214 Michael Bradie
for is to produce fruitful hypotheses that withstand rigorous tests.
If we are to take Dewey’s insights seriously, then we have to question the viabil-
ity of the notion of justification in a post-Darwinian age. A persuasive argument
can be given for abandoning any ‘classical’ conception of justification as resting
ona priorifoundations or any essentialistic conception of knowledge or morality.
Following Rachels, Darwinism does not entail that such pursuits are hopeless but
it does serve to ‘undermine’ the metaphysical picture that grounds those pursuits.
It does not follow, however, that the concept of justification has be abandonedtout
court. The rise of modern science saw the decline of the concept of knowledge as
demanding certainty but not the abandonment of ‘justifications.’ The absolutist
conception of knowledge was replaced by a fallibilistic conception. Epistemic fal-
libilism does not eschew justificationper se; it just rejects the idea that any jus-
tifications are absolute. As, Wilfrid Sellars once put it (more or less), knowledge
has foundations but those foundations are at best provisional and subject to re-
assessment as our understanding of what we are investigating matures. We are, as
it were, always grounded but always prepared to challenge those grounds should
the need to do so arise [Sellars, 1997].
A similar case can be made for a ‘normative fallibilism.’ The rejection of abso-
lutist moralities does not mean the rejection of all morality. It just means that we
adopt norms consonant with our agreed upon ends but stand ready to modify and
challenge those ends as the need might arise. This view, I take it, is consonant
with Dewey’s ethics and Quine’s ‘engineering’ approach.
Of course, once one rejects ‘ultimate’ ends and ‘essential’ goods, one is subject
to the charge that abandoning the absolute means endorsing relativism. But this
charge is spurious. Relativism is rampant whenallviews are equally legitimate
atalltimes. Fallibilism does not countenance such a relativistic slant. At any
given stage of our reasoning, be it epistemic or moral, there aremutually accepted
groundsthat circumscribe what it is reasonable to believe or act on. The difference
between the fallibilist and the absolutist is that the fallibilist is prepared, under
appropriate circumstances, to challenge the adequacy of the mutually accepted
grounds and possibly to move on to other vantage points. Of course, this response
invites a challenge to specify what is to count as ‘appropriate’ and ‘adequate’ but
no absolute reply is forthcoming. These are matters for continual discussion and
(re-)evaluation. For a fallibilist that is the best one can hope for.
Does an evolutionary perspectiveentailthat we adopt such a view? No, the
best one can say for the future of our discussions of the nature of normativity is
that the evolutionary point of view lays the groundwork for a metaphysical picture
thatsupportsa thoroughgoing epistemological and moral fallibilism.
3 FINAL THOUGHTSThe relevance of evolutionary theory and the facts of evolutionary history to un-
derstanding the nature of normativity turn on the answers to two preliminary
questions.