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How do we acquire our knowledge of good and evil? Philosophers have provided various answers, even as they abandon the ingenious explanation that we owe our knowledge to an apple. It is, they say, self-evident; no, intuitive; no; innate; no, common sense, and so on and so forth.
 
I begin in this book by playing whack-a-mole, pointing out the fallacies of the various answers and then postulating that in the final analysis, it is impossible for us to know the difference between good and evil.
 
Why is the question of moral epistemology important? Morals are important because they guide us in life and in that sense teach us what is a “good life.” That is certainly one answer. Undoubtedly, reflective and leisured people are convinced of the importance of the “good life.” I, for one, would never deny the value of this question.
 
This picture, however, significantly distorts the embodiment of morality. Rather than just being an inner compass, morality is frequently employed to intervene in the lives of others. And while moral praise of good deeds may be impressive, it is more the exception than the rule. (Furthermore, this “exception” does not prove everything.) More likely, is that the primary role of morality in society is moral condemnation to control the actions of others.
 
The question of how we acquire moral knowledge arises when our moral beliefs become the basis for intervening in the lives of others, such as through moral condemnation and punishment. If we postulate that we cannot know the difference between good and evil, then this kind of intervention cannot be justified. It would be as if we were insisting that someone carry an umbrella when we don’t even know if it is raining.
 
After we finish the game of whack-a-mole, we are confronted by a new question: What are we to do about existing moral practices? The conclusions reached in this book are conditional and ambiguous. “At the very least, with our current systems,” there are serious problems with our moral practices. Nevertheless, if certain kinds of moral practice are beneficial to us, we could reintroduce a fictional but useful kind of morality. But such morality is not always beneficial. This opens up the way, at times, to the choice of abolishing morality altogether, thereby freeing us to choose what will guide us in our lives, whether it be beauty, law, or something else.
 

(Written by: NOGAMI Shigaku / January 27, 2025)