, gender or framing. If it could be shown that all or certain kinds of moral intuitions are unreliable, this would diminish the plausibility of the claim that they provide good reasons to believe in the truth of their content, especially given the growing evidence that professional philosophers are just as biased and susceptible to distorting factors as lay people. In this paper I critically discuss three recent defenses of RE against this unreliable intuitions objection (UIO). Two of these defenses argue that the UIO misses its target, because RE does not depend on intuitions, or because the relevant considered judgments in RE are not intuitions. The third defense grants that RE depends on intuitions and that some Rawlsian considered judgments are intuitions. But it argues that the notion of considered judgments can be revised, and that wide reflective equilibrium (WRE) has the means to adopt the criticism because it can use information about unreliable intuitions and exclude those from further consideration. I argue that the first two defenses do not succeed. The third defense is the most promising one. However, I argue that this defense also fails. In this defense, RE is not a distinctive moral epistemic theory: different versions of RE would be conceivable, all of which are deeply problematic. I conclude with a discussion of the broader philosophical implications of the UIO, specifically whether or not accepting the UIO would warrant skepticism regarding moral knowledge.

We provide a framework for understanding agnosticism. The framework accounts for the varieties of agnosticism while vindicating the unity of the phenomenon. This combination of unity and plurality is achieved by taking the varieties of agnosticism to be represented by several agnostic stances, all of which share a common core provided by what we call the minimal agnostic attitude. We illustrate the fruitfulness of the framework by showing how it can be applied to several philosophical debates. In particular, several philosophical positions can be aptly conceived of as instances of agnosticism whilst retaining their differences and distinguishing features.

The present study examines the relation between the moral intuitions proposed by the ‘Moral Foundations Theory’ according to J. Haidt and the moral orientations in relation with moral competence, as described by the ‘Dual-Aspect Model of Moral Behaviour’ according to G. Lind.It is an empirical exploration of the relation between the five foundational domains (and/or the corresponding two higher-order clusters) and the moral orientations, as this results from the theoretical assumptions of both theories, and the influence on and of the moral competence on these aforementioned relations. The shared affective and, at the same time, habitual characteristics of moral intuitions and moral orientations, although based on different theories (intuitionism, respectively, cognitivism) should converge in a dynamic relationship. The basic motivation is the need to overcome the affective-cognitive disjunction in the study of moral judgment, which is artificial. The human (moral) reasoning is always a situated and situating one, in a symbolic narrative universe, in which the cognitive-affective dichotomy forms a dynamic unity. This overstated dichotomy is only a methodological necessity, but unfortunately hypostasized in an explanatory mechanism that leads to the impermissible simplification of the phenomenon that it seeks to understand.The empirical results confirm the limits of both cognitive and intuitions paradigms and advocates for a more nuanced and dynamic approach in understanding the moral judgment within a more comprehensive conception on human personality. Finally, the implications for the contemporary psychology’ paradigm are discussed.

The article analyses the process of intuitionism's "entry" into European philosophical – aesthetical and studying of art area from 1913 – the year of publishing the first English speaking interpretation of the French thinker. It is shown as the line of thesis of his philosophical conception transformed into the sphere of artistic creation and influenced on the art of the XX century. The examples of intuitionism's interpretation which are represented in modern Ukrainian human science have been accented. It is underlined that the first experience of English – language interpretation of Henri Bergson's ideas, whose works were very popular in European cultural area, is connected with the name of Gerbert Wildom Karr (1859 – 1931), who proposed popular account of the French theorists views in the work The philosophy of Bergson. The accent is made on the fact that G.W. Karr's interpretational model uses the principle of systematization of "the problem field" which H. Bergson formed during the first decade of the XX century. Special attention is paid to"intuitionalism" – composed part of "bergsonism" in the context of which a special theoretic loading lies on the factors "memory" and "time". Examining "time" H. Bergson proposes to take into consideration its "reversibility" and "non-reversibility". It is shown that factors "memory" and "time" were actively used in avant-garde art and in "logic – alogic" of the building of literary works of the school of "new novel" and in European cinematograph of the 70 – 80 years of the ХХ century. As a good example of aesthetic-artistic embodiment of the modifications of "memory" and "time" the creation of famous Spanish producer Karlos Sauro has been considered. It is emphasized that a special load in the general system of views of H. Bergson is "intuitionism", which in the European cultural space was highly appreciated by both the philosophical community and artists. It is emphasized that such factors of "intuitionism" as intelligence, instinct, intuition, time, memory, are still relevant in the research field.

Sidgwick's seminal textThe Methods of Ethicsleft off with an unresolved problem that Sidgwick referred to as the dualism of practical reason. The problem is that employing Sidgwick's methodology of rational intuitionism appears to show that there are reasons to favour both egoism and utilitarianism. Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer offer a solution in the form of an evolutionary debunking argument: the appeal of egoism is explainable in terms of evolutionary theory. I argue that like rational prudence, rational benevolence is subject to debunking arguments and so problematic, but also – and more importantly – that debunking arguments are irrelevant in the debate over the dualism of practical reason on the view of reason and rational intuitionism that Lazari-Radek and Singer embrace. Either both egoism and utilitarianism are debunked, or neither are. If I am right, Sidgwick's dualism is left standing.

This chapter revisits and further develops all the principle themes and concepts of the preceding chapters. Epistemicism about vagueness postulates a realm of distinctions drawn by basic vague concepts that transcend our capacity to know them. Its treatment of their subject matter is thus broadly comparable to the Platonist philosophy of mathematics. An intuitionist philosophy of vagueness, as do many philosophies of the semantics and metaphysics of vague expressions, finds this idea merely superstitious and rejects it. The vagueness-intuitionist, however, credits the epistemicist with a crucial insight: that vagueness is indeed a cognitive, rather than a semantic, phenomenon—something that is not a consequence of some kind of indeterminacy, or open-endedness in the semantics of vague expressions but rather resides in our brute inability to bring, for example, yellow and orange right up against one another, so to speak, so as to mark a sharp and stable boundary. A solution to the Sorites paradox is developed that is consonant with this basic idea but, by motivating a background logic that observes (broadly) intuitionistic restrictions on the proof theory for negation, allows us to treat the paradoxical reasoning as a simple reductio of its major premise, without the unwelcome implication, sustained by classical logic, of sharp cut-offs.

This chapter lays out an account of the particularist approach to epistemological inquiry and develops a version of it in terms of epistemic intuitions, which are seemings about epistemic value (such as justification or knowledge). It begins by briefly reviewing the history of particularism, from Thomas Reid through G. E. Moore to Roderick Chisholm, and then gives a clear statement of the particularist methodology. The remaining sections elaborate the view, giving pride of place to epistemic intuitions, which is why the resulting view is called ‘intuitionist particularism.’ Particularism in epistemology (which tends to be endorsed by commonsense anti-skeptics) puts more weight on epistemic intuitions about particular cases and which of our beliefs are rational. It stands opposed to methodism, which is typically endorsed by proponents of radical skepticism and puts more weight on epistemic intuitions about principles that say what’s required for a belief to be rational. In their extreme forms, these positions occupy two ends of a spectrum. The position advocated in this chapter is a moderate one that leans toward the particularist end of the spectrum, in a way that is compatible with both internalism and externalism in epistemology.

The social intuitionist model (SIM) highlights the superiority of intuitive emotions over reasoning process in the link of moral judgment and reasoning, addressing the issues of private or individual intuitions of moral judgments on an interpersonal communication level. While the SIM can be applied to explain why journalists are biased and prone to producing intuitive news stories, the hierarchy of influences model (HIM) offers a theoretical framework that affects media content, which journalists and media organizations create in a social and cultural approach to propaganda. This chapter explores how the integration of SIM and HIM demonstrates the path to propagandistic news stories manufactured by intuitive journalists and their biased news outlets on the macro social structure level.

Traditionally, research on moral reasoning has been based on the idea that moral judgments are based on reasoning and cognitive development. For example, Kohlberg's classic model of moral reasoning argues that morality develops with aging and experience in terms of preconventional, conventional, and postconventional beliefs. Conversely, Haidt's social intuitionist model offers a view in which moral judgments can be impetuous and driven primarily by intuition, not reason. This idea reflects the concept of moral dumbfounding, in which people maintain a moral judgment based on conditioning. A cognitive theory that explains the conditioning for moral dumbfounding is imagined interaction conflict-linkage theory. This theory explains how arguments are ruminated in the mind. People often remember episodes of disagreement, arguing, or fighting and dwell on them. This chapter will review research in these areas. Additionally, a few examples pertaining to personality and ideological beliefs in terms of COVID-19 pandemic compliance and rule violations are discussed.

This chapter reports an original experimental study that explores the idea that “calling bullshit” may shed light on how we reach a conclusion quickly, following Mercier and Sperber's social intuitionist theory of how we reason. According to the social intuitionist model, instead of going from deliberating and finding reasons prior to arriving at conclusions, as in the rationalist model, we typically go from conclusions backwards to reasons. Little if any empirical research has studied how we come to the determination “that's bullshit,” especially our ability to decide that something is bullshit so quickly. This study explores the relationship between the strength of belief in four ideologies and the speed of “calling bullshit.” The experiment tests the effect of strength of belief in the worldviews of Individualism, Communitarianism, Hierarchicalism, and Egalitarianism. It also examines reaction time for instances of confirming versus disconfirming the subject's worldview as well as age of the subject.

La visión tradicional del pensamiento crítico (PC) fundada en un enfoque racionalista ha sido puesta en duda a partir de fines del siglo pasado por la ‘segunda ola’ del PC, la cual, a pesar de no ser un movimiento del todo definido, ha incluido aspectos como la imaginación, la creatividad y el trabajo cooperativo en su comprensión y en su aplicación a la enseñanza. Paralelamente, perspectivas actuales en psicología moral como el modelo ‘intuicionista social’ propuesto por Jonathan Haidt, representan un desafío al modelo racionalista de la moral que suponen gran parte de las éticas normativas canónicas. Siendo que tanto el PC como el fundamento moral representan factores fundamentales en la enseñanza de ética, se hace explicito que esta última precisa también ser revisada. Es por ello que el presente trabajo analiza una perspectiva del PC alternativa a la tradicional basada en el potencial aporte de la metacognición y del modelo intuicionista social, con el fin de abrir nuevas vías de investigación para la actualización del fundamento moral que se supone en la enseñanza de ética. Para ahondar en ello, se ejemplificará la relevancia y aplicabilidad de la metacognición en la enseñanza de ética con situaciones vinculadas a la actual pandemia por Covid-19.//The traditional vision of critical thinking (CT) founded on a rationalist approach has been questioned since the end of the last century by the ‘second wave’ of CT, which, despite not being a fully defined movement, has included aspects such as imagination, creativity and cooperative work in its understanding and in its application to teaching. At the same time, current perspectives in moral psychology such as the ‘social intuitionist’ model proposed by Jonathan Haidt, represent a challenge to the rationalist model of morality that many of the canonical normative ethics suppose. Since both CT and the moral foundation represent essential factors in the teaching of ethics, it is made explicit that the latter also needs to be revised. That is why the present work analyses a perspective of CT alternative to the traditional one based on the potential contribution of metacognition and the social intuitionist model, in order to open new lines of research to update the moral foundation that is assumed in the teaching of ethics. To delve into this, the relevance and applicability of metacognition in the teaching of ethics will be exemplified with situations related to the current Covid-19 pandemic.

Contains fulltext : 239847.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

How Moore’s open question argument works, insofar as it does, remains a matter of controversy. The author’s purpose here is to construct an open question argument based on a novel interpretation of how Moore’s argument might work. In order to sidestep exegetical questions, he does not claim to be offering Moore’s own argument. Rather, the author offers a reconstruction, making use of important elements of Moore’s methodology and assumptions that could be reasonable within a Moorean viewpoint. The crucial role within the argument is played by what the author calls the real thought move. He shows that the reconstructed argument is more defensible from some standard objections than the common construction. The author finishes by drawing attention to a neglected objective that would make sense within Moore’s viewpoint, showing that it fits with a major commitment of Bonjour’s moderate rationalism, and showing how the package might be important for the non-naturalist today.

This book examines the metaphors and allegories of the Coronavirus pandemic and shows how they provide a better understanding of the moral framing of our decisions. Haidt’s social intuitionist model employs a metaphor: the elephant and the rider. The ‘rider’ is a metaphor for the rational mind in which control derives from language-based reasoning and the ‘elephant’ is a metaphor for the emotions and the intuitions that accompany such reasoning. When people face a moral dilemma, Haidt claims, they rely more on the elephant than on the rider, and decisions are based on an emotionally motivated moral intuition. In this book I argue that that during times of pandemic the role of the rational mind, the rider, should be restored intoa position of control over the elephant of emotional intuition and that to assist with rational decision making a moral frame of Honesty and Dishonesty needs to be established.

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argues that moral disagreement and widespread moral bias pose a serious problem for moral intuitionism. Seneca’s view that we just recognise the good could be criticised using a similar argument. His approach to argumentation offers a way out, one that may serve as a model for a revisionary intuitionism.

The paper defines and explores objectivism and subjectivism in legal reasoning. The term subjectivism is used to describe two directions of legal arguments which play a crucial role basically in all legal systems: Firstly, subjectivism may refer in private law to the intention of one or more parties. Secondly, in the context of interpretation of all “authoritative” legal sources (statutes, precedents et al.), it may aim at the intention of the “legislator” (parliament; court et al.). On this definition basis, the paper presents – in a quite simple and synoptical manner – 12 statements which sketch out some limits of subjectivism, define some potentials of what may be established as the contrast criterion of objectivism and, finally, to establish intuitionism as a complementary and in the context meaningful third category.

The chapter features, first, a critical presentation of Brouwer’s intuitionistic doctrines concerning logic, the real numbers, and continuity in the real number system, including his Principle for Numbers and Continuity Theorem. This is followed by a parallel examination of Hermann Weyl’s quasi-intuitionistic views on logic, continuity, and the real number system, views inspired by (but grossly misrepresenting) ideas of Brouwer. The whole business wraps up with an attempt to place Brouwer’s and Weyl’s efforts within the trajectory of informed thinking, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, on the subjects of continua, magnitudes, and quantities.

This chapter offers a sustained commentary on Crispin Wright’s paper “On Being in a Quandary: Relativism, Vagueness, Logic Revisionism.” It begins by giving a brief introduction to the issues surrounding vagueness and the sorites paradox before going on to reconstruct the main argument of Wright’s paper “Vagueness: A Fifth Column Approach”. It then proceeds to endorse Wright’s principal reasons for discounting epistemicist and supervaluationist treatments of vagueness. The chapter then develops a critique of Wright’s technical notion of quandary and of his attempt to solve the Sorites Paradox along intuitionistic lines. Despite venturing some criticisms, the chapter concludes that Wright is correct in thinking that vagueness needs to be explained in terms of the sort of quandary state one is in when one takes a proposition to be borderline.

This chapter provides a reply to the chapters in Part II of this book. It looks at the philosophical challenges presented by vagueness. Philosophers of language from Frege on had been for the most part content to theorize in ways that ignored vagueness, or to focus on idealized languages in which there was none. And no one writing before 1970 seemed fully to have taken the measure of the awkwardness of the Sorites paradox, or the depth of its roots in our intuitive thinking about what kind of ability mastery of a language is. The chapter concludes that the intuitionistic approach, with its integral repudiation of any idea of vagueness as constituted in semantic facts that somehow underlie and explain the distinctive patterns of use of vague expressions, and its consequent commitment to liberalism about verdicts in the borderline region, does exactly that.

Over the course of human history there appears to have been a global shift in moral values towards a broadly ‘liberal’ orientation. Huemer (Philosophical Studies 173: 1983–2010, 2016) argues that this shift better accords with a realist than an antirealist metaethics: it is best explained by the discovery of mind-independent truths through intuition. In this article I argue, contra Huemer, that the historical data are better explained assuming the truth of moral antirealism. Realism does not fit the data as well as Huemer suggests, whereas antirealists have underappreciated resources to explain the relevant historical dynamics. These resources include an appeal to socialization, to technological and economical convergences, to lessons learned from history, to changes induced by consistency reasoning and to the social function of moral norms in overcoming some of the cooperation problems that globalizing societies face. I point out that the realist’s explanans has multiple shortcomings, that the antirealist’s explanans has several explanatory virtues, and conclude that the latter provides a superior account of the historical shift towards liberal values.