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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
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    It is not the case that Moral skeptics can criticize any moral belief or theory without offering a positive argument for moral skepticism.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Dialectical positions that offer only critique without positive commitments are vulnerable to Agrippa's trilemma: they must either dogmatize, regress, or circularlize their own skeptical standards.
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      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Moral skeptics who invoke burden-of-proof norms implicitly appeal to an epistemic norm, which itself requires justification and constitutes a positive philosophical commitment.
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      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.As Sextus Empiricus recognized, the purest skeptic must suspend judgment on skepticism itself, meaning selective deployment of skeptical critique is not a stable position but a disguised dogmatism.
      ?

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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Rawls and Scanlon argue that reflective equilibrium provides justificatory resources that make moral beliefs epistemically analogous to empirical beliefs, shifting the burden back onto the skeptic.
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      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.If moral skeptics borrow the burden-of-proof asymmetry from epistemology without argument, they presuppose a metaethical position—noncognitivism or error theory—that itself demands positive defense.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.If the burden of proof rests on those making positive moral claims, moral skeptics are not obligated to provide positive arguments for their skepticism.
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    • 2.Moral skeptics need only deny that the burden of proof falls on them to be in a dialectically defensible position.
      ?

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