Attacking Morality: A Metaethical Project

1995 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 221-249
Author(s):  
Allen W. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Applied Ethics ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Philosophical Study ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
Moral Facts

Metaethics is the philosophical study of what morality is. It differs from ethical theory, which attempts to systematize (and possibly ground) moral judgments, and also from practical or applied ethics, which reflects on particular moral issues or problems. As it has been done in this century, metaethics has usually involved three interrelated projects: ametaphysicalinvestigation into the nature of moral facts and properties, asemanticinquiry into the meaning of moral assertions, and anepistemologicalaccount of the nature of moral knowledge. In all three areas, the questions raised by twentieth-century metaethics have apparently been radical, and the dominant position was even openly nihilistic. In metaphysics it was antirealist, maintaining that there are no moral facts, in epistemology noncognitivist, denying that there is moral knowledge, and in semantics emotivist or prescriptivist, holding that moral assertions aren't assertions at all, but are speech acts utterly devoid of truth conditions.

Metaethics

Philosophy ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Miller
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Moral Realism ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Philosophical Study ◽  
False Response ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Moral Requirements ◽  
Moral Facts

Metaethics can be described as the philosophical study of the nature of moral judgment. It is concerned with such questions as: Do moral judgments express beliefs or rather desires and inclinations? Are moral judgments apt to be assessed in terms of truth and falsity? Do moral sentences have factual meaning? Are any moral judgments true or are they systematically and uniformly false? Is there such a thing as moral knowledge? Are moral judgments less objective than, say, judgments about the shapes and sizes of middle-sized physical objects? Is there a necessary connection between moral judgments and motivation? Are moral requirements requirements of reason? Do moral judgments have a natural or non-natural subject matter? A useful way of starting on metaethics is to distinguish between realist and non-realist views of morality. Moral realists hold that moral judgments express beliefs, and that some of those beliefs are true in virtue of mind-independent moral facts. Opposition to moral realism can take a number of forms. Expressivists deny that moral judgments express beliefs, claiming instead that they express non truth-assessable mental states such as desires or inclinations. Error theorists and (revolutionary) fictionalists claim that moral judgments are systematically false. Response-dependence views of moral judgments allow that moral judgments express beliefs and that at least some of them are true, but hold that they are true in virtue of mind-dependent moral facts. Moral realism itself comes in many varieties: reductionist, non-reductionist, naturalist, non-naturalist, internalist, externalist, analytic, and synthetic.

Pragmatism and Moral Knowledge

1998 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 227-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bakhurst
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Moral Imagination ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Deliberation ◽  
The World ◽  
Moral Facts

In the last twenty years there has been a dramatic revival of interest in the idea that there can be genuine moral knowledge. The noncognitivist assumptions that dominated so much twentieth-century ethical theory no longer seem the obvious truths they once did to so many thinkers. It is now common to hear the claim that moral values are genuine constituents of the furniture of the world - or at least of its upholstery- and that moral deliberation and judgment legitimately aspire to truth. Morality, it is frequently argued, is a realm of discovery rather than invention, and moral reasoning, and the play of moral imagination, must be constrained by how the moral facts stand.Such “realist” or “cognitivist” views in ethics take many forms. This essay considers whether a pragmatist account of moral knowledge might fruitfully be developed. My project will recommend itself only to those who believe that pragmatist insights serve to support relatively robust conceptions of truth and justification.

Cautiously optimistic rationalism may not be cautious enough

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin F. Landy
Keyword(s):  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Judgments

Abstract May expresses optimism about the source, content, and consequences of moral judgments. However, even if we are optimistic about their source (i.e., reasoning), some pessimism is warranted about their content, and therefore their consequences. Good reasoners can attain moral knowledge, but evidence suggests that most people are not good reasoners, which implies that most people do not attain moral knowledge.

scholarly journals The paradox of imperfect duty in Kant's moral philosophy: A problem in 'applying' ethics'

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 540-564
Author(s):  
Phillip Richter
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Applied Ethics ◽  
Discourse Ethics ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Imperfect Duty ◽  
Helping Others ◽  
Metaphysics Of Morals

The Applied Ethics debate has not yet sufficiently clarified what application of ethics exactly is. The issue of application is considered to be especially problematic in Kantian ethics or in discourse ethics. This article describes the concept of applying ethics in Kant. In discussing the duty of helping others and the theory of its application in Metaphysics of Morals it is shown that a strict separation of justification and application in ethical theory results in the paradox of imperfect duty. The paradox says that the duty to help others would be fulfilled without ever being fulfilled in action. To overcome the paradox it is necessary to form submaximes of helping, which are not arbitrarily but instructed by a theory of casuistry. This casuistry, if it is considered as a doctrine of application in Kantian ethics, can overcome the paradox of imperfect duty. However, the casuistry can overcome this paradox only if it is understood as a philosophy of prudence, which can be found in Aristotle or Descartes.

scholarly journals Public Morality as a Legitimate Aim to Limit Rights and Freedoms in the National and International Legal Order

2019 ◽  
pp. 10-20
Author(s):  
Anna Młynarska-Sobaczewska ◽  
Katarzyna Kubuj ◽  
Aleksandra Mężykowska
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
National Courts ◽  
European Court ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
International Legal Order ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Standards ◽  
The Impact

Domestic legislation and international instruments designed for the protection of human rights provide for general clauses allowing limitations of rights and freedoms, e.g. public morals. A preliminary analysis of the case-law leads to the observation that both national courts and the European Court of Human Rights, when dealing with cases concerning sensitive moral issues, introduce varied argumentation methods allowing them to avoid making direct moral judgments and relying on the legitimate aim of protecting morality. In the article the Authors analyse selected judicial rulings in which moral issues may have played an important role. The scrutiny is done in order to identify and briefly discuss some examples of ways of argumentation used in the area under discussion by domestic and international courts. The identification of the courts’ methods of reasoning enables us in turn to make a preliminary assessment of the real role that the morality plays in the interpretation of human rights standards. It also constitutes a starting point for further consideration of the impact of ideological and cultural connotations on moral judgments, and on the establishment of a common moral standard to be applied in cases in which restriction on human rights and freedoms are considered.

Nietzsche’s Anti-Realism about Value

2019 ◽  
pp. 17-48
Author(s):  
Brian Leiter
Keyword(s):  
Moral Values ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Explanatory Role ◽  
Moral Philosophers ◽  
Moral Facts

Nietzsche defends the metaphysical thesis that there are no objective (i.e. mind-independent) facts about values, including moral values. His primary arguments for his moral anti-realism are “best explanation” arguments: the best explanation of our moral judgments, indeed of the two-millennium long disagreements among moral philosophers, make no reference to objective moral facts. The details of an “inference to the best explanation” are laid out, and illustrated with Nietzsche’s own texts. Contemporary attempts to defend the explanatory role of moral facts are critiqued, and the radical implications of the argument from disagreement among philosophers considered and defended.

The Evolutionary Challenge to Knowing Moral Reasons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence Cuneo
Keyword(s):  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
Evolutionary Forces ◽  
Moral Faculty ◽  
Strong Claim

The “debunker’s puzzle” asks how it could be that (i) moral non-naturalism is true, (ii) we have moral knowledge, and (iii) evolutionary forces have heavily shaped the workings of our moral faculty. This chapter begins by exploring a prominent attempt to dissolve the puzzle, so-called third-factor views, arguing that they are subject to a variety of objections. This discussion highlights a pivotal claim in the dialectic between debunkers and non-naturalists: the debunker’s puzzle has force against moral non-naturalism only if it incorporates an ambitious claim about how far evolutionary forces have operated on the workings of the moral faculty. Non-naturalists can plausibly reject such a strong claim. Still, debunkers can rightly reply that non-naturalists nonetheless lack an explanation regarding how our moral judgments are linked to normative reality. The chapter argues that, by appealing to constitutive explanations, non-naturalists have helpful things to say about what the link might be.

Applied Ethics

Philosophy ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Søbirk Petersen ◽  
Jesper Ryberg
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Applied Ethics ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
General Criterion ◽  
Moral Problems ◽  
Point Of Departure

Applied ethics is a branch of ethics devoted to the treatment of moral problems, practices, and policies in personal life, professions, technology, and government. In contrast to traditional ethical theory—concerned with purely theoretical problems such as, for example, the development of a general criterion of rightness—applied ethics takes its point of departure in practical normative challenges. Along with general overviews and journals, nine central branches of applied ethics are added, with six to eight references in connection to each branch. It should be noted that these branches constitute only a selection among the plethora of disciplines within applied ethics. Moreover, some overlap is found among the different areas.

A Dictionary of Ethics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence Cuneo
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Applied Ethics ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Key Terms

This authoritative dictionary contains clear, concise definitions of key terms from ethical theory and touches upon a variety of relevant subfields including metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. A Dictionary of Ethics is a valuable reference resource for academics, practitioners, and students of moral philosophy, applied ethics, and public policy. It will also be of interest to readers looking to familiarize themselves with ethical terms and the concepts they express.

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