As we continue down the scale, things go from bad to worse as the incommensurabilities of other times and other cultures are added to the difficulties occasioned by physical distance. In other cases, the interpretive efforts of readers and listeners are tied, even if in some attenuated way, to specifiable empirical conditions, but in the case of fiction and drama those conditions are a construct of the author and in turn must be reconstructed, without the aid of extramental entities, by readers and listeners. Following Fish, we might argue ethics can't be taught simply because we do not know each other. Some feminists argue they do not. The humanist perspective suggests they do.
Indoctrination suggests that ethics can indeed be taught.
Taking Account of Skepticism Notes 1. I do not use moral skepticism as moral philosophers use it, but rather as the kind of lay skepticism we have about the value of a particular endeavor. On the more exacting use in moral philosphy, see Moral Skepticism in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Like, moral skepticism, virtue as a term of art in moral philosophy is not fully explored here. On Virtue Theory , see the entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.