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    Joyce's debunking argument begs the question against mora... — Carmelics
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    Home/Moral Responsibility
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    Joyce's debunking argument begs the question against moral realism.

    Moral ResponsibilityTruth & Knowledge
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Joyce's argument proceeds from an evolutionary debunking structure that is methodologically neutral: it identifies a causal-historical gap between moral belief formation and any putative moral facts.
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    • 2.Sharon Street's Darwinian dilemma demonstrates that evolutionary pressures track reproductive fitness, not moral truth, creating an explanatory burden the realist cannot discharge without circularity.
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    • 3.Demanding that a genealogical argument first presuppose the falsity of its target conclusion conflates the dialectical burden of proof: debunking arguments are defeasible, not question-begging, unless the realist provides positive evidence of tracking.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Richard Joyce explicitly structures his argument as an inference to the best explanation: the complete non-moral genealogy is advanced as the more parsimonious hypothesis, placing the evidential burden on the realist to show moral facts played a causal role.
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    • 2.Enoch's 'just-so story' response—that moral realists can posit pre-established harmony between evolutionary fitness and moral truth—introduces an unexplained coincidence that is itself epistemically costly and methodologically ad hoc.
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    • 3.A charge of question-begging requires that the conclusion be smuggled into a premise, but Joyce's completeness claim is an empirical-explanatory thesis about causal history, not a logical assumption of anti-realism.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Joyce's argument requires accepting that there is a complete non-moral genealogy of moral judgment.
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    • 2.Whether the non-moral genealogy is complete is precisely what is disputed between realists and anti-realists in metaethics.
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    • 3.A realist can reasonably hold that the correct explanation of at least some moral beliefs appeals to moral truths or facts that have been grasped.
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    Topics

    Moral ResponsibilityTruth & Knowledge

    Connections

    1 topic

    Skepticism3 linked

    Related

    A charge of question-begging requires that the conclusion be smuggled into a pre...A realist can reasonably hold that the correct explanation of at least some mora...Demanding that a genealogical argument first presuppose the falsity of its targe...Enoch's 'just-so story' response—that moral realists can posit pre-established h...
    +8 moreShow less
    If there are knowable moral truths, we would plausibly have grasped some of them...Joyce's argument proceeds from an evolutionary debunking structure that is metho...Joyce's argument requires accepting that there is a complete non-moral genealogy...Richard Joyce explicitly structures his argument as an inference to the best exp...Sharon Street's Darwinian dilemma demonstrates that evolutionary pressures track...The non-moral genealogy is complete only if none of our moral beliefs result fro...Therefore, one is compelled to grant the completeness premise only if one has al...

    Similar

    The debunking argument against moral realism is weakened by its relian...91%The evolutionary debunking argument undermines moral realism87%The debunking argument assumes moral beliefs are not about moral prope...85%Substantive moral realism fails to respond to the skeptical challenge ...84%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: morality-biology
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    In general, the worry about Joyce’s debunking argument is similar to the worry about Street’s: unless we start out already assuming (against the realist) that there are no knowable moral truths, it is hard to see why we should accept Joyce’s premise that we possess a complete non-moral geneaology of moral judgment, and hence that it is explanatorily superfluous to posit moral truths. Whether or not the non-moral geneaology is complete is precisely what is in question in ongoing metaethical debat
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Whether the non-moral genealogy is complete is precisely what is disputed betwee...
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit