ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the argument from moral peer disagreement fails to make a case for widespread moral skepticism. The main reason for this is that the argument rests on a too-strong assumption about the normative significance of peer disagreement (and higher-order evidence more generally). To demonstrate this, the chapter distinguishes two competing ways one might explain higher-order defeat. According to what is called the objective defeat explanation, it is the mere possession of higher-order evidence that explains defeat. The chapter argues that this type of explanation is problematic and that it at best collapses into another explanation that is called the subjective defeat explanation. According to this explanation, it is coming to believe that one’s belief fails to be rational that explains defeat. Then the chapter goes on to argue that the subjective defeat explanation is able to provide a straightforward explanation of higher-order defeat but that it entails that peer disagreement (and higher-order evidence more generally) only contingently gives rise to defeat and, importantly, that the condition that it is contingent on is often not satisfied when it comes to moral peer disagreement specifically.
