Debunking Arguments in Ethics

by Hanno Sauer

In this crisply written book, Hanno Sauer offers the first book-length treatment of debunking arguments in ethics, developing an empirically informed and philosophically sophisticated account of genealogical arguments and their significance for the reliability of moral cognition. He breaks new ground by introducing a series of novel distinctions into the current debate, which allows him to develop a framework for assessing the prospects of debunking or vindicating our moral intuitions. He also challenges the justification of some of our moral judgments by showing that they are based on epistemically defective processes. His book is an original, cutting-edge contribution to the burgeoning field of empirically informed metaethics, and will interest philosophers, psychologists, and anyone interested in how - and whether - moral judgment works.

Genres: Philosophy

254 pages, Hardcover

Published September 6, 2018

Reviews

[Marks54 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book by a Dutch philosopher about how to craft response arguments, especially “debunking” arguments in response to claims about ethics and moral actions. It combines an essay on what constitutes debunking arguments - and examples of the logic of such arguments - with more detailed discussions of how these arguments work for various topic areas.

Ok, so it’s a philosophy book and it’s not unusual at all to see that critical arguments - and lots of them — are high on the agenda. What is so special about ethics and moral arguments? These are very difficult arguments to make effectively and are complex in their structures. Start by considering the “is-ought” gap and the issues involved in arguing from the current state of the world (or what “is”) to what someone should be doing as a result of that state of the world (or what they “ought” to be doing). It is not really clear how this gap gets bridged at all. Then there are all the various contingencies of how an individual responds to a situation that is filled with a wide array of specific circumstances that will condition the basic ethical logic at work.

This is a densely written book and the author is effective at motivating his discussions within the broader context of what other philosophers and psychologists have been working on. He is well aware of the growing importance of different efforts to support arguments with data whether from surveys, simulations, natural experiments, or other activities.

This is a difficult book to summarize and it takes some time to work through. It is useful and even rewarding to work through how these different arguments, but the book is not for everyone.