Suspiciously convenient belief

Neil Levy*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)
20 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Moral judgments entail or consist in claims that certain ways of behaving are called for. These actions have expectable consequences. I will argue that these consequences are suspiciously benign: on controversial issues, each side assesses these consequences, measured in dispute-independent goods, as significantly better than the consequences of behaving in the ways their opponents recommend. This remains the case even when we have not formed our moral judgment by assessing consequences. I will suggest that the evidence indicates that our perception of the consequences of acting as recommended by our moral judgments is motivated, such that the warrant of such assessments is lower than we might have thought. The suspicion correlation between our moral judgments and our assessments of the implicated facts provides higher-order evidence that should lead us to reduce our confidence in these assessments.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)899-913
Number of pages15
JournalEthical Theory and Moral Practice
Volume23
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2020

Bibliographical note

Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

Keywords

  • Coincidence
  • Conciliationism
  • Higher-order evidence
  • Moral judgment

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