Sarah E. McGrath

This project is an exploration of moral knowledge: its possibility, its sources, and its characteristic vulnerabilities. The project defends the view that we do not arrive at moral knowledge by any distinctive methods of reasoning or special cognitive faculties; rather, what moral knowledge we have is a product of our general purpose methods and faculties. In support of this view, it offers a detailed examination and defense of our ability to acquire moral knowledge via two channels whose capacity to deliver it has often been denied: (i) direct observation and (ii) deference to others. Special attention is given to the place of intellectual humility in the moral domain, and to the role that this virtue plays in the achievement of moral insight.