I'm interested in finding out about the nature of ethical knowledge for an epistemology course. However, I am not sure how to go about doing this -- do I apply the standard test of knowledge (JTB+x) or are there other ways of relating metaethics to epistemology?
I recommend the underappreciated classic article by Peter Glassen, “Are there unresolvable moral disputes?” which gives a response-dependence or “ideal observer” account of moral objectivity. It is constructed so that moral value (rightness) is analysed in a way that could be regarded as a reduction to epistemic value (qua being implicit in the concept of knowledge). Moreover, rightness has the same metaphysical or ontological status as a dispositional property.
The article can be downloaded here:
http://en.bookfi.net/s/?q=peter+glassen&e=1&t=0
Do NOT click on the title; click on "Download (PDF)" instead.
I have a few relevant PPTs from my teaching days that I can email you. If you're interested email me here: karl dot pfeifer at usask dot ca
Coming from a religious perspective, all morality is non objective without divine revelation. Any other epistemological approach is non-objective. Say you use JTB and I disagree that that is a valid approach. How can one know which is true? It is the opinion of a Man vs. the opinion of a Man.
If morality is socially construed then westerners have no base for saying that the circumcision of women in Africa is morally wrong, since that society has chosen to oppress women and to view that as the correct moral approach to gender and sexuality.
Objective morality has to come from an objective source. That's intrinsic to the nature of objectivity. All human reasoning is subjective and ultimately unprovable as any epistemologist should acknowledge. Even epistemological "proofs" are unqualified axioms from which to interpret reality. They are "faith" statements. In simple terms: Who says that you can use that epistemological approach to find truth? How can you know? At some point you need an immovable axiom for true objectivity. If there is a creator who defines reality, morality and has authority over creation, then there is moral objectivity.
James Beevers If, as you suggest, epistemological conclusions are "faith" statements that are not sufficient for finding truth, how is belief in a divine authority any better off? Sure, you can claim you know there is such an authority, but such a claim would be just a "faith" statement of your own.
I recommend David Weissman's Truth's Debt to Value for a hypothetical realist account of the intersection of epistemology and ethics.
Karl Pfeifer I agree and I am aware of my limitations in that respect! Good observation. At some point a faith statement is required. Nevertheless, faith in a God is a reasoned confidence based on observations and deductions from the nature of reality. The argument I just made on morality is also often referred to as the "moral argument for God". That is because we realize that all humans think in objective moral categories in a way that is not simply deductible from Evolution (altruism or care for genetically damaged people is most likely not a byproduct of natural selection), divine revelation as some see it (Bible), speaks of humans as having inherent value. In that regard, at least, Theism has a more coherent explanation than atheism.
The question is the following: Every worldview has holes. One way to find truth is to find the worldview that has no holes, a worldview that is consistent in itself. I believe that a reasoned belief in a moral God satisfies in that regard, making more sense than alternate explanations. As Cornelius Van Til argued, the existence of God seems to be a necessary component in the world as we know it. The world just doesn't quite make sense without.
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