Debunking Arguments about Morality

Debunking arguments in morality aim to show that our having the moral beliefs that we do is best explained by something other than our accurately tracking the relevant moral properties or facts. Thus, so the debunkers claim, our best explanation for our having the moral beliefs we do threatens to undermine our epistemic justification for having those beliefs. For these reasons, debunking arguments in morality typically target moral realism. For current purposes, we can portray moral realism as consisting of a psychological claim and a metaphysical claim. The moral realist’s psychological claim is that moral judgments are a type of belief such that moral judgments are capable of being either true false depending on whether they correspond to the relevant moral fact(s). The metaphysical claim is that moral facts or properties, such as the property of being morally obligatory or the property of being morally wrong, exist independently of anyone’s beliefs or values. For example, a moral realist would claim that slavery is wrong even if everyone who ever existed thought it was morally permissible. However, if the debunkers are correct, our belief that slavery is wrong is best explained by factors that do not convey epistemic warrant on that (or any) moral belief.