Normativity and reasons: five arguments from Parfit against normative naturalism

On What Matters

10.1093/oso/9780198778608.001.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 36

Author(s):

Derek Parfit

Keyword(s):

Ethical Theory ◽

Previous Treatment ◽

Moral Discourse ◽

Wide Sense ◽

Normative Naturalism ◽

The Status ◽

The Way ◽

What Matters

This third volume of this series develops further previous treatment of reasons, normativity, the meaning of moral discourse, and the status of morality. It engages with critics, and shows the way to resolution of their differences. This volume is partly about what it is for things to matter, in the sense that we all have reasons to care about these things. Much of the book discusses three of the main kinds of meta-ethical theory: normative naturalism, quasi-realist expressivism, and non-metaphysical non-naturalism, which this book refers to as non-realist cognitivism. This third theory claims that, if we use the word ‘reality’ in an ontologically weighty sense, irreducibly normative truths have no mysterious or incredible ontological implications. If instead we use ‘reality’ in a wide sense, according to which all truths are truths about reality, this theory claims that some non-empirically discoverable truths — such as logical, mathematical, modal, and some normative truths — raise no difficult ontological questions. This book discusses these theories partly by commenting on the views of some of the contributors to Peter Singer's collection Does Anything Really Matter? Parfit on Objectivity.

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Normative Naturalism

The Golden Age of Philosophy of Science 1945 to 2000 ◽

10.5040/9781350071544.ch-005 ◽

2019 ◽

Keyword(s):

Normative Naturalism

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The Golden Age of Philosophy of Science, 1945 to 2000: Logical Reconstruction, Descriptivism, Normative, Naturalism, and Foundationalism by John Losee

Journal of the History of Philosophy ◽

10.1353/hph.2020.0032 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 58 (2) ◽

pp. 413-414

Author(s):

Daniel J. McKaughan

Keyword(s):

Philosophy Of Science ◽

Golden Age ◽

Logical Reconstruction ◽

Normative Naturalism

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Normative naturalism and the challenge of relativism: Laudan versus Worrall on the justification of methodological principles

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science ◽

10.1080/02698599608573528 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 37-51 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Howard Sankey

Keyword(s):

Normative Naturalism ◽

Methodological Principles

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Railton’s Resolution of Our Disagreements

10.1093/oso/9780198778608.003.0007 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Derek Parfit

Keyword(s):

Normative Reasons ◽

Normative Naturalism

This chapter resolves the disagreements which arose in the previous chapter. Metaphysical naturalists believe that there are no ontologically weighty non-natural normative properties and truths. But naturalists can believe that there are some non-ontological normative properties and truths. Some examples are truths about which acts are wrong, and about which facts give us normative reasons. We could justifiably believe that there are such normative truths, since this belief would not add anything mysterious to our ontology. These claims have led to the belief that there are some normative truths of a different kind that have yet to be considered. Furthermore, this wider view avoids or answers all of the previous chapters' objections to Normative Naturalism, such as the normativity and triviality objections, and what is called the soft naturalist's dilemma.

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Normative and Natural Truths

10.1093/oso/9780198778608.003.0004 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Derek Parfit

Keyword(s):

Normative Reason ◽

Normative Beliefs ◽

Normative Naturalism ◽

True State

This chapter considers arguments for and against normative naturalism. According to the normativity objection, irreducibly normative, reason-implying claims could not, if they were true, state normative facts that were also natural facts. When some naturalists reply to the normativity objection, they appeal to cases in which words with quite different meanings, and the concepts they express, refer to the same property. According to non-analytical naturalists, though we make some irreducibly normative claims, these claims, when they are true, state natural facts. Such views take two forms. Hard naturalists believe that, since all facts are natural, we do not need to make any such irreducibly normative claims. According to soft naturalists, we do need to make such claims. Soft naturalism, this chapter argues, could not be true. If there were no irreducibly normative truths, our normative beliefs could not help us to make good decisions and to act well.

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