MORAL METASKEPTICISM

Tamler Sommers, Relative Justice: Cultural Diversity, Free Will, and Moral Responsibility (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2012) (The Metaskeptical Thesis: "the view that there are no universally true conditions for moral responsibility. The evidence suggest that there would be no convergence in considered intuitions, even in idealized conditions of rationality. Since considered intuitions ultimately ground our theories of responsibility, there does not seem to be a principled way of establishing conditions of moral responsibility that would apply across cultures. Like all empirically driven arguments, this one could turn out to be wrong. But my case is sufficient strong, I believe, to shift the burden of proof to those who defend universalist theories. They must defend the empirical and theoretical assumptions on which their theories rely--or give a convincing account of why such a defense is unnecessary." Id. at 108.).