No Perils of Rejecting the Parity Argument

Abstract

Many moral realists have employed a strategy for arguing for moral realism by claiming that if epistemic normativity is categorical and that if this epistemic normativity exists, then categorical normativity exists. In this paper, we will discuss that argument, examine a way out, and respond to the objections people have recently raised in the literature. In the end, we conclude that the objections to our way out will do little in the way of motivating those who already do not believe in categorical normativity, thereby severing the power the aforementioned parity argument is designed to possess.

Keywords

• moral error theory
• meta-ethics
• companions in guilt
• nihilism