Moral Epistemology and Alethic Pluralism: Towards a New Theory of Epistemic Justification for Moral Belief

道德认识论和道德多元论：迈向道德信仰认识论辩护的新理论

• 批准号: 519046476
• 负责人: Dr. Marvin Backes
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Philosophisches Seminar
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/519046476?language=en
• 关键词: Moral; Epistemology; Alethic; Pluralism; Towards

It is widely accepted that it’s not permissible to believe anything we want. Instead, believing is normative – i.e. it is subject to certain epistemic norms. Debates surrounding flat earthers, climate change deniers, or anti-vaxxers illustrate this point well; members of these groups are often criticised and taken to be blameworthy for holding the beliefs they do. But what exactly is the problem with their beliefs? One plausible diagnosis is that their respective beliefs fail to be epistemically justified – i.e. they fail to be good candidates for being true – and therefore violate the epistemic norm of belief. The idea that we should only believe things that are epistemically justified (or even known) is one that is widely endorsed amongst contemporary epistemologists. However, looking at recent work in the field of moral epistemology gives us reason for concern. That’s because moral theorists of all stripes have notoriously struggled to explain convincingly how our moral beliefs come to be epistemically justified, with no widely endorsed account currently on the market. This gives rise to a problem: without a compelling account of what (if anything) epistemically justifies moral beliefs, it remains mysterious why holding moral beliefs is permissible and why we aren’t epistemically blameworthy or criticisable for holding the moral beliefs we do. Put differently, in so far as we think that holding moral beliefs is at least sometimes permissible - which ordinary moral discourse suggests is the case - then we are under considerable pressure to provide a successful account of how moral beliefs come to be epistemically justified. This project aims to explore and ultimately resolve this issue at the intersection of epistemology and metaethics by systematically developing a new theory of epistemic justification for moral belief. The project is divided into three parts. The first part (work package A) draws important connections between recent work in epistemology and metaethics, provides a diagnosis of the main problems we face in contemporary moral epistemology, and puts forward a new method that promises to help us make headway in moral epistemology – the Epistemology-First Approach to Metaethics. The second part (work package B) puts this method to use and elaborates and defends an original theory of epistemic justification for moral belief. Finally, the third part (work package C) investigates how to best integrate the new account of epistemic justification for moral belief and extant accounts of epistemic justification for ordinary non-moral belief in to a single unified theory of epistemic justification.

人们普遍认为，我们不能相信任何我们想要的东西。相反，信仰是规范的--即它受制于某些认知规范。围绕平坦的地球人、否认气候变化的人或反变论者的辩论很好地说明了这一点；这些团体的成员经常因为持有他们所持的信念而受到批评和指责。但他们的信仰到底有什么问题呢？一个看似合理的诊断是，他们各自的信念未能在认识论上得到证明--也就是说，他们不是正确的候选人--因此违反了信仰的认识论规范。我们应该只相信那些在认识论上是合理的(甚至是已知的)的东西，这一想法在当代认识论中得到了广泛的认可。然而，看看最近道德认识论领域的研究成果，我们有理由感到担忧。这是因为各派别的道德理论家都出了名地难以令人信服地解释我们的道德信念是如何在认识论上得到证明的，目前市场上还没有得到广泛认可的说法。这就产生了一个问题：如果没有令人信服的解释，什么(如果有的话)从认识论上证明道德信仰是正当的，那么为什么持有道德信仰是允许的，为什么我们在认识论上不应该因为持有我们所做的道德信仰而受到指责或批评，这仍然是一个谜。换句话说，只要我们认为持有道德信仰至少有时是允许的--普通的道德话语就是这样--那么我们就面临着相当大的压力，要求我们成功地解释道德信仰是如何在认识论上得到证明的。本项目旨在从认识论和元伦理学的交叉点上探索并最终解决这一问题，方法是系统地发展一种新的道德信仰的认识正当性理论。该项目分为三个部分。第一部分(工作包A)指出了认识论和元伦理学近期工作之间的重要联系，诊断了当代道德认识论面临的主要问题，并提出了一种新的方法，有望帮助我们在道德认识论方面取得进展--认识论优先的元伦理学方法。第二部分(工作包B)运用这一方法，阐述并捍卫了一种原创性的道德信仰认识论。最后，第三部分(工作包C)探讨如何将对道德信仰的认识正当性的新描述和对普通非道德信仰的现有的认识正当性的描述最好地整合到一个单一的认识正当性理论中。