Moral disagreement scepticism leveled

Ratio 34 (3):203-216 (2021)
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Abstract

While many have argued that moral disagreement poses a challenge to moral knowledge, the precise nature of this challenge is controversial. Indeed, in the moral epistemology literature, there are many different versions of ‘the’ argument from moral disagreement to moral scepticism. This paper contributes to this vast literature on moral disagreement by arguing for two theses: 1. All (or nearly all) moral disagreement arguments share an underlying structure; and, 2. All moral disagreement arguments that satisfy this underlying structure cannot establish moral scepticism because this underlying structure leads to a previously unrecognized reductio ad absurdum. In short, I argue that this reductio argument (very likely) refutes all versions of the moral disagreement to moral scepticism argument in one fell swoop.

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Jonathan Dixon
Wake Forest University

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References found in this work

What do philosophers believe?David Bourget & David J. Chalmers - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 170 (3):465-500.
Taking Morality Seriously: A Defense of Robust Realism.David Enoch - 2011 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
Moral realism: a defence.Russ Shafer-Landau - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Epistemology of disagreement: The good news.David Christensen - 2007 - Philosophical Review 116 (2):187-217.

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