Thread by @EveKeneinan

An adult having sex with a child not being wrong falls straight out of Kershnar's view that nothing is wrong. He is an error theorist: he holds that morality does not substantially exist in any meaningful way.

Cf. amazon.com/Total-Collapse…

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1488675032985268228

Kershnar's view that "there is no morality" is only half insane. His argument is, broadly, "Both consequentialism and Kantianism fail as moral theories; so there just is no morality."

The proper conclusion, of course, is "so virtue ethics is correct."

I can't analyze Kershnar's argument more deeply without taking a deep dive into it, but I can already identify some lines along which it is flawed. He argues in general from "various theories of X fail; so there is no X, or at least, we don't know whether there is an X."

This is, at bottom, a non sequitur.

From "our theories of X (all) fail" it does not follow that "there is no X" or "probably, there is no X" or "we don't know if there is X."

If some X is primitive (e.g. morality) we might know it exists and be fully justified in our knowledge REGARDLESS of whether or not we have an adequate understanding/theory of X.

The ways in which we might know that something exists are not contingent on our ability to conceptually give an account of said something.

Consider the case/lesson of Socrates: his famous "I know that I know nothing" is rooted in his inability to give an *adequate* logos.

Socratic epistemic humility does not, however, translate in to global skepticism, neither about being nor about our knowledge of what is.

It is, at any rate, obvious that Kershnar's argument viz no morality is a non sequitur — since I accept his premise that (1) consequentialism fails, and (2) non-consequentialism based on autonomy (i.e. Kantianism) fails, but reject (3) So, there is no morality.

To me, the bankruptcy of modernist theories of anything, being, truth, morality, etc., lead to "so the Ancients/Medievals were right" rather than "so we should embrace postmodern skepticism and renounce philosophy."

The deeper problem with Kershnar, which people seem to grasp intuitively, is that there is something deeply wrong with someone who cannot see that, if his logos leads to an absurdity, one ought to give up the logos, and not the non-absurd view.

We still lack a fully adequate ontology.

This is not, of course, a justification of Gorgias' claim that "nothing exists."

That is why Socratic humility is necessary — pride can lead both to an unwarranted dogmatism AND to an unwarranted skepticism.

One must always bear in mind Pascal's dictum, that

My point here is that we know the existence of morality more directly and more strongly than we know that we should trust any skeptical argument regarding the same.

I hold it is similar to our knowledge of our own existence: one is already deeply in error if one is prepared to take seriously any argument purporting to show one does not exist.

Peter Geach's point is well-taken that, in the face of certain arguments, our only interest should be a mild curiosity about "how well the fallacy has been concealed."

Knowing when to apply this rule is based in philosophical phronesis, not in logos.