SKEPTICISM, MORAL Word Count: 3,895

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1 SKEPTICISM, MORAL Word Count: 3,895 There are a number of varieties of moral skepticism. Reasons skeptics doubt that we have any reason to act morally when we know that we can best realize our aims by acting immorally instead. Motives skeptics doubt that we are ever moved to forgo an otherwise desirable course of action from our belief in its immorality. Nihilists claim that nothing is immoral; everything is permitted. Epistemic moral skeptics doubt whether we have any moral knowledge or are justified in persisting in any of our moral beliefs. Meta-ethical moral skeptics accept the existence of moral knowledge but deny its objectivity. Responses to moral skepticism are legion, but each form continues to attract adherents. Reasons skepticism Perhaps the most common form of moral skepticism consists in doubts about our reasons to act morally. When, as sometimes happens, we can only get what we want by acting immorally, why shouldn t we do what is wrong? An extreme form of such reasons skepticism doubts whether moral considerations can ever provide us with reasons for pursuing or refraining from a given course of action. For instance, the skeptic might accept that stealing from an innocent widow is mean, unfair, and thus immoral, but insist that he has no reason at all to refrain from the theft (see AMORALIST). A less extreme skeptic might allow that the immorality of the theft gives him some reason not to follow through on it, while maintaining that this consideration is easily outweighed by the benefits of the wealth he can acquire through his misdeed (see REASONS FOR ACTION, MORALITY AND; WHY BE MORAL). In Plato s (428BC-347BC) dialogue, The Republic, Thrasymachus argues for something like reasons skepticism (see PLATO). According to Thrasymachus, justice is naive, whereas injustice is prudent. And it isn t that acting unjustly, while often more profitable that acting justly, is nevertheless vicious and shameful. On the contrary, according to Thrasymachus, when the powerful act unjustly they are being fine and strong. Thrasymachus seems to think that it is a mistake to give the injustice of a plan any weight at all when deciding whether to implement it. Instead, he thinks we should only place other-regarding constraints on our decisions if we can be punished for our failure to do so, where those with true political power can trample others without sanction. Socrates responds to Thrasymachus skepticism by showing to his interlocutors satisfaction that we must have some concern for justice if we are to live lives that we can still consider excellent after sustained reflection (see SOCRATES). Part of Socrates case begins with the claim that maintaining some form of civil society is in the selfinterest of everyone. Putting the artistic output of hermits to the side, nothing of any consequence can be achieved without the cooperation of others. And the risks and hardships of a solitary existence are unacceptable to most. Indeed, the thought goes, even a criminal consortium must observe honor among thieves if it is to persist over time. (Perhaps the bandit shows a rudimentary respect for justice in making no attempt for a confederate s share of the profits.) And few of us want to live with the partial trust exhibited within a band of thieves. We therefore have self-interested motives to treat the people we need in a moral way so long as we can expect similar treatment in return.

2 Suppose, though, that I can get the benefits of cooperation without the costs. Isn t my self-interest best served when other people respect my person and property while I am free to use whatever and whomever I wish? Solutions to this problem are varied (see FREE RIDING). Some are concessive. Perhaps stealing or cheating is in my selfinterest when I know I cannot be caught, and it is in precisely such cases that moral considerations ought to constrain my behavior without the aid of self-interested calculation. Other responses to the problem are more ambitious. It cannot be denied that some people are willing to cheat the system when they can get away with it. But there would seem to be others who forgo unjust profits they could easily obtain without punishment. When we can compare the two groups in full we may find that in a broad range of societal contexts those who cheat are actually less happy (on any reasonable measure) than those who do not (cf. Gilbert, 2006). If this is right, we have self-interested reasons to adopt a general policy of not cheating; and those parents concerned with their children s happiness have instrumental reasons to do what they can to instill virtue. And yet, even if skeptics allow that virtue is the most likely road to happiness, they can point to difficult cases in which the two diverge. Suppose I know a mob boss will kill me if I don t do a job for him. Surely it would be immoral to murder two innocent people to secure my own survival. But would I really be better off dead? Motives skepticism The concessive response to the skeptic allows that morality and self-interest sometimes do diverge. On this way of thinking, we sometimes know that we can best serve our interests by cheating or stealing, but we should refrain from acting immorally in such cases anyway not from some complicated form of self-interested calculation, but from nothing more than our knowledge of the injustice of deception and theft. But do moral considerations ever really restrain us from making immoral choices? Motives skepticism results from a negative answer. The motives skeptic can admit that it often seems to us that we are taking morality into account when deciding what to do. He can even admit that it sometimes seems as though we are driven to act in a fair and decent manner from our belief in the immorality of doing otherwise. Indeed, the skeptic can allow that it sometimes seems as though we have sacrificed our own happiness or wellbeing to do what we know is right. He simply insists that things are not as they appear. The motivating force of moral thought is an abject illusion (see MOTIVATION, MORAL). Some such skeptics, like Thomas Hobbes ( ), argue that all action is egoistic in origin (see HOBBES, THOMAS; EGOISM). According to Hobbes, whenever I perform an action or adopt a plan, I am driven to do so by some self-interested motive. This might be the belief that the action I am performing is best for me, a desire to improve my own position in comparison with others, or unrefined greed. In a related vein, John Locke ( ) argues that we only have moral obligations because there is a God who presides over the afterlife to insure that the virtuous are rewarded and the vicious punished (see LOCKE, JOHN). Other religious thinkers have argued that we only have moral obligations because we were created by God to live virtuously. If someone with these beliefs loses her belief in God, she will

3 lose her belief in morality. In this way, the perceived death of God can induce a skeptical crisis. Even if we believe in a God who enforces moral laws, Hobbes universal egoism conflicts with assumptions we make when we praise acts of apparent virtue. We honor firemen for risking life and limb to save us from conflagration, and we admire doctors for braving harsh conditions to deliver needed medical attention to impoverished villagers. But if our benefactors do these things in order to secure benefits for themselves whether in this life or the next do they truly deserve our esteem? Common thought has it that a beneficial action only deserves praise if the person who performed it was moved by an ultimate or non-instrumental concern for someone (or something) other than herself. Egoism has proven difficult to refute. The egoist will take any act of apparent virtue we offer up and return an egoistic explanation compatible with the actor s behavior. For instance, the egoist might say that the apparently brave fireman fears dishonor, and that the apparently selfless doctor acts for the pleasure that accompanies her thoughts of her patients recovery. The psychologist Daniel Batson (1991) has done more than anyone to isolate cases of helping for which a truly altruistic form of empathy provides the only plausible explanation. But the success of his attempts remains a matter of controversy (Sober and Wilson, 1998). There are also less drastic forms of motives skepticism. For example, David Hume ( ) was not a psychological egoist (see HUME, DAVID). He allowed that love and compassion can move us to act for the benefit of other people, and that prosocial emotions can generate benevolent actions without the support of self-interested calculation or anything remotely like selfishness (see EMOTION; EMPATHY). But Hume still insisted, against his rationalist opponents, that we are unable to act from reason alone (see MOTIVATION, HUMEAN THEORY OF). According to Hume, we would be incapable of acting from knowledge of our moral obligations if knowledge of right and wrong did not essentially depend upon some kind of love or concern for others (see SYMPATHY; SENTIMENTS, MORAL). Reason can come apart from compassion. And without the aid of some desire or concern, reason is motivationally inert (see REASON AND PASSION). Immanuel Kant ( ) responded to Hume s arguments for a mitigated motivational skepticism by defending the possibility of pure practical reason (see KANT, IMMANUEL; RATIONALISM IN ETHICS). On Kant s reckoning, we can figure out which rules are unfair wholly a priori, and so without the aid of emotion (see A PRIORI ETHICAL KNOWLEDGE). For instance, we can see by reflection alone that a policy of lying to escape embarrassment is unjust and immoral (see LYING AND DECEIT). We need only reflect on the incoherence or irrationality inherent in establishing a law of nature insuring that everyone lies whenever they must do so to escape embarrassment (see IMPERATIVE, CATEGORICAL AND HYPOTHETICAL; IMPERATIVES, LOGIC OF). Kant argued that it is only if we can reject immoral policies from a dispassionate awareness of their unfairness, that we can be properly praised for our efforts. Kant claimed we have a priori knowledge of the capacity to reject plans or maxims from a priori knowledge of morality (see INTERNALISM, MOTIVATIONAL). But philosophers and psychologists are still debating the existence of pure practical reason, with neo-kantians such as Thomas Nagel (1970) and Christine Korsgaard

4 (1996a) pitted against neo-humeans, such Donald Davidson (1984) and Bernard Williams (1981, 1985). To see what is at issue, consider Kant s (1788) case of a man threatened with execution unless he provides false testimony sending Anne Boleyn to her death. Kant says the man knows he ought not lie in such a case, and that he can infer from this that he can refuse to do so. But can the man refuse to lie from reason alone? Suppose he does stand firm. And suppose that he dislikes Boleyn, so that love for her was not his motive. Kant even imagines that the man s family is being made to suffer for his refusal, so that compassion is an obstacle to his acting morally (1788, 5:155-7). Even if we make these assumptions, Kant allows that it remains possible that the man would have lied if he hadn t feared self-censure or if he hadn t possessed some independent, antecedent desire to preserve his integrity. In sum, Hume s mitigated motivational skepticism is even more difficult to refute than Hobbes psychological egoism. Nihilism In partial contrast with skeptics about moral motives and moral reasons, epistemic moral skeptics doubt or deny the very existence of moral knowledge or rationally grounded moral beliefs (see EPISTEMOLOGY, MORAL). Nihilists, like J. L. Mackie ( ), insist that there are no moral facts to know (cf. Joyce, 2001). Nihilists then try to provide a moral error theory: an explanation of how humanity has managed to persist in the widespread delusion that certain acts are immoral and others positively praiseworthy (see NIHILISM; ERROR THEORY). Mackie s arguments for nihilism are premised on the doctrines of reasons and motives skepticism described above (see QUEERNESS, ARGUMENT FROM). According to Mackie, if we don t have reasons to be moral in cases in which there is nothing we want that we get by acting morally, then there really is no such thing as moral obligation. And if moral considerations cannot move us to act unless they are reinforced with compassion, moral concepts are empty. According to Mackie, we shouldn t say that people who lack moral ends lack reasons to do what they know they ought, and we shouldn t say that dispassionate knowledge of a moral obligation cannot move someone to act in a moral fashion. Instead, we should say that morality is an illusion; we really have no moral obligations. We can resist Mackie s reasoning by either rejecting skepticism about moral reasons and moral motives, or by denying his claim that these doctrines cannot be coherently reconciled with our belief in morality. As explained above, Kantians pursue the first strategy by arguing for the irrationality of knowingly doing wrong, and by positing the possibility of acting from a wholly dispassionate knowledge of one s obligations. But Humeans adopt the second strategy. The Humean concedes to the skeptic that some of those who show by their anti-social behavior that they don t care about the wellbeing of others cannot be rationally compelled to think in moral terms. The Humean just fails to see the skeptical import of this admission. If we allow that moral considerations can only inform the decisions of those who are capable of love and compassion, must we really conclude that even the non-psychopathic among us have no obligation to respect the lives and property of others?

5 Epistemic Moral Skepticism Purely epistemic moral skeptics put the existence of moral truths to the side, and argue that even if there are such truths, we cannot know any of them (Harman, 1977; Sinnott- Armstrong, 2006). Weak epistemic moral skeptics limit themselves to the claim that we have no moral knowledge. Strong epistemic moral skeptics claim that we ought to abandon all our moral beliefs that we are not justified in persisting in any of our substantive moral views. The argument from disagreement is perhaps the most famous argument for epistemic moral skepticism, and its roots can be traced back at least as far as Pyrrho ( BC) (see DISAGREEMENT, MORAL). Even after all the facts are in, such skeptics like to say, social conservatives continue to believe in the immorality of abortion, euthanasia, and homosexuality, whereas liberals do not. And though most of us now believe in the immorality of cannibalism, incest and polygamy, these practices were deemed perfectly acceptable at other times and are still practiced in other cultures (see INCEST). Doesn t nihilism or skepticism offer the best explanation of this state of affairs? (see RELATIVISM, MORAL). To resist the argument from disagreement we need to come up with an alternative explanation of differences in moral view. There is, of course, a great deal of moral diversity; but anthropologists have discovered that justice, courage, honesty, and some form of mutual aid are valued the world over (Peterson and Seligman, 2004). A single moral principle will demand different kinds of behavior in different environmental circumstances, and moral disagreements often arise from ignorance of non-moral fact. Perhaps, for instance, those who believe in the immorality of stem cell research are mistaken in believing in a soul that begins its existence at inception. It is also likely that vagueness in our ordinary concepts makes certain disagreements irresolvable without impugning our knowledge in central cases. For example, vagueness in the concept of person or child may explain the difficulty of determining exactly when aborting a fetus moves from the morally permissible act of ridding yourself of a largely undifferentiated mass of cells to acquire the abject immorality of letting your newborn child die from neglect (see ABORTION). Surely, common forms of irrationality explain why we continue to disagree about religious claims such as the Genesis creation myth that have nothing to do with morality: claims that should have been dispelled to everyone s satisfaction long ago. The same might be said of moral disagreements regarding homosexuality and immodesty that also have a religious cause. In sum, moral disagreements must be analyzed one at a time. It s possible that some moral disagreements have no rational resolution. But this skeptical stance cannot be assumed. Debunking explanations of our moral convictions provide another route to epistemic skepticism. In a psychological study, Murphy et al. (2000) describe a case in which a researcher decides to cook and eat an unused piece of a human cadaver donated to her lab for study. Most of the subjects confronted with the scenario said the act was immoral, but they could find no good rationale to defend their judgments (cf. Haidt, Koller and Dias, 1993; and Haidt, Bjorklund and Murphy, 2000). It is not altogether implausible that the typical person believes that cannibalism is always immoral simply because he finds the act disgusting. But is disgust the kind of experiential basis that can adequately justify a moral belief? Surely, we are disgusted by too many permissible acts for disgust to provide us

6 with a reliable guide to moral truth. (Think of drinking a cup of your own spit. Disgusting? Surely. But immoral?) So when we realize that nothing more than disgust lies behind our belief in the universal immorality of cannibalism, we are apt to lose confidence in that belief. The explanation debunks the belief it explains. Of course, this realization needn t shake our entire moral framework. Instead, we can allow that cannibalism is morally permissible in exceptional circumstances without losing our confidence in our core moral views. But what if our most basic moral beliefs in the immorality of cruelty, selfishness and injustice are also generated by disgust alone? Accepting this explanation would drive many of us to skepticism. In this way, certain possible explanations of moral belief might be thought capable of debunking morality itself. But our moral judgments do not share a common origin. Though our belief in the immorality of cannibalism has its origins in disgust, our belief in the immorality of murder, theft and slavery has a different origin. And some alternative ways of forming moral beliefs continue to seem reliable even after we reflect upon them. When we know an act was performed for self-interested reasons; and that the actor intentionally caused great harm to befall his victims; and that no one except the criminal gained anything of value from the act; it will be hard to imagine how the act could fail to be immoral. It seems that some of our moral beliefs are grounded in concerned evaluation of an act s motives and consequences. And this method of moral judgment is rather different than disgust. Crucially, if you were to learn that one of your moral beliefs had its source in careful, empathetic evaluation of the case, it would do nothing to shake your confidence in that belief. Perhaps a similar story can be told about why you hold your other most fundamental moral beliefs. If so, we can explain these beliefs without debunking them. On most accounts, the capacities implicated in normal moral development involve mindreading or the ability to infer an agent s motives from observations of her behavior; perspective taking or the ability to think of a prospective course of action from the points of view of the other people it will affect; empathy or an appropriate sensitivity to the joy and suffering of others; and a sense of justice or the ability to determine which actions and decisions are equitable or fair (cf. Hauser, 2006). It is reasonable to assume that these cognitive abilities either owe their existence to natural selection or are acquired through a learning process made possible by other more basic abilities that in turn evolved (see ALTRUISM AND BIOLOGY). Is this observation a route to moral skepticism of some kind (Joyce, 2006)? Though it means oversimplifying both the capacity and its phylogeny, suppose that a random genetic mutation caused empathy to emerge in human populations some 200,000 years ago. And suppose that being empathetic bestowed a fitness advantage on empathetic individuals or their kin. If we assume that this is why empathy spread through ancient populations and persists to this day, must we lose our confidence in those of our moral beliefs grounded in empathy? (see EVOLUTION, ETHICS AND) There are reasons to resist the suggestion. I only believe what I do about the colors of the things around me because I can see colors. And yet, when I learn that color vision evolved via natural selection, I do not become less confident in my beliefs about the colors of these things. Similarly, suppose that Hume is right, and I only believe that Colonel Qaddafi is immoral because I feel for his victims; and I only feel this way

7 because I can empathize with others. If I become convinced that this capacity for empathy evolved via natural selection, I needn t lose confidence in my negative assessment of Qaddafi. Why should I? The reliability of a belief-forming mechanism must be assessed in the present; a debunking explanation of a moral belief must demonstrate the unreliability of its proximate source. If the proximate mechanism is reliable, its distal causes are of no skeptical import. But how can we verify the reliability of a proximate belief-forming mechanism? I can use my vision to verify your judgments of color, and you can use touch to verify your visual judgments of shape. But we must always perceive in some way or other to verify the reliability of perception. The same is true of reason. We must use our ability to reason to establish the reliability of our most basic forms of reasoning. Perhaps, then, attempts to establish the reliability of basic cognitive mechanisms inevitably involve circularity. If so, this would explain why we must use our moral faculties to establish that compassionate consideration of the perspectives of everyone affected by a decision is a fairly reliable guide to its moral status (Zimmerman, 2010). If we must use our moral faculties to argue for the reliability of our moral judgments, moral skeptics won t accept the conclusions of our arguments. But if we can also find good reasons to resist the skeptic s arguments against moral knowledge, we will have earned a stalemate. Might our ability to formulate reasonable responses to the skeptic s arguments be enough to justify the retention of our moral beliefs? Meta-Ethical Moral Skepticism Meta-ethical moral skeptics argue that moral facts and properties are not objective. For instance, Hume argued that a trait s being virtuous consists in its invoking approbation in the mind of a neutral, sympathetic observer (cf. Firth, 1952). And on one interpretation, Kant thinks we construct the truths of morality by legislating maxims in accordance with the categorical imperative (cf. Korsgaard, 1996b). In contrast, classical utilitarians, like Jeremy Bentham ( ) and John Stuart Mill ( ) adopt a realist metaethical view by identifying an act s immorality with its tendency to detract from happiness (see BENTHAM, JEREMY; MILL, JOHN STUART; UTILITARIANISM; REALISM, MORAL). The utilitarian view is realist because an act might detract from happiness and so count as immoral, even if we would never disapprove of it or legislate norms against its performance. It has recently been argued that even the most sophisticated forms of moral realism are impugned by the role natural selection played in the propagation and persistence of those capacities necessary for moral judgment (Street, 2006). According to this novel form of meta-ethical skepticism, if we adopt a realist view of moral facts, and we accept that our moral judgments owe their existence to evolved capacities, we must think of our moral faculty as unreliable. Given the role evolution played in shaping our moral faculties, an anti-realist moral metaphysics is the price we must pay for moral knowledge. Critics have objected to this argument on several fronts (Kahane, 2011; Skarsaune, 2011). Surely, the utilitarian s realist view of moral facts is coherent, and we obviously do have fairly reliable ways of detecting facts of utility. (We have good, if approximate, measures of wellbeing; and in favorable circumstances social scientists can determine the differing effects different laws and policies tend to have on its promotion.)

8 So the utilitarian has a plausible account of how we can learn moral truths truths that are nevertheless dissociable from our moral convictions in the manner he envisions. Admittedly, if we assume that our moral faculties owe their continued existence to the augmentation of reproductive fitness, it may seem strange that they also provide us with knowledge of judgment-independent moral facts. (Why should knowledge of a judgment-independent moral reality augment reproductive fitness?) But these suspicions should dissipate once we have independently verified the reliability of our best methods for detecting facts about wellbeing and its promotion: the very judgment-independent moral facts that utilitarians posit. Of course, a skeptic might doubt our knowledge of utilitarianism itself. How does the utilitarian theorist know that goodness is wellbeing and immorality the intentional infliction of suffering? Similar questions might be asked about the first principles posited by other moral theories. How does the Kantian know that injustice consists in treating humanity as a mere means to one s ends? How does the Humean know that an act s immorality consists in its being condemned by neutral, empathetic observers? To answer these questions we must assess the evidence moral theorists muster and gauge the reliability of those methods they use to support their central claims. Perhaps we can rationally retain our mundane moral judgments in the face of the skeptical critiques we have surveyed. But it is far less certain that the metaphysical claims of even the most distinguished moral theorists are yet known to be true. SEE ALSO: A PRIORI ETHICAL KNOWLEDGE; ALTRUISM AND BIOLOGY; AMORALIST; ABORTION; BENTHAM, JEREMY; DISAGREEMENT, MORAL; EGOISM; EMOTION; EMPATHY; EPISTEMOLOGY, MORAL; ERROR THEORY; EVOLUTION, ETHICS AND; FREE RIDING; HOBBES, THOMAS; HUME, DAVID; INCEST; IMPERATIVE, CATEGORICAL AND HYPOTHETICAL; IMPERATIVES, LOGIC OF; INTERNALISM, MOTIVATIONAL; KANT, IMMANUEL; LOCKE, JOHN; LYING AND DECEIT; MILL, JOHN STUART; MOTIVATION, MORAL; MOTIVATION, HUMEAN THEORY OF; NIHILISM; PLATO; QUEERNESS, ARGUMENT FROM; RATIONALISM IN ETHICS; REALISM, MORAL; REASON AND PASSION; REASONS FOR ACTION, MORALITY AND; RELATIVISM, MORAL; SENTIMENTS, MORAL; SOCRATES; SYMPATHY; UTILITARIANISM; WHY BE MORAL. REFERENCES Batson, Daniel The Altruism Question: Toward a Social-Psychological Answer, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates. Davidson, Donald Essays on Action and Events, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Firth, Roderick, Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer, Philosophy and Phenomenological research, 12 (3), pp Gilbert, Daniel, Stumbling on Happiness, New York: Knopf. Haidt, J., F. Bjorklund and S. Murphy Moral Dumbfounding, manuscript. Haidt, J., S. Koller and M. Dias Affect, Culture and Morality, or Is it Wrong to Eat Your Dog? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, pp

9 Harman, Gilbert The Nature of Morality, New York: Oxford University Press. Hauser, Marc Moral Minds, New York: HarperCollins. Hobbes, Thomas Human Nature or the Fundamental Elements of Polity, reprinted in part in D.D. Raphael (ed.), The British Moralists, Indianapolis: Hackett (1969/1991), vol. 1, Hume, David A Treatise of Human Nature, D.F. Norton and M. Norton (eds.), Oxford: Clarendon Press (2000). Joyce, Richard The Myth of Morality, Cambridge University Press. Joyce, Richard The Evolution of Morality, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kahane, Guy Evolutionary Debunking Arguments, Noûs, 45, pp Kant, Immanuel Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Mary Gregor (ed.), Cambridge University Press (1997). Kant, Immanuel Critique of Practical Reason, Mary Gregor (ed.), Cambridge University Press (1997). Korsgaard, Christine 1996a. The Sources of Normativity, Cambridge University Press. Korsgaard, Christine 1996b. Creating the Kingdom of Ends, Cambridge University Press. Locke, John Essay Concerning Human Understanding. reprinted in part in D.D. Raphael (ed.), The British Moralists, Indianapolis: Hackett (1969/1991), vol. 1, Mackie, J. L Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, London: Penguin. Murphy et al Moral Dumbfounding: When Intuition Finds No Reason, Lund Psychological Reports, 1, Lund University, pp Nagel, Thomas The Possibility of Altruism, Oxford University Press. Peterson, Christopher and Martin Seligman Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification, Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association; New York: Oxford University Press. Plato, The Republic 428BC-347BC. reprinted in J. M. Cooper (ed.), Plato: The Complete Works, Indianapolis: Hackett (1987). Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter Moral Skepticisms, Oxford University Press. Skarsaune, Knut Olav Darwin and Moral Realism: Survival of the Iffiest, Philosophical Studies, 152, pp Sober, Elliot and David Sloan Wilson Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Street, Sharon A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value, Philosophical Studies, 127, pp Williams, Bernard Moral Luck, Cambridge University Press. Williams, Bernard Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Zimmerman, Aaron Moral Epistemology, Routledge. SUGGESTED READINGS Audi, Robert Moral Knowledge and Ethical Character, Oxford University Press. Audi, Robert The Good in the Right, Princeton University Press. Daniels, Norman Justice and Justification: Reflective Equilibrium in Theory and

10 Practice, Cambridge University Press. Heumer, Michael Ethical Intuitionism, Houndsmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Joyce, Richard The Myth of Morality, Cambridge University Press. Miller, Richard Ways of Moral Learning, The Philosophical Review, 94, pp Shafer-Landau, Russ Moral Realism: A Defense, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter and Mark Timmons Moral Knowledge? New Readings in Moral Epistemology, New York: Oxford University Press. Stratton-Lake, Philip Ethical Intuitionism: Reevaluations, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sturgeon, Nicholas Moral Explanations, in D. Copp and D. Zimmerman (eds.), Morality, Reason and Truth, Totowa, NJ: Rowan and Littlefield, pp Thomson, Judith J The Realm of Rights, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.