Moral Skepticism and Moral Disagreement in Nietzsche
Oxford Studies in Metaethics 9 (2014)
Abstract
This chapter offers a new interpretation of Nietzsche’s argument for moral skepticism, an argument that should be of independent philosophical interest as well. On this account, Nietzsche offers a version of the argument from moral disagreement, but, unlike familiar varieties, it does not purport to exploit anthropological reports about the moral views of exotic cultures, or even garden-variety conflicting moral intuitions about concrete cases. Nietzsche, instead, calls attention to the single most important and embarrassing fact about the history of moral theorizing by philosophers over two millennia: namely, that no rational consensus has been secured on any substantive, foundational proposition about morality. Persistent and apparently intractable disagreement on foundational questions, of course, distinguishes moral theory from inquiry in the sciences and mathematics. According to Nietzsche, the best explanation for this disagreement is that, even though moral skepticism is true, philosophers can still construct valid dialectical justifications for moral claims because the premises of different justifications will answer to the psychological needs of at least some philosophers and thus be deemed true by some of them. The chapter concludes by considering various attempts to defuse this abductive argument for scepticism.Author's Profile
DOI
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198709299.003.0006
My notes
Similar books and articles
The moral evil demons.Ralph Wedgwood - 2010 - In Richard Feldman & Ted A. Warfield (eds.), Disagreement. Oxford University Press.
A Computer Simulation of the Argument from Disagreement.Johan E. Gustafsson & Martin Peterson - 2012 - Synthese 184 (3):387-405.
Objectivity and dialectical methods in ethics.David O. Brink - 1999 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 42 (2):195 – 212.
Moral Intuitions, Reliability, and Disagreement.David Killoren - 2009 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 4 (1):1-35.
Normative ethics and the prospects of an empirical contribution to assessment of moral disagreement and moral realism.Andrew Sneddon - 2009 - Journal of Value Inquiry 43 (4):447-455.
Moral disagreement and moral expertise.Sarah McGrath - 2008 - In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics: Volume 3. Oxford University Press. pp. 87-108.
Analytics
Added to PP
2009-01-28
Downloads
230 (#54,442)
6 months
6 (#132,291)
2009-01-28
Downloads
230 (#54,442)
6 months
6 (#132,291)
Historical graph of downloads
Author's Profile
Citations of this work
The moral fixed points: new directions for moral nonnaturalism.Terence Cuneo & Russ Shafer-Landau - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 171 (3):399-443.
The Self-Undermining Arguments from Disagreement.Eric Sampson - 2019 - Oxford Studies in Metaethics 14:23-46.
Trusting Moral Intuitions.John Bengson, Terence Cuneo & Russ Shafer-Landau - 2020 - Noûs (4):956-984.