Queer/Trans K’s

Realism Solves

Realism solves- it is a continually developing theory that can be nuanced to accommodate queerness- queer IR is an elaboration, not a reason to reject.

Bagnoli 13 (Carla, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press “Constructivism in Ethics”, https://books.google.com/books?id=e2dxh1tG6TQC&pg=PA157&lpg=PA157&dq=constructivism+queerness&source=bl&ots=4QGKVgyW9H&sig=D8FfxHCNDLN-uEdkrP7_AahQpQs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjc2prs2ezNAhXMpR4KHYHiAVcQ6AEITDAI#v=onepage&q=queerness&f=false)

The argument is grounded on the assumption that practical knowledge commits to realism about value, which is identified with rational intuitionism. On this realist view, practical knowledge is knowledge of certain facts and properties of reality by which one is compelled to act. The question is how to put this knowledge into practice. "The ability to apply knowledge in action presupposes the capacity for action, which is exactly what we are trying to understand. There are two separate strands of Korsgaard's criticism, both of which spring from a concern for the practicality of ethics, but they are driven by different conceptions of practicality. The first criticism is that cognitions cannot be practical because they are cognitions of a piece of reality. Elbe term "practical" here stands for "compelling." "The complaint against realism is that it does not explain how knowledge motivates its possessor: "For think how that account would have to work. agent would have to recognize it, as some sort of eternal normative verity, that it is good to take the means to his ends. How is this verity supposed to motivate him?" (Korsgaard 2003: 110; Korsgaard 1996b: 16, 38—40). This criticism resonates with the canonical non-cognitivist critique of objectivism that prevails in the meta-ethics of the 1970s. J. L. Mackie argues that the cost of defending objectivity in ethics is high: the realist must posit a special ontology and a special moral faculty in order to do so. This objection is moved against both G. E. Moore's intuitionist and Kant's rationalist defenses of objectivity. These theories attempt to vindicate both the practicality and objectivity of moral judgments, which are features of ordinary morality. Mackie takes for granted that practicality amounts to motivational compellingness. "This interpretation of the practicality requirement has the advantage that it grants an intrinsic relation between judgment and action. Queerness results from combining the (non-cognitivist) claim that moral judgments are intrinsically motivating and the (realist) claim that they represent properties that are parr of the Fabric of reality (Mackie 1977: 38—40, 21—22, 24). To retain the claim about the compellingness of moral judgment and avoid queerness, non-cognitivists such as Mackie give up the claim that there are moral properties to be known. For sure, both Moore and Kant were concerned with the relation between objective rational judgment and action, but it is questionable that Mackie's understanding of the practicality of ethical ents can be plausibly attributed to either of them. Korsgaard shares Mackie's view that moral judgments are practical insofar as they are action-guiding. They guide the agent's action insofar as they are intrinsically motivating. Her argument against the model of applied knowledge works on the assumption that the practicality of moral judgments consists in their motivating force.' However, this strand of the argument should not be taken in isolation, because it is complemented by a second set of considerations.

Relating Queer theory to international relations inevitably results in normative judgements – accepting a realist coherence theory allows us to accept a world of independent thought

Lenman & Shemmer 12 (James, Oxford University reading Philosophy, Politics and Economics, St Andrews University studying for an M.Phil. and then a PhD in Moral Philosophy, “Constructivism in Practical Philosophy”, August 12, 2012, https://books.google.com/books?id=9x8WJldbzloC&pg=PA227&lpg=PA227&dq=constructivism+queerness&source=bl&ots=YLbojx6GtQ&sig=qgWCGGUkRsLlLjCuLo2zkgHAjfA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjc2prs2ezNAhXMpR4KHYHiAVcQ6AEITjAJ#v=snippet&q=to%20put%20this%20in%20another%20way&f=false)

No. Judgments in a particular domain d permit of an error theoretic analysis if and only if judgments in domain are truth-apt, and all judgments in domain d are false. Indeed, as I have argued elsewhere,24 far from succumbing to an error theory, acceptlng a coherence theory of truth for normative judgments is a novel method by which to avoid an error theory. Arguments for error theories generally start by offering a semantics of judgments of the domain in question. In this case, normative judgments refer to "normons." Next, error theories offer a metaphysical claim: "normons" do not exist.2S But the inference from the claim that no such metaphysically queer properties exist to an error theory—that is, that all normative judgments are false—goes through only if we accept that normative judgments are judged true or false on the basis of their beming the "right relation to metaphysically queer properties. But normative judgments, on this view, are not judged as true or false in this way. Rather, they are judged true or false on the basis of their coherence. Hence even if such normons don't exist, judgements that ascribe them needn't be false if we judge the truth or falsity of the judgments in question on the basis of their coherence. Question 4: Isn't this a realist semantics? And if so, doesn't this mean that a coherence theory of truth—by your own admission—is inappropriate? A ' 'normonic" semantics of normative judgments is paradigmatically realist—a semantics that refers to judgment-independent normative properties. If so, it would seem that accepting a coherence theory of truth for normative judgments—and their realist propositional content—is explicitly accepting something I have so far deemed inappropriate: the combination of realism with a coherence theory of truth. This analysis, is mistaken. A coherence theory of truth is inappropriate for a domain d if and only if we believe that facts about domain are facts about a "world independent of our thoughts, ' ' to borrow Kirkham's phrase. To put this in another way, realism and the coherence theory are an inappropriate mix given realism's metaphysics, not realism's semantics. Just because We accept a realist semantics of normative judgments doesn't mean we have to commit to evaluating normative judgments according to a semantic theory of truth. Rather, because constructivists do not believe that facts about normativity are facts about a ' 'world independent of our thoughts," they are licensed to choose a coherence theory, and evaluate normative Judgments differently. The semantic analysis of normative judgments, then, says nothing about whether the truth of such judgments is itself semantic. That IS settled by further, metaphysical, questions about the nonnative domain. Insofar as constructivism retains a realist semantics while rejecting a normative "world independent of our thoughts," the constructivist is licensed to accept a coherence theory of truth for that domain. Constructivism needn't be committed to a circular semantics. But a serious problem looms. Consider the nature of coherence. Surely any plausible account of coherence is going to be put in terms of the entailment relations between judgments, i.e. whether judgments are inconsistent with others, whether they can be Inferred from a set of Other normative judgements, etc. But entailment relations are understood in terms Of truth: for p and q to be inconsistent means that p and q cannot be true together. That p entails q means that p cannot be true and q false, and so forth. Hence it would appear that coherence is defined in terms of truth. But because truth, at least for normative judgments, is defined in terms of coherence, any account of coherence will be viciously circular-2 This is a serious problem. After all, constructivism relies on a sensible understanding Of What it means for two judgments to "cohere" or "withstand scrutiny" or bear whatever favored relation to each other. But if truth is defined in terms of this favored relation, and if this favored relation is defined in terms of truth, we seem to be led to the problem Of indeterminacy by a back road: We seem unable to say With any certainty whether two judgments will bear this favored relation, because we don't have any informative account of what this favored relation is. Accepting alethic pluralism, however, allows us to avoid a circular analysis of coherence. Whether the members Of any given set of judgments bear any particular relation to each other is nor a question that is properly evaluated in the normative domain: the coherence of a belief set is a purely non-normative question. However, because non-normative domains make use of a non—coherence truth predicate, the coherence of any particular belief set is evaluated given a non-coherence account of truth. Let me put this point in a slightly different way. Assume that non-normative truth-bearers are susceptible to a semantic truth predicate. Because a judgment of the form "system of belief S is coherent" is not a normative judgment, this judgment is evaluated by means of a semantic truth predicate; this judgment is true just in case its meaning bears the right relation to extra-linguistic reality. But if that is correct, the coherence of S is determined by the various entailment relations between its constitutive judgments, i.e. whether they can be true together, whether they set up "standards of correctness" that others survive, etc. But because the domain in question is non-normative, the applicable truth predicate is semantic. Of course, if we accept constructivism, all nonnative judgments, as evaluated by a semantic truth predicate, will come out false (assuming a "surface" or "metaphysically queer" semantics). But this does not mean they cannot be evaluated for their various entailment relations given a non-coherence truth predicate. Hence the definition of "coherence" is not viciously circular. Truth, for normative judgments, is understood in terms Of coherence, which is thereby understood in terms of the ability of particular judgments to be true together assuming a non-coherence, or semantic, truth predicate.27 By Way Of a conclusion to this section Of the chapter, let me sum up my positive proposal and its rationale. The problems of circularity and indeterminacy are foisted upon constructivism so long as constructivism accepts a traditional, semantic, theory of truth, Hence to avoid them, constructivist views must reject a traditional, semantic truth predicate in favor of an alternative. My proposal: accept a metaphysically robust "surface" semantics of normative judgments, together with a coherence theory of truth for nonnative judgments. This account captures the heart of a constructivist view. After all, a coherence theory of truth for normative judgments guarantees both Apt and Relational. For the coherence theory, normative judgments are true if and only if they are coherent with an agent's other normative judgments, where "coherence" is defined according to the favored relation as specified by a particular constructivist view. Thus a coherence theory of truth can capture the essential element of constructivism: that the truth of a normative judgment is set by its bearing of a favored relation (coherence) to other normative judgments.