Moral scepticism

Abstract

This thesis aims at neither "horizontal" nor "vertical" completeness; it aims neither to accumulate all the possible, or even important, species of moral scepticism - for example the varieties of moral scepticism associated with or based on determinism have been omitted - nor at working out in terms of objection and counter-objection to any great depth the dialectic arising from an examination of these positions. Though completeness is not possible in philosophy, it is realisable to a greater degree than is achieved in this thesis. Given time and space this defect could be remedied. But I am sick of seeing my desk littered with philosophy notes confusing my mathematics examples and I feel qualms as it is in submitting a thesis well-exceeding the standard lengths of theses to try the patience of busy examiners. I should like to acknowledge the obvious indebtedness of this thesis to the approach to philosophy elaborated by John Wisdom and to the analytical methods developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein. I should also like to acknowledge the indebtedness of this thesis, not only for approach but also for distinctions and arguments, to the members of the Department of Philosophy at the Victoria University of Wellington; in particular to Professor G.E. Hughes, and most of all to Mr J.M. Hinton. Finally I apologise to all those who see their work appearing unacknowledged.