Can We See What’s Wrong with Non-Naturalism?

Abstract

Abstract The Genealogical Debunking Challenge for non-naturalism argues that there’s something epistemically problematic about the origins of our normative beliefs. The strongest version locates the problem in non-naturalism precluding the explanatory connections between the facts and our beliefs necessary to avoid the problematic epistemic luck that drives Gettier cases. Third-factor explanations, where the fact and the belief have a shared explanation, have been popular attempts. But non-naturalist third-factor explanations cannot avoid Gettier-luck. This chapter sketches an account of moral perception that provides non-naturalism with explanatory connections that resolve the problem. Non-naturalism can hold that cognitive permeation allows perceptual access to moral properties, without the implausible commitment that wrongness, for example, causally affects the retina. The most salient objections are epistemological: standard philosophical worries about cognitive permeation, special worries about cognitive permeation in this context, and worries about whether this picture can play the correct dialectical role. These are addressed in turn.