Knowing Moral Truth by Christopher B. Kulp

Author:Christopher B. Kulp
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books, a division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2012-02-26T16:00:00+00:00

That is, it is true that we should/should not perform act x as determined by inquiry i: the results of inquiry determines moral (and other) truth.

I should note that rarely if ever does pragmatism lapse into a thoroughly implausible radical moral subjectivism. All of the great pragmatists have had far too much respect for the efficacy of collective human inquiry, and far too much respect for the efficacy of science in particular, to allow this to happen.[48] Nevertheless, on the view endorsed here, pragmatism is antirealist and relativist: there is no gap between truth and inquiry, as there is for realism. And like other forms of antirealism,[49] it is ultimately at odds with our ordinary, tutored moral thinking. ‘It is true that slavery is morally wrong’ means, for the pragmatist, something along the lines, as cast in Jamesian terms, of “It is better for us to believe, in light of our ends and purposes, that we should not endorse slavery”; or cast in more Peircian terms, something like, “The opinion fated to be believed by inquirers in the indefinitely long run is that we should not endorse slavery.” I suggest that according to our ordinary moral thinking, however, it means something more along the lines that slavery is wrong, period, independent of our ends or purposes, which may themselves be morally bankrupt, and independent of whatever the opinions of inquirers in fact are, no matter how long investigated and by whom. Assuming finite intellects, inquirers could after all always be wrong.

Now to look at a view certainly more radically at odds with our normal moral thinking than pragmatism—second in its radicalness, perhaps, only to moral non-cognitivism.

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