Dissertation Abstract for
"Moral Intutionism, Disagreement, and the Prudent Conscience"
In
my dissertation, I have two central goals. My first goal is to show that the
standard accounts of moral intuitionism are problematic views of moral
knowledge (chapters 1-3). My second goal is to propose a less problematic
account of moral intuitionism that can count as an alternative epistemological
companion to moral realism (chapters 4 and 5). Moral intuitionism is an account
of moral knowledge experiencing a rebirth in popularity, particularly amongst
moral realists who believe moral properties, like rightness and wrongness, are
non-natural. In its most general form, moral intuitionism is the view that, for
at least some seeming states, when a moral proposition p seems true to an agent, that agent is justified in the belief
that p. Standard accounts of moral
intuitionism (henceforth “SMI”) consider a seeming’s capacity to confer justification
to be determined by the seeming’s phenomenological features alone. There are
two main versions of SMI. The first (and most popular) version restricts the
sorts of seeming states that are justification conferring to self-evidential
seemings, whereas the second version considers all seemings about moral
propositions to be justification conferring. In chapter 1 of my dissertation, I
provide an account of SMI that focuses on the particular treatment of seeming
states given by both versions of the standard intuitionist view.
The chief problem with SMI is that it is incapable of handling a phenomenon common to pluralistic societies, namely, moral disagreement. When people disagree about their most fundamental moral beliefs, basing their disparate beliefs on seeming states with equally strong phenomenological credentials, moral intuitionism treats both agents as having equally good epistemic support for their disputed beliefs. As I argue in chapter 2, disagreements of this type result in the epistemic defeat of each agent’s disputed belief, such that after the disagreement is fully disclosed to both agents, each should withhold assent from both beliefs. In chapter 3, I argue that given how widespread this sort of moral disagreement is, accounts of SMI lead to a practical sort of moral skepticism whereby individuals are reduced to withholding assent from all their moral beliefs, except those universally agreed upon. In order to show that SMI faces problems in how it handles disagreement, I first take up a position in the epistemology of disagreement more generally. Thus, the object of chapter 2 is to explain and defend a modest variation of a popular thesis in the literature on disagreement, known as the “Equal Weight View.” Chapters 3 and 5 apply this modest position to SMI and the alternative account of moral knowledge I am proposing, respectively.
As I argue in chapter 4, whether a seeming confers justification is not determined solely by the phenomenological features of that seeming. Rather, the capacity of a seeming to confer justification is at least partially dependent upon the degree to which the cognitive faculty producing the seeming is functioning properly. Since the causal origin of a seeming is not one of the seeming’s phenomenological features, my proposed account is a type of moral intuitionism, but a non-standard account (denying the thesis central to SMI). The relevant cognitive faculty that produces moral seemings is the conscience and, unlike other cognitive faculties, the propriety of its function depends upon an agent’s possession and exercise of the intellectual virtue of prudence. To the degree that an agent is prudent, her conscience will be formed properly and will function as it ought, producing seeming states that confer justification onto beliefs in their propositional contents. Prudence, the intellectual virtue by which an agent is able to reason excellently about action, is therefore central to the possession and acquisition of moral knowledge, for its presence or absence in an individual determines the epistemic support had by that individual’s seeming states toward her moral beliefs. For this reason, as I argue in chapter 5, disagreements in which individuals appeal to phenomenologically equivalent seeming states as the bases for their opposing beliefs do not (of themselves) lead to the mutual defeat of both beliefs, as per SMI. Instead, agents who are prudent have reason to maintain their disputed moral beliefs after disagreements like this unless they are justified in believing that the agent with whom they have disagreed is more or about equally as prudent as they are. In the cases where moral disagreement does lead to defeat, however, such defeat is epistemically good, for it eliminates less prudently formed beliefs and often provides the less prudent agent justification to endorse the more prudent agent’s disputed moral belief, thus avoiding the skepticism faced by advocates of SMI.
The chief problem with SMI is that it is incapable of handling a phenomenon common to pluralistic societies, namely, moral disagreement. When people disagree about their most fundamental moral beliefs, basing their disparate beliefs on seeming states with equally strong phenomenological credentials, moral intuitionism treats both agents as having equally good epistemic support for their disputed beliefs. As I argue in chapter 2, disagreements of this type result in the epistemic defeat of each agent’s disputed belief, such that after the disagreement is fully disclosed to both agents, each should withhold assent from both beliefs. In chapter 3, I argue that given how widespread this sort of moral disagreement is, accounts of SMI lead to a practical sort of moral skepticism whereby individuals are reduced to withholding assent from all their moral beliefs, except those universally agreed upon. In order to show that SMI faces problems in how it handles disagreement, I first take up a position in the epistemology of disagreement more generally. Thus, the object of chapter 2 is to explain and defend a modest variation of a popular thesis in the literature on disagreement, known as the “Equal Weight View.” Chapters 3 and 5 apply this modest position to SMI and the alternative account of moral knowledge I am proposing, respectively.
As I argue in chapter 4, whether a seeming confers justification is not determined solely by the phenomenological features of that seeming. Rather, the capacity of a seeming to confer justification is at least partially dependent upon the degree to which the cognitive faculty producing the seeming is functioning properly. Since the causal origin of a seeming is not one of the seeming’s phenomenological features, my proposed account is a type of moral intuitionism, but a non-standard account (denying the thesis central to SMI). The relevant cognitive faculty that produces moral seemings is the conscience and, unlike other cognitive faculties, the propriety of its function depends upon an agent’s possession and exercise of the intellectual virtue of prudence. To the degree that an agent is prudent, her conscience will be formed properly and will function as it ought, producing seeming states that confer justification onto beliefs in their propositional contents. Prudence, the intellectual virtue by which an agent is able to reason excellently about action, is therefore central to the possession and acquisition of moral knowledge, for its presence or absence in an individual determines the epistemic support had by that individual’s seeming states toward her moral beliefs. For this reason, as I argue in chapter 5, disagreements in which individuals appeal to phenomenologically equivalent seeming states as the bases for their opposing beliefs do not (of themselves) lead to the mutual defeat of both beliefs, as per SMI. Instead, agents who are prudent have reason to maintain their disputed moral beliefs after disagreements like this unless they are justified in believing that the agent with whom they have disagreed is more or about equally as prudent as they are. In the cases where moral disagreement does lead to defeat, however, such defeat is epistemically good, for it eliminates less prudently formed beliefs and often provides the less prudent agent justification to endorse the more prudent agent’s disputed moral belief, thus avoiding the skepticism faced by advocates of SMI.
