Dennis Badenhop

This paper argues that transcendental arguments have no significant role to play in moral epistemology. Proponents of respective arguments have a wrong idea about the epistemic grounds, which support basic egalitarian and universalist moral principles. They envision a moral skeptic, an amoralist, who shares with us all common non-moral beliefs, and must therefore be refuted based on a priori implications of ‘thin’ notions like agency, justificatory speech acts, or second-personal address. After rehearsing some common objections against the project of transcendental argumentation, I introduce as an alternative the figure of the moral solipsist, who accepts moral principles but denies their applicability to other human beings based on psychological ignorance. I then argue that ‘thick’ anti-solipsist reasoning provides a better role model for all pieces of moral reasoning that are usually considered fundamental, but will always be an instance of empirical reasoning, thereby leaving no room for the a priori refutation of an unspecified moral skeptic intended by transcendentalists.