Is Epistemology Autonomous?

It’s commonly held that the best metaethical account of our normative thought and language won’t place any significant constraints on our first-order normative theorizing; once we have the right metaethics, we can go on having the same first-order normative debates, and accepting the same first-order normative views. This thesis of the “autonomy of ethics” is particularly popular among writers in the expressivist tradition. This chapter argues, however, that broadly expressivist metanormative commitments have significant consequences in first-order normative epistemological debates. It begins with the example of judgment internalism—a thesis endorsed by expressivists, but many non-expressivists as well. While judgment internalism is generally seen as irrelevant to first-order ethical debates, it is argued here that it has significant consequences for some putatively “first-order” debates in epistemology. It is then argued that accepting more thoroughly expressivist metaepistemological commitments has more far-reaching epistemological consequences, focusing on the internalism/externalism debate.

'Can a Philosophical Justification of Ethics Be Autonomous While Acknowledging the Role of God in Grounding Moral Facts?'

Autonomy and ethics are related to each other in complex ways. The paper starts by distinguishing and characterizing three basic dimensions of this relation. It proceeds by arguing for the compatibility of moral realism with a due respect for human autonomy. Nevertheless, supernaturalist moral realism seems to pose a special challenge for the autonomy of ethics as a self-standing normative realm. The paper ends with some considerations on the role of divine authority both in metaethics and in the general theory of value.

Reid on the Autonomy of Ethics: From Active Power to Moral Nonnaturalism

ABSTRACT:Thomas Reid has the unusual distinction of arriving at a metaethical position very much like G. E. Moore's via a route very similar to that employed by the Kantians. That is, Reid embraces a version of nonnaturalist moral realism by appeal not to open question-style considerations but to a particular account of agency. In this essay, we reconstruct Reid's agency-centered argument for his constitutivist version of moral nonnaturalism, highlighting its commitments. Having presented Reid's argument, we close by considering a prominent contemporary Kantian view, namely, Christine Korsgaard's, and identifying where, despite their common commitments, Reid and Korsgaard part company. The comparison, we suggest, is instructive because it allows us to see more clearly why the link between agency-centered approaches to ethical theorizing and nonrealist, constitutivist views of morality, such as Korsgaard's, is deeply contingent.

The “Last Dogma” of Positivism: Historicist Naturalism and the Fact/Value Dichotomy

Has the emergence of post-positivism in philosophy of science changed the terms of the “is/ought” dichotomy? If it has demonstrated convincingly that there are no “facts” apart from the theoretical frames and evaluative standards constructing them, can such a cordon sanitaire really be upheld between “facts” and values? The point I wish to stress is that philosophy of science has had a central role in constituting and imposing the fact/value dichotomy and a revolution in the philosophy of science should not leave the dichotomy unaffected. The connection between post-positivism and naturalism will be my guiding thread in considering this “last dogma of positivism.” First this essay will specify the sense of naturalism that it will take to be essential to the post-positivist philosophy of science: the deflation of the notion of the “purity” of scientific knowledge. Then it will turn to the question of the implications that follow for the “autonomy” of ethics, including the danger posed by a new form of scientistic reductionism.