Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:53:45.216Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Moral Understanding and Cooperative Testimony

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2019

Kenneth Boyd Open the ORCID record for Kenneth Boyd [Opens in a new window]
Kenneth Boyd*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto at Scarborough, Scarborough, ON, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is has been argued that there is a problem with moral testimony: testimony is deferential, and basing judgments and actions on deferentially acquired knowledge prevents them from having moral worth. What morality perhaps requires of us, then, is that we understand why a proposition is true, but this is something that cannot be acquired through testimony. I argue here that testimony can be both deferential as well as cooperative, and that one can acquire moral understanding through cooperative testimony. The problem of moral testimony is thus not a problem with testimony generally, but a problem of deferential testimony specifically.

Keywords

understandingtestimonymoral knowledgemoral understanding
Type
Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , January 2020 , pp. 18 - 33
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Boyd, Kenneth. 2017. “Testifying Understanding.” Episteme 14 (1): 103–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enoch, David. 2014. “A Defense of Moral Deference.” Journal of Philosophy 111(5): 229–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fletcher, Guy. 2016. “Moral Testimony: Once More with Feeling.” In Oxford Studies in Metaethics Vol. 11, edited by Russ Shafer-Landau, 45–73. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, Sanford. 2009. “Experts, Semantic and Epistemic.” Noûs 43 (4): 581–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greco, John. 2010. Achieving Knowledge: A Virtue-Theoretic Account of Epistemic Normativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimm, Stephen. 2006. “Is Understanding a Species of Knowledge?” British Journal of the Philosophy of Science 57: 515–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawking, Stephen, and Hertog, Thomas. 2018. “A smooth Exit from Eternal Inflation?” Journal of High Energy Physics 147: 1–15.Google Scholar
Hawley, Katherine. 2010. “Testimony and Knowing How.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 41(4): 397–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hills, Alison. 2009. “Moral Testimony and Moral Epistemology.” Ethics 120 (1): 94–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hills, Alison. 2013. “Moral Testimony.” Philosophy Compass 8 (6): 552–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hills, Alison. 2015. “Understanding Why.” Noûs 50 (2): 1–28.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Robert. 2007. “What Is Wrong with Moral Testimony?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74(3): 611–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howell, Robert. 2014. “Google Morals, Virtue, and the Asymmetry of Deference.” Noûs, 48 (3): 389–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelp, Christoph. 2014. “Knowledge, Understanding and Virtue.” In Virtue Scientia, Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, edited by Fairweather, A..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelp, Christoph. 2015. “Understanding Phenomena.” Synthese 192(12): 3799–816.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khalifa, Kareem. 2013. “Understanding, Grasping, and Luck.” Episteme 10 (1): 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kvanvig, Jonathan. 2003. The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lackey, Jennifer. 2008. Learning from Words: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lackey, Jennifer. 2011. “Assertion and Isolated Second-Hand Knowledge.” In Assertion: New Philosophical Essays, edited by Brown, Jessica & Cappelen, Herman, 251–76. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markovits, Julia. 2010. “Acting for the Right Reasons.” Philosophical Review 119 (2): 201–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markovits, Julia. 2012. “Saints, Heroes, Sages, and Villains.” Philosophical Studies 158 (2): 289–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGrath, Sarah. 2011. “Skepticism about Moral Expertise as a Puzzle for Moral Realism.” Journal of Philosophy 108(3): 111–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mogensen, Andreas L. 2017. “Moral Testimony Pessimism and the Uncertain Value of Authenticity.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 95(2): 261–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, Kevin. 2012. “A Defense of Lucky Understanding.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63(2): 357–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nickel, Philip. 2001. “Moral Testimony and Its Authority.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 4 (3): 253–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pritchard, Duncan, Millar, Alan, and Haddock, Adrian. 2010. The Nature and Value of Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riaz, Amber. 2015. “Moral Understanding and Knowledge.” Philosophical Studies 172 (1): 113–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skarsaune, Knut Olav. 2016. “Moral Deference and Authentic Interaction.” Journal of Philosophy 113 (7): 346–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sliwa, Paulina. 2012. “In defense of moral testimony.” Philosophical Studies 158(2):175-195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sliwa, Paulina. 2015. “IV—Understanding and Knowing.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 115 (1.1): 57–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sliwa, Paulina. 2017. “Moral Understanding as Knowing Right from Wrong.” Ethics 127 (3): 521–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkenfeld, Daniel. 2013. “Understanding as Representation Manipulability.” Synthese 190 (6): 997–1016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zagzebski, Linda. 2008. On Epistemology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar