The Argument from Moral Experience |
| |
Authors: | Don Loeb |
| |
Institution: | (1) Philosophy Department, The University of Vermont, 70 South Williams Street, Burlington, VT 05401-3404, USA |
| |
Abstract: | It is often said that our moral experience, broadly construed to include our ways of thinking and talking about morality,
has a certain objective-seeming character to it, and that this supports a presumption in favor of objectivist theories (according
to which morality is a realm of facts or truths) and against anti-objectivist theories like Mackie’s error theory (according
to which it is not). In this paper, I argue that our experience of morality does not support objectivist moral theories in
this way. I begin by arguing that our moral experience does not have the uniformly objective-seeming character it is typically
claimed to have. I go on to argue that even if moral experience were to presuppose or display morality as a realm of fact,
we would still need a reason for taking that to support theories according to which it is such a realm. I consider what I
take to be the four most promising ways of attempting to supply such a reason: (A) inference to the best explanation, (B)
epistemic conservatism, (C) the Principle of Credulity, and (D) the method of wide reflective equilibrium. In each case, I
argue, the strategy in question does not support a presumption in favor of objectivist moral theories.
|
| |
Keywords: | Burden of proof Conservatism Ethics Moral experience Moral explanations Moral phenomenology Moral realism Principle of credulity Reflective equilibrium |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|