It is possible to doubt whether there is such a subject as moral epistemology, and I am conscious of some misgivings over both words. Perhaps “moral” is not quite right, for one might be concerned with the larger sphere of values in general. And perhaps “epistemology” is not quite right either (Blackburn 1996: 82).
Abstract
Moral epistemology (henceforth ME) has been spoken of as a subject matter in its own right by philosophers in the last few decades and yet the delineation of ME as a sub-discipline remains uncharted. Many eminent scholars with rich contributions have not explicitly defined the scope or demarcation of this emerging field. Drawing from their writings, the paper tries to show that philosophers working on ME either conceptualise it as an application of epistemology to moral beliefs or as encompassing issues of epistemic access to moral truths. The paper contends that such conceptions of moral epistemology are not rigorous enough to warrant a discrete sub-discipline. This puts the paper in disagreement with those scholars who justify the creation of a subject-specific ME. David Copp and Todd Stewart figure prominently among such attempts. Copp and Stewart justify ME to be a separate epistemology, by alluding to the normative nature of moral beliefs, and through the introduction of emotions into the mix, respectively. The paper tries to show that neither normativity nor emotions appear to be robust enough to create a distinct epistemology. The predicament of moral epistemologists arises from the fact that while the practitioners seem to be keen on establishing ME as a discrete sub-discipline, they end up subsuming it under a general epistemology and fail to justify the need for such a subject-specific epistemology. The only way out of this quandary, the paper asserts, is to treat ME more as a methodological project that involves extending general epistemic tools to moral beliefs as a specific case, and not as a specialised topic-specific epistemology.
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Notes
For instance, Gentzler (2005) argues that investigating whether Plato was committed to intuitionism would amount to revisiting his ME. According to Rhonheimer, Aristotle responds to the problem of ME through his enquiry into the question of “which are the conditions for human beings to both understand and pursue what is truly good?” in Nichomachean ethics (Rhonheimer 2012: 884). Jonathan Harrison argues that Hume is interested in the question of “How do we know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, virtue and vice?” in various works and that there is enough coherence in his arguments that merits an assimilation and a separate discussion under the category of ME (Harrison 1976: vii). Kant is also considered to have discussed issues pertaining to ME when he argues that basic moral truths are knowable a priori (Audi 1991: 4).
Scholars often are found to be casual even while providing a definition of ME. For instance, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong talks of ME along with moral linguistics, and moral ontology as “yet another area of metaethics” (Sinnott-Armstrong 1996: 4). In the same breath, he also refers to ME as “simply epistemology applied to substantive moral claims” (Sinnott-Armstrong and Timmons 1996: 5) (emphasis added).
To call actions as morally right, to condemn certain agents for their behaviours, are examples of activities taking place at this first level of enquiry.
Examples of such enquiries are: Is there inconsistency in our judgments about what constitutes knowledge? Can there be cases where people fail to know even when we common-sensically tend to credit them with knowing?
The core of this assumption seems to be the idea that we do not know what amounts to making a normative proposition true and hence justification of such normative propositions remains a problem.
The notion of standard is further defined as (a) something specifying that certain conditions need to be met by members of a particular category and (b) something towards which compliance or non-compliance can be achieved. Norms, rules, commands, maxims can all qualify as standards.
Copp refers to some of his earlier works (1995, 2007), where he argues that only propositions can be verified by empirical evidence and since standards cannot be verified by empirical evidence, it follows that standards cannot be propositions. He also asserts that standards and propositions seem to share mutually exclusive properties. The fact that commands can serve as standards also shows that there seems to be a fundamental gap between propositions and standards.
Such theories can meet the justification condition and any such theory that meets the justification also satisfies the truth condition of corresponding moral claims. Copp holds that many such justification theories are possible, including the ones given by Brandt, Gauthier and Kant.
A topical epistemology is the epistemological assessment of beliefs about a specific subject matter (Stewart 2007: 23). Moral epistemology and epistemology of mathematics can be some examples of topical epistemologies.
Whether this is the way ME should be practised is a different issue but this is certainly how ME is being practised by leading philosophers. Sinnott-Armstrong is concerned with addressing moral skepticism whereas Sayre McCord attempts a coherentist account of moral knowledge. Robert Audi pursues a moderate intuitionist approach to justification of moral beliefs too. Perhaps in sync with post-Gettier developments in general epistemology, justification has come to occupy a central position in ME too.
He further qualifies JCP by saying it is “a source of beliefs that we think are usually justified in the sorts of circumstances in which we commonly find ourselves”. Further justification conferred is to be treated as a prima facie justification.
While some emotions like empathy are obvious candidates for being called moral, others like disgust and resentment are more controversial.
Asymmetrical scepticism is the possibility of being a sceptic with respect to moral claims but not about the larger epistemic endeavours. It is possibility of local scepticism as opposed to a global scepticism.
Jones is joined here by Sayre-McCord too, who acknowledges in his articles (2005, 2013) that moral beliefs have distinguishing feature, namely their action-directedness, the prevalence of moral disagreement and the “normative authority” that commands allegiance. As he puts it, “moral claims are essentially bound up in a way that non-moral claims are not” (Sayre-McCord 2005). He argues that having a moral belief is concomitant with having an appropriate disposition. To have a moral belief and not possess the suitable motivation is to be disingenuous. This attribute distinguishes moral beliefs from non-moral beliefs since in the case of non-moral beliefs, the fact that a person makes some claim sincerely seems never to entail anything in particular about her motivations. The argument proceeds like this: Non-moral statements report facts. Hence they are motivationally inert. Only, beliefs can be motivationally inert and be truth-apt. Therefore, non-moral statements are beliefs. Non-cognitivists harp on this distinction and argue that since moral statements are motivationally loaded, they must be expressions of desires, commitments, and attitudes. Therefore, they are not beliefs and hence cannot be evaluated as true/false.
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Ravish, S. The Predicament of Moral Epistemology. J. Indian Counc. Philos. Res. 36, 265–279 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-018-0170-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-018-0170-x