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Notes
For Soames’ development of this theme, see especially Chapter 6, “The Mixed Legacy and Lost Opportunities of Moore’s Ethics”.
We note in passing that, contrary to the impression at which one might naturally arrive from the discussions of both Moore and Soames (see, e.g., p. 236), some skeptical arguments do not proceed from abstract principles or general assumptions about what knowledge requires, but rather from highly specific claims to the effect that one does not know a particular proposition. Indeed, some philosophers maintain (although we do not agree with them about this) that the most formidable skeptical argument of all is an argument that takes as its crucial premise the supposedly intuitively plausible claim that I do not know that I am not a brain in a vat being undetectably deceived (see, e.g., DeRose 1995; Nozick 1981; Unger 1975). Similarly, there are genuinely formidable skeptical arguments whose key premise is not a general assumption or principle about knowledge but rather a so-called “lottery proposition” to the effect that one is not in a position to know in advance that one’s ticket will lose in a fair lottery. (For discussion of such arguments, see especially Hawthorne 2004). That having been said, it is certainly true that revisionary-minded philosophers have frequently employed highly abstract principles and general assumptions as premises in their arguments, both in epistemology and elsewhere.
Because it is directly relevant to the argument that we offer in the next section, we have supplied Soames’ complete list of propositions, although we have changed his numbering.
Although we concentrate on these two papers, the feature in question is not limited to them; rather, it is consistent throughout Moore’s writings on common sense. For example, as noted above, in “Hume’s Theory Examined”, another paper that clearly belongs in this group, the key proposition to which Moore appeals is I know that this pencil exists.
Consider Moore’s great insistence, in “A Defense of Common Sense” and elsewhere, that the common sense propositions to which he appeals really are inconsistent with the philosophical views that he intends to contest.
Whether Moore’s method in ethics is as consistently “top-down” as Soames represents it as being is a contentious issue that we will not weigh in on here. On this question, see Thomas Hurka, “Soames on Ethics” (available at http://thomashurka.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/soames.pdf) and Soames’ reply (available at http://dornsife.usc.edu/assets/sites/678/docs/Replies/Rep__Philosophical_Ayalysis.pdf).
For one of us (Kelly 2005: 197–203) this represents a departure from an earlier view. For a more detailed discussion of this point than we are able to offer here, see McGrath, Knowledge in the Moral Domain, Chapter 2.
On the importance of moral generics, see, e.g., Lerner and Leslie (2013). Notice that even when the relevant moral claims are understood as generics, they conflict with some revisionary philosophical theories that have actually been maintained, (e.g.,) error theories according to which none of the practices in which human beings actually engage instantiate moral properties.
Thanks to Thomas Blackson for the invitation to participate in this symposium, and especially, to Scott Soames for his stimulating work on the history of analytic philosophy. One of us (Kelly) has used Soames’ texts with great profit ever since taking over the teaching of the history of analytic philosophy at Princeton upon Soames’ departure; both of us have learned a great deal about philosophy from them.
References
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McGrath, S., Kelly, T. Soames and Moore on method in ethics and epistemology. Philos Stud 172, 1661–1670 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-015-0484-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-015-0484-3