The moral evil demons

Abstract

Moral disagreement poses a significant challenge to anti-relativist metaethics, specifically through the problem of “moral evil demons”—undetectable influences such as culture or upbringing that produce systematic moral error. This challenge is not unique to ethics but reflects a broader epistemological issue regarding the significance of disagreement. Although some theories propose that encountering disagreement requires suspending judgment unless independent evidence of a peer’s unreliability is available, this requirement overlooks the internalist structure of rational belief. Rationality supervenes on a thinker’s internal mental states, establishing an inherent asymmetry between one’s own intuitions and the beliefs of others. Unlike the beliefs of others, a thinker’s own current intuitions can directly guide the reasoning process, justifying a “fundamental trust” in one’s own perspective that does not extend to dissenting parties. Consequently, while awareness of disagreement may rationally lead to a decrease in confidence, it does not necessitate total skepticism. It remains possible to rationally maintain a moral belief even in the face of deep, irresoluble conflict, provided that belief is supported by the thinker’s own coherent intuitions and mental states. – AI-generated abstract.