Judgments of Beauty in Theory Evaluation
Judgments of Beauty in Theory Evaluation
Devon Brickhouse-Bryson
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Much of chapter 3 (“Reflective Equilibrium: Judgments of Coherence as Judgments of Beauty”) is drawn from Devon Brickhouse-Bryson, “Reflective Equilibrium, Judgments of Coherence, and Judgments of Beauty” in Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal 102:1:31-60. Copyright © 2019 The Pennsylvania State University Press. This article is used by permission of The Pennsylvania State University Press.
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ISBN 978-1-4985-9717-3 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4985-9718-0 (electronic)
For my first teachers of philosophy, Mason Marshall and Caleb Clanton
Contents
Introduction: Theory Evaluation
2 An Account of Beauty: Unprincipled, Yet Genuine
3 Reflective Equilibrium: Judgments of Coherence as Judgments of Beauty
4 Simplicity: Judgments of Simplicity as Judgments of Beauty
5 Justifying Beauty-Related Methods of Theory Evaluation
Coda: Three Issues for Future Work
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Much of chapter 3 (“Reflective Equilibrium: Judgments of Coherence as Judgments of Beauty”) is drawn from Brickhouse-Bryson, Devon. 2019. “Reflective Equilibrium, Judgments of Coherence, and Judgments of Beauty.” Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal 102:1:31–60. Copyright © 2019 The Pennsylvania State University Press. This chapter is used by permission of The Pennsylvania State University Press. I am grateful for permission to use this material. Discussion with many people contributed to this work, I am grateful to have received so much support. Thanks are due to the philosophy department at the University of Tennessee and the fellows of the Tennessee Humanities Center, class of 2015–2016. Special thanks are due to David Reidy, Jon Garthoff, David Palmer, Allen Dunn, Richard Swinburne, Markus Kohl, and Adam Cureton as well as to Jordan Baker and Julian & Melanie Reese. Special thanks are also due to Ian O’Loughlin for providing helpful comments on a draft of this manuscript. Most thanks of all is due to my wife and philosopher companion, Mary Helen Brickhouse-Bryson.
Truth is the first virtue of systems of thought, as justice is of social institutions. Any system of thought, no matter how elegant, must be rejected if it is not true.1 When we ask questions, philosophical or otherwise, we want answers and we want those answers to be true. But answers to philosophical, scientific, and complex questions of every kind must provide an explanation. “Does justice require arranging social and economic inequalities such that they are to the benefit of the least advantaged group?” “Does knowledge have any conditions beyond justified true belief?” “Do judgments of beauty refer to any principles?” “Does God exist?” “Do heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects?” “Do the planets move according to Copernicus’ model of the solar system?” “Is there such a thing as absolute rest?” “Was there a conspiracy to fake the moon landing?” “Did Colonel Mustard kill Mr. Boddy?” These questions, and the infinite others like them, cannot be satisfactorily answered with a mere “yes” or “no,” even if that “yes” or “no” were true. Instead, they must be answered with a system of thought—a theory.2 Such a system of thought, a theory, is meant to provide an explanation of the phenomenon our question refers to. Only such an explanation of the phenomenon will satisfy our questioning. And the first virtue of such answers, explanations, and theories is truth, or at least some kind of epistemic value (probability of truth, predictiveness, constructive usefulness, power to promote understanding, and so on).3 No matter what other qualities explanations and theories have, they must be epistemically good if they are to be good explanations and theories. A theory, no matter how elegant, must be rejected if it is not epistemically good. But how do we figure out which theories are true, or epistemically good, and which are not?
Let’s work through some of the examples above in more detail. Rawls thought that justice does require arranging social and economic inequalities such that they are to the benefit of the least advantaged group. This is the difference principle—one part of one of Rawls’ two fundamental principles of justice. But clearly Rawls cannot simply insist that the difference principle is a true principle of justice. Nor can he simply put the principle to us and ask us to simply “see” its truth in isolation. To vindicate the difference principle, he must offer a theory of justice, which is of course exactly what he does. A system of thought must be constructed, refined, and deployed to answer our question “Does justice require arranging social and economic inequalities such that they are to the benefit of the least advantaged group?” Rawls’ theory of justice is such a system of thought. To answer our question about social and economic inequalities, we’ve been forced to explain the nature of justice itself. Now of course we want to know whether this system of thought—this theory of justice, which explains justice and in turn answers our question—is true.
The question of the truth of Rawls’ theory of justice is made more pointed by noticing that it is not the only theory of justice on offer. And the other competing theories of justice will issue different verdicts about the difference principle by means of a different explanation of justice.
