“…The objectivist's move, at this point, is to deny those appearances by insisting that most agents are not rational, because the moral beliefs of many or most agents are strongly influenced by self‐interest (Brink, 1984; Enoch, 2009). Peter Seipel neatly summarizes the idea here (Seipel, 2019):On this method of explanation, intractable moral diversity is attributable to the distorting effects of our interests. People tend to disagree about moral matters because self‐interest makes them prone to error, leading them to endorse self‐serving moral beliefs.…”
Section: Filters In Epistemologymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The objectivist's move, at this point, is to deny those appearances by insisting that most agents are not rational, because the moral beliefs of many or most agents are strongly influenced by self-interest (Brink, 1984;Enoch, 2009). Peter Seipel neatly summarizes the idea here (Seipel, 2019):…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…People tend to disagree about moral matters because self-interest makes them prone to error, leading them to endorse selfserving moral beliefs. (Seipel, 2019) In each case, a substantive philosophical conclusion is generated by that key, undefended assumption: that self-interest necessarily renders moral belief less justified, trustworthy or reliable. Now, at this point, a clarification is in order.…”
In this paper, I critically analyze the notion that self‐interest distorts moral belief‐formation. This belief is widely shared among modern moral epistemologists, and in this paper, I seek to undermine this near consensus. I then offer a principle which can help us to sort cases in which self‐interest distorts moral belief from cases in which it does not. As it turns out, we cannot determine whether such distortion has occurred from the armchair; rather, we must inquire into mechanisms of social power and advantage before declaring that some moral position is distorted by self‐interest.
“…The objectivist's move, at this point, is to deny those appearances by insisting that most agents are not rational, because the moral beliefs of many or most agents are strongly influenced by self‐interest (Brink, 1984; Enoch, 2009). Peter Seipel neatly summarizes the idea here (Seipel, 2019):On this method of explanation, intractable moral diversity is attributable to the distorting effects of our interests. People tend to disagree about moral matters because self‐interest makes them prone to error, leading them to endorse self‐serving moral beliefs.…”
Section: Filters In Epistemologymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The objectivist's move, at this point, is to deny those appearances by insisting that most agents are not rational, because the moral beliefs of many or most agents are strongly influenced by self-interest (Brink, 1984;Enoch, 2009). Peter Seipel neatly summarizes the idea here (Seipel, 2019):…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…People tend to disagree about moral matters because self-interest makes them prone to error, leading them to endorse selfserving moral beliefs. (Seipel, 2019) In each case, a substantive philosophical conclusion is generated by that key, undefended assumption: that self-interest necessarily renders moral belief less justified, trustworthy or reliable. Now, at this point, a clarification is in order.…”
In this paper, I critically analyze the notion that self‐interest distorts moral belief‐formation. This belief is widely shared among modern moral epistemologists, and in this paper, I seek to undermine this near consensus. I then offer a principle which can help us to sort cases in which self‐interest distorts moral belief from cases in which it does not. As it turns out, we cannot determine whether such distortion has occurred from the armchair; rather, we must inquire into mechanisms of social power and advantage before declaring that some moral position is distorted by self‐interest.
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