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Metaethics

Who’s To Say?

Michael-John Turp asks if anyone has the authority to establish moral truth.

Socrates famously got himself into trouble by persistently questioning authority. He irritated his fellow citizens so much that he ended up on trial. Eventually he accepted his sentence of execution by drinking hemlock rather than evading the law by fleeing to an easy exile.

While few philosophers are as courageous (or as rash?) as Socrates, we generally remain similarly suspicious of appeals to authority. We worry that too many self-proclaimed authorities are purveyors of self-serving puffery and nonsense.

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