Dworkin on external skepticism and moral permissions

MARTÍ, JOSÉ LUIS; SELEME, HUGO OMAR

CRITICAL REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Routledge

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2016 vol. 19 p. 470 - 495

1369-8230

This article discusses Ronald Dworkin?s first objection against what hecalls external moral skepticism, the view that denies truth-value to moraljudgments. According to that objection, an external skeptic denies that substantivemoral judgments can be true. But, at the same time, the objectiongoes, what follows from the skeptical view is that all actions are morallypermissible, which is in itself a substantive moral judgment. We call this?the self-defeating argument.? We argue that the objection?s successdepends on how we interpret the idea of moral permission, an issueDworkin does not clearly resolve. Against his objection, we advance twodifferent arguments. First, once we learn what role the idea of moral permissionplays in morality, we can see that any plausible view of someagent?s moral permission must acknowledge its complex character, and thatthe existence of a moral permission must have some impact on the balanceof moral reasons for other agents. On this understanding, it is false that itfollows solely from external skepticism that everything is permissible. Second,we argue that even if permissions have a simple character, not a complexone, they are plausible only when framed within a moral constellationof rights and obligations. So understood, it is, again, fal