Coping With Moral Uncertainty

Abstract

Moral philosophy requires confronting uncertainty and the tenability of skepticism. A prominent formulation of moderate moral skepticism posits that while moral beliefs cannot be justified tout court against radical hypotheses such as moral nihilism, they can achieve “modest justification” relative to restricted contrast classes. Because this framework suspends judgment on whether any particular contrast class is genuinely relevant, it strictly precludes unqualified epistemic justification. However, this meta-skeptical stance generates acute difficulties for first-person moral deliberation. When an agent deliberates about what to believe or do, she must evaluate which reasons and alternatives are epistemically pertinent. By treating justification merely as a technical relation relativized to contrast classes without sanctioning any normative standard of relevance, moderate skepticism fails to provide epistemic guidance for resolving moral questions. Furthermore, because no reference class is rationally privileged, holding a modestly justified belief confers no objective rational superiority over holding an unjustified one. Consequently, moderate skepticism undermines ordinary standards of epistemic reasonableness and struggles to account for how moral agents can coherently navigate practical uncertainty. – AI-generated abstract.