Abstract
The field of metaethics, the branch of moral philosophy that examines the nature and status of morality, is rich in theoretical diversity. Nonetheless, a majority of professional philosophers embrace a subset of theories that affirm the existence of objective moral facts. I suggest that this may be related to the very method that philosophers use to construct metaethical theories. This method involves analyzing how ordinary people think and argue about morality. Analysis of ordinary moral discourse is meant to reveal common platitudes (or truisms) about the nature of morality itself, including the platitude that morality trades in objective moral facts. But do philosophers investigate ordinary moral discourse in any systematic way? How do they arrive at such platitudes? On what grounds are they justified? In this paper, I critically examine these questions and argue that a) any such platitudes need to be investigated systematically through empirical research and b) philosophers ought to be engaged in this research themselves.
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Notes
For critical discussion of this platitude, see Gill (2009).
A parallel worry is raised in the Zhuangzi, a compendium of early Daoist thought, concerning the adjudication of competing claims among philosophers about the substance of morality. “Once you and I have started arguing… Is one of us right and the other one wrong? Or are both of us right and both of us wrong?… Whom shall we get to set us right? Shall we get someone who agrees with you to set us right? But if they already agree with you how can they set us right? Shall we get someone who agrees with me to set us right? But if they already agree with me, how can they set us right? Shall we get someone who disagrees with both of us to set us right? But if they already disagree with both of us, how can they set us right? Shall we get someone who agrees with both of us to set us right? But if they already agree with both of us, how can they set us right? If you and I and they all can’t understand each other, should we wait for someone else?” (Ivanhoe and Van Norden 2005, p. 223).
Compare Doris and Stich (2005, pp. 124–125) on claims about conceptual truths concerning motivational internalism.
For a more detailed overview of the existing literature, see Sarkissian (2016).
The ‘third-person’ approach is dominant within experimental psychology, though there are strengths and weaknesses to both approaches. See Meindl and Graham (2014) for helpful discussion.
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Sarkissian, H. Folk Platitudes as the Explananda of Philosophical Metaethics: Are They Accurate? And Do They Help or Hinder Inquiry?. J. Indian Counc. Philos. Res. 34, 565–575 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-017-0115-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-017-0115-9