Non-negotiable: Why moral naturalism cannot do away with categorical reasons

2016 ◽  
Vol 173 (9) ◽  
pp. 2511-2528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrés Carlos Luco
Author(s):  
Christopher Cowie

The views outlined in earlier chapters are systematically presented. These include: the truth of epistemic institutionalism and falsity of analogous institutionalist views in morality; the challenges facing categorical reasons for action that do not apply to categorial reasons for belief; the reducible nature of epistemic properties and relations—including the defensibility of this view in light of concerns with the normativity of probability and the falsity of both veritism and epistemic consequentialism—in contrast to the irreducible nature of moral properties and relations, and the possibility of ‘the puzzling combination’. It is concluded that the argument from analogy fails and that the moral error theory may yet be true, but that it would be illegitimate to conclude that it is true.


Author(s):  
Christopher Cowie

An alternative argument is provided for rejecting internalism-parity. It is claimed that, from the perspective of internalism-based moral error theorists, categorical reasons for action are more problematic than categorical reasons for belief. This is because there are considerably stronger arguments for thinking that one’s reasons for action are constitutively dependent on one’s desires than for thinking that one’s reasons for belief are constitutively dependent on one’s desires. Three such arguments are considered: from action-explanation, from reasoning, and from paradigmatic-ascriptions. It is claimed that the first of these three arguments clearly does not apply to reasons for belief as to reasons for action. The applicability of the second and third arguments is harder to ascertain.


2009 ◽  
Vol 109 (1pt2) ◽  
pp. 189-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russ Shafer-Landau
Keyword(s):  

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUSTIN MORTON

ABSTRACT:Evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs) claim that evolution has influenced our moral faculties in such a way that, if moral realism is true, then we have no positive moral knowledge. I present several popular objections to the standard version of this argument before offering a new EDA that has clear advantages in responding to these objections. Whereas the Standard EDA argues that evolution has selected for many moral beliefs with certain contents, this New EDA claims that evolution has selected for one belief: belief in the claim that categorical reasons exist. If moral realism is true, then this claim is entailed by all positive moral claims, and belief in it is defeated due to evolutionary influence. This entails that if realism is true, then we have no positive moral knowledge. While there may be objections against this New EDA, it is much stronger than the Standard EDA, and one realists ought to worry about.


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