Moral progress and education:

a non-realist interpretation of Moody-Adams’ epistemic-practical criterion

Abstract

Our moral education practices assume that human beings are capable of moral progress and that there is, at least, some reasonable condition or criterion for this progress to happen. But what criterion is this? After a very brief review of literature about moral progress’ criteria, it is developed an interpretation of the epistemic-practical criterion for moral progress coined by Michele Moody-Adams (1999). According to this inclusive criterion, someone accomplishes moral progress when she expands her understanding of moral concepts and also when she expresses that expanded understanding in practice. Pace Julia Hermann (2019), it is claimed that Moody-Adams’ notion should not be interpreted as tacitly accepting a moral realist position. Finally, it is argued that such epistemic-practical criterion has a better capacity to orient our moral education practices than other criteria.