Coherentist Epistemology and Moral Theory

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1991

Science, thanks to its link with observation, retains some title to a correspondence theory of truth; but a coherence theory is evidently the lot of ethics. --W. V. Quine

Ethics 2009

According to pessimists about moral testimony, there are strong reasons not to form moral beliefs on the say-so of others. I defend pessimism by setting out a conception of what I call moral understanding. I argue that moral understanding is different from moral knowledge and that it is an essential part of good character and of morally worthy action. I argue that if we are aiming to acquire and to use our moral understanding, as we should, it is best neither to trust moral testimony nor to defer to moral experts but that taking moral advice can be worthwhile.

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1991

A concise presentation and assessment of main issues and views in Modern moral epistemology (17-19 C. C.E.), which set much of the current agenda, and also achieved more than has been recognized. Accordingly, this contribution on historical moral philosophy is also a contribution to systematic moral philosophy. (This account is extended to the 20th C. in my (2002), 'Does Anglophone Ethics rest on a Mistake?'; ms. posted above.)

Charles Taylor, Michael Polanyi, and the Critique of Modernity, 2017

Lowney introduces the revolution in epistemology that took shape in the mid-twentieth century and how it presents new openings for moral meaning. Both Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) and Charles Taylor (1931-) surmise that Modern assumptions supporting analytic, foundationalist and reductionist tendencies can undermine human meaning and a robust sense of moral reality. In this introductory chapter of Charles Taylor, Michael Polanyi, and the Critique of Modernity, Lowney discusses how this shift in understanding can renew a robust moral realism. He also introduces the themes of Taylor, and other authors in this volume, as they develop Polanyi’s ideas and bring them into conversation with Taylor's, pointing us to an understanding of science, history, and society that allows for new social and cosmic imaginaries.

Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 2017

This paper concerns the epistemology of difficult moral cases where the difficulty is not traceable to ignorance about non-moral matters. The paper first argues for a principle concerning the epistemic status of moral beliefs about difficult moral cases. The basic idea behind the principle is that one’s belief about the moral status of a potential action in a difficult moral case is not justified unless one has some appreciation of what the relevant moral considerations are and how they bear on the moral status of the potential action. The paper then argues that this principle has important ramifications for moral epistemology and moral metaphysics. It puts pressure on some views of the justification of moral belief, such as ethical intuitionism and reliabilism. It puts pressure on some antirealist views of moral metaphysics, including simple versions of relativism. It also provides some direct positive support for broadly realist views of morality.

Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 2021

I consider three challenges to the traditional view according to which moral responsibility involves an epistemic condition in addition to a freedom condition. The first challenge holds that if a person performs an action A freely, then she thereby knows that she is doing A. The epistemic condition is thus built into the freedom condition. The second challenge contends that no epistemic condition is required for moral responsibility, since a person may be blameworthy for an action that she did not know was wrong. The third challenge invokes the quality of will view. On this view, a person is blameworthy for a wrong action just in case the action manifests a bad quality of will. The blameworthy person need not satisfy an additional epistemic condition. I will argue that contrary to appearances, none of these challenges succeeds. Hence, moral responsibility does require a non-superfluous epistemic condition.

Both moral realists and anti-realists say that they can embrace moral progress in the sense that our moral views can make some progress. It is unclear whether both sides can hold such a view due to the lack of a defensible account of moral progress. Given this state of affairs, I shall attempt to take some steps toward resolving this issue by developing an account of moral progress. I shall motivate what I call the epistemic account of moral progress. According to this account, one"s moral views make progress if and only if successive moral views gain more epistemic goods. I shall argue that the epistemic account should be preferred to other rival accounts of moral progress. For this purpose, I first exhibit some examples which are good candidates for moral progress. Second, I shall examine two accounts of moral progress which potentially explain why these examples can be taken as moral progress though I ultimately reject these accounts. Third, I propose the epistemic account of moral progress as the account which is preferred to the two rival accounts.