Defending the Moral/Epistemic Parity
In Conor McHugh, Jonathan Way & Daniel Whiting,
Metaepistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 27-45 (
2018)
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Abstract
Do irreducible moral and epistemic facts stand or fall together? In his critical engagement with Cuneo’s _The Normative Web_, Chris Heathwood maintains that they do not. Appealing to a version of the Open Question Argument, Heathwood argues that while reductionism in the moral domain is not feasible, it is so in the epistemic domain. Heathwood presents non-reductive realists with what appears to be a difficult choice: give up on either _The Normative Web_’s argument for non-reductive realism or the Open Question Argument. In this chapter, it is contended that non-reductive realists do not face this difficult choice. Central to the case is the claim that, while analyzing epistemic concepts in terms of descriptive ones has its attractions, it is considerably more challenging than Heathwood maintains. Some wider lessons are drawn by identifying the difficulties that face those who wish to defend a broadly reductive view of the epistemic domain.