Most of us have a sense of good and bad. But where does this come from? Do we get our moral understanding from something solid and real, that exists “out there” somewhere? Maybe… but you’d be hard pressed to prove it. Perhaps those who don’t believe in this kind of “out there” moral truth should have to prove their case instead? That’s one of the issues discussed in a book review I co-wrote, recently published in the International Journal of Philosophical Studies.

One philosopher’s answer to moral skepticism

In his book, Answering Moral Skepticism, philosopher Shelly Kagan argues that objective moral truths really exist – they are “out there” for us to intuit. His position is set against that of the moral skeptic – the person who doesn’t think there’s any such thing as an independently existing moral truth. There isn’t just one type of moral skeptic: you might doubt the existence of morality in this sense for a variety of reasons, and in the book, Kagan sets these out and explains them. (It’s worth noting, too, that being a moral skeptic doesn’t mean you don’t live by a moral code or see the value of it – just that this isn’t something you believe is derived from an objective, eternal truth, like one of Plato’s Forms).

Ultimately for Kagan, though, the skeptics aren’t convincing, because they conclude something that just doesn’t feel right. For Kagan, moral skepticism is a really extreme view – one that is undesirable enough, and counterintuitive enough, for him to think it can’t possibly be true. The trouble is, that seems to be enough for him: if the conclusion is abhorrent enough, his reasoning seems to go, then the argument can be thrown out.

Can you philosophise based on common sense intuitions?

If we’re going to work anything out, we need to start somewhere. So there will be assumptions we have to make. For example, Descartes famously decided to throw all his beliefs out and build a foundation on only things that couldn’t be doubted – the fact that he was doubting at all, and therefore, that he existed. (He was still working within the bounds of logic to make that jump to existence, though). Then there are a priori truths – things that seem to be eternally so, independently of our experience of the world – such as 2+2=4.

But can we assume anything else? Staying within the world of metaphysics, Berkeley argued, convincingly, that the only non-a priori data we have comes from our senses; we can’t jump from the existence of these perceptions to the existence of an external world that makes them happen. One logical continuation of this idea (not one that Berkeley ultimately endorsed) might be solipsism; the view that the person doing the perceiving is the only person that exists.

That goes against common sense, but it doesn’t mean you can prove that it’s wrong. And if you are a solipsist, or a skeptic of any kind, there isn’t too much anyone can do to falsify your view – unless they can come up with proof in the form of an instance of the thing you are doubting. However, most philosophers are not solipsists. Does this mean that it’s OK to reject certain ideas if you don’t like them, or they’re not useful – even if they are not philosophically refutable?

The burden of proof

In every field of philosophy, skeptics seem to have the upper hand: it’s very hard to prove them wrong. Talking about belief in God, Bertrand Russell said:

… nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely.

One person asserts that such a teapot exists; another says it doesn’t. The teapot believer has the burden of proof: they need to back up their view with evidence. The same is usually assumed of any such assertion, including a belief in moral truths. But according to Kagan, we can turn the tables and say that if a philosophical argument contradicts common sense, the burden of proof lies with the proponent of that argument. Moral skepticism is such an argument, and therefore the burden of proof lies with the skeptic.

You can read the book review to get more detail (if you can’t access the journal, contact me or leave a message in the comments and I can send you a pdf), but ultimately, if we are to take the practice of philosophy seriously, I don’t think Kagan is entitled to do this. What do you think?

Further reading

Book review

(Forgive my indulgence – this is the first time I have been able to cite myself in a journal, so I will do it the academic way)

• Hyde, B. V. E., & Bowden, C. (2024). Answering Moral Skepticism: by Shelly Kagan, New York, NY, Oxford University Press, 2024, 408 pp., £22.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9780197688984. International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 1–6.
• The book itself: Answering Moral Skepticism by Shelly Kagan

Other related reads

• Moral Skepticism – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Russell’s Teapot – Wikipedia
• Descartes’ Epistemology – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• George Berkeley – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Other Minds (exploring issues around solipsism) – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Related blog posts

• Am I missing something? Why bogus ideas maintain philosophical respect

What do you think?

Can an appeal to common sense ever be justified in philosophy? Is the burden of proof actually on the moral skeptic? I’d love to hear your thoughts.