Conclusion

Abstract

Abstract This chapter recapitulates the main line of argument for the Strong Virtue Theory. First, we morally ought to be Truthful rather than Untruthful people. Truthfulness promotes the overall good better than Untruthfulness. So, there is a state-given explanation for why we ought to value truth, which should be attractive to Aristotelians of all stripes, including deflationists. But the Strong Virtue Theory requires more. It requires that there also be no object-given explanation of why we ought to be truthful. The main line of argument takes a retail approach to rejecting object-given explanations of truth’s value. It rejects normativism’s claim that value is somehow built into the nature of truth or the meaning of TRUE. And it rejects the idea that the truth of a proposition somehow confers instrumental, intrinsic, or special epistemic value on states of believing it, to which we ought to respond by valuing truth. The chapter also revisits the question of what we must assume about truth and value to solve the Problem of Truth’s Value. We need a suitably strong theory of truth, but a theory can be strong enough without supposing truth is a substantive property. While this book focuses on state-given, moral explanations of why we ought to be Truthful, it doesn’t rule out the possibility of other state-given explanations.