Practical Intelligibility and Moral Skepticism: Should Realists Worry About Grass‐Counters and Hand‐Claspers?

Abstract

AbstractThe focus of this paper is the following claim: as a purely conceptual matter, the moral truths could be pretty much anything, and we should assume this in assessing our reliability at grasping moral truths. This claim, which I call No Content, plays a key role in an important skeptical argument against realist moral knowledge – the Normative Lottery Argument. In this paper, I argue that moral realists can, and should, reject No Content. My argument centers on the idea of practical intelligibility. I explore different aspects of practical intelligibility, and I argue that such intelligibility sets a constraint on the possibilities we should consider when assessing our reliability at grasping moral truths.