Abstract
Several authors believe that metaethicists ought to leave their comfortable armchairs and engage with serious empirical research. This paper provides partial support for the opposing view, that metaethics is rightly conducted from the armchair. It does so by focusing on debunking arguments against robust moral realism. Specifically, the article discusses arguments based on the possibility that if robust realism is correct, then our beliefs are most likely insensitive to the relevant truths. These arguments seem at first glance to be dependent on empirical research to learn what our moral beliefs are sensitive to. It is argued, however, that this is not so. The paper then examines two thought experiments that have been thought to demonstrate that debunking arguments might depend on empirical details and argues that the conclusion is not supported.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 575-590 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Ethical Theory and Moral Practice |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue number | 3-4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1 Aug 2020 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2020, Springer Nature B.V.
Funding
I am indebted to David Enoch, Jessica Isserow, Arnon Levy, Christiane Merritt, Said Saillant, Matthew Scarfone, Daniel Telech, Preston Werner, Shlomit Wygoda, two anonymous referees and to participants at my presentation at the Ethics and Biology conference at the Center for Moral and Political Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for very helpful comments and discussion on previous drafts. I’d also like to thank Michael Klenk, Josh May and Hanno Sauer for discussing their related work.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Josh May and Hanno Sauer | |
| Michael Klenk | |
| Hebrew University of Jerusalem |
Keywords
- Armchair philosophy
- Evolutionary debunking
- Insensitivity
- Moral autonomy
- Robust moral realism