Summary: The Open Problems With Arguments On Gaining Knowledge

The Open Problems with Arguments on Gaining Knowledge

Moral realism is the belief that morality exists independently as a set of facts in the world. John McDowell argued that our moral judgements are expressions of these objective truths since they are dependent on the general conclusions. But, how do we gain the knowledge to reach these conclusions? There are several means in which we gain this knowledge. This paper will analyse three main ways we gain moral knowledge in order to prove that each cannot be used as a sufficiently good way to gain moral knowledge on their own. This inability reveals that there is an open question to the moral knowledge, leading to the question of the existence of moral facts.

The need for moral knowledge

The argument by perception follows that “if we come to know moral theories, we come to know them in the same way that we come to know scientific theories.” By this statement, perceptions are made in order to see moral properties and facts. If one believes in perception, then it is assumed that humans must have a moral faculty capable of moral perceptions. In a scenario, a successful form of moral perception would be a direct observation that reveals moral facts and non-moral properties. For example, Alice believes homosexuality is a sin because of her religion, but she meets a gay couple and sees that there is nothing wrong with their relationship. She might even later conclude that there is nothing wrong, in general, with homosexuality. Alice is not grasping at non-naturalistic principles, but through perception concludes that there is nothing wrong. Unlike intuitionism, perception does not assume a non-naturalistic moral fact, but resolves gaining moral knowledge through perceiving natural

One objection is that non-moral properties can be agreed on while moral properties can still disagreed on, similar to intuitionism. By combining the sight of a non-moral fact and its moral dilemma, one introduces a two-part perception. There could be a circumstance in which a person can perceive that a starving man is stealing bread and conclude that it was wrong, but another could perceive that exact same situation and conclude that stealing the bread was a moral action. One could object by stating that there is something wrong with the moral faculties of one of the perceivers. However, this explanation neglects other reasons for disagreement, such as moral development. Moral development differences might explain why one person found it moral to steal the bread. Furthermore, it could be argued that the perception of moral facts is not necessary with non-moral properties. In order to conclude a general moral fact, like stealing is wrong, non-moral properties might cloud the perception or be unnecessary for the conclusion. The problem with perception is that, by it naturalistic nature, it is unable to resolve both the issues with intuitionism and confuses the observation of moral facts with non-moral properties. This raises questions on the ability of one’s naturalistic perceptions ability to understand moral knowledge and thereby