scholarly journals Two Conceptions of Common-Sense Morality

Philosophy ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 91 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nakul Krishna
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Philosophical Method ◽  
Historical Contingency ◽  
Henry Sidgwick ◽  
Common Sense Morality ◽  
Wrong Action ◽  
Moral Philosophers

AbstractMany moral philosophers tend to construe the aims of ethics as the interpretation and critique of ‘common-sense morality’. This approach is defended by Henry Sidgwick in his influential The Methods of Ethics and presented as a development of a basically Socratic idea of philosophical method. However, Sidgwick's focus on our general beliefs about right and wrong action drew attention away from the Socratic insistence on treating beliefs as one expression of our wider dispositions.Understanding the historical contingency of Sidgwick's approach to ethics can help us reflect on whether there are other ways in which modern ethics can be Socratic.

Henry Sidgwick and Beyond

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bart Schultz
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Peter Singer ◽  
Henry Sidgwick ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Common Sense Morality ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This chapter examines Henry Sidgwick's utilitarianism. It first considers Sidgwick's agnosticism before discussing his views on subjects ranging from hedonism and colonialism to poverty, common-sense morality, and politics and political economy. It then looks at some of Sidgwick's writings, such as The Development of European Polity, The Elements of Politics, Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant, and The Methods of Ethics. It also explores the current reconstructions and appropriations of many of Sidgwick's positions in the works of philosophers like Roger Crisp, Rob Shaver, Peter Singer, Derek Parft, and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, and argues that they have contributed to a true renaissance of hedonistic and rational intuition-based utilitarianism (or at least rationalistic consequentialism) that few saw coming even in the late twentieth century.

Moral Responsibility for Unwitting Omissions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Kay Nelkin ◽  
Samuel C. Rickless
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Value Judgments ◽  
Moral Significance ◽  
Common Sense Morality ◽  
And Control

Unwitting omissions pose a challenge for theories of moral responsibility. For common-sense morality holds many unwitting omitters morally responsible for their omissions, even though they appear to lack both awareness and control. People who leave dogs in their car on a hot day or forget to pick something up from the store as they promised seem to be blameworthy. If moral responsibility requires awareness of one’s omission and its moral significance, it appears that the protagonists of these cases are not morally responsible. This chapter considers and rejects a number of influential views on this problem, including a view that grounds responsibility for such omissions in previous exercises of conscious agency, and “Attributionist” views that ground responsibility for such omissions in the value judgments or other aspects of the agents’ selves. The chapter proposes a new tracing view that grounds responsibility for unwitting omissions in past opportunities to avoid them.

Act Consequentialism and Common Sense Morality

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Parfit
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Act Consequentialism ◽  
Common Sense Morality

This chapter reveals some insights into act consequentialism. It begins with the claim that it would often be wrong to treat people in certain ways, such as deceiving or coercing them, or breaking our promises to them, even when such acts would make things go better. The chapter then turns to deontic and non-deontic badness. These are different kinds of badness, as is shown by cases in which such acts are not wrong, because their non-deontic badness is outweighed by the goodness of their effects. Since these acts would have this intrinsic badness, though they would not be wrong, it could not be their wrongness that made them intrinsically bad.

Common-Sense Morality and Consequentialism. Michael Slote

Ethics ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 168-172
Author(s):  
Dale Jamieson
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Michael Slote ◽  
Common Sense Morality

Respect for persons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Respect For Persons ◽  
Moral Requirement ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Theoretical Status ◽  
Moral Duties ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Common Sense Morality

The idea that one should treat persons with due respect is an important part of common sense morality, but opinions differ about when respect is called for, what it requires, and why. Respect for persons is also a central concept in many ethical theories. Some theories even hold respect for persons to be the foundation of all other moral duties and obligations. Respect is distinguished commonly, on one side, from fear and submission, and on another, from admiration, liking and affection. Respect for all persons as such is distinguished normally from esteem or special regard for persons of unusual merit. Some philosophers identify respect with agapē, a special kind of love, but respect is perhaps most often regarded as a distinct attitude that should constrain and complement the promptings of love. Kant, for example, held that the requirements of respect and love are different, though compatible, and that both are dependent upon the more general and fundamental idea that humanity in every person is an end in itself. Other key issues in discussions of respect for persons include: what moral requirement, if any, there is to respect all persons; what the grounds, scope, and theoretical status are of that requirement; whether one can forfeit all claim to respect as a person; what ‘respect for persons’ demands with regard to specific problems, such as conflicts rooted in race and gender differences; and whether there is the same ground and obligation to respect oneself as to respect others.

A Challenge to Common Sense Morality

Ethics ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 108 (2) ◽  
pp. 394-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff McMahan
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Common Sense Morality

Common-Sense Morality and Consequentialism

2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-118
Author(s):  
R. W. BEARDSMORE
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Common Sense Morality
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