In The Sources of Normativity, Christine Korsgaard argues that in order to avoid the threat of moral skepticism, our moral theories must show how the claims they make about the nature of our actions obligate us to act morally. A theory that can justify the normativity of morality in this way answers what Korsgaard calls “the normative question.” Although Korsgaard claims that only Kantian theories of morality, such as her own, can answer the normative question, I argue that Adam Smith’s sentimentalist moral theory, as presented in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, can answer the normative question as well. As a result, it is possible to respond to the moral skeptic in the way Korsgaard outlines without accepting some of the theoretical drawbacks of Korsgaard’s own moral theory.

<p>Heightened awareness of the evolutionary, socio-cultural, and psychological origins of our moral judgments pushes many of us in the direction of moral skepticism, in the direction of doubting the objective truth of our moral judgments. But should awareness of the origins of our moral judgments shake our confidence in them? Are there good moral debunking challenges or debunking arguments from premises concerning the accessible origins of our moral judgments to skeptical conclusions regarding them? In vigorous pursuit of these questions, this dissertation sifts three promising moral debunking challenges to moral realism, namely Richard Joyce's (2001) evolutionary debunking argument from epistemic insensitivity, Sharon Street's (2006) "Darwinian Dilemma," and David Enoch's (2010) "Epistemological Challenge." It is argued that each challenge faces cogent objections that not only demonstrate the inadequacy of the best debunking challenges available but also instructively guide us to the development of new and more forceful debunking challenges to moral realism. This dissertation develops two new and forceful debunking challenges, both of which target the epistemic reliability and justification of our moral judgments on realist views of the moral facts. The first new debunking challenge starts from the premise that the best explanation of our moral judgments does not appeal to their truth and invokes a new species of epistemic insensitivity to secure the conclusion that our moral belief-forming processes are epistemically unreliable. The second new debunking challenge reasons that the best explanation of the fact that moral realists have no good explanation of the reliability of our moral belief-forming processes is that there is no such reliability.</p> / Dissertation

This PhD thesis provides an extended evaluation of evolutionary debunking arguments in meta-ethics. Such arguments attempt to show that evolutionary theory, together with a commitment to robust moral objectivity, lead to moral scepticism: the implausible view that we lack moral knowledge or that our moral beliefs are never justified (e.g. Joyce 2006, Street 2005, Kahane 2011). To establish that, these arguments rely on certain epistemic principles. But most of the epistemic principles appealed to in the literature on evolutionary debunking arguments are imprecise, confused or simply implausible. My PhD aims to rectify that. Informed by debates in cutting-edge contemporary epistemology, Chapter 1 distinguishes three general, independently motivated principles that, combined with evolution, seem to render knowledge of robustly objective moral facts problematic. These epistemic principles state that (i.) our getting facts often right in a given domain requires explanation - and if we cannot provide one, our beliefs about that domain are unjustified; (ii.) higher-order evidence of error undermines justification; and (iii.) for our beliefs to be justified, our having them must be best explained by the facts they are about. Chapters 2-4 develop and critically assess evolutionary debunking arguments based on those principles, showing that only the one inspired by (iii.) succeeds. Chapter 2 investigates the argument that evolution makes explaining why we get moral facts often right impossible. I argue that Justin Clarke-Doane's recent response (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017) works, yet neglects an issue about epistemic luck that spells trouble for robust moral objectivity. Chapter 3 discusses the argument that evolution provides higher-order evidence of error regarding belief in robustly objective moral facts. I show that such an argument falls prey to Katia Vavova's (2014) self-defeat objection, even if evolutionary debunkers tweak their background view on the epistemic significance of higher-order evidence. Chapter 4 develops the argument that evolution, rather than robustly objective moral facts, best explains why we hold our moral beliefs. I offer a systematic, comprehensive defence of that argument against Andreas Mogensen's (2015) charge of explanatory levels confusion, Terrence Cuneo's (2007) companion in guilt strategy, and David Enoch's (2012, 2016) appeal to deliberative indispensability. Chapter 5 brings everything together. It investigates whether robust moral objectivity survives the worry about epistemic luck raised in Chapter 2 and the explanatory challenge developed in Chapter 4. Making progress, however, requires a better idea of how we form true, justified beliefs about and acquire knowledge of robustly objective moral facts. Since it offers the most popular and best-developed epistemology of robustly objective morality, my inquiry in Chapter 5 focuses on contemporary moral intuitionism: the view that moral intuitions can be the source of basic moral knowledge. I argue that its success is mixed. While moral intuitionism has the conceptual tools to tackle the problem of epistemic luck from Chapter 2, it cannot insulate knowledge of robustly objective moral facts against the sceptical worry raised by the evolutionary debunking argument developed in Chapter 4. Thus, evolutionary theory, together with a commitment to robust moral objectivity, does lead to a form of unacceptable moral scepticism.

In this essay, I examine the interplay between history, progress, and morality, as it is discussed explicitly or implicitly in the metaethical literature. At first sight, it is perhaps intuitive that these three are necessarily intertwined and mutually dependent, as if they were casually connected. For instance, few would deny that moral progress has occurred throughout history. The abolishment of slavery and the political emancipation of certain groups are seen as obvious signs that morality does indeed progress. Those who believe in de facto moral progress would point to such 'facts' by comparing two states of affairs according to their moral status. Moral progress thus occurs when we move from a "worse" state of affairs to a "better". However, this simple algorithm becomes increasingly untenable once we ask what it means for something to be "better". Better by what measure, better according to whom, better in what sense? Some – moral realists– will argue that as we become increasingly aware of moral truths and as these truths steadily accumulate, progress occurs. Others will argue that there are no moral truths and no moral facts, and a comparison between different states of affairs is impossible because it involves a sort of moral 'historical imperialism' in which we assert our convictions and prejudices upon a time and culture with completely different beliefs. Taken to the extreme, this view gives rise to the idea that moral progress is nothing but a mirage, a psychological necessity without justification. I conclude the essay by arguing that several positions fall short when addressing questions regarding moral progress, and that there are other ways of discussing it which might be more fruitful.

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Sob o signo do aprofundamento e da intensificação da consciência de si, o ato filosófico de Pierre Thévenaz se define como uma filosofia radicalizante. E porque não abre mão e nem elide o lócus de resposta do qual seu ato filosófico toma sua consistência própria que é o da tradição protestante pode receber o complemento (protestante). Assim, uma filosofia radicalizante (protestante). Isso porque a secularização da filosofia, a que seu método de radicalização leva de modo conseqüente, já pressupõe a assunção da própria contingência que é consciência de condição. Consciência de que se fala de algum lugar; consciência de que o pensamento se encontra previamente engajado em um específico hic et nunc que, por conta da condição, recebe sua densidade própria e não pode mais ser cotado no trato das formas abstratas do tempo e do espaço. O que já é um dos índices da superação thévenaziana da redução da filosofia à epistemologia, tal como se tem estabelecido após Kant. Nesse sentido, a abertura plena à contingência pela radicalização forçará a mudança do problema do sentido, ligado pela fenomenologia à consciência intencional, para o problema da hermenêutica histórica. Quer dizer, para o da compreensão dos eventos significativos que têm poder de reorganizar em torno de si o movimento da história. Com a epoché do sentido, lançada sobre o núcleo mesmo do que a fenomenologia husserliana descobrira como a atividade própria da consciência intencional, assim, um passo decisivo no movimento de radicalização thévenaziana, só restará à razão filosófica (ao ser humano) tomar o sentido como tarefa por se fazer, inacabada e não garantida. Esse passo negativo, todavia, não recebe, em Pierre Thévenaz, o tom de palavra final, de última palavra. Pois se assim fosse, serviria ainda como álibi para a instauração de uma nova instalação. Desta vez tão segura no negativo quanto o era na ingenuidade otimística do sentido garantido. O qual permanecia na consciência intencional como ainda um último bastião de força e de atração, exercido sobre a consciência ingênua da atitude natural, sem ser superado. Isso porque agora a razão, já tendo alcançado um nível profundo de consciência de sua condição humana, de sua contingência, de sua fraqueza e equívoco sempre possíveis, para continuar sua atividade crítica costumeira, sua vocação mesma, deverá aprender a tirar força de sua fraqueza. A razão terá de se desdivinizar; de parar de tentar falar por Deus, ou pelos olhos de Deus; de parar de postular reduplicações de si como razão juiz ou razão instância não tocada pela crítica. Ela deverá assumir-se como estando em crise: assumir-se como humana, e humana só. Ora, esta possibilidade inusitada que se abre à própria razão pela radicalização, como vemos, não surge do nada. Ela representa, no inverso mesmo, outra possibilidade que à que Hegel estabeleceu na linha do horizonte e cuja atração exercida no interior do pensamento contemporâneo é bem mais sutil e presente do que parece. Por isso, será preciso desvencilhar a metafísica de certos comprometimentos históricos que a têm desacreditado, para se chegar ao seu mais autêntico núcleo afim à radicalização. Pelo que o signo da defesa da especificidade e da singularidade contra as categorias gerais continentes; o signo da defesa das irredutibilidades aos reducionismos, espiritualistas ou materialistas, será o que caracteriza, para Thévenaz, o movimento mais interno à metafísica ocidental. Este signo é o do espaço ontológico que a metafísica, descoberta por Platão, esclarece a necessidade de que seja mantido entre as grandezas em relação. Todavia, para ativar o que esta descoberta, neutralizada sob a lógica auto contida de uma razão autista, poderia auferir em termos de aprofundamento da consciência de condição, será necessário um apoio externo à razão. E este ela o recebe da experiência choque de imputação de loucura sobre ela que a fé cristã primitiva lançou. E não sendo possível à razão avaliar a justeza de tal imputação, pois não se trata de mais um argumento lógico com o qual ela jogar o seu jogo, a razão é levada a verificar por si mesma a pertinência de tal possibilidade. E assim, nessa nova disposição, um campo insuspeito e infinito, sobre o qual ela pode retomar sua atividade crítica, inesperadamente se abre. Só que agora esta atividade já não poderá mais ser exercida sob o selo de sua inconsciência e do seu autismo tradicional, mas sob o novo índice de uma consciência de condição aprofundada que muda o registro do cumprimento de sua vocação para o de uma atividade intelectual responsável no aqui em baixo, neste mundo / The philosophical act ofPierre Thévenaz, that takes the sign of thedeepening and intensification of self-consciousness, it is here defined as a radicalizing philosophy. Because he doesnt abandon and doesnt hides the locus of his answer,of which philosophical act takes its consistence whereas it is the protestant tradition his philosophical act can to receive the following complement: protestant. So, a (protestant) radicalizing philosophy. It is because a secularization of philosophy, for which his method of radicalization leads consequently, alreadypresupposes the accepting of selfcontingence that is consciousness of condition. Consciousness of speakingfrom somewhere; consciousness of the thought has finding prior engaged in a specific hic etnunc. Because of condition receives its characteristic density and so it cant be quoted in the rank of abstract forms of time and space. It is one of the evidences of thévenazian overcoming of reduction of philosophy to the epistemology, as it has been fixed after Kant. This way, the full overture to the contingence by radicalization will compel the change of the problem of sense, connected by phenomenology to the intentional consciousness, to the problem of historical hermeneutic. I mean, to the understanding of meaningful events that have capacity to reorganize around themselfs the movement of the history. Theepoché of sense putson kernel of husserlian phenomenology, it founded as the specific activity of intentional consciousness, so a conclusive step in the motion of thévenazian radicalization, only rest to philosophical raison (namely, the human being) to take a sense as a task to be make unconcluded and no guaranteed. This negative step, however, no receive in Pierre Thévenaz the hue of last word. So this way serve or it would be serve still as an alibi for the setting of a new ideological fixed. This time, such certain on the negative as it were on optimistic naivety of secure sense. This remained in the intentional consciousness as still the last bastion of power and attraction, exerted on the naïve consciousness of natural attitude, that is, without overcoming.This is because now the raison had already reached the deep level of consciousness of its human condition, (its contingence), of its weakness and misunderstanding always possible. Then, for it to continue its usual criticism activity, its calling, it must to learn to take advantage from its weakness. The reason must be undivinize by itself; to stop to try speaks instead eye God; or by Gods eyes. It must be to stop to claim self-reduplications as judge or instance raison never touched by criticism. It must looks like being in the crisis condition; to admit yourself as human, only human. However, this unused possibility that appers the own reason, through radicalization, as we can see, it doesnt emerge from nothing. This typify, in the exact converse, another possibility that Hegel sets up on horizon line whose appeal, inner of the contemporary thought, is more subtle and present than it seems. So, it would be necessary to separate the metaphysic from certain historical commitments that made its discredit, to reach to its more authentic pith related with the radicalization. So, the sign of defense of specificity and singularity against the continent general categories; the sign of defense of no-reductive quality to the reduction, spiritualistic reductions or materialistic reductions, will be the main character, for Pierre Thévenaz, the more internal movement of occidental metaphysic. This sign is from ontological space, that the metaphysic founded by Plato clarifies the need to keep on among the magnitudes in relation. However, to start activing this discovery, which has been neutralized about the self-contained of an autistic reason, it might obtain in terms of deepening of consciousness of condition, will be necessary an external support to the reason. And the reason receives it from shock-experience of imputation of madness on the reason that ancient Christian faith launched. But, it not been possible for the reason to evaluate the right of that imputation, because it wasnt the most logical argument for the reason to play its game. So, the reason is conducted to checking itself the relevance of such possibility. And so, in this new arrangement, an unsuspected field open to the reason, on which the reason can to retake its criticism activity, suddenly open. But, now, people can`t practice this activity anymore about its traditional unconsciousness and its autism. But about the new evidence of a consciousness of conditiondeepening that changes the key of the perform of its calling, now as responsible intellectual practice on the hereunder, in this world

Sob o signo do aprofundamento e da intensificação da consciência de si, o ato filosófico de Pierre Thévenaz se define como uma filosofia radicalizante. E porque não abre mão e nem elide o lócus de resposta do qual seu ato filosófico toma sua consistência própria que é o da tradição protestante pode receber o complemento (protestante). Assim, uma filosofia radicalizante (protestante). Isso porque a secularização da filosofia, a que seu método de radicalização leva de modo conseqüente, já pressupõe a assunção da própria contingência que é consciência de condição. Consciência de que se fala de algum lugar; consciência de que o pensamento se encontra previamente engajado em um específico hic et nunc que, por conta da condição, recebe sua densidade própria e não pode mais ser cotado no trato das formas abstratas do tempo e do espaço. O que já é um dos índices da superação thévenaziana da redução da filosofia à epistemologia, tal como se tem estabelecido após Kant. Nesse sentido, a abertura plena à contingência pela radicalização forçará a mudança do problema do sentido, ligado pela fenomenologia à consciência intencional, para o problema da hermenêutica histórica. Quer dizer, para o da compreensão dos eventos significativos que têm poder de reorganizar em torno de si o movimento da história. Com a epoché do sentido, lançada sobre o núcleo mesmo do que a fenomenologia husserliana descobrira como a atividade própria da consciência intencional, assim, um passo decisivo no movimento de radicalização thévenaziana, só restará à razão filosófica (ao ser humano) tomar o sentido como tarefa por se fazer, inacabada e não garantida. Esse passo negativo, todavia, não recebe, em Pierre Thévenaz, o tom de palavra final, de última palavra. Pois se assim fosse, serviria ainda como álibi para a instauração de uma nova instalação. Desta vez tão segura no negativo quanto o era na ingenuidade otimística do sentido garantido. O qual permanecia na consciência intencional como ainda um último bastião de força e de atração, exercido sobre a consciência ingênua da atitude natural, sem ser superado. Isso porque agora a razão, já tendo alcançado um nível profundo de consciência de sua condição humana, de sua contingência, de sua fraqueza e equívoco sempre possíveis, para continuar sua atividade crítica costumeira, sua vocação mesma, deverá aprender a tirar força de sua fraqueza. A razão terá de se desdivinizar; de parar de tentar falar por Deus, ou pelos olhos de Deus; de parar de postular reduplicações de si como razão juiz ou razão instância não tocada pela crítica. Ela deverá assumir-se como estando em crise: assumir-se como humana, e humana só. Ora, esta possibilidade inusitada que se abre à própria razão pela radicalização, como vemos, não surge do nada. Ela representa, no inverso mesmo, outra possibilidade que à que Hegel estabeleceu na linha do horizonte e cuja atração exercida no interior do pensamento contemporâneo é bem mais sutil e presente do que parece. Por isso, será preciso desvencilhar a metafísica de certos comprometimentos históricos que a têm desacreditado, para se chegar ao seu mais autêntico núcleo afim à radicalização. Pelo que o signo da defesa da especificidade e da singularidade contra as categorias gerais continentes; o signo da defesa das irredutibilidades aos reducionismos, espiritualistas ou materialistas, será o que caracteriza, para Thévenaz, o movimento mais interno à metafísica ocidental. Este signo é o do espaço ontológico que a metafísica, descoberta por Platão, esclarece a necessidade de que seja mantido entre as grandezas em relação. Todavia, para ativar o que esta descoberta, neutralizada sob a lógica auto contida de uma razão autista, poderia auferir em termos de aprofundamento da consciência de condição, será necessário um apoio externo à razão. E este ela o recebe da experiência choque de imputação de loucura sobre ela que a fé cristã primitiva lançou. E não sendo possível à razão avaliar a justeza de tal imputação, pois não se trata de mais um argumento lógico com o qual ela jogar o seu jogo, a razão é levada a verificar por si mesma a pertinência de tal possibilidade. E assim, nessa nova disposição, um campo insuspeito e infinito, sobre o qual ela pode retomar sua atividade crítica, inesperadamente se abre. Só que agora esta atividade já não poderá mais ser exercida sob o selo de sua inconsciência e do seu autismo tradicional, mas sob o novo índice de uma consciência de condição aprofundada que muda o registro do cumprimento de sua vocação para o de uma atividade intelectual responsável no aqui em baixo, neste mundo / The philosophical act ofPierre Thévenaz, that takes the sign of thedeepening and intensification of self-consciousness, it is here defined as a radicalizing philosophy. Because he doesnt abandon and doesnt hides the locus of his answer,of which philosophical act takes its consistence whereas it is the protestant tradition his philosophical act can to receive the following complement: protestant. So, a (protestant) radicalizing philosophy. It is because a secularization of philosophy, for which his method of radicalization leads consequently, alreadypresupposes the accepting of selfcontingence that is consciousness of condition. Consciousness of speakingfrom somewhere; consciousness of the thought has finding prior engaged in a specific hic etnunc. Because of condition receives its characteristic density and so it cant be quoted in the rank of abstract forms of time and space. It is one of the evidences of thévenazian overcoming of reduction of philosophy to the epistemology, as it has been fixed after Kant. This way, the full overture to the contingence by radicalization will compel the change of the problem of sense, connected by phenomenology to the intentional consciousness, to the problem of historical hermeneutic. I mean, to the understanding of meaningful events that have capacity to reorganize around themselfs the movement of the history. Theepoché of sense putson kernel of husserlian phenomenology, it founded as the specific activity of intentional consciousness, so a conclusive step in the motion of thévenazian radicalization, only rest to philosophical raison (namely, the human being) to take a sense as a task to be make unconcluded and no guaranteed. This negative step, however, no receive in Pierre Thévenaz the hue of last word. So this way serve or it would be serve still as an alibi for the setting of a new ideological fixed. This time, such certain on the negative as it were on optimistic naivety of secure sense. This remained in the intentional consciousness as still the last bastion of power and attraction, exerted on the naïve consciousness of natural attitude, that is, without overcoming.This is because now the raison had already reached the deep level of consciousness of its human condition, (its contingence), of its weakness and misunderstanding always possible. Then, for it to continue its usual criticism activity, its calling, it must to learn to take advantage from its weakness. The reason must be undivinize by itself; to stop to try speaks instead eye God; or by Gods eyes. It must be to stop to claim self-reduplications as judge or instance raison never touched by criticism. It must looks like being in the crisis condition; to admit yourself as human, only human. However, this unused possibility that appers the own reason, through radicalization, as we can see, it doesnt emerge from nothing. This typify, in the exact converse, another possibility that Hegel sets up on horizon line whose appeal, inner of the contemporary thought, is more subtle and present than it seems. So, it would be necessary to separate the metaphysic from certain historical commitments that made its discredit, to reach to its more authentic pith related with the radicalization. So, the sign of defense of specificity and singularity against the continent general categories; the sign of defense of no-reductive quality to the reduction, spiritualistic reductions or materialistic reductions, will be the main character, for Pierre Thévenaz, the more internal movement of occidental metaphysic. This sign is from ontological space, that the metaphysic founded by Plato clarifies the need to keep on among the magnitudes in relation. However, to start activing this discovery, which has been neutralized about the self-contained of an autistic reason, it might obtain in terms of deepening of consciousness of condition, will be necessary an external support to the reason. And the reason receives it from shock-experience of imputation of madness on the reason that ancient Christian faith launched. But, it not been possible for the reason to evaluate the right of that imputation, because it wasnt the most logical argument for the reason to play its game. So, the reason is conducted to checking itself the relevance of such possibility. And so, in this new arrangement, an unsuspected field open to the reason, on which the reason can to retake its criticism activity, suddenly open. But, now, people can`t practice this activity anymore about its traditional unconsciousness and its autism. But about the new evidence of a consciousness of conditiondeepening that changes the key of the perform of its calling, now as responsible intellectual practice on the hereunder, in this world