Is metaethical naturalism sufficient? A Confucian response to problems of meaning

James Dominic Rooney*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

Abstract

Ethical naturalism is sometimes accused of problematic metaphysics or epistemology. Some argue that naturalists rely on concepts of ‘nature’ indefensible in the light of modern evolutionary biology. There is also an epistemological worry that has been raised recently that strong normative evaluation, such as meaning in human life, is empirically inaccessible or even in conflict with what we know in scientific contexts. While the critics have targeted Aristotelian and Neo-Aristotelian views, I will appeal to an argument from the Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi as one potential way that we can respond to skeptics. If we can know that human beings are capable of moral goodness, and it is comprehensible for us to take moral goodness as a final or unifying goal of our lives, then we can respond to the skeptical objections which allege that we cannot sustain rich normative judgments about meaning in life in the face of scientific evidence.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-11
Number of pages11
JournalAsian Philosophy
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 8 Oct 2024

Scopus Subject Areas

  • Religious studies
  • Philosophy

User-Defined Keywords

  • Metaethics
  • naturalism
  • Zhu Xi
  • Neo-Confucianism
  • skepticism
  • meaning

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