Why Is Moral Knowledge So Hard to Come By?

Ron Wilburn

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Uncontroversial moral knowledge is hard to come by, and any adequate account of moral factuality should explain why. In this paper, I endeavor to provide such an account. It is largely because of the relational nature of moral properties, and the corresponding externalistically determined normative content of moral property terms, I argue, that uncontroversial moral knowledge is so hard to acquire. The metaphysics of moral factuality does a lot to explain the infamous elusiveness of moral knowledge, but in ways that are surprisingly mundane.