Moral Epistemology
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Description
If our interest is the public evaluation and control of advances in biomedicine or other technologies, the problem of moral knowledge has to be closely connected with the conditions of political legitimacy. The issue is not just, “What are the grounds and methods of moral thought in general?” but “What methods can be used to justify conclusions that are fit to serve as the basis for public policy and public restraint?” There may be grounds of moral belief which can serve legitimately as a basis for personal conduct, but which it would be inappropriate to rely on in justifying the actions of official bodies, taken in the name of a public which comprises a wide range of conviction. I shall return to this point later. But for most of this discussion I won't distinguish between the morality of public and of private choice, but will talk about the foundations of moral judgment in general. Because of the essentially public concerns which prompt the discussion, however, I shall leave aside the morality of individual virtue, which may have some bearing on the conduct of particular public officials but has little to do with technology assessment. Epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, is a function of the subject matter. How to arrive at conclusions, how to justify or criticize them, and the pitfalls along the way, all depend on what kind of thing you are trying to make up your mind about. So the first question to answer is: What is morality about—what kind of thing is a moral belief? What is it, in other words, that moral epistemology must investigate our knowledge of? The minimal answer has two elements: (1) Moral conclusions are practical, which means that they are about what to do rather than about what is the case (even though they may be based partly on what is the case); (2) they are not merely individual but represent a possible area of interpersonal agreement. The most general concept of morality, shared by those who may differ widely about its substantive content or foundation, refers to standards of individual or collective conduct which permit people to agree in the determination of what ought to be done in a given case or under given circumstances.
Source Publication
Society's Choices: Social and Ethical Decision Making in Biomedicine
Source Editors/Authors
Ruth Ellen Bulger, Elizabeth Meyer Bobby, Harvey V. Fineberg
Publication Date
1995
Recommended Citation
Nagel, Thomas, "Moral Epistemology" (1995). Faculty Chapters. 1316.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1316
