Moral Skepticism and the Benacerraf Challenge

The Benacerraf challenge is a well-known objection to Platonism in mathematics. Its proponent argues that, if mathematical entities are, as Platonists claim, mind-independent, causally inert, and existent beyond space and time, then we are led to a skeptical stance according to which it is not possible to explain how it is that we have cognitive access to the mathematical realm or how it is that our mathematical beliefs are reliable. It has been argued that a similar objection could be leveled against those forms of moral realism that fall under what in Section 2 was called “robust moral realism.” In “Moral Skepticism and the Benacerraf Challenge,” Folke Tersman considers whether, unlike the argument from the best explanation, the argument from disagreement, and the argument from evolution, the moral version of the Benacerraf challenge can undermine moral knowledge without appealing to empirical claims that moral realists deem controversial. His verdict is negative: to successfully counter certain responses to the moral version of the challenge, its proponent needs to have recourse to empirical considerations taken from some of the above argumentsForthcoming (8 Nov. 2017)