Of course the so-called argument from authority doesn’t amount to an argument or any kind of proof. Everyone could be wrong, after all. But if we didn’t give some weight to authority you’d have to dismiss everything your teacher told you in school which you didn’t observe yourself. So asking what the experts say is of some value.
So where do the ‘authorities’ who study the questions of God’s existence, the nature of the world beyond the senses, and what morality is like stand? When the greatest minds who have devoted themselves to these questions get together and mull over all the arguments that history has produced, what do they conclude?
A survey published in PhilPapers asking academic philosophers 30 different multiple choice questions has broken it down for us. It turns out that a significant majority of Philosophers are Moral Realists, Atheists, Scientific Realists and Physicalists/Materialists.
Here’s the stats on these few:
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?
| Accept or lean toward: moral realism |
1017 / 1803 (56.4%) |
| Accept or lean toward: moral anti-realism |
511 / 1803 (28.3%) |
| Other |
275 / 1803 (15.2%) |
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?
| Other |
558 / 1803 (30.9%) |
| Accept or lean toward: consequentialism |
435 / 1803 (24.1%) |
| Accept or lean toward: virtue ethics |
406 / 1803 (22.5%) |
| Accept or lean toward: deontology |
404 / 1803 (22.4%) |
God: theism or atheism?
| Accept or lean toward: atheism |
1257 / 1803 (69.7%) |
| Accept or lean toward: theism |
295 / 1803 (16.3%) |
| Other |
251 / 1803 (13.9%) |
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?
| Accept or lean toward: non-skeptical realism |
1382 / 1803 (76.6%) |
| Other |
170 / 1803 (9.4%) |
| Accept or lean toward: skepticism |
128 / 1803 (7%) |
| Accept or lean toward: idealism |
123 / 1803 (6.8%) |
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?
| Accept or lean toward: scientific realism |
1264 / 1803 (70.1%) |
| Accept or lean toward: scientific anti-realism |
287 / 1803 (15.9%) |
| Other |
252 / 1803 (13.9%) |
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?
| Accept or lean toward: non-Humean |
919 / 1803 (50.9%) |
| Accept or lean toward: Humean |
521 / 1803 (28.8%) |
| Other |
363 / 1803 (20.1%) |
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?
| Accept or lean toward: physicalism |
981 / 1803 (54.4%) |
| Accept or lean toward: non-physicalism |
521 / 1803 (28.8%) |
| Other |
301 / 1803 (16.6%) |
~Paul Chiariello
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