79. Terence Horgan | Paradoxes, Metaethics

What do our moral experiences, our best theories of meaning, and our stubborn intuitions about Newcomb-style puzzles reveal about truth, rationality, and the limits of conceptual analysis?My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy.1. GuestTerence Horgan is Professor Emeritus at the University of Arizona, and his work has covered a wide range of topics, in metaphysics, epistemology, mind, metaethics, and more.2. Interview SummaryHorgan lays out (with Mark Timmons) a picture in metaethics that tries to take moral experience seriously without rushing to heavyweight metaphysics. A central theme is the felt “authority” of moral judgment—how it can seem to bind you independently of your desires—and how that motivational grip might be explained within an expressivist-friendly framework. To make the phenomenology vivid, he discusses Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam example (set in Amsterdam) where a character feels pulled by what he takes himself to “have to do,” even when it clashes with his projects. This sets up what he calls a “neutrality” idea: introspection alone doesn’t reliably settle whether moral experience itself commits us to robust, mind-independent moral properties.The interview then turns to philosophical method—especially conceptual analysis—and Horgan pushes back on the idea that it’s a purely armchair, a priori enterprise. He treats many disputes about “what a concept really amounts to” as closer to an empirical project: you gather intuitions and usage-patterns as data, test them against cases, and aim for a kind of reflective equilibrium with broader theoretical virtues. In that context he draws on familiar externalist pressure (e.g., Hilary Putnam-style Twin Earth lessons) to argue that competence and meaning aren’t always “in the head,” which complicates simplistic pictures of analysis. Along the way he suggests that some tempting metaphysical intuitions are better explained away than treated as decisive, and he frames that as continuous with how theorizing works in other disciplines.A long final stretch focuses on practical rationality and Newcomb-style decision problems, where Horgan thinks the persistence of “one-boxer vs. two-boxer” camps is evidence of a deep antinomy: there are competing rational principles that each has a serious claim on us. He connects this to an older tradition of “antinomy” talk (invoking figures like Immanuel Kant and Robert Nozick) and explains why, temperamentally, he’s drawn to one-boxing even while recognizing the intellectual pull of the opposite verdict—especially when uncertainty and stakes get dialed up. The discussion then widens to metaphysics of vagueness and truth: he’s skeptical of “ontological vagueness” and is sympathetic to a looser, indirect-correspondence way of understanding many ordinary truths (about everyday objects and institutions) without treating them as fundamental ontological commitments.3. Interview Chapters00:00 - Introduction01:04 - Liar paradox03:47 - Propositions10:15 - Logic14:43 - Truth16:36 - Other contradictions18:02 - Non-existent objects20:46 - Vagueness25:59 - Semantic uses29:14 - External factors31:09 - Terence Horgan34:43 - Newcomb’s problem37:19 - Transparent box case39:12 - Well-wishing friend42:32 - Simpson’s paradox47:08 - Deference49:32 - Valuing evidence vs. reward56:33 - Rationality59:18 - Predictably rewarded1:01:41 - Preparation1:07:54 - Perfect predictor1:10:29 - Free will1:11:57 - Rationality1:17:11 - Shooting room1:22:39 - Variations1:27:24 - Simulation1:28:44 - Infinite expectations1:29:44 - Possible in some other sense1:35:32 - Immortality1:38:27 - Names1:46:10 - Old evidence1:49:17 - Meaning of names1:52:27 - Personal identity1:54:33 - Moral relevance1:56:38 - Moral realism and phenomenal conservatism2:00:08 - Stance-dependent norms2:02:48 - Ordinary English2:05:51 - Value of philosophy2:09:04 - Conclusion This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fric.substack.com/subscribe