Practical Intelligibility and Moral Skepticism: Should Realists Worry About Grass-Counters and Hand-Claspers?

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 102 (1):103-125 (2021)
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Abstract

The focus of this paper is the following claim: as a purely conceptual matter, the moral truths could be pretty much anything, and we should assume this in assessing our reliability at grasping moral truths. This claim, which I call No Content, plays a key role in an important skeptical argument against realist moral knowledge – the Normative Lottery Argument. In this paper, I argue that moral realists can, and should, reject No Content. My argument centers on the idea of practical intelligibility. I explore different aspects of practical intelligibility, and I argue that such intelligibility sets a constraint on the possibilities we should consider when assessing our reliability at grasping moral truths.

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Micah Lott
Boston College

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References found in this work

A Darwinian dilemma for realist theories of value.Sharon Street - 2006 - Philosophical Studies 127 (1):109-166.
Debunking Evolutionary Debunking.Katia Vavova - 2014 - Oxford Studies in Metaethics 9:76-101.

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