Contemporary Pragmatism Vol. 6, No. 2 (December 2009), 185–189

Editions Rodopi © 2009

Reply to Clanton and Forcehimes Robert B. Talisse

In this reply I respond to the article “Can Peircean Epistemic Perfectionists Bid Farewell to Deweyan Democracy?” by J. Caleb Clanton and Andrew T. Forcehimes, in this journal issue.

Caleb Clanton and Andrew Forcehimes challenge a controversial thesis that I have proposed in some of my recent work. That thesis is composed of the following two claims: (1) Deweyan democracy is nonviable because it cannot countenance pluralism, and (2) there is an alternative pragmatist conception of democracy based in Peirce’s epistemology that can countenance pluralism. Clanton and Forcehimes argue that there is a “tension” or “conflict” in the two parts of the thesis. They pose the following constructive dilemma: I must commit either to a strong or weak reading of the nonconvergence component of pluralism. If I commit to strong nonconvergentism, then both Deweyan and Peircean democracy are doomed; however, if I commit to weak nonconvergentism, then Peircean democracy is saved, but so is Deweyan democracy. Therefore, we must either bid farewell to both Deweyan and Peircean democracy, or admit that both are viable conceptions of democracy. Their argument is tidy and forceful. However, I do not think that it succeeds. I should note straightaway that I find their presentation of my views accurate, and I also endorse much of what they say in reaction to my critics. Most importantly, they identify a crucial juncture in my work where I have not been as clear as I need to be. I welcome the opportunity to be more explicit. I begin with the nonconvergence component of pluralism. Pluralism is not simply the claim that there is on-going disagreement about fundamental moral questions; nor is it simply the recommendation that such disagreement must be tolerated rather than suppressed. Pluralism in all of its varieties involves the further claim that ongoing disagreement over moral fundamentals is not necessarily proof of irrationality, depravity, ignorance, or even error. Pluralists claim that even the best employment of reason leaves underdetermined or unsettled certain moral questions. Accordingly, pluralists hold that we should not expect all rational persons to converge on a single moral view, even when they are all correctly attending to the relevant reasons, arguments, and evidence. In other words, even under highly favorable conditions, disagreement over

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fundamental moral matters prevails. This is the nonconvergence component of pluralism. Different versions of pluralism offer competing versions of the nonconvergence thesis. In the metaphysical version offered by Isaiah Berlin and others, nonconvergence is due to the nature of value. On Berlinian views, different objective goods bear relations of intrinsic hostility to other objective goods, and there is no summum bonum by reference to which competing goods may be rank-ordered. As different goods make their respective claims on us, there are many ways of addressing moral conflicts that are consistent with the full employment of reason. Epistemic version of pluralism, by contrast, need make no claims regarding the nature of value; epistemic pluralisms hold that nonconvergence is the result of some fact of moral epistemology. On such views, human reason, even at its best, is not up to the task of finding uniquely rational solutions to moral dilemmas; hence many solutions are consistent with the proper exercise of human reason, despite their being inconsistent with each other. As the view aspires to be strictly epistemological, epistemic pluralism need not take a stand on the question of whether there are uniquely rational solutions to moral conflicts; epistemic pluralism says only that we have not proven able to reach such solutions, and thus there are several distinctive and mutually incompatible options available to reasonable people. In both cases, nonconvergence is held to be in some sense permanent. Clanton and Forcehimes correctly identify a stronger and a weaker version of the nonconvergence thesis. The strong nonconvergentism holds that widespread reasoned agreement, or consensus, on fundamental moral questions is in principle unavailable. Weaker nongonvergentism holds the more modest view that consensus is not to be expected. Accordingly, both versions hold that widespread agreement, when it appears to exist, should be treated with suspicion; the strong view holds such consensus as proof of suppression, the weak version holds that consensus strongly suggests suppression. Metaphysical pluralists tend to be strong nonconvergentists, and weak non-convergence tends to be favored by epistemic pluralists. To be sure, some epistemic pluralists arguably are strong nonconvergentists, but we need not pursue this matter here. With this rough taxonomy in place, I turn to the argument. Clanton and Forcehimes hold that, although Deweyan democracy is indeed inconsistent with strong nonconvergentism, strong nonconvergentism is also inconsistent with the Peircean epistemology that lies at the root of my positive view. They contend that strong nonconvergentism, if true, would render Peircean inquiry impotent. They argue that the possibility of convergence is a regulative assumption of inquiry, and strong nonconvergentism denies this possibility. I reject strong nonconvergentism; however I do not think that it is necessarily inconsistent with Peircean inquiry. Even if we suppose, with the strong nonconvergentist, that some question, Q, is underdetermined by all the evidence there could be, inquiry could still yield results concerning which proposed answers to Q are nonviable. In other words, even if we suppose that

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inquiry could not converge on a single answer to Q, it still could defeat many of the apparent contenders.1 Inquiry progresses not only by drawing inquirers towards the truth; it also progresses by directing them away from falsehood. So, even if strong nonconvergence is presupposed, inquiry might still yield consensus on claims of the sort “p is not the answer to Q.” Consequently, there is a considerable role for inquiry, even for the strong nonconvergentist. This point is important because it is crucial for my positive proposal that the epistemic norms constitutive of Peircean democracy are consistent with all reasonable views. Strong nonconvergentism, at least in its more popular forms, seems to be a reasonable position, so Peircean democracy needs to prove itself consistent with it. And the Peircean norms seem fully consistent with strong nonconvergentism. For there is nothing in strong nonconvergentism that rejects the Peircean norms concerning belief and justification. In fact, when nonconvergentists are called upon to defend their view, they offer reasons, arguments, and evidence, just like anyone else. It should be noted that Peircean pragmatists and strong nonconvergentists may have serious disagreements concerning what kinds of questions are appropriate subjects of inquiry. Nonconvergentists who are nonfacutalists about moral claims, for example, might reject the very idea of moral inquiry; for them, inquiry into whether some moral statement is true would be as pointless as inquiry into whether some joke is funny. I cannot take up the question of how such cases are to be handled here. But note that the disagreement between the Peircean and the nonfactualist is not a disagreement over how inquiry is to be conducted. The Peircean and the nonfactualist agree about how to inquire; they disagree over what can be inquired into.2 Let us raise briefly a different kind of case. Perhaps there are also views which are nonconvergentist and which reject the idea of inquiry as such; we could imagine a strong nonconvergentist who endorses radical incommensurability among different theories. On such a view, inquiry with respect to those theories would be indeed futile. Again, I cannot here engage the issue of what should be done in such cases, but note that, on such views, it is not the nonconvergentism that entails the rejection of inquiry, but the collateral commitments – in this case, radical incommensurability. Accordingly, strong nonconvergentism is consistent with Peircean inquiry. I return now to the argument. Clanton and Forcehimes recognize that I adopt the weak nonconvergence view, but then they charge me with being “clearly inconsistent” because I also endorse the Rawlsian claim that pluralism is a permanent result of practical reason under conditions of freedom. According to Clanton and Forcehimes, the claim that disagreement is permanent is inconsistent with weak nonconvergentism. I am persuaded that I have not been as careful as I might have been in dealing with the idea that pluralism is permanent. So let me try to clear this up. It seems to me that one could say that moral disagreement is a permanent condition in a free society and yet deny that any particular moral controversy is

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undecidable in the way that strong nonconvergentism requires. In fact, if we are fallibilists, we will want to say precisely this. We must keep open the channels by which new arguments, experiences, and evidence are brought to bear on a question, even after we take ourselves to have inquired sufficiently and reached a firm conclusion. That inquiry has successfully run its course is no guarantee that everyone will instantly be convinced by its results, and it is no guarantee that no new evidence or argument could arise which would reasonably strike some as being sufficient to defeat the belief that inquiry had produced. As new considerations come to light in the course of ongoing experience, the case for p will need to be remade – it will have to be shown that p fits the new evidence – even if p is true. Accordingly, disagreement regarding p may persist even though inquiry has established that p. And since inquiry is often complicated and messy, disagreement of this kind can be reasonable. This is simply to say that, given the complexity of inquiry, sincere, intelligent, and honest inquirers can reasonably disagree about the meaning, weight, and significance of new data bearing on p. A society which aspires to enable individuals to be epistemically responsible agents must keep open the avenues by which even well-settled beliefs can be subject to critical scrutiny and dissent. The weak nonconvergentist view need not countenance a point (the “end of inquiry”) at which all disagreement is idle or moot; it requires only that when we have the truth, we have a belief that could survive all objections and withstand scrutiny. But that does not entail that successful inquiry brings to a close all reasoned disagreement; in fact, the entire Peircean analysis requires that beliefs be challenged. Hence there is no inconsistency; pluralism can be held to be a permanent condition on the weak nonconvergentist view. Clanton and Forcehimes agree with me that Deweyan democracy is premised upon widespread agreement with regard to Dewey’s conception of human flourishing, and the corresponding doctrines concerning the nature of the self, the role of community in self-realization, and the need for all social association to be governed by Deweyan norms. Since Deweyan democracy presents an ideal democratic society as one in which all citizens organize their social and personal lives around the project of furthering growth, it is a conception of democracy that is unaware of the fact of its own reasonable rejectability; thus it is inconsistent with pluralism. Clanton and Forcehimes argue, however, that since I must give up on the permanency of pluralism, I must also give up on the claim that the inability to countenance pluralism is fatal to Deweyan democracy. I have argued above that I can accept the permanency of pluralism without adopting a strong nonconvergentism. To be sure, Clanton and Forcehimes are correct to say that I must leave open the possibility that inquiry will reveal Dewey’s self-realization ethics to be the correct view of morality. I happily concede this much. But it seems to me that not even the truth of Dewey’s ethics is sufficient to render those who reject it unreasonable or unfit for democracy. The task of creating a political order in which each person is treated as an equal

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is the task of creating a political order which recognizes reasonable disagreement over moral fundamentals and so forces no one to live according to norms and ideals that could be reasonably rejected. Even if we presume its truth, Deweyan growth is yet but one reasonable view of human flourishing, and the Deweyan view that all social relations should be directed at the mutuallyenriching growth of all is but one reasonable view of how society is best ordered. There are other reasonable views concerning these matters, and in a society of equals, it would be unjust to model all modes of human association exclusively on any one of them. Perhaps in the end Dewey’s view about human fulfillment is true. But that does not by itself settle the question of whether our political and social order ought to reflect that fact. A view which, like Deweyan democracy, proposes a criterion of democracy according to which a society is properly democratic just insofar as all of its institutions and associational forms are aimed at furthering a reasonably rejectable moral ideal is a view that is unfit for contemporary circumstances. Since Deweyans propose to evaluate philosophical ideas and ideals according to their ability to address current experience, Deweyan democracy is a failure on Deweyan grounds; it involves a flight from experience. Thus the conditional premises of Clanton and Forcehimes’s constructive dilemma have been defeated. Strong and weak nonconvergentism are consistent with Peircean democracy. Neither is consistent with Deweyan democracy. Pluralism in all its forms adopts either strong or weak nonconvergentism; therefore Deweyan democracy is inconsistent with pluralism. As the argument has focused exclusively on the nonconvergence component of pluralism, I here have not made the positive case that Peircean democracy is consistent with pluralism as such; however, I have shown that Clanton and Forcehimes’s arguments against the consistency of Peircean democracy with pluralism do not succeed. Consequently, my original thesis stands. NOTES 1. Furthermore, even if strong nonconvergentism is granted, inquiry could converge on a disjunctive answer to Q of the form, “either a, b, or c.” 2. For further discussion, see Cheryl Misak, “Pragmatism and Pluralism,” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 41.1 (2005): 129–135.

Robert B. Talisse Associate Professor of Philosophy and Political Science Department of Philosophy 111 Furman Hall Vanderbilt University Nashville, Tennessee 37240 United States