Universal Moral Certainty

Abstract

The first three chapters get us clear about what basic certainty and what morality is. In these next two chapters I go on to develop a key distinction (put forth by Daniele Moyal-Sharrock) between different kinds of basic certainty, the local and the universal. I apply this distinction to basic moral certainty, in order to explain both the underlying unity and the sometimes interminable conflict between different moral systems. In exploring the universal side of the distinction, I defend two examples of basic moral certainties that must be held by all functioning moral agents. My examples are the belief (i) that some killings are wrong (K); and (ii) that some wrongs are more serious than others, or that there is some hierarchy between morally evaluable actions.