Stoicism, Moral Facts, and Ethical Intuitionism
Stoicism, Moral Facts, and Ethical Intuitionism
Five posts by Grant C. Sterling. International Stoic Forum, February 13, 2020 (two messages, 1:01 pm and 1:11 pm); February 24, 2020 (two messages, 10:41 am and 3:57 pm); March 13, 2020 (one message, 3:53 pm). Thread: “Re: What is a fact?” Preserved by Dave Kelly, 2026. Layer: Theoretical Core — Philosophical Commitments. Attribution: Sterling.
Note on System Map dates: The System Map (v2.4, Document 16 entry) records two messages dated February 24 and March 13, 2020. The actual thread contains five messages across three dates: February 13 (two messages), February 24 (two messages), and March 13 (one message). The System Map entry requires correction.
Editorial Note — Dave Kelly
This thread is Sterling’s most sustained and systematic treatment of the correspondence theory of truth, the concept of fact, the structure of knowledge, and the necessity of moral facts for Stoicism. Across five messages Sterling establishes the following: facts are the way the universe actually is, independent of any mind; truth is correspondence of belief with fact; Stoicism is incoherent without moral facts because every central Stoic claim — that externals are neither good nor evil, that role-duties exist, that courage is a virtue — is a claim about objective states of the universe; knowledge in the strict sense requires rational certainty, which is available only for necessary truths grasped directly by the intellect; and the alternatives for moral epistemology are intuitionism or nihilism, with no third option. The thread moves from the definition of fact (February 13) through the architecture of correspondence theory and its necessity for Stoicism (February 24, 10:41 am), through the epistemology of knowledge and justified belief (February 24, 3:57 pm), to the closing argument that moral truths are necessary truths known by Reason in the same way mathematical and logical truths are known (March 13). The five messages together constitute the most complete primary source statement of Sterling’s C4 (correspondence theory) and C5 (ethical intuitionism) commitments available in the corpus.
Message One: Two Errors in Scruton
Grant C. Sterling to the International Stoic Forum, February 13, 2020, 1:01 pm. Thread: “Re: What is a fact?” Responding to a challenge based on Scruton’s claim that the concept of fact cannot be defined and that the correspondence theory moves in a circle.
1) My definition of ‘moral facts’ was actually an illustration of the word “Moral”. So having ‘facts’ on both sides of the equal sign is not a problem here.
2) Scruton is usually a good philosopher, but he makes two very serious errors in this passage.
a) His discussion of facts and propositions is muddled. He says “there are as many facts as true propositions…” and then says “Why speak of truths and facts…?” But he ignores the critical (and, I would have thought, obvious) point that there are also false propositions. Facts are necessary to explain why some propositions are true and others false. They ground truth.
b) He makes another surprising mistake when he confuses the existence of facts with our ability to describe them. Of course we can only describe facts by using language. That’s what language is for — to allow people to communicate their thoughts to other people. Scruton somehow turns this into a pseudo-mystery, a ‘circle’ of thought to thought. But that’s the whole point of the correspondence theory of truth. Language is the tool we use to describe our thoughts. “I believe that my car is black.” What makes that belief true? The actual color of my car — the fact to which my belief corresponds. But now if you ask me to describe that fact, then of course I have to use language to do that. The road from thoughts to facts is not a circle… only the road from thoughts to descriptions of facts is a circle, but a benign one.
I own a black car (a Toyota Corolla). That sentence was written using language. Now imagine what my car looks like. You know full well what color to imagine. You’re not imagining the word “black”, you’re imagining the color itself. You’re not thinking of the word “car”, you’re thinking of a car. Now if there really is, out there in the world, something that looks like what I described, then my sentence is true… if not, then my sentence is false. The fact that my car is black is neither superfluous nor mysterious.
Part of the problem here is that some words can be defined by breaking them down into more fundamental elements. But sometimes you get down to the fundamental elements, and when someone demands a definition you have nothing left but synonyms. There is no helpful definition of ‘fact’, because there is nothing more fundamental than ‘fact’. A fact is “a way the universe is”, but I doubt if that actually informs anyone. If you deny that there are facts, then you deny that reality exists. No Stoic would ever dream of doing that.
Regards, GCS
Message Two: Fact More Basic Than Truth
Grant C. Sterling to the International Stoic Forum, February 13, 2020, 1:11 pm. Thread: “Re: What is a fact?” Responding to a description of his view and his use of words.
All:
1) Yes, your description of my view, and my use of words, is accurate. I try to avoid using ‘truth’ to define ‘fact’, but that’s only because I think that ‘fact’ is more basic than ‘truth’ — if there could be a universe without thinking beings in it (possible, unless God necessarily exists in all universes), then that universe would contain facts but no truths (since there would be no thoughts to be true). But that’s a picky quibble, which I would only worry about if talking to someone like Scruton who would pounce on that technicality. Facts are the way things really are.
2) Philosophers almost always use ‘fact’ in this way — it is facts that make our thoughts true (or false). Non-philosophers often use ‘fact’ to refer not to the world but to a class of our thoughts. Steve is making this sort of distinction here. Other people contrast ‘facts’, which are basically ideas that are so well-verified that they are commonly known and accepted, from ‘opinions’ which are less-well-supported ideas.
I have no problem with Steve (or anyone else) using ‘fact’ in one of these ways, if they’re clear. The reason that philosophers do it their way is that we have to have a word to mean ‘the way the world really is, independently of how we think that it is’, and ‘fact’ is the closest English word we have to that notion.
Regards, GCS
Message Three: Correspondence, Facts, and the Incoherence of Stoicism Without Moral Facts
Grant C. Sterling to the International Stoic Forum, February 24, 2020, 10:41 am. Thread: “Re: What is a fact?”
All:
OK, I have been busy, and I was hoping that this thread had run its course. But I see now that I should have made time to send this message sooner… (By the way, I am using ‘the universe’ to mean ‘all of reality’, ‘Being’, ‘everything that really is’, etc. If you believe in multiple universes, they are all still part of ‘the universe’ as I am using the phrase.)
Let’s start with a (relatively!) simple case. I believe that it is raining outside. That belief is internal to me. It has content, it is ‘about’ something — namely, rain outside. But some beliefs are false — sometimes I believe that it is raining outside, but it isn’t. So beliefs are about the world, and when they match the way the world really is, they’re true… when they don’t they’re false. “Truth” is correspondence of a belief with reality… that’s the ‘correspondence theory of truth’, and it’s the theory of truth that would have been embraced by the ancient Stoics if anyone had asked them, which they didn’t because basically 100% of people throughout most of human history have not only embraced it but thought it was so obvious that there wasn’t even a name for it.
So we have something on the side of the mind — let’s stick with “belief” for a moment. We have something on the side of the universe. And we have the correspondence between them, which is “truth”. Now we need a name for ‘the way the universe actually is’. And the word that philosophers have pretty much unanimously chosen is “fact”. So “facts”, as philosophers use the word, are not things in our minds** — they’re things in the world.##
Belief (in the mind) → Fact (how the universe is) = Truth
Belief —///— Fact = Falsehood
Now the story above works with other mental attitudes as well. For example, I perceive that there is a Pepsi can on the desk in front of me. If, in fact, there is a Pepsi can in front of me, then my perception is accurate. (You can call this match “truth” as well, if you like… it’s certainly a close cousin to ‘truth’ as applied to beliefs.) But the perception is still in the mind, and the facts about what I am perceiving are still in reality, outside the mind (ordinarily**). Or, in a different case, we say “her wish came true” when her wish, in her mind, matched up with the facts of the universe. I can desire something, and I will receive positive feelings when the world in fact fits my desire, and negative feelings when it doesn’t (which is why I need to change my desires in the way the Stoics recommend). There are many sorts of mental attitudes that are ‘about’ the universe, and sometimes the universe fits those attitudes, and sometimes it doesn’t.%%
So cataleptic impressions, if they exist, are not the same thing as ‘facts’. An impression is a way of seeing the world… but some impressions are false, they don’t match up with the way the universe really is. That’s the heart and soul of Stoicism — most of our impressions about good and evil do not match up with the way good and evil really are in the universe. Cataleptic impressions are a special class of impressions, because they always match up with the facts. But CIs are still inside our minds, and if there were no facts outside the mind, our CIs could never be true… that is, they could never be cataleptic! So CIs in my mind need facts outside my mind in order for them to be true.
So Stoicism is incoherent without moral facts. Unless the universe really contains good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, and contains them in definite states that are independent of how we want them to be, the whole view would make no sense. Externals are neither good nor evil — the Stoics think this is a fact about the universe. If there are no facts, then the Stoic view of what is good, evil, or indifferent is no more valid than the ordinary view. The Stoics think that we have role-duties. This is a (putative) fact. If there are no such facts, then we have no duties, and psychopaths are closer to the truth about morality than we are. Courage, the Stoics think, is a Virtue. If there are no moral facts, then there are no virtues. The Stoics consistently believe that there are objective “right answers” about these things, and their view requires this.
As I said before, if you have an irrational fixation against the word “fact” that matches Gich’s irrational fixation against “moral”, by all means use some other word or phrase. But make sure not to pick a word or phrase that ordinarily refers to something on the left side of the truth-correspondence arrow. Don’t use ‘impression’ (cataleptic or otherwise), ‘belief’, ‘opinion’, or even ‘truth’. Some philosophers like ‘state of affairs’. Whatever. But I hope that I am sufficiently clear now:
Mental attitudes point out towards the universe. Sometimes they match up with the way the universe actually is. (Sometimes, they don’t.) I am using, always have used, and intend to continue to use the word “fact” to refer to the way the universe actually is.
This is quite long enough for now. I’ll have another post about things like “knowledge” and “certainty” and “skepticism” and “pragmatism” at a future time.
Regards, GCS
** Of course, there are facts about things in our minds, too. When I say “I believe that Abimelech is deliberately lying” I am making a claim about what’s going on in Abi’s mind — namely, that his thoughts don’t match with his words. There must be a fact about what Abi is actually thinking, just as there are facts about what I am thinking.
## Another picky point of clarification. There are many facts out there that have no corresponding human mental attitude. There is an undiscovered planet out there in another galaxy, that has a certain total volume. But no human has ever formed a belief about what that volume is. So there is a fact “planet P has volume v”, but no-one has any beliefs about planet P.
%% There are also assertions (statements, sentences, etc.), which represent mental attitudes, and which can also correspond (or fail to correspond) with the facts.
Message Four: Knowledge, Justification, and the Four Combinations
Grant C. Sterling to the International Stoic Forum, February 24, 2020, 3:57 pm. Thread: “Re: What is a fact?”
All:
So, again, however anyone else wishes to use their words, I will always mean by “fact” the objective reality, the state of the universe (essentially, what Steve and Kant call “noumena/-on”).
Let us return to where I started, with a belief. I believe that it is raining outside. If that belief corresponds to the facts, if it actually is raining outside, then the belief is true.
But let’s for a moment stop thinking about whether our beliefs correspond to the facts, and think about the beliefs themselves. Some beliefs are reasonable, rational, or justified, while some are not. My belief that it is raining outside is based on the fact that I heard today’s weather forecast and it predicted continual rain, plus the fact that I was outside a while ago and perceived rain, as well as solid dark clouds in every direction, suggesting that the rain would not be stopping soon. Those two things together give me good reason, I think, to believe that it is raining outside. Of course, I could easily imagine having stronger evidence. The office that I’m writing from has no windows, and I cannot hear rain on the roof, either. If I could see or hear rain right now, that would make my evidence even stronger. Or, of course, I could actually be outside, perceiving the rain. Evidence, ‘justification’, comes in degrees. Some of our beliefs are well justified, some poorly justified (and some clearly unjustified).
I am using ‘evidence’ in the widest possible sense. So, for example, suppose that I consider the proposition “modus ponens is deductively valid”. (M.p. is the argument structure: ‘If p, then q; p; therefore, q’. ‘Deductively valid’ means that it is impossible for the premises to both be true while the conclusion is false.) I can “see”, mentally, that mp is valid. That is, when I contemplate the propositions involved, it is obvious to my intellect that there is no way those premises could be true and the conclusion false, regardless of what you wish to plug in for ‘p’ and ‘q’. I would say that I have extremely strong evidence for the truth of that proposition, that my belief that it is true is overwhelmingly justified.
In fact, I would say that in this case I have certainty. Not just psychological certainty (“I’m really, really, sure that it’s true”), although I do have that, but rational certainty — it is impossible (I assert) for this belief to be false.
When I use the word “knowledge” in the strict sense (that is, the careful, philosophical sense, not like ordinary conversation where people casually say “I know that…” promiscuously for a wide range of their beliefs), I will mean that I have rational certainty that my belief is true — it is impossible for me to be wrong.
This is the traditional sense of the word “knowledge”. It’s what Plato and Aristotle meant by the word, as well as most of their opponents. It’s what the Stoics mean. It’s not a popular view today among philosophers, because of course we know very little according to this definition. But I think that this is one area where ancient philosophers were wiser than contemporary philosophers. Anyway, wise or not, that’s how I’m going to use the word.
In fact, people like Plato were so concerned to mark off the difference between knowledge and belief/opinion that they even refused to call what we know a “belief” at all. That is, where I characterized “knowledge” as a rationally certain belief, Plato insisted on using the word “belief” in such a way that it meant by definition “something that falls short of knowledge”. For him, if I “believe that p”, then by definition I do not “know that p”. Although I am in fundamental agreement with him about what knowledge is, I think it’s easier to use modern language, where ‘knowledge’ is one species of belief — namely, certain belief.
Now keep in mind that I think that beliefs can be rational, justified, without being known. I do not know that it is raining outside. (In fact, the longer I spend typing this message, the weaker my justification gets.) But I think that my belief is justified. (Note that justification comes in degrees, but knowledge does not — you either know, or you don’t.)
OK, what kinds of beliefs could be “known”, and what kinds cannot?
Well, on my view, contingent facts are tremendously difficult, if not impossible, to “know”. Because if the fact is not logically necessary, then that almost always raises the possibility that it isn’t a fact at all. There is no logically necessary reason why it must be raining outside right now, and so I can certainly imagine the opposite state of affairs — I can easily imagine it not raining right now. Since from a logical point of view both states are possible, it becomes very difficult to try to claim that I know either one with certainty. I would have to have some infallible method of grasping these contingent facts, and that leads us to our next problem…
By the same token, it is impossible to have knowledge of something if the means of gathering evidence is/are fallible. So, for example, my senses work indirectly, through a long causal chain, and every link in the chain introduces the possibility of error. So while I think that I am strongly justified in believing that there is a Pepsi can on my desk right now, because I clearly see it right in front of me, I must admit the possibility (however slight) that my senses are misleading me (or, as St. Augustine and Descartes note, the possibility that I am not perceiving but am actually dreaming). So I do not know that there’s a Pepsi can in front of me.
So there are four combinations:
1) contingent facts discovered by fallible means
2) contingent facts discovered by infallible means
3) necessary facts discovered by fallible means
4) necessary facts discovered by infallible means
1) Some very, very large percentage of our beliefs are beliefs about contingent truths based on fallible evidence, and hence do not constitute knowledge. The majority of our beliefs are based on our senses, or on the testimony of other people. Both of those methods are fallible, and so no knowledge whatsoever can ever come from them. But that’s fine — we seldom have to have knowledge… justified beliefs are fine. And this is also the realm of Science. Science builds strongly justified beliefs by putting together the sensory evidence of different people, coordinating it, testing it, etc. This will never reach certainty, scientifically-based beliefs are always subject to possible error and therefore should always be held in such a way that they can be revised if necessary. But, again, that’s just fine — it would be idiotic to throw out Science just because it doesn’t reach absolute certainty, and it would be idiotic to do the same with my many ordinary sensory beliefs. When I’m done today I will walk to the parking lot where I remember having parked my car, and I will expect it to be there. Yes, maybe I dreamed it. And maybe it has been stolen, or annihilated by an alien ray gun, or whatever. But the small possibility of error does not mean that I should reject the belief.** ##
2) Now there is one area, and on my view only one area, where we have infallible knowledge of contingent facts… and that is our introspective knowledge of the contents of our own minds. I cannot be certain that it is raining outside, but I can be certain that I believe that it is raining. (You can’t be certain, because I might be lying to you. But my knowledge is direct and unmediated.) I believe that I hit my knuckle in a door earlier today… but I am certain that I feel mild pain right now. Knowledge is only possible in this case because, as I said, my awareness of my own mental states is direct and unmediated — there are no causal steps that can go wrong in this case.
3) Fallible awareness of necessary facts commonly occurs in the case of believing things on the basis of testimony of others, even though one cannot “see” (directly grasp) the truth oneself. My mathematician friends often tell me that certain things in higher math have been proven, where I cannot grasp the proof. When I was a child, I believed that 6x0=0 because my teacher told me that it was true. This is not knowledge — the person speaking to you could be lying, or they could be mistaken, or you might be misunderstanding what they’re saying. Again, your belief-based-on-testimony might be justified, even very strongly justified. I think that I was very strongly justified in believing that 6x0=0 simply because my teacher and the math textbook both agreed that it was true.
4) Finally, we come to infallible awareness of necessary facts. On my view, this comes when my mind directly and clearly grasps the fact which I claim to know. At some point, I saw that 6x0 had to equal 0. I apprehended its necessity, I grasped the fact directly with my mind. At some point in my life I knew that modus ponens was valid. I didn’t believe it because the book said that it was valid, or because I could plug in a few values for ‘p’ and ‘q’ and end up with conclusions that I was sure were true — at some point I grasped it directly with my Intellect. I cannot be wrong about this — it is rationally certain. I know it.
I’m out of time for today. (Do I hear cheering?) I will apply all of this to moral beliefs tomorrow.
Regards, GCS
** Stoic “Logic”, that is epistemology, is sometimes difficult to interpret, and it is not obvious that the Stoics all held exactly the same theories in this area. It may be that some of the Stoics at least insisted on holding only absolutely certain beliefs, but preserved something like our ordinary beliefs about the world by transforming them into beliefs about our inner states of perception. So, for example, rather than believe “there is a Pepsi can on the desk in front of me” (which might be false), I should believe only “it appears to me that there is a Pepsi can on the desk in front of me”, which can be known infallibly. I have no fixation on infallibility, and so I am willing to go on holding justified-but-possibly-mistaken beliefs rather than undergo this psychological transformation. But if you prefer the other strategy, I think that’s a valid option. This would square with the way that the Stoics sometimes seem to treat the Sage as infallible in belief.
## In ordinary speech, when someone says “It’s a fact that…” or variations thereof, they are basically saying “I’m really sure that my assertion conforms with reality”. So using the word “fact” to refer to “strongly justified scientific beliefs” is not really a problem, just as long as we keep clear that there is a metaphysical difference between anything we believe and the way the universe actually is, even if there is a correspondence between the one and the other.
Message Five: Intuitionism or Nihilism — There Is No Third Alternative
Grant C. Sterling to the International Stoic Forum, March 13, 2020, 3:53 pm. Thread: “Re: What is a fact?” Responding to Steve Marquis on whether moral facts can be grounded empirically through the assumption that existence is good.
I totally agree that IF one makes the unspoken assumption that existence is good and non-existence is not good, you may then proceed by empirical (or quasi-empirical) steps to conclusions about ethics. But my entire point was that the assumption itself is non-empirical. One can assume that pleasure is better than pain, and reach conclusions about ethics from that. Or the assumption that Courage is better than cowardice, or that truth-telling is better than lying, or any number of other things. Give me a non-empirical assumption to use as a crowbar, and no door will stand against me.
But I deny you that assumption. Some ethicists try to cheat, and engage in a bit of linguistic sleight-of-hand. (I do not accuse you of this.) They say that they will use ‘good’ as an empirical term, meaning something like ‘in accord with evolutionary fitness’ or something like that. Then before you know it they’re telling you that you ought to do this or that. But of course that is deceitful. If you wish to distort the word ‘good’ in this way, I cannot stop you, but I can deny you the right to make the derivations that one can make with the word in its ordinary meaning. (I.e., from ‘this action would cause the most good’ many people accept ‘this action is right — I ought to do it’. But from ‘this action would cause the most evolutionary fitness’ we cannot immediately derive anything about what we ought to do.) Furthermore, they cheat — evolutionary fitness is a notion that applies to a particular entity. I am evolutionarily fit if I am well-suited to have my genes preserved in posterity. From this you might get conclusions about how I should best preserve my own life and health, or that of my close relatives, but you can never get to conclusions about sacrificing myself for people in distant countries, etc.
If, on the other hand, I grant you one non-empirical assumption, then how can you deny me the right to introduce a second assumption? Or a third? If intuition, or Reason, or whatever you wish to call it justifies your assumption that existence or life is better than non-existence or death, then I can argue that it justifies other things. So my claim that our alternatives are intuitionism on the one hand or nihilism (or total skepticism, which is identical for practical uses) on the other hand has nothing to do with certainty — either we can see into the moral realm (however dimly), or else we are blind. Prefer a fallible intuitionism aiming at contingent truths if you’d like, but I still don’t see any third alternative.
‘Good’, ‘bad’, ‘right’, ‘wrong’, ‘virtuous’, ‘vicious’… none of these things can be heard, smelt, tasted, seen, or felt. If there are moral facts that we can know (or even have the most faintly justified beliefs about), then we have to have a non-empirical way of knowing them. Since I don’t believe in a moral sense, and since I think the truths are necessary and not contingent, and since I already believe in the power of Reason to give us (certain) knowledge of mathematical and logical truths… my ethical position falls out of that.
And, for what it’s worth, I don’t see any better way of understanding the position of the ancient Stoics, either. I acknowledge that this is a debatable point (maybe they did believe in a sixth, moral, sense).
And none of this has anything to do with the existence of moral facts.
Regards, GCS
Corpus Note — Dave Kelly
These five messages together establish the six most important claims Sterling makes across the C4 (correspondence theory) and C5 (ethical intuitionism) commitments.
First, from Messages One and Two: facts are the way the universe actually is, independent of any mind. ‘Fact’ is more fundamental than ‘truth’ — a universe without thinking beings would contain facts but no truths. Facts ground the truth/falsity distinction: they are necessary to explain why some propositions are true and others false. The objector who demands a definition of ‘fact’ in terms of something more fundamental has simply reached the foundational category at which the regress must stop.
Second, from Message Three: truth is correspondence of belief with reality. This is not a technical philosophical position Sterling introduces from outside Stoicism — it is what the ancient Stoics already assumed, so obvious they had no name for it. The heart and soul of Stoicism is that most impressions about good and evil do not match up with the way good and evil really are in the universe. That statement requires correspondence theory to give the word “match” its content.
Third, from Message Three: Stoicism is incoherent without moral facts. The claims that externals are neither good nor evil, that role-duties exist, that courage is a virtue — all are claims about objective states of the universe. Remove moral facts and there are no objective right answers, no virtues, and no basis for calling the ordinary view wrong rather than merely different.
Fourth, from Message Four: knowledge in the strict sense requires rational certainty, available only for necessary truths grasped directly by the intellect. Contingent facts discovered by fallible means — the vast majority of our beliefs, including all scientific knowledge — do not constitute knowledge in this sense, though they may be strongly justified. The fourth combination — necessary facts grasped directly by the intellect — is the only domain of genuine knowledge. This is the epistemological framework within which moral knowledge must be located.
Fifth, from Message Five: moral terms — good, bad, right, wrong, virtuous, vicious — cannot be heard, smelt, tasted, seen, or felt. If there are moral facts we can know, we must have a non-empirical way of knowing them. The alternatives are intuitionism or nihilism. There is no third option. Any empirical grounding of ethics requires a non-empirical starting assumption, and once one such assumption is granted, the intuitionist’s position follows.
Sixth, from Message Five: moral truths are necessary, not contingent, and are known by Reason in the same way mathematical and logical truths are known. This is the intuitionist epistemology in its simplest and most direct form, connecting C5 directly to C4: the same rational faculty that grasps necessary logical and mathematical truths grasps necessary moral truths, and the correspondence theory specifies what it means for those truths to be truths — they correspond to objective features of reality.
Sources: International Stoic Forum, thread “Re: What is a fact?”: February 13, 2020, 1:01 pm; February 13, 2020, 1:11 pm; February 24, 2020, 10:41 am; February 24, 2020, 3:57 pm; March 13, 2020, 3:53 pm. Author: Grant C. Sterling. Preserved by Dave Kelly, 2026.
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