Biting the Bullet on Moral Twin Earth

Philosophical Papers 43 (2):285-309 (2014)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons? Moral Twin Earth thought experiment shows that realist ethical naturalism entails a kind of conceptual relativism about moral predicates. This conceptual relativism implies, further, that Earthlings and Twin Earthlings do not express substantive disagreement with one another. Because this latter implication clashes with considered linguistic intuitions, Horgan and Timmons conclude that we should reject realist ethical naturalism. Against this, several critics recommend that realists ?bite the bullet? with respect to Moral Twin Earth: despite our intuitions, we should accept that the speakers do not disagree. These critics argue that the intuitions elicited by the thought experiment are either the result of a failure on the part of readers to appreciate hidden details of the Moral Twin Earth case, or else they are mere artifacts of readers? epistemic limitations. In this paper, I show that the Moral Twin Earth argument prevails against this line of attack.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 96,554

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Ethical Naturalism and Moral Twin Earth.Andrea Viggiano - 2008 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 11 (2):213-224.
Sound intuitions on Moral Twin Earth.Michael Rubin - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 139 (3):307-327.
Moral Twin Earth, Intuitions, and Kind Terms.Heimir Geirsson - 2014 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 14 (1):91-110.
Moral twin earth: The intuitive argument.Heimir Geirsson - 2003 - Southwest Philosophy Review 19 (1):115-124.
Moore on Twin Earth.Neil Levy - 2011 - Erkenntnis 75 (1):137-146.
Moral Twin Earth, Reference and Disagreements.Heimir Geirsson - 2018 - Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy 53:53-57.
Moral Realism and Twin Earth.Stephen Laurence, Eric Margolis & Angus Dawson - 1999 - Facta Philosophica 1 (1):135-165.
A dose of reality for moral twin earth.Jeffrey Wisdom - 2021 - Philosophical Psychology 34 (6):784-804.

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-07-02

Downloads
79 (#222,335)

6 months
14 (#356,052)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Michael Rubin
University of Western Australia

Citations of this work

Common Subject for Ethics.Mark Schroeder - 2021 - Mind 130 (517):85-110.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Groundwork for the metaphysics of morals.Immanuel Kant - 1785 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Thomas E. Hill & Arnulf Zweig.
“How to Be a Moral Realist.Richard Boyd - 1988 - In Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (ed.), Essays on moral realism. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. pp. 181-228.
Relativism and disagreement.John MacFarlane - 2007 - Philosophical Studies 132 (1):17-31.

View all 20 references / Add more references