Moral epistemology (henceforth ME) has been spoken of as a subject matter in its own right by philosophers in the last few decades and yet the delineation of ME as a sub-discipline remains uncharted. Many eminent scholars with rich contributions have not explicitly defined the scope or demarcation of this emerging field. Drawing from their writings, the paper tries to show that philosophers working on ME either conceptualise it as an application of epistemology to moral beliefs or as encompassing issues of epistemic access to moral truths. The paper contends that such conceptions of moral epistemology are not rigorous enough to warrant a discrete sub-discipline. This puts the paper in disagreement with those scholars who justify the creation of a subject-specific ME. David Copp and Todd Stewart figure prominently among such attempts. Copp and Stewart justify ME to be a separate epistemology, by alluding to the normative nature of moral beliefs, and through the introduction of emotions into the mix, respectively. The paper tries to show that neither normativity nor emotions appear to be robust enough to create a distinct epistemology. The predicament of moral epistemologists arises from the fact that while the practitioners seem to be keen on establishing ME as a discrete sub-discipline, they end up subsuming it under a general epistemology and fail to justify the need for such a subject-specific epistemology. The only way out of this quandary, the paper asserts, is to treat ME more as a methodological project that involves extending general epistemic tools to moral beliefs as a specific case, and not as a specialised topic-specific epistemology.

中文翻译：

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道德认识论的困境

在过去的几十年里，道德认识论（以下简称ME）本身被哲学家称为主题，但对ME作为子学科的描述仍然未知。许多有杰出贡献的著名学者并未明确定义这一新兴领域的范围或界限。从他们的著作中，本文试图表明从事ME的哲学家要么将其概念化为认识论在道德信仰中的应用，要么涵盖了对道德真理的认识性获取问题。本文认为，这种道德认识论的概念不够严格，不足以保证有一个独立的子学科。这使该论文与那些证明创建特定学科的ME的学者不同。在这些尝试中，大卫·科普（David Copp）和托德·斯图尔特（Todd Stewart）占有重要地位。柯普和斯图尔特通过暗示道德信仰的规范性质，以及通过将情感引入其中来证明我是一个独立的认识论。该论文试图表明，规范性和情感性都显得不足以产生独特的认识论。道德认识论者的困境源于以下事实：尽管从业者似乎热衷于将ME确立为离散的子学科，但他们最终将其归入一般的认识论之下，而无法证明需要这种针对特定学科的认识论。该论文断言，摆脱这种困境的唯一方法是将ME视为一个方法论项目，其中涉及将一般认识工具扩展到作为特定案例的道德信念，而不是作为特定主题的认识论。