No abstract

2. If there are no categorical normative reasons, then there are no epistemic reasons for belief. 3. But there are epistemic reasons for belief. 4. So there are categorical normative reasons. (2,3). 5. So the error theory is false (1,4). [Rowland 2013:1] ER is clearly valid: to avoid the conclusion, one must show that one of the premises is false.Note that the reference to 'reasons' in premises 1-4, though ubiquitous nowadays, is strictly dispensable to expressing the essential core of contemporary moral error theory -and in turn, to expressing any corresponding CG argument. 5 Nevertheless, in what follows I shall mainly continue to speak in terms of reasons.It must be emphasized that Cowie does not discuss any particular CG argument, including ER. Rather, he claims that all CG 'strategies' can be characterized as follows:The first premise -the parity premise -states that the metaphysical premise of the moral errortheoretic argument…entails that there are no categorically normative epistemic reasons for belief. The second premise -the epistemic existence premisestates that there are some categorically normative epistemic reasons for belief. It follows that the metaphysical premise of the moral error-theoretic argument is false. So, the argument for the moral error theory is unsound [Cowie 2015: 2]. 6

No abstract

No abstract

It is widely supposed that evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs) against morality constitute a type of epistemological objection to our moral beliefs. In particular, the debunking force of such arguments is not supposed to depend on the metaphysical claim that moral facts do not exist. In this paper I argue that this standard epistemological construal of EDAs is highly misleading, if not mistaken. Specifically, I argue that the most widely discussed EDAs (including those of Joyce, Kitcher, Ruse, and Street) all make key and controversial metaphysical claims about the nature of morality or the (im)possibility of moral truth that belie their apparently epistemological character. I show that the debunking force of these EDAs derives largely from metaphysical claims about morality and their (alleged) implications for the (im)possibility of moral reduction, rather than from epistemological worries associated with the existence of an (alleged) causal/non-moral explanation of our moral judgments. The paper briefly concludes with a dilemma that I believe confronts all EDAs such as those discussed in this paper: either such arguments are unsound, or else they prove too much, debunking our knowledge of science and the external world, as well as morality.