No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 January 2009
Sinnott-Armstrong's paper principally defends our inability to justify, philosophically, normal moral claims. In particular, we cannot justify them against other claims, especially the claim of moral nihilism. Moral nihilism is the doctrine that there are no moral obligations (for anybody to do anything). This thesis ‘does not lie in meta-ethics. It is a universally quantified substantive moral claim’ (p. 219). Sinnott-Annstrong makes it clear that he does not actually believe this doctrine (p. 217), but he believes that it is coherent, and that a variety of strategies philosophers might attempt all fail to disprove it. And because of this, ordinary claims to obligation are philosophically unjustified.
1 I am indebted to the audience at the Greensboro Colloquium, especially Tom Hill and Jarrett Leplin, for remarks which helped to shape this written version of my comments.