GENEALOGÍA DE LA MORAL Y LA TRANSVALORACIÓN MODERNA FRIEDRICH

For those who think that the priority intuitions are intuitions about explanation, a putative advantage of the grounding-based route to vindicating these claims is the ability to provide a systematic story about how these judgements fit together. In other words, if we vindicate the truth of the priority intuitions by appealing to grounding, we are granted a powerful tool in the form of a ready-made theory of metaphysical explanation (there are in fact two incarnations of such a theory; see Chapter 3). For, the grounding-based theorist can use her framework to identify other cases of metaphysical explanation—ones where we perhaps didn’t already have a priority intuition—and she can unify them all together

under the banner of grounding. The grounding-based theories, then, do not merely vindicate the intuitions, but does so in a way that has a certain theoretical utility.

Now, not everyone will see the fact that positing grounding grants one a ready- made theory of metaphysical explanation as an advantage. Some will take issue with the very notion of metaphysical explanation, and some will think that, while there are metaphysical explanations, they are nothing like the phenomenon I describe here. I have no qualms with either of these views. If, for whatever reason, one rejects the notion of metaphysical explanation characterised below, then one will not seek to vindicate the priority intuitions in a way that also generates a theory of metaphysical explanation. As such, one will have one fewer reasons to endorse a grounding-based theory.

The notion of metaphysical explanation that I will characterise below is one that

can be accounted for in terms of grounding—it would be grossly uncharitable of me to

characterise the notion some other way. For, if the notion considered here were sufficiently dissimilar to the notion that my opponent is working with, she could legitimately accuse me of changing the subject. So, the notion spelled out below will resemble the grounding-based theorist’s notion—though, as I shall argue, it need not rest on her preferred ontology. For, as I will demonstrate, the Grounding-free Theory also has the resources to vindicate the priority intuitions in a way that grants us a theory of metaphysical explanation—if that is indeed the kind of vindication that we’re after. In sum, the current characterisation is merely intended to be neutral between the theories discussed in this thesis (in that it is neutral between ontologically heavy-duty and lightweight views of explanation), not neutral between all potential ways of thinking about metaphysical explanation.

Hence, much of the below characterisation of metaphysical explanation will echo the treatment of that notion in the grounding literature. Indeed, one way to positively characterise the relevant notion is by ostension: metaphysical explanations are the things

that grounding is supposed to elucidate, and the things that are putatively made true by the existence of grounding relations. Indeed—as argued in Chapter 3—the ontologically lightweight

‘sentential operator’ view of grounding closely resembles this notion of metaphysical explanation.

Ultimately, the plan is to argue that there are grounding-free ways of developing a theory of metaphysical explanation that are at least as good as the ready-made theories

we get from positing grounding. Thus, the grounding-based approach to vindicating the priority judgements gains no dialectical advantage by way of a theory of metaphysical explanation. Furthermore, the grounding-free ways of developing a theory of

metaphysical explanation are embedded in a more parsimonious (as they don’t require positing grounding relations) and elegant overall theory. So, my preferred explanation of the priority judgements is compatible with vindicating these judgements in a way that is consistent with a theory of metaphysical explanation.

To be clear: the structure of my argument is conditional: even if one seeks vindication of the priority intuitions that is compatible with a theory of metaphysical explanation of the kind my opponent desires (I am agnostic about whether we ought to seek this kind of vindication), this can be done just as well without positing grounding. In what follows, I will say a little more to neutrally characterise the metaphysical explanations. This will help to spell out the target of investigation, and thereby help us see what we might want from a theory of that thing.

Naturally, the metaphysical explanations inherit the features of the priority intuitions that we noted in §2.1.2. Thus, we can begin by noting that they are non- diachronic. Defenders of grounding contend that this is because metaphysical

explanations are in the business of tracking the generation of the world. However, rather than tracking its diachronic generation, from one moment to the next, instead the thought is that metaphysical explanations track its non-diachronic generation, from the more fundamental to the less fundamental. In other words, metaphysical explanations are typically thought to move ‘up’ the axis that Wilsch (2015, 2016) calls the ‘axis of fundamentality’, with the more fundamental providing explanations for the less fundamental. Yet, the metaphysical explanations need not be understood in this way, which seems to beg the question in favour of ontic, grounding-based theories. Indeed, Wilsch characterises the idea of the ‘axis of fundamentality’ in terms of grounding.

Instead, we might understand the relevant notion of fundamentality in terms of metaphysical explanation, such that the term ‘fundamental’ in this context describes something that does not itself require a metaphysical explanation. It is explanatorily basic; primitive; unexplained.37 _{This leaves open, of course, that what is unexplained, and}

37 _{There are, of course, other ways of spelling out what is fundamental that need not be tightly linked to}

metaphysical explanation. Perhaps the fundamental is the minimal supervenience base for everything else, or that which is quantified over in our microphysical theories. Thus, one who denies the truth of the

thereby fundamental, from one perspective might not match what is fundamental from another perspective.

With this notion of fundamentality in hand we can express the related notion of

derivativeness. That which is not fundamental is derivative. Thus the derivative requires

metaphysical explanation, and is ultimately explained by the fundamental. The explanandum of any metaphysical explanation must be derivative, as it is explained in terms of something else. The explanans of a metaphysical explanation may or may not be fundamental, depending upon whether it is further explained by something else.

The metaphysical explanations inherit several other features from the priority intuitions. For example, they have a particularly broad modal scope. Just as we observed that there is a traditional modal relation accompanying each priority intuition (though the inverse is not the case; §2.2) metaphysical explanations are such that every possible world in which the explanans is true is a world at which the explanandum is true also (though, as also noted, this is contentious: see Leuenberger, 2014; Skiles, 2015 and Chudnoff, ms). Thus, Trogdon argues that it is in the nature of explanation to show how the

explanandum “couldn’t have been otherwise” given the truth of its explanans

(2013b:footnote 3) and deRossett insists that “If it is possible for the explanans to obtain while the explanandum does not, then the explanans does not make the explanandum obtain, and so the explanation fails.” (2013:15).

Likewise, metaphysical explanations mirror the priority intuitions in being irreflexive (nothing metaphysically explains itself) and asymmetric (if A metaphysically explains B, B does not metaphysically explain A).38 _{This reflects our preferences}

regarding explanation more generally. We don’t find a putative explanation of a phenomenon in terms of itself to be at all illuminating (consider the banality of the exchange: “Why X?” …“Because X”). Similar thoughts apply to the circular explanations that arise from symmetrical explanations. So, the metaphysical explanations are

irreflexive and asymmetric.

While this is not explicitly captured by the priority intuitions, the metaphysical explanations also appear to admit of a distinction between whole and partial explanation                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

propositions expressed by the priority intuitions, even sans a theory of metaphysical explanation, can still meaningfully talk about fundamentality.

38 _{See the discussion of Jenkins (2011) in Chapter 3 regarding quasi-irreflexivity. Likewise, Barnes}

(following Fine, 2012). This is useful to note here, as not all features of the former are shared by the latter. For example, while a whole metaphysical explanans should necessitate its explanandum, not so for a partial explanation. Recall that, on a roughly utilitarian picture, the causing of a great amount of suffering and no happiness is the whole metaphysical explanation of why action X is wrong. Moreover, the part of this explanans which states that action X will cause a great amount of suffering is a plausible partial explanation of its wrongness. In the mereological case, while the existence and arrangement of all of the simples composing James might constitute a whole explanation for his existence, his existence is partially explained by the existence and arrangement of the atoms that compose his head. Of note is that neither of these partial explanantia necessitate their respective explananda. In the ensuing discussion of theories of metaphysical explanation, our target will be whole explanations (unless explicitly mentioned otherwise) and the features thereof.

That concludes the neutral characterisation of the metaphysical explanations, and the explication of how one might consider it a virtue of an explanation of the priority intuitions if it also lends itself to a theory of metaphysical explanation. However, we currently lack the tools with which to compare such theories. Thus, we now move on to consider some desirable features of a theory of explanation more generally.