Intro to Ethics - Moral Knowledge (McGrath)

What is the question of moral epistemology? Why might the source of moral knowledge affect how much of it we have?

• Moral epistemology asks how we get moral knowledge, meaning knowledge of what is right or what we morally ought to do. It also asks where that knowledge comes from.  

• The source affects how much we have: if it’s common sense, most people have a lot, but if it needs a special faculty we lack, we may have little.

What are Reid’s and Mackie’s views about the source of moral knowledge? What does each imply about how much moral knowledge we have? 

• Reid thinks the source of moral knowledge is our own conscience when the mind is calm and unruffled, so we should have a lot.  

• Mackie thinks moral knowledge would require a special faculty of moral perception or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing. Since he thinks we have no such faculty, he concludes we have no moral knowledge. 

What is empiricism? Why did Mill think moral claims might be testable by experience? 

• Empiricism is the view that experience plays a primary or even exclusive role in all knowledge.  

• Mill thought moral claims are testable because “right” can be translated into empirical claims about which actions produce the most happiness for the greatest number. That would make moral investigation part of psychology or sociology. 

What is Moore’s Open Question Argument? 

Moore claimed that "good" is a simple, unanalyzable, and indefinable moral property, much like the color yellow (which you cannot define to someone who does not already know it, only give examples).

Moore’s Open Question Argument - Why does it seem reasonable to wonder whether an act that produces the most good is right? 

Even if we knew that torturing a suspected terrorist would produce the most good, we could still wonder whether it would be right. That wondering makes sense, unlike asking “he’s a bachelor, but is he unmarried?”, which is a closed question. 

Moore’s Open Question Argument - What does the argument conclude about defining moral properties in terms of natural properties? 

If “right” just meant “produces the most good,” the question wouldn’t be open. Moore concludes that no way of defining moral properties in terms of natural properties can be right, since we can wonder this for any natural property. 

Moore’s Open Question Argument - What is Moore’s positive view? What does Ayer conclude instead? 

Moore’s positive view is that some moral truths are self-evident, known through intuition. Ayer agrees moral claims aren’t empirical, but says intuition can’t test them either, since people’s intuitions differ. So Ayer concludes we have no moral knowledge at all.  

What is the method of reflective equilibrium? 

It is a method of moral inquiry where you start with moral beliefs you already hold and work back and forth between them and general principles until they fit together. 

Method of Reflective Equilibrium - What is considered judgement? 

A considered judgment is a belief that seems clearly true when you reflect carefully under good conditions (calm, able to concentrate, no personal stake, and stable rather than fleeting). 

Method of Reflective Equilibrium - Walk through the steps. In which directions can revision go? 

First, bring your existing moral beliefs. Second, keep the considered judgments. Third, find general principles that systematize them. Fourth, work back and forth, revising judgments or principles at every level of generality until they fit.  

Method of Reflective Equilibrium - What is the ideal state the method aims at, and what does McGrath say about beliefs that survive it? 

The ideal is a state where your principles and judgments fit together and the general principles help explain the particular judgments. McGrath says your beliefs count as reasonable, justified, or even known to the extent that they have survived this process.  

What are the two worries about reflective equilibrium – that is too liberal and that is too strict? Be able to explain each. 

• Too liberal: someone could apply the method perfectly and still keep an unreasonable belief, like “one is morally required to occasionally kill randomly,” if it fits with her other beliefs. We can’t fix this by requiring considered judgments to be reasonable, because the method is supposed to tell us what’s reasonable.  

• Too strict: it may exclude beliefs that are already justified, like a person of color’s belief that she shouldn’t be disadvantaged for her skin color, which she must set aside as personally invested. It also over-intellectualizes simple cases, like knowing you should help a lost toddler without needing the method. 

Deference: what is the Ally example? Why does acquiring a moral belief purely on testimony seem improper? What is Hare’s view? What role might understanding play? 

• In the Ally example, Ally is vegetarian because her ethics professor said eating meat is wrong, but she can’t say why.  

• It seems improper because we are fine deferring to others about things like geography, yet simply absorbing a moral belief without grasping any reasons seems odd.  

• Hare thinks we must arrive at moral beliefs as autonomous agents, so deferring on how to live gives up our autonomy.  

• A further idea is that moral knowledge requires understanding, which we can’t get through testimony. 

Disagreement: does the fact that others disagree with us threaten our moral knowledge? What is Sidgwick’s view? 

• It might threaten our knowledge, since many smart and sincere people disagree with us on controversial moral questions.  

• Sidgwick says yes: if an epistemic peer (someone you have no more reason to think is wrong than yourself) disagrees, you’re reduced to a state of neutrality. He says the absence of such disagreement is an indispensable negative condition on the certainty of our knowledge. 

Debunking: what is the evolutionary debunking worry? Why might it threaten a kind of objectivity about morality? 

• Many of our basic moral beliefs (like caring for our children) look like what evolution would have picked for us, but that process tracks survival, not truth. So our beliefs might be entirely disconnected from moral truth, as learning an email was a prank removes your reason to believe it.  

• A possible reply is that moral truth depends on what we value, but then morality may lose the objectivity and authority we wanted it to have. 

What is the “companions in guilt” response? What does she conclude about how we gain moral knowledge? 

• The response (from Mackie’s term) says the challenges to moral knowledge would also threaten other kinds of knowledge. Experts disagree in science and history, we rely on testimony everywhere, and we get math by hard thinking, not experiments. If they don’t defeat that knowledge, there’s no reason they should defeat moral knowledge.  

• McGrath concludes we gain moral knowledge in ordinary ways (upbringing, testimony, experience, and reflection), and like other knowledge it can be lost or distorted.