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Summary: The Open Problems With Arguments On Gaining Knowledge

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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 …show more content…

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 …show more content…

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

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The final chapter, chapter 21, of Russ Shafer-Landau’s book, The Fundamentals of Ethics, emphasis is placed on the fact that moral objectivity is not always completely universal but does not mean the idea of moral objectivism has to be rejected. Moral objectivism states that moral standards should be universal but there are some circumstances and exceptions to this claim. Shafer-Landau presents eleven arguments in chapter 21 that some consider challenges to the universality principle of moral objectivity. Not only will moral objectivism be examined in this paper but also another philosophical view known as moral skepticism will be discussed. In addition to the arguments present by Shafter-Landau’s book this paper will include an analysis from

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“Young children are just beginning to learn how to discriminate between right and wrong; in other words, they are developing a sense of morality” (Levine, 2016). They simply are developing the knowledge of what is right and what is wrong form themselves, but what the moral development helps them to know the difference in right and wrong and the best interest for others rather than themselves. “So, what is understood about morality as a child in middle childhood, is generally the level of reasoning most individuals will use in moral dilemmas or judging the morality of situations” (S. Tulane, personal communication, April 18, 2017). This development has an influence on everything that happens around them and the behaviors around

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In his article “Framing Moral Intuitions”, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong sets out to reject moral intuitionalism by questioning whether moral intuitions can be justified non-inferentially. He defines a moral intuition as a strong and immediate belief (Sinnott-Armstrong, 47) and for it to be justified non-inferentially is to be able to justify it independently of any other belief (Sinnott-Armstrong, 48). His primary aim is to demonstrate that many of our moral intuitions are unreliable and consequently, that no moral intuition can be justified without inference. He does this by citing several studies that demonstrate how moral intuitions can be subject to “framing effects”. Framing effects are the effects that wording and context can have on our

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He argues that we come to conclusions about the truth of both moral and nonmoral facts by assuming a theory, and then observationally testing our theories. To use his example, we might have the moral belief that Zenobia is a good person, and independently theorise that good people keep their promises. From this we will develop the observational prediction that Zenobia will keep her promises. So our faculties for perceiving moral facts operate in the same way as our faculties for perceiving nonmoral facts, and so moral perception is not actually

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It fallows from this starting point that there are objective moral facts which we have access to via our reason, that under ideal conditions will lead us toward indisputable moral truth. If there are indisputable moral facts then it is reasonable to think that when people disagree, at least one person must be wrong about relevant moral facts, or they aren’t properly using their reason. This seems to conflict with our experience of the world around us, wherein many people disagree about morality on a regular basis, and for prolonged periods of time. Still the moral realist holds that these disagreements aren’t fundamental, and are instead superficial disagreements. Realists make the distinction between fundamental and superficial moral disagreements because people are easily confused about what constitutes a true disagreement.

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Throughout history many great philosophers have attempted to unravel the origins of virtues by developing moral theories of their own. This document is designed to provide the reader with an overview of some of the more popular theories concerning morals. Three of the most popular moral theories are… Utilitarianism, Kantianism, and Aristotelianism. Though Utilitarianism, Kantianism, and Aristotelianism differ in many ways, they also share similar fundamentals. Utilitarianism is a highly acclaimed theory that is morally based on consequentialism.

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The argument that Adam Walsh puts forward is a response against Anscombe’s objection to certain thought experiments in ethics, which argues that imagining these thought experiments represents a corrupt mind, and that by thinking over them can eventually corrupt the mind (Walsh, 2011: 476). Thought experiments involve imagining. In ethics, to conduct a thought experiment is to make a judgment about a hypothetical situation that is normally distant from our own world. The objection is, that thought experiments based on the context of morally sensitive issues such as abortion is obnoxious and evidence of a corrupt mind (Walsh, 2011: 476). Anscombe formulated this objection and says that thought experiments treat morally serious issues in a thoughtless manner because she states that thought experiments involve abstract examples that are very different from reality (Walsh, 2011: 476).

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In Response to McGrath’s Dilemma Against Moral Inferentialism An influential argument for moral skepticism is the moral regress argument (Sayre-McCord 1996). Moral inferentialists, who think we do have genuine moral knowledge, argue against the moral regress argument by rejecting the picture of justification one finds in the moral regress argument. Sarah McGrath (2004), in order to make room for her non-inferential moral perception account of moral knowledge, presents a dilemma against moral inferentialism, the thesis that all of our moral knowledge of particular cases is inferential. In particular, she challenges the most compelling version of moral inferentialism, which I call moral bridge inferentialism. In this paper, I argue that both horns of McGrath’s apparent dilemma turn out to lack argumentative weight against the moral bridge inferentialist.

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