Does Gangadean even know what he means?

According to Ganagdean, "must something be eternal?" is the most basic question a person can ask. Or he means that it's the most basic question, period. Do questions exist without their relation to questioners? I'm not really sure which he intends. But for my purposes either one will suffice. At any rate, so much of Gangadean's worldview is built on this question about eternality. What I want to briefly explore is how someone could come up with an answer to this question. If we follow Gangadean, meaning is more basic than truth. That means before we can even begin addressing the question of whether something must be eternal, we must figure out what we mean by 'eternal' (at least given a plausible assumption called the compositionality of meaning). Ask yourself, how would one come up with an answer to the question, what is the meaning of the word 'eternal'?

When we get into the meaning of words, things get complicated. It seems like language is conventional. Had the history of the world gone a little differently, my label for a table might have been 'chair' or any number of other words that are not in fact associated with tables. It is likely the case that someone, somewhere introduced the word 'table' to denote tables and then it got accepted (tacitly) by other language users and stayed that way. But suppose a person had tried to introduce the word 'table' to denote tables, and nobody accepted it for whatever reason. Then we'd be hard pressed to think that the word 'table' denoted or perhaps meant tables. Maybe you're thinking that it could very well have denoted or even meant table for that person, but it is far from obvious that meaning is so subjective. I might proclaim that from here on out, I will refer to dogs whenever I use the word 'table', but it isn't clear I would succeed. At least it's far from obvious what I will have meant in the given scenario in saying the following: "I want a table for a pet." Did I mean that I want a dog for a pet? If so, what makes that true? Is it because I had in mind, a dog when I was using the word 'table'? If so, then meaning seems to be subjective and sort of "in the head." Most philosopher reject this subjectivist kind of theory. Meaning is thought to be more objective in some sense, but it isn't as if anybody has got knock down arguments for it. Instead, philosophers working on these issues depend on certain intuitive reactions to scenarios like the the one I just presented. Theories are meant to accommodate such intuitions and are accepted on such grounds. 

The point is, when we ask ourselves what the meaning of a word is, it's a bit tricky to figure out how we go about answering it. What methods do we employ and how do we know that those methods are veridical? It's not like we have a perceptual faculty dedicated to figuring out the meanings of words. This relates to my analysis of Gangadean's views because the word 'eternal' is of no exception. Indeed all of the many key words and expressions that Gangadean uses to make his arguments are no exception. Presumably, the word 'eternal' entered into our vocabulary at some point in history. It was in some way associated with some state of affairs that persons at least thought to reflect reality.

A side note: there's just no guarantee that the words in our language actually refer to anything that exists. 'Phlogiston' for example is a word that was thought at one time to refer to something that all combustible bodies had and which got released when burned, but we no longer believe that such a things exists (or ever existed for that matter). True, the meaning of a word is thought not to be exhausted by the thing it refers to (see Frege on Sense and Reference). But there's at least some intimate connection between meaning and reference/denotation/extension. It's standard to think that the sense or intension of a word is something like a condition which fixes the referent/extension of the word.

Now the word 'eternal' presumably gained tacit acceptance and was passed down from generation to generation like the word 'chair', 'horse' and the like. Of course, there's no way for us to know for sure that the meaning was stable with every generation nor can we know for sure that it was passed down faithfully. Relatedly, there isn't anyway for us to be sure that when I say 'eternal' I have in mind exactly what you do when you use the same word. I can't get inside your head as it were. Of course, you can start to spell off other words to try and see if we are thinking the same thing when we use the word, but that leads to a regress: if I use other words to try and tell you what I am thinking when I use the word 'eternal', then one will wonder whether we are in the same kind of mental state when we use those other words. In the case of a word like 'chair' you might think that I could via enumeration or ostention help you get to what I mean (or at least intend on meaning) when I use it. I could for instance point to a particular object (hopefully a chair) and say, 'chair!'. But notice that my pointing is anything but an infallible means of getting you to adopt or realize what I intend on meaning. After all, pointing is far from precise. In all likelihood, I can at best, point to a particular space-time chunk of the chair or perhaps in some general vicinity. Even physical contact faces this issue. You as the observer can of course make your best estimation as to what object in the world I might be referring to, but it will be anything but clear or certain (in the Gangadeanian sense). So there's a separate though related question emerging about how we determine what a person at least thinks they mean, when they use a word.

Now the main issue with what I'm calling subjectivist views of meaning, where the meaning of a word is just what the speaker intends in using the word, is that it's hard to say that anybody ever uses a word incorrectly. And again, philosophers depend on intuitive reactions to thought experiments, here. They think of cases where it just seems intuitively like a person is using a word incorrectly and take this as a datum for their theorizing. As it concerns Gangadean, I can't see how this subjectivist view would serve his purposes. If the meaning of 'eternal' is whatever each of us attaches to that word (in our heads) whenever we use it, then we could have radically different meanings, from one another and even from ourselves on any given occasion and skepticism looms. We couldn't be sure that we are following any of his arguments which depend crucially on the meaning of such words.

Maybe meaning is not subjective anyway, as most philosophers would have it. It's a public affair arising out of a language community. On such a view, a person can simply be wrong about their usage of a term insofar as it deviates sufficiently from the way other competent language users in their community use the word. This means that in order to figure out the meaning of a word, one must do a lot of surveying of how competent language users actually use the words in question. Of course, you've got to figure out what counts as a competent language user, first which is no simple task. But if this were Gangadean's view, then this seems contrary to his way of doing philosophy. As I've complained, repeatedly, Gangadean often just stipulates the meanings of words. He asserts the definitions of all sorts of things as if he's got the final say in the matter. The word 'eternal' is a prime example. Strangely he doesn't do what linguists do---searching through databases for natural occurrences of a word in published works, or by conducting sociological experiments to see how people in fact use the word. He doesn't present empirical research to support his views about what he thinks words mean--i.e., to show that the meaning he attaches to particular words is actually shared among the relevant population of interest. Moreover, even if he did, it wouldn't give him certainty---this is because such empirical work is going to be inductive at best. You've got to make lots of inferences and estimations to go from observable behavior to the meaning of an expression.

A third option is that there's something like objective meaning that is neither subjective nor determined by the practices of a language community. I'm not sure what a view like this would amount to. Maybe it's the idea that there is a dictionary according to God or something at least functionally equivalent. This flies in the face of observation (note words in a given language get introduced and removed and even seem to change meaning over time--and so such a view would have to deny that this is possible). Moreover, it suggests that words mean what they do by necessity which is to say language is not a matter of convention. That's a big bullet to bite. The most serious worry here is how one could access "God's lexicon" and furthermore, how one would ever know that one has in fact done so. I kind of think Gangadean actually acts as if this picture of language/meaning is true; whether he believes it or not is another question. He seems to think that he can just sit in his arm-chair and think about the meanings of words and then arrive at the "true definitions" as it were. This is rife with problems as it concerns certainty. The thing is, he never bothers to tell you how he knows with certainty that he's got it right. Even if there was such a mysterious lexicon of the universe, it doesn't follow that one has infallible access to it, or any access to it for that matter. 

The complexities that we introduce when we get into talk about meaning are numerous. There's a vast sea of dense literature. Contrary to appearances, it's not that easy to say what the meaning of ordinary terms like 'chair' and 'table' are.  To add insult to injury, it's not even clear how we go about determining the meaning of such words, at least if we're after certainty. How much more for a word like 'eternal' which presumably isn't something directly associated with observable phenomena (i.e., you can't point at something as say, 'eternal'). What's surprising is that Gangadean never seems to even question this stuff and you'll likely not meet a Gangadeanian who is concerned with it. Gangadean just sort of lays down the law in Aristotelian style. He tells you what a word means never once asking how he could determine a thing like that in the first place. Maybe he thinks that he speaks for everyone (at least all competent language users)---that somehow he represents all of us. But that's extremely contentious.

Now you might be wondering why am I pressing this really abstract stuff about meaning. The thing is Gangadean tries to argue for things based on the meaning of terms. For instance, there are some inferences he draws which he thinks are sure-proof because they are the sorts of things that are analytically true (or true by definition). For example, he argues that if nothing is eternal, then all is temporal. And if all is temporal, then all came into being. What might justify such inferences? Well, Gangadean thinks that they are just true by definition. It is just part of the meaning of the expression 'nothing is eternal' that all began to exist. Moreover, the very meaning of 'eternal' for Gangadean is somehow connected to the word, 'infinite'. These sorts of "true by definition" inferences that Gangadean often employs depend on him having the meanings of his terms correct. So we should care a lot about his theory of meaning and his theory about how he comes to know the meaning of his terms. Note, he might be correct concerning his meaning of 'eternal'--that's just not the point. The point is whether he would (by his own lights) count as knowing (with certainty) that it's the correct meaning of the word. After all, he doesn't think one can merely have a true belief in what is clear, but rather must know it (and knowledge is more than mere true belief) if it is to serve as the basis of other knowledge. 

So according to Gangadean, a thing is eternal only if it has no beginning and no end. That is to say, the meaning of 'eternal' is 'having no beginning and no end'. And as I've said, he will use such a definition as part of his premise in arguing against the view that nothing is eternal. Again it isn't clear how we determine that Gangadean is right about the meaning of the word 'eternal' at least if we're after certainty. That a bunch of people agree with Gangadean is at best defeasible evidence that it's the right definition. But only if we help ourselves to a lot of presuppositions. We have to presuppose that meaning is determined by consensus of a language community and that the people Gangadean has spoken to about the matter are all competent language users and are telling the truth or otherwise sincere when they speak on the matter. True, common sense would deem these reasonable assumptions. It fits nicely with my way of doing philosophy which is to allow for all kinds of assumptions via common sense and intuition. But my point is, none of this should work for a person so bent on certainty that he can't stand the sight of intuitions or common sense. That's Gangadean. 

In sum, I'll leave you with some pressing questions for Gangadean and his followers. 

1) How does Gangadean know (with certainty) what meaning (in itself) is? 

2) How does Gangadean know (with certainty) that any of his words have meaning? 

3) How does Gangadean know (with certainty) that the meaning he assigns to particular words are correct (i.e., are their actual meanings)? For instance, when he says that 'eternal' = without beginning and end, how does he know with certainty that he isn't mistaken? 

Now you might be tempted to think that he's not talking about the meaning of words or otherwise is simply not interested in semantics. He's doing metaphysics! But that won't do. According to Gangadean you can't say whether a statement is true, unless you know what it first means. Statements are linguistic entities: they are the stuff of semantics and linguistic study. And to give an argument, you've got to depend on statements. You've got to depend on the meanings of words. So you can't talk about the truth of statements (strings of expressions) without getting into issues of meaning or more generally semantics.

Moreover, if you think that concepts are in some way helpful to posit, we can, with little modification, run the same kind of arguments I've presented above for concepts. After all, concepts are things in our minds which purport to connect to things in reality in much the same way that words do. 

The philosophical payoff: If you think meaning is more basic than truth, and we need absolute certainty (clarity) for knowledge, then you need to explain how you know with certainty the very meaning of any of the words you use. After all, the legitimacy of every one of your arguments and inferences will depend crucially on the meaning of the words featured in them. And it's possible that you are mistaken. Note: if you think there's some transcendental argument to exploit, then you're mistaken. The Gangadeanian might be tempted to think in the following manner: we have to assume clarity concerning the meaning of at least some of our words in order to intelligibly raise questions concerning the meaning of ours expressions. This line falters on at least two grounds. 1) To argue in general that we must have clarity concerning the meaning of at least some of our words is not to have shown which one of those words must have clear, transparent meanings. Nor is it to show any method by which we can determine which meanings are clear. So this is of little help by itself. 2) More importantly though, there's no reason for anybody to accept the claim that in order to raise intelligible questions about meaning, there must be clarity of meaning of some of our words. What non circular, non-intuition based argument could justify such an inference?

Anyway, my point is not to drive one to skepticism about meaning and thus of determining the validity/soundness of any and all arguments. Instead, I think it's just Gangadean's commitment to clarity/certainty as it pertains to knowledge which when combined with the considerations above should lead one to a skeptical stance.  Alternatively one can abandon that sinking ship and adopt the view that Gangadean was utterly mistaken that we need certainty for knowledge to begin with. After all, intuitively, we know the meanings of the words we use, we know the meanings of the words that Gangadean uses. We know these things despite not having any way of determining conclusively (by way of deductive arguments) what they are. 

A Call for Posts

I've decided to see if there might be persons out there interested in contributing to this blog. For starters, I'm looking to collect accounts from people that have either taken a number of classes with Gangadean or have attended Westminster Fellowship, but at some point left either the church or the teachings. If you feel like you'd like to write a piece (it can't be too long) covering any or all of the following prompts, please get in contact with me.

1. Speak briefly about how you were introduced to Gangadean's teachings. What drew you to them?

2. What was the process of attending the church? How long did you attend?

3. Why did you leave? If there were philosophical/theological differences, please say something about them.

4. What was the process of you leaving like? Were you asked to leave? Was it mutual? Amicable or  painful? What was the social impact? Did people at WF stop talking to you? Did they continue talking to you?

5. Anything else you want to share that you think would be helpful for people that may be considering the church or Gangadeanian inspired courses.

Email me at reasoniidoubt at gmail dot com.

Using Intuitions Consistently.

Just to hedge off a mistaken kind of response to my objections, let me say a little bit about the current dialectic as I see it. I believe that Gangadean and his followers ultimately ground their positions in intuitions. At the most basic level, Gangadean and his people accept things not on the basis of arguments, but on immediate, non-inferential judgments they have (this is all I mean by intuition). I mean, even to determine something as more basic or less basic, requires an intuition. You just have to get the sense that 'a is a' is more basic then the claim that horses have four legs. You don't get an argument that proves it and you either "see" it or you don't.

I use intuitions, too. A lot. I think all philosophers do just as all non-philosophers do. We gotta start somewhere in theorizing about the world. Even when Gangadean claims to start from self-attesting principles, his way of determining something as a self-testing principle is direct and non-inferential. It isn't derived at via some noncircular argument, but rather an intuitive reaction. If you think he's given you a reductio argument for the claim that 'a is a' is self attesting for instance, then ask yourself how you know that each of premises of that argument are true, or how you know that the rules of inference that the argument employs are truth-preserving. At some point, you'll find intuitions. It's sometimes hard to get a grasp on what it means to believe something via an intuition. But I think in some ways it's a lot like coming to believe that a middle C has been played on the piano. You hear something and immediately "recognize" it as middle C. You might fuss over details here and push the representationalist line by saying that at best when such a note has been played on the piano it appears to you or sounds to you as if middle C has been played. But the same applies to Gangadean's apprehension of self-attesting principles. 'A is a' is supposed to be self-attesting, but to determine that it is self attesting Gangadean has to rely on his intuition. But one could analogously suggest that it merely appears to Gangadean as if 'a is a' is self attesting.

So I'm often trying to point out the places where Gangadean seems to rest his views on intuition because I think he and his people have failed to recognize where they do. Of course, he could surprise me with responses which demonstrate that he doesn't--I'm certainly open to that possibility, but currently we are without. Such proofs are not forthcoming in his published works and haven't been in my many exchanges with him and his followers. 

So I keep pointing out the fact that Gangadean seems to appeal to intuitions to get his theorizing off the ground, but by my own admission, it turns out that I, too, appeal to intuitions in order to do so. But I just want to be clear that there's no inconsistency, here.  This is because I'm holding Gangadean to his own professed standard--it's the standard he holds others to. He often complains that other attempts at arguing for God's existence for instance, have failed to provide a deductively sound proof. But again, I am of the view that all of us ultimately have to employ intuitions in our theory building, and not only in philosophy, but in every field of inquiry. If we are to come to know anything whatsoever, or come to form beliefs, we have to begin with things that are not proven to us nor are they the dubious "self-attesting" principles that Gangadean claims. Importantly, I don't see this as a problem. It's Gangadean that thinks opening the door to intuitions will ultimately lead to nihilism, not me. So I'm at least open to the idea that a person might  come to know that God exists on the basis of an intuition just like they might come to know that 'a is a' and that they exist, and that they have hands and the like. Sure, skeptical possibilities can be raised against any of these, but this alone isn't enough to impoverish us of all knowledge. My view then is that knowledge simply doesn't require certainty. I can know something without showing that the opposite is logically impossible. So there's no problem for me. It's Gangadean that finds intuitions troubling. So there's no inconsistency in my appealing to intuitions or using them at any rate, to raise objections against Gangadean. That plays nicely with my own fundamental commitments.

In contrast, there is an inconsistency in Gangadean using intuitions to build his theories, to raise criticisms against other theories while at the same time claiming that belief without proof is fideism, and otherwise criticizing others for believing things on the basis of intuition. If he's concerned with consistency as he often claims to be, then he ought to admit that his whole system of beliefs ultimately rests on intuitions and that he's been wrong in criticizing others for using intuitions. Of course, this has huge ramifications for the legitimacy of his life's work, his church and the like.

On the Meaning of Meaninglessness

Gangadeanians often talk about meaninglessness. Well, they don't quite talk about it if by that we mean that they explain it. However, they mention the notions meaning and meaninglessness. For instance, they suggest that if some things are not clear, then meaninglessness follows. But by 'clear' they mean absolute epistemic certainty. There's a lot packed into their notion of epistemic certainty, too and as a corollary into their notion of clarity and thus their concept of meaning/meaninglessness. As I've mentioned, one can push back on each of these notions. Perhaps, something can be clear without it being clear in the manner in which Gangadean and his people privilege. After all, they don't have a monopoly on our concepts or words. They need to earn such a status. Suppose I started announcing that the nature of God is one that is finite temporal and changing in much the same way that Gangadean claims that God is infinite, eternal and unchanging. You might think that my concept of God is just mistaken. At the very least you're going to want me to motivate my concept over that of alternative conceptions. I can't just tell you that from here on out, the nature of God is one that is finite, temporal and changeable or at least I can't make it the case via my pronouncements. In the same way, Gangadean can't just assert that reason is the laws of thought, or that for something to be clear, the opposite of it must be impossible and make it so. Just like he can't merely assert that knowledge is maximally justified true belief, or that the kind of knowledge that matters as it pertains to God is the kind that consists in absolute certainty. I mean he can strictly speaking say those things, but it doesn't make them true or believable solely in virtue of the fact that he's said those things. Moreover, he can't merely tell you that if nothing is clear (under his understanding of the concept of clear) that meaningless follows. He's got to argue for each of these points and he's got to provide knockdown deductive supports for each of them if he's being consistent with his own system.

It recently occurred to me that the common Gangadeanian line that if nothing is clear, then all is meaningless, is just another assertion that people tend to accept because it has the feeling of truth or seems, intuitively, correct. But the question remains whether we have good reasons to accept such a thing. Actually for Gangadean, the question is whether he's proven such things. I don't see it. One issue concerns the notion of meaninglessness. It isn't obvious what Gangadean means by meaninglessness and I've already discussed before how the word 'meaning' has various different meanings. There's the meaning of words and expressions which may be the sense and reference of a word/expression or to use contemporary terms, their intension and extension. There are the truth conditions associated with words and expressions which are standardly thought to be somehow connected to their intensions. But these are difficult matters that linguists and philosophers working in semantics have had great trouble (and minor success) at capturing. Suffice it to call this sort of meaning, linguistic meaning. Is Gangadean claiming that if some things are not clear, then we are without linguistic meaning? If so, what could justify that kind of claim other than raw intuitions? Sometimes it sounds like this is the kind of meaning that Gangadean intends. For instance, he says that meaning is more basic than truth and that you can't determine whether a sentence is true without knowing what it means. Since he's dealing with sentences and truth, it seems like he's talking about linguistic meaning. But he also seems to reach beyond sheer linguistic meaning when he speaks of meaninglessness.

For example, I take it that there is also a sort of existentialist notion of meaning which has to do with life purpose. This is the sense in which, in ordinary language, we say things like, "life has no meaning". Indeed he speaks of nihilism when rational justification is not possible in some domain of philosophy. This captures the sense in which meaning is a property of life or perhaps events. But once again I don't see how absolute epistemic certainty is required for this kind of meaning. Why can't a person live their lives with purpose without absolute certainty? Where is the argument that this is utterly inconsistent? I take it that the questionable inference is taken for granted by the Gangadeanians because it seems intuitive to them.

Finally, there's perhaps a third kind of meaning which is something very general like intelligibility. This one is a bit difficult to separate from meaning in the linguistic sense or perhaps even from the existentialist notion. After all, presumably a sentence can be unintelligible in which case we're inclined to say that the sentence is meaningless. But there is also a sense in which epistemic inquiry could be meaningless or futile. If we can't form rational beliefs, no matter how hard we try, then forming beliefs with the aim of forming them rationally might be futile. You might even say that the aim of forming rational beliefs under such conditions is meaningless. And I get hints of this from Gangadean's general system.

This makes me think that for Gangadean, meaning is a very broad, catch all notion which has aspects of linguistics, life purpose, and general intelligibility. It is this kind of meaning that we are without if some things are not clear according to him. Notice if meaning captures all three of these senses, then his claim that meaningless follows from the lack of clarity is much stronger than we initially thought. That is, meaning in the way that he thinks of it, is a conjunction of linguistic, existentialist and general intelligibility conditions. So by calling into question the link between clarity and meaning in any one of the three senses, a fortiori, we call into question the link between clarity and the conjunction of all three. Indeed I've called into question all three independently so in essence have called into question the stronger claim.

It isn't obvious to me why we need absolute certainty about anything, in order for us to have intelligibility in the world. Just like it isn't obvious why some things must be clear in order for our words to refer to things and/or propositions. Similarly, why do we need absolute certainty about things in order for our lives to have purpose?

In the end, on Gangadean's high standards for what counts as clear, it isn't clear to reason that we need clarity to begin with.

The Moral Law part II.3

Picking up where we left off: on pg. 119, Gangadean provides exactly two paragraphs for the following claims.

1) Rational justification in ethics requires personal freedom.
2) Rational justification in ethics requires that the Good be objectively clear.

Gangadean is a soft-determinist about free will. He thinks that moral responsibility is compatible with determinism and it is this  kind of freedom that is necessary for giving a rational justification for one's morally relevant actions. Even though every one of my actions at time 1, is entirely determined by the complex causal web at time t-minus 1, what I do at time 1 is still free in the morally relevant sense. It's free enough, or in the right way, such that I can rationally be held morally responsible for it. So even if I smack a person tomorrow at noon, and this is entirely the result of my beliefs and desires (and my environment cooperating) leading up to that very moment, as Gangadean sees it, I can still be held morally responsible for my smacking that person. It doesn't matter that I couldn't do otherwise at that very given moment, if we held fixed my beliefs and desires and other facts about the world leading up to that moment.

This is the picture of freedom he privileges over that of libertarianism. The problem is, he's set up a false dichotomy. Libertarian views come in various forms, just as soft-determinists. Importantly, libertarianism and soft-determinism isn't distinguished solely in virtue of where they land on the issue of whether it's essential to freedom that one could have done otherwise. But that's how Gangadean has set things up. It appears as if Gangadean is ignorant of much of the work done over the last several decades on free will and moral responsibility. But there are radical and moderate versions of libertarianism, which is a particular form of incompatibilism, and not all require that a free act is one such that the agent could have done otherwise. This is just sloppy scholarship on his part.

Now the main points I want to draw your attention to are twofold. First, Gangadean proceeds as if he's settled the matter concerning the nature of free will. But to be sure, he hasn't actually proven that his conception of freedom is correct. Again, he just tells you what freedom is, as if there's no real debate about the matter---and this couldn't be further from the truth. Since, at least, the time of Plato, the nature of free will has puzzled philosophers. Much like in the case of Gangadean's theory of knowledge, his theory of freedom is not without alternatives. So his job, according to his own impossible standards of clarity, should be to prove that his theory of freedom, vis-a-vis moral responsibility,  is the right one. To be sure, this requires more than pointing out problems with alternative theories since soft-determinism(s) have their own costs. He's got to show why any notion of freedom that is not his own, is utterly incoherent or otherwise not even possibly correct. That's a tall order and not one he's succeeded at. The real problem for Gangadean is that all of this is going to at some level, require appeals to intuitions as we shall see.

This brings us to the second main issue. In arguing against libertarian views of freedom --note he only argues against one form of liberatrianism and an extreme one at that-- he states but doesn't argue that if I could do otherwise than I do at any given time (keeping fixed all the causal facts leading up to the moment of action), then this would mean my actions are uncaused events. While I tend to agree with this, I do so because I find it intuitive. Indeed these considerations are not an argument. They are statements which, once again, you just sort of have to "see" as true. And in fact, there are libertarians that simply disagree. They don't find it intuitive that the ability to do other than I want for instance, = uncaused events. The point is not whether you and I agree with them or not. The crucial point concerns the method by which we agree or disagree with such persons. Just as Gangadean doesn't actually present an argument for the claim that "if I could have done otherwise than I want to do, then my action is an uncaused event" the other side that simply denies it doesn't provide an argument either. What we have to go on are intuitions. You either share the judgment that libertarianism threatens freedom in virtue of uncaused events or you don't and at root this is going to be via direct, immediate reactions you have to statements of the above sort, or to thought experiments, and perhaps to ordinary language practices of the word 'freedom' and cognate terms. This is perfectly commonplace for philosophers at large, but as I've mentioned repeatedly throughout my blog, Gangadean shouldn't depend on intuitions in this manner, based on his own criticisms about such practices.

On to Gangadean's second point(s) and the more contentious one(s). Gangadean claims the following.

It must be objectively clear what the good is. If it is not objectively clear then we are left with skepticism, and justification for moral relativism. Clarity is necessary (and sufficient) for inexcusability, that is, for moral accountability. If what we ought to do is not clear to (that is, required by) reason then as rational beings we cannot be held accountable for doing it (119). 

I hope by now that what I will have to say is predictable. There are 4 sentences in the above passage and 4 blanket assertions. But what we don't have are any arguments. Gangadean, once again, is banking on the fact that you will not press him on these points because they "seem right" to you or have a feeling of obviousness. The problem is, there's just no way for him to prove any of them. There's no way for him to demonstrate via a deductive argument that these theses are themselves clear to reason even though that's constantly what he requires of others. Ask yourself, what would prove the claim that "if it is not objectively clear, then we are left with skepticism and justification for moral relativism"?

Secondly, even if we look past this glaring inconsistency on his part, the problem is that Gangadean once again has forgotten or overlooked the fact that what he labels skepticism, the view that knowledge is not possible or at least super rare, is not what most philosophers refer to when they use the word. This owns to the fact that what he calls knowledge, is not what most philosophers refer to when they use the same word. This means that it's only for Gangadean, that objective clarity (absolute deductive certainty) is required if one is to avoid skepticism about the Good and right action. I think tacit in the above passage is that one ought to know with certainty how one ought to act if rational justification is possible regarding morally relevant actions. Also tacit in the above is the claim that one must be able to know with certainty what one should do, if one is to be held morally accountable. But if we reject Gangadean's theory of knowledge or at least remain indifferent to it because he hasn't proven that it's the correct theory we have no reason to accept these further implications which is to defang his threat.

For example, if fallibilism about knowledge is true, then one can be held morally responsible for actions even if one can't be absolutely certain of the right thing to do. And indeed this is most consonant with ordinary practice in everyday life. It's not absolutely certain to the person drinking heavily before getting behind the wheel, that they are in fact drinking and thus putting themselves and others in a precarious situation. After all, it's at least remotely possible that they are having a convincing dream that they are drinking, or fill in the details however you like. But that's hardly an excuse. This person, should they drink and drive, is morally responsible for their actions. Indeed they can even know that they are drinking and thus putting themselves and others in a precarious situation as a result, according to fallibilistic theories of knowledge. So objectively clarity is only necessary on Gangadean's quirky theory of knowledge and skepticism about the Good and right actions threatens only for Gangadean given his unusual theories.

Finally, Gangadean is presupposing, but has failed to prove that there is an intimate connection between epistemology and ethics. In particular, he takes it as fiat that moral accountability and the practice of giving rational justification is connected to what one can know with certainty. But why think that moral accountability and rationally justifying one's actions is connected to what one knows or can come to know? Why can't one be held responsible for what one rationally ought to believe, or what one has the most evidence to believe? For instance, there is much debate right now among philosophers about the connection between knowledge and action. A small contingency of philosophers do think that what you know and don't know is what determines which actions are acceptable for you. Of course, they will disagree with Gangadean on what it takes to know something and this is no small difference. But there are many other philosophers who argue that rather than knowledge (or what you can know), it's your justified true beliefs (or what you can justifiably believe) which determine which actions are acceptable for you to perform and yet others who think that it's just your justified beliefs (sans truth). The point is, Gangadean has smuggled in not only his own controversial conception of knowledge and skepticism to make the claims in this section about the need for objective clarity. He's also smuggled in the claim that what you can know, rather than what you can merely believe or rationally believe or justifiably believe, or justifiably truly believe, is what determines moral accountability and rationally justification in ethics. But he's done nothing to motivate either moves.