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    Moral knowledge cannot be based solely on experience of t... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→Moral naturalism cannot provide an appropriate ontology for moral knowledge.

    Moral knowledge cannot be based solely on experience of the natural world.

    SkepticismTruth & Knowledge
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Hume's guillotine establishes that no set of purely descriptive 'is' statements can logically entail a normative 'ought' statement without a suppressed normative premise.
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    • 2.Any empirical generalization from observed natural facts (e.g., 'causing pain reduces flourishing') remains descriptive until supplemented by a non-empirical evaluative bridge principle.
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    • 3.Therefore, moral knowledge requires at least one foundational normative premise that cannot itself be derived from natural-world observation alone.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.G.E. Moore's open-question argument shows that any proposed natural property N leaves it genuinely intelligible to ask 'X has N, but is X good?', indicating goodness is not identical to any natural property.
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    • 2.If moral predicates were reducible to natural properties discoverable through experience, the question 'this maximizes pleasure, but is it good?' would be as trivially closed as 'this is a bachelor, but is it unmarried?'
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    • 3.Since the question remains substantively open for every candidate natural property, moral knowledge must access a non-natural normative domain unavailable to purely empirical inquiry.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.If we have moral knowledge at all, we must know a general moral truth from which we can deduce specific moral conclusions.
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    • 2.We could know a general moral truth on the basis of experience only by generalizing from specific examples of right and wrong encountered in experience.
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    • 3.To know whether a specific act (e.g., deliberate cruelty done for fun) is wrong, we must infer it from a general moral truth.
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    Topics

    SkepticismTruth & Knowledge

    Key Terms

    knowledge(Distinguished from mere true belief, which may be the product of indoctrination and need not exercise deliberative capacities.)
    Justified true belief — true belief that has been arrived at through the exercise of deliberative capacities, including comparison of and deliberation among alternatives.

    Connections

    2 topics

    Virtue Ethics4 linkedMoral Responsibility1 linked

    Related

    An appropriate ontology for moral knowledge must be capable of grounding moral k...Any empirical generalization from observed natural facts (e.g., 'causing pain re...But to know that general moral truth empirically, we must already have experienc...G.E. Moore's open-question argument shows that any proposed natural property N l...
    +10 moreShow less
    Hume's guillotine establishes that no set of purely descriptive 'is' statements ...If moral predicates were reducible to natural properties discoverable through ex...

    Similar

    Moral knowledge cannot be based solely on experience89%Human knowledge cannot be derived solely from experience of contingent...84%Perfect knowledge can only be knowledge of being79%Some knowledge or concepts must be innate because sensory experience a...79%

    Source

    AI-extracted
    SEP: moral-epistemology
    View source passageHide passage
    We began with an objection to moral naturalism that applies as well to moral non-naturalism, noting that the former is in a better position to meet it. Let us now direct our attention to an important objection that applies specifically to moral naturalism. Kant argues (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, Chapter 2, paragraph five) that moral knowledge cannot be based on experience of the natural world. We might interpret one of his arguments as having the following structure. (a) If we have

    Details

    Type
    premise
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    If we have moral knowledge at all, we must know a general moral truth from which...
    Moral naturalism cannot provide an appropriate ontology for moral knowledge.
    Moral naturalism grounds moral facts entirely in the natural world and thus in e...
    Since the question remains substantively open for every candidate natural proper...
    Therefore, moral knowledge requires at least one foundational normative premise ...
    This circularity can only be avoided by assuming we know a priori that some act ...
    To know whether a specific act (e.g., deliberate cruelty done for fun) is wrong,...
    We could know a general moral truth on the basis of experience only by generaliz...