Mathematics, Morality, and Self-Effacement∗

I argue that certain species of belief, such as mathematical, logical, and normative beliefs, are insulated from a form of Harmanstyle debunking argument whereas moral beliefs, the primary target of such arguments, are not. Harman-style arguments have been misunderstood as attempts to directly undermine our moral beliefs. They are rather best given as burden-shifting arguments, concluding that we need additional reasons to maintain our moral beliefs. If we understand them this way, then we can see why moral beliefs are vulnerable to such arguments while mathematical, logical, and normative beliefs are not—the very construction of Harman-style skeptical arguments requires the truth of significant fragments of our mathematical, logical, and normative beliefs, but requires no such thing of our moral beliefs. Given this property, Harman-style skeptical arguments against logical, mathematical, and normative beliefs are self-effacing; doubting these beliefs on the basis of such arguments results in the loss of our reasons for doubt. But we can cleanly doubt the truth of morality. ∗Thanks to Derek Baker, Max Barkhausen, Çağla Çimendereli, Catharine Diehl, Camil Golub, Barry Maguire, Beau Madison Mount, Giulia Pravato, Gil Sagi, Sibel Sayin, Karl Schafer, Irem Kurtsal Steen, Teemu Toppinen and his brave cold-weather cafe reading group, Lucas Thorpe, Saniye Vatansever, Pekka Väyrynen, Ken Westphal, Simon Wigley, a couple of helpful referees and Earl Conee for very useful comments. An early version of this paper was presented at Bilkent University’s 2013 celebration of UNESCO World Philosophy Day. I thank Simon Wigley for inviting me to present there and the audience for generally helpful feedback.