Moral Scepticism and Moral Knowledge
... Fitch's paradox, for instance, is a challenge to the claim that all propositions are knowable (Brogaard & Salerno, 2019). Moreover, moral sceptics may think that moral judgements can never be known or justified (Bambrough, 2020), and the value of transformative experiences may be inaccessible ex ante (Paul & Quiggin, 2018). If a proposition is intrinsically inaccessible, then no amount of evidence could ever settle the matter over its truth: disagreement over epistemically inaccessible propositions may be radical. ...
Given the importance that it has in almost any decision, understanding uncertainty and its possible variations is crucial in deciding effectively. I propose an account of uncertainty as based on a disagreement between reasons for and against alternative mental attitudes. Under this account, dealing with uncertainty means dealing with disagreement; however, this disagreement can be radical, i.e., persistent under ideal cognitive and epistemic conditions. Thus, when this is the case, the disagreement and therefore the uncertainty cannot be resolved with an increase in evidence. I illustrate how this unitary notion can be used to derive different types of uncertainty proposing a possible typology that reflects the conditions that must obtain for radical disagreement, and I trace the role that each of the types identified plays in decision making. This application to decision making suggests that there are uncertainties that go beyond those modelled in mainstream decision theory.
... This social dimension of moral experience has also been developed several times by neuroscience (Ames and Fiske, 2010;Rule et al., 2013;Lizardo et al., 2020). In this context, the problem of moral disagreement becomes particularly relevant, as it seems to suggest that moral norms depend on the culture in which they develop and may vary between different societies (Plakias, 2019;Bambrough, 2020;Rowland, 2020). That is, when someone from one culture disagrees with the moral practices of another, they are simply expressing what is morally acceptable to their own culture. ...
This paper explores the intersection between neuroscience and philosophy, particularly in the areas of moral philosophy and philosophy of mind. While traditional philosophical questions, such as those relating to free will and moral motivation, have been subject to much debate, the rise of neuroscience has led to a reinterpretation of these questions considering empirical evidence. This has led to tensions between those who believe neuroscience can provide definitive answers to very complex philosophical questions and those who are skeptical about the scope of these studies. However, the paper argues that neuroscientists and philosophers can work together to generate major scientific and social advances. To contribute to bridge the gap, in this paper we expose the complexity of moral experience from a philosophical point of view and point to two great challenges and gaps to cover from neurosciences.
... One widely accepted account of moral objectivity is ''reflective equilibrium'' (Goodman 1955;Rawls 1971). Reflective equilibrium represents an attempt to justify moral values by achieving a state of coherence in a dynamic process of reasoning, which involves moving back and forth between, on the one hand, (a) considered moral Footnote 5 continued judgments and (b) relevant background theories (Daniels 1996;Bambrough 1979;DePaul 1993;McMahan 2004). It works back and forth between (a) and (b), making incremental adjustments to existing beliefs about cases and particular principles in the light of background theories, and then moves to the other side, making incremental adjustments to theories in light of moral intuitions. ...
Introduction Over fifty years ago, Herbert Simon (1957) remarked, an administrative science, like any science, is concerned purely with factual statements. There is no place for ethical assertions in the body of a science. (p. 253) More recently in a 2015 interview with the Financial Times, Jeffrey Pfeffer remarked: I’m not a moral philosopher, I’m a social scientist … So I’m going to teach you the social science, and hopefully somewhere along the line, in religion or [from] your parents or your peers or something you’ve read, you’ve learned how to use the power that you’re going to get for good rather than evil. (Hill 2015) Most modern management researchers, at least those who publish primarily in American mainstream management journals, would agree with these statements. The reasons for pausing at the threshold of right and wrong are obvious. Values imply a “subjective” and personal dimension. Empirical research is capable of discovering that people and organizations in fact have certain values, and it can correlate those values with other variables. But, presumably, a scientist should not assume that one value can be objectively better than another, or that any values are objectively “right” or objectively “wrong.” Beware the unsupported premise! Value propositions lie beyond the realm of empirical research and, worse, invite moral and religious interference in empirical work. One must not forget the lessons of the European Renaissance, the trials of moral heretics such as Galileo, and the final intellectual triumph of the scientific method. Science must fight to stay free from moral and religious hegemony. And yet, is there nothing at all “objective” about moral notions? Most of us, whether academics or not, behave in our daily lives as if they possess some form of objectivity. We defend democracy over tyranny, compassion over insensitivity, and the protection of life over murder. Most of us believe that even though the terrorists who ruthlessly killed 118 people in the Bataclan concert hall in Paris in November of 2015 may have believed that their massacre was justified, there was objective reason not to commit the act. Social scientists sometimes acknowledge objective moral failure, as for example, when psychologists critiqued – too late – the post-9/11 psychological research on torture.
... Although I cannot possibly discuss (even briefly) the various attempts that have been made to provide just such a rational justification of ethical principles (e.g., Baier, 1958;Bambrough, 1979;Becker, 1973;Gert, 1973;Gewirth, 1978;Rawls, 1971;Singer, 1961;Taylor, 1961;Toulmin, 1950), most of them have challenged the fundamental assumption that all ethical justification must be by means of the logical derivation of one principle from another one. Such an assumption is central to Ward's argument (p. ...
Argues that L. C. Ward's appeal to accepted standards of behavior will not in itself justify behavior, since what is accepted need not be acceptable, and that it is not logically impossible to justify ethical principles. There is no basis for ethical skepticism or for Ward's defense of behavior therapy. (15 ref)
This paper aims at explaining and defending some of Cora Diamond's thinking about the role of a kind of guides to thinking about ethics. Aids to thinking of this type can take a very general form but can also be applied in context‐sensitive ways. Maria Balaska has raised the question whether Diamond manages to avoid relativism. Oskari Kuusela also criticises Diamond, focussing on whether talk of human equality can be said to correspond to reality. I will consider these objections in turn and try to show that Diamond is not committed either intentionally or otherwise to relativism.
In this paper I lay out, argue for, and defend ethical Mooreanism. In essence, the view says that some moral propositions are Moorean propositions and thus are epistemically superior to the conjunctions of the premises of skeptical arguments to the contrary. In Sect. 1 I explain Mooreanism and then ethical Mooreanism. In Sect. 2 I argue for ethical Mooreanism by noting a number of important epistemic parities that hold between certain moral truths and standard Moorean facts. In Sect. 3 I defend ethical Mooreanism against the objection that moral propositions are too epistemically dissimilar to standard Moorean facts to count as Moorean truths.
That 'dazzling image' of science, applied to human beings, can seem to 'undermine' science by leaving no place for Reason. The conclusion here extends previous contentions by comparison with ideas from writings of Wilfred Sellars. Additionally, our position is located within general conceptions of reasoning and rationality, since challenging the rational credentials of a particular judgement or realm of discourse requires reliance on “… judgements and arguments not themselves subject to the same challenge: which exemplify, even when they err, something more fundamental, … corrected only by further procedures of the same kind” (Nagel, 1997, p. 11).
Are our psychologies too determined by our evolutionary biology? Applying the 'dazzling image' to human beings might make it seem so, with our nature as persons fixed by those biological perspectives that recognize us as the animals we obviously are, given the causal explanation appropriate to biology. But Wiggins’ view (sketched earlier) elaborates persons material, biological continuants—in a word, animals (if of a distinctive type): yet how should our biological nature be accommodated within a framework established by evolutionary conceptions? Chapter 5 defends an account of some features of evolutionary explanations against their critics, thereby rejecting various mistaken forms of “Social Darwinism”, and stressing limitations on the application of evolutionary ideas (ideas rooted in science) to human decision-making, especially for individuals—when psychology is “the discipline most in thrall to the exigency of statistical methodologies” (Forrester, Thinking in Cases, Cambridge, 2017, p. 4), typically concerned only with trends and tendencies.
Since it is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence, religions and religious beliefs are required at the very least to be shown to be not unreasonable, if they are to have any legitimacy. This means, first and foremost, that they must themselves be ethical. There is nothing startling about this, because everyone knows that Aristotle is right when he says that people who are puzzled about honouring the gods – or God – and loving their parents, need punishment, not perception. God is good, as indeed are our parents. What is, however, disconcerting, is that when pronouncements made by religious authorities are ethically examined, they are not infrequently found to be wanting.
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