Moral Autonomy Still Refuted

Abstract

If an argument is put forward as formally valid, critics should discuss that very argument and not variants upon it. But the critics of the counterexample to the 'moral autonomy' doctrine that I recently published1 have transgressed against this principle. Hurka thinks he can appeal against what I, the author of the example, make Uncle Dewi say to what Uncle Dewi must surely have meant;2 but since Uncle Dewi is a mere figure in a logical example, this is as comical as Sir David Ross's view that the Mikkalos of Aristotle's logical example may well have been a real person, but need not have been musical, as Aristotle makes him out to be.3 Borowski transgresses rather more seriously. He maintains that he will not be 'doing violence to the logical as opposed to the literary merit of Geach's example' if he replaces my premise: