(1) Rupert Read charges that Rawls culpably overlooks the politicized Euthyphro: Do we accept our political perspective because it is right or is it right because we accept it? (2) This charge brings up the question of the deficiency dilemma: Do others disagree with us because of our failures or theirs? —where the two dilemmas appear to be independent of each other and lead to the questions of the logic of deficiency, moral epistemic deficiency, epistemic peers, and the hardness of (...) philosophy. (3) In reply, on an expanded principle of charity Rawls does not overlook the Euthyphro but rather offers ground-breaking solutions to it, (4) that nonetheless trip on the independent bootstrap (5)—as also do Dreben and Nussbaum. (6) Furthermore, Rawls's ' burdens of judgment' seek to bypass the necessity of moral epistemic deficiency and (7) suggest a wider framework for understanding disagreement that sees disagreement as arising from inquiry being in development, unpredictable and uncertain. (8) This wider framework entails that disagreement does not mean moral epistemic deficiency and (9) that our responses to the Euthyphro are 'too soon to say'. (shrink)

To enhance the plausibility of naturalistic moral realism, David Copp develops an argument from epistemic defeaters aiming to show that strongly a priori synthetic moral truths do not exist. In making a case for the non-naturalistic position, I locate Copp’s account within the wider literature on peer disagreement; I identify key points of divergence between Copp’s doctrine and conciliatorist doctrines; I introduce the notion of ‘minimal moral competence’; I contend that some plausible benchmarks for minimal moral competence are grounded in (...) substantive moral considerations; and I discuss two forms of spinelessness that Copp’s moral naturalism could result in. (shrink)

For many of the moral beliefs we hold, we know that other people hold moral beliefs that contradict them. If you think that moral beliefs can be correct or incorrect, what difference should your awareness of others’ disagreement make to your conviction that you, and not those who think otherwise, have the correct belief? Are there circumstances in which an awareness of others’ disagreement should lead you to suspend a moral belief? If so, what are they, and why? This paper (...) argues that three principles, taken together, give us a good answer to these questions; that they license a form of provisional moral self-trust; and that they reveal an interestingly distinctive form of pragmatic encroachment in relation to the epistemic standards governing moral belief. (shrink)

This paper argues that suspension of judgement is the appropriate response to disagreement about ultimate moral principles, and outlines the implications of such a response. It begins with an argument influenced by Sextus and Sidgwick for the rationality of suspension, and then illustrates fundamental disagreement with the case of promising. Replies are offered to the arguments against the rationality of suspension offered by Robert Audi in his discussion of moral perception. It is noted in particular that such rationality does not (...) depend on the assumption that epistemic peerhood is widespread. The limited nature of ethical agreement is illustrated, along with the limited implications of disagreement if a less adversarial and more constructive ethical methodology is adopted. (shrink)

Faced with current urgent calls for more trust in experts, especially in high impact and politically sensitive domains, such as climate science and COVID-19, the complex and problematic nature of public trust in experts and the need for a more critical approach to the topic are easy to overlook. Scepticism – at least in its Humean mitigated form that encourages independent, questioning attitudes – can prove valuable to democratic governance, but stands in opposition to the cognitive dependency entailed by epistemic (...) trust. In this paper, we investigate the tension between the value of mitigated scepticism – understood as the exercise of reason-based doubt in a particular domain – and the need for trust in experts. We offer four arguments in favour of mitigated scepticism: the argument from loss of intellectual autonomy; the argument from democratic deficit; the argument from the normative failures of science; and the argument from past and current injustices. These arguments highlight the tension between the requirements for trust and justified scepticism about the role of experts. One solution, which we reject, is the idea that reliance, rather than trust, is sufficient for the purposes of accommodating experts in policy matters. The solution we endorse is to create a ‘climate of trust’, where questioning experts and expertise is welcomed, but the epistemic trust necessary for action upon information which the public cannot obtain first-hand is enabled and encouraged through structural, institutional, and justice-based measures. (shrink)

ABSTRACT ABSTRACT: This paper provides a multifaceted account of intuition. The paper integrates apparently disparate conceptions of intuition, shows how the notion has figured in epistemology as well as in intuitionistic ethics, and clarifies the relation between the intuitive and the self-evident. Ethical intuitionism is characterized in ways that, in phenomenology, epistemology, and ontology, represent an advance over the position of W. D. Ross while preserving its commonsense normative core and intuitionist character. This requires clarifying the sense in which intuitions (...) are non-inferential and explaining how self-evident principles may be maintained without dogmatism, how intuition is significantly analogous to perception, and how rational disagreements can extend even to the self-evident. The paper distinguishes between two orders of normative disagreement, shows how intuition can contribute to resolving normative disagreements, and represents ethical intuitionism as capable of modified forms that depart from its traditional claims in being neutral with respect to both ethical naturalism and metaphysical realism. (shrink)

Bernard Williams in his “Internal and External Reasons” argues for internalism about reasons. He holds that according to internalism of reasons, agent A has reason to Φ if and only if he has a desire ψ which will be satisfied by Φ-ing and he also believes that it is so. Williams maintains that if one does not have a preceding desire and cannot form any desires through deliberation then it will be rational to claim that he does not have reason (...) to Φ. Clearly desires play a crucial role here because if an agent does not have such desires, then he does not have reasons for action. Williams goes beyond this claim and says only internal reasons are reasons for action. In this article, we argue against his claim. After explaining descriptive and normative senses of rationality and alternative views regarding the rationality of beliefs and desires, in virtue of the idea of blameworthiness, responsibility, and having practical reason, we show that there are a set of actions for which moral agents are blameworthy and they, therefore, have reasons at least for certain actions which are not dependent upon their desires. This idea would be supported by the facts that most people consider a person who violates hedonic, prudential, and moral norms as much as possible to be irrational, that they consider the act of counting him as rational to be counterintuitive, and finally that societies have founded institutions for restraining such a person.Our argument from blameworthiness can be formulated as follows: If a moral agent performs an action X for which he can justly be blamed, then he will be responsible and he ought not to perform X. If a moral agent is responsible and he ought not to perform X, then there is a reason for him not to perform X. There are a set of actions, S, that moral agents can be justly blamed for performing. So moral agents are responsible for performing an action in S. So there are reasons for moral agents not to perform an action in S.By falsifying the negation of premise, we show that is true. To falsify that it is not the case that there are actions for which moral agents can be justly blamed, we presented an example of an extremely immoral, imprudent, and pain-seeking agent who forms abnormal desires and acts against moral, prudent, and hedonic norms as much as possible. Since there are not any desires for such norms in his psychology, and his actions are based on these desires, he is not regarded as rational by most people and social institutions such as psychiatric clinics and courts. In addition, it would be irrational to hold that he is rational in his having immoral, imprudent, and pain-seeking desires and acting accordingly because it is a rational, prevalent, conventional practice to believe so and any theory which denies its rationality should provide convincing reasons. (shrink)