Against inferential moral knowledge

A defence of Hume’s Law

Bibliographic Data

ID10691976
AuthorsM Backes (0000-0002-2246-8590, University of Cologne, corresponding author)
Year2025
Publication date2025-02-12
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/pq/pqaf012
OpenAlexW4407591289
LanguageEN
References cited25

According to Hume’s Law, we cannot infer moral conclusions from wholly non-moral premises; or, more concisely, we cannot infer an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’. While Hume’s Law (at least in qualified form) has enjoyed widespread acceptance, recent years have seen an upsurge of interest in anti-Humean accounts of moral knowledge. According to these accounts, we can come to know moral conclusions via inferences from wholly non-moral premises. The main aim of this paper is to defend Hume’s Law against these recent threats and to argue, more generally, that there are good reasons to remain pessimistic about anti-Humean accounts of moral knowledge. In particular, the paper (1) raises doubts about the leading accounts of inferential moral knowledge currently found in the literature, (2) proposes a new account of inferential moral knowledge that promises to avoid the shortcomings of its predecessors, but (3) argues that the new account too is ultimately unsuccessful

Epistemology · Inference · Moral authority · Moral disengagement · Moral psychology · Moral reasoning · Pessimism · Political science · Sociology · Free Will and Agency · Law · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment

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