Abstract
This paper presents a regress challenge to the selective psychological debunking of moral judgments. A selective psychological debunking argument conjoins an empirical claim about the psychological origins of certain moral judgments to a theoretical claim that these psychological origins cannot track moral truth, leading to the conclusion that the moral judgments are unreliable. I argue that psychological debunking arguments are vulnerable to a regress challenge, because the theoretical claim that ‘such-and-such psychological process is not moral-truth-tracking’ relies upon moral judgments. We must then ask about the psychological origins of these judgments, and then make a further evaluative judgment about these psychological origins… and so on. This chain of empirical and evaluative claims may continue indefinitely and, I will argue, proponents of the debunking argument are in a dialectical position where they may not simply call a halt to the process. Hence, their argument cannot terminate, and its debunking conclusion cannot be upheld.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 675-697 |
Number of pages | 23 |
Journal | Philosophical Studies |
Volume | 173 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 1 2016 |
Keywords
- Moral judgment
- Moral psychology
- Psychological debunking
- Regress argument
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Philosophy