Moral disagreement and non-moral ignorance

Synthese 198 (2):1089-1108 (2019)
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Abstract

The existence of deep and persistent moral disagreement poses a problem for a defender of moral knowledge. It seems particularly clear that a philosopher who thinks that we know a great many moral truths should explain how human populations have failed to converge on those truths. In this paper, I do two things. First, I show that the problem is more difficult than it is often taken to be, and second, I criticize a popular response, which involves claiming that many false moral beliefs are the product of nonmoral ignorance.

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Nick Smyth
Fordham University

Citations of this work

A Genealogy of Emancipatory Values.Nick Smyth - 2020 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 1.
There is no such thing as a political conservative.Nicholas Smyth - 2025 - European Journal of Political Theory 24 (1):111-131.
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References found in this work

Thinking, Fast and Slow.Daniel Kahneman - 2011 - New York: New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
On What Matters: Two-Volume Set.Derek Parfit - 2001 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Being Realistic About Reasons.Thomas Scanlon - 2014 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Moral realism: a defence.Russ Shafer-Landau - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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