There are many theories, some more far-fetched than others. I’ve recently been thinking about the value of obscure theories which diverge from the mainstream. On one hand, they expose our flaws and inadequacies (i.e. flat earth theory), but on the other, they may pick out specific intuitions and observations we have.

One example of the latter is with panpsychism, which ascribes mental properties, or ‘souls’, to all things, not just living ones. There is just something so mysterious and ineffable about the universe, which cannot be reduced to the physical or material (I highly recommend taking a look at this article by Michael Fox and the last part of the Cana of Galilee chapter in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov).

In discussing theories off the beaten path, I want to introduce the Rawlsian idea of reasonable pluralism in political philosophy but with a metaphysical spin. There are so many philosophical theories which people affirm which are irreconcilable, although reasonable, that there is no practical way to eliminate this diversity.

I don’t think this is a bad thing however.

For example, moral debates will never stop happening. I am confident in that fact. Moral philosophy will not reach a state in the future such that everything is said and done, which I refer to as the state of final determination. One huge issue with AI alignment is what values are we even aligning the AI with? Humans can’t even agree among themselves which moral theory is best, and with the current state of human values, do we really want to align AI with those values (the ones causing war, genocide, and destruction to this day)?

Like Rawls, I take reasonable pluralism to be an illuminating idea. It is necessary to remind ourselves that doctrines which purport to be comprehensive such as utilitarianism or virtue ethics are themselves flawed and incomplete in many ways. These are not to say that they may be helpful heuristics. They are tools or references, nothing more.

Take the way that philosophers do first order deductive logic. 19th century logical notation, used by Frege for example, appeared much differently than modern day notation:

There’s even more wild forms of logic such as paraconsistent logic and dialetheism (search the Liar’s Paradox). The joke is that everyone does logic one way but the Australians.

This is healthy, however, to have a whole host of reasonable viewpoints instead of one viewpoint which dominates the field. As G.A. Cohen notes, one of the reasons why French philosophy has so much bullshit is because Paris holds an intellectual hegemony over all the French-speaking world. Meanwhile, in analytic philosophy (which aims for clarity and precision), there is no one area which dominates English philosophy, as there are major intellectual centers not only on the East and West Coasts of the USA but also across the globe in Canada, England, and Australia. This helps to keep English philosophers in check, as no one location has dominance. They must be more mindful.

Thus, theories off the beaten path are valuable in many ways. The most obvious is that they explore untreaded or less popular alternatives which may hold promising answers. The second is that they promote a healthy culture of intellectual pluralism which forces philosophy to be more rigorous. And finally, they resist the final determination of ideas, which is dogmatism in its ugly form. But, we must also not forget that these theories ought to be reasonably founded and argued in good faith, as that is what I am assuming as does Rawls in his framework of reasonable pluralism.