I think you misunderstand me. I’m not being cynical; I’m trying to demonstrate that moral dilemmas and moral deliberation aren’t empirically established. I tried to do this, first, by pointing out that what most people consider the subject of morality differs substantially from the subject of academic philosophers and, second, by arguing that the type of moral reasoning found in philosophy isn’t found in society at large and doesn’t influence it. People really do heroically rescue orphans from burning buildings in real life and they do it without viewing the situation as a moral dilemma and without moral deliberation. I don’t think a world where moral philosophy turns out to be perfectly worthless is necessarily a bad one.
michael vassar,
I think you misunderstand me. I’m not being cynical; I’m trying to demonstrate that moral dilemmas and moral deliberation aren’t empirically established. I tried to do this, first, by pointing out that what most people consider the subject of morality differs substantially from the subject of academic philosophers and, second, by arguing that the type of moral reasoning found in philosophy isn’t found in society at large and doesn’t influence it. People really do heroically rescue orphans from burning buildings in real life and they do it without viewing the situation as a moral dilemma and without moral deliberation. I don’t think a world where moral philosophy turns out to be perfectly worthless is necessarily a bad one.