Forgetting your scruples

Adam Bugeja*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    1 Citation (Scopus)

    Abstract

    It can sound absurd to report that you have forgotten a moral truth. Described cases in which people who have lost moral beliefs exhibit the behavioural and phenomenological symptoms of forgetting can seem similarly absurd. I examine these phenomena, and evaluate a range of hypotheses that might be offered to explain them. These include the following proposals: that it is hard to forget moral truths because they are believed on the basis of intuition; that moral forgetting seems puzzling for the same reason that forgetting what you approve or disapprove of seems puzzling; and that moral truths matter too much to us to be easily forgotten. I conclude that the best explanation for the phenomena is a non-cognitivist one: moral forgetting seems puzzling because moral judgements are attitudes of a sort that cannot be lost through forgetting (e.g. desires).

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)2889-2911
    Number of pages23
    JournalPhilosophical Studies
    Volume173
    Issue number11
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2016

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