Volume 19, Number 1
January 2021
ARTICLE

The Moral Closure Argument

Volume 19, Number 1, January 2021, Pages 80–110
https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v19i1.243
PDFPDF

Abstract

A skeptical hypothesis argument introduces a scenario—a skeptical hypothesis—where our beliefs about some subject matter are systematically false, but our experiences do not discriminate between the case where our beliefs are true and the skeptical scenario where they are not. Because we are unable to rule out this scenario, we do not know that any of our beliefs about the subject matter are true. This is a familiar kind of skeptical argument and, in this case, familiarity breeds contempt. Epistemologists have developed a variety of strategies for responding to skeptical hypothesis arguments, and so it is widely assumed that any such argument must fail. In this paper, I present a skeptical hypothesis argument—the Moral Closure Argument—and argue that this argument succeeds where other skeptical hypothesis arguments fail. I do so by examining some of the most popular and promising lines of response to skeptical hypothesis arguments, and showing that they all fail to rebut the Moral Closure Argument. This makes the Moral Closure Argument a particularly potent version of a skeptical hypothesis argument. It presents a surprisingly strong case for moral skepticism.
Copyright © 2021 Matt Lutz
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.
|

Moral Intuitions, Reliability and Disagreement

David Killoren

Reframing Epistemic Partiality: A Case for Acceptance

Laura K. Soter

The Essence of Structural Irrationality: The Impossibility of Attitudinal Success

Julian Fink

Against Being For

James L. D. Brown

Planning on a Prior Intention

Facundo M. Alonso

Reply to Mark Lance, Ásta, and Marya Schechtman

Hilde Lindemann

It’s Complicated: The Complexity and Power of Lindemann’s Narrative Framework

Marya Schechtman

Ideological Absorption and Countertechniques: Comments on Lindemann

Ásta

Counterstories, Stock Characters, and Varieties of Narrative Resistance: Response to Lindemann

Mark Lance

Counter the Counterstory: Narrative Approaches to Narratives

Hilde Lindemann

Culpable Ignorance and Mental Disorders

Dylan McChesney and Mathieu Doucet

I Might Be Fundamentally Mistaken

Michael Ridge

Portico