From the Nature of Persons to the Structure of Morality

2001 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 531-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Noggle
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Claim ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Human Motivation ◽  
Norman Daniels ◽  
Moral Theories

Intuitionism—in some form or another—is the most widely recognized and thoroughly discussed method of justification for moral theories. It rests on the claim that a moral theory must not deviate too much from our pre-theoretical moral convictions (or at least those that we are prepared to hold on reflection). In some form or another, this methodology goes back at least as far as Aristotle, and has been discussed, refined, and defended by such contemporary philosophers as John Rawls and Norman Daniels.There is, however, another methodology for constructing and defending moral theories. It draws on premises about human nature or the nature of persons to support conclusions about the nature and structure of morality. This method—which I will call the nature to morality methodology—evaluates a moral claim or moral theory on the basis of its relation to some (alleged) facts about the kind of beings we are. For brevity, I will use the term ‘nature-claims’ to refer to claims about human nature or the nature of persons, and the term ‘nature-facts’ to refer to true nature-claims. The nature-claims that have been used to support or criticize various moral theories include claims about human motivation, personal identity, the human soul, and the conceptual features of personhood or rational agency.

scholarly journals Kant's Liberalism: A Reply to Rolf George

Dialogue ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Green
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Ronald Dworkin ◽  
Liberal Tradition ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The Law

In his thoughtful paper, “The Liberal Tradition, Kant, and the Pox”, Rolf George joins the venerable argument about whether Kant should be accounted friend or foe of liberals. But this is not just a rehearsal of the debate over the compatibility of the Old Jacobin's defense of civil liberties and government by consent with his notoriously unpleasant doctrines of the absolute duty to obey the law or his ruthlessly retributive view of punishment. George advances the debate by suggesting that elements of Kant's moral theory are deeply incompatible with liberalism. And this is particularly striking when liberals like John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin and Robert Nozick are quick to invoke Kant's name in defense of their own views. The attraction of Kant for these modern (and American) liberals is clear, for they hold individualistic moral theories and they reject utilitarianism. But, if George is right, there are aspects of Kant's thought which make him an unsuitable mascot.

Scheffler on Morality and Ideals of the Person

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen L. Darwall
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Rule Out

Scheffler's paper divides into two parts. In the first, he argues that Parfit's argument from the complex view of personal identity neither can, nor is intended to, establish any moral theory; in particular, it cannot establish utilitarianism. Rather, Parfit's aim must have been simply to weaken our attachment to non-utilitarian theories. In discovering that the only philosophically respectable view of personal identity holds it to consist simply in bodily or psychological continuities and connections, we come to see that the distinctness of persons is a less deep fact than we naively supposed that it was. And this weakens the attraction of moral theories which take the distinctness of persons as fundamental and reject utilitarianism on that account. Scheffler points out that Parfit's argument cannot establish, nor can it be extended to establish, anything stronger than this. For the complex view can only rule out nonutilitarian theories if it simply denies that in any sense persons exist over time. But this view rules out not only non-utilitarian moral theories, but every moral theory.

Concern, Respect, and Cooperation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garrett Cullity
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Simple Set ◽  
Collective Activity ◽  
Complexity Results ◽  
Concern For Others ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Moral Responsibilities

Three things often recognized as central to morality are concern for others’ welfare, respect for their self-expression, and cooperation in worthwhile collective activity. When philosophers have proposed theories of the substance of morality, they have typically looked to one of these three sources to provide a single, fundamental principle of morality—or they have tried to formulate a master-principle for morality that combines these three ideas in some way. This book views them instead as three independently important foundations of morality. It sets out a plural-foundation moral theory with affinities to that of W. D. Ross. There are major differences: the account of the foundations of morality differs from Ross’s, and there is a more elaborate explanation of how the rest of morality derives from them. However, the overall aim is similar. This is to illuminate the structure of morality by showing how its complex content is generated from a relatively simple set of underlying elements—the complexity results from the various ways in which one part of morality can derive from another, and the various ways in which the derived parts of morality can interact. Plural-foundation moral theories are sometimes criticized for having nothing helpful to say about cases in which their fundamental norms conflict. Responding to this, the book concludes with three detailed applications of the theory: to the questions surrounding paternalism, the use of others as means, and our moral responsibilities as consumers.

Legalism and Humankind

1992 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-208
Author(s):  
Frank I. Michelman
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Human Good ◽  
Good For ◽  
Normative Argument

Prescriptive political and moral theories contain ideas about what human beings are like and about what, correspondingly, is good for them. Conceptions of human “nature” and corresponding human good enter into normative argument by way of support and justification. Of course, it is logically open for the ratiocinative traffic to run the other way. Strongly held convictions about the rightness or wrongness, goodness or badness, of certain social institutions or practices may help condition and shape one's responses to one or another set of propositions about what people are like and what, in consequence, they have reason to value.

Aristotle, Kant and Rawls on Moral Motivation in a Just Society

1980 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 385-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven M. DeLue
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Mutual Respect ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Standards Of Conduct ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
Just Society

John Rawls considers his Theory of Justice to be in the Kantian tradition. Generally there seems to be agreement among Rawls' critics that at least with respect to the procedural formulation of the principles of justice, it is difficult to call Rawls' position Kantian. In this article I will argue that Rawls' Kantianism is best understood as providing a motive source for acting upon known just standards of conduct. In this regard Rawls can be read as synthesizing aspects of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Kant's moral reasoning to provide the rationale to explain why an individual who knows what is morally correct conduct in a given situation, makes such knowledge the source of his action. Demonstrating the Aristotelean roots of Rawls' Kantianism with respect to the problem of motivation for just conduct helps one understand how Kant's moral theory can be viewed in Rawls' words not as a “morality of austere command but … [as] … an ethic of mutual respect and self esteem” (1971, p. 251). Secondly, this view of Kant provides the basis for understanding the anti-corporatist aspect of Rawls' political theory that my reading of Rawls makes necessary.

Descriptive Moral Theories

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-72
Author(s):  
Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Problem ◽  
Moral Language ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Moral Problems ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Moral Philosophers

This chapter develops an alternative, descriptive understanding of moral theory in order to reconcile two apparently conflicting insights; the insight of the critics of moral theory into the problems of the dominant conception of moral theory and the insight into the relevance that we still attribute to the positions traditionally conceived as theories such as Kantianism and utilitarianism. Building on the work of theory-critics, but without giving up the notion of moral theory, the chapter presents a view according to which theories are descriptive rather than prescriptive and serve heuristic and elucidatory purposes. Inspired by the notion of grammar found in the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, it is furthermore claimed that theories are descriptions which provide overviews of various normative structures of concerns—or moral grammars—and which may serve two different purposes, providing either general descriptions of the logic of our moral language or descriptions that elucidate a specific moral problem. According to this view, moral philosophers must accept the co-existence of a plurality of moral theories that describe a plurality of moral grammars, and they must give up the idea that moral theories are mutually exclusive. Moreover, the development of the second purpose reveals that theories cannot be the sole tool of moral philosophy, they need to be supplemented with grammatical investigations of the particularities involved in moral problems. Moral theories can be helpful, but they are never sufficient when addressing a problem in moral philosophy.

Reconsidering Ontology’s Relevance

2021 ◽  
pp. 24-42
Author(s):  
Thaddeus Metz
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
General Principle ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
The Self ◽  
Right Action ◽  
Kwame Nkrumah ◽  
Moral Claims

This chapter and the next are methodological, focused on how to justify a moral theory. Many African philosophers believe that ethical claims follow immediately from ‘external’, metaphysical ones about human nature that must be established first. For example, Kwame Nkrumah maintains that an egalitarian ethic follows directly from a prior physicalist ontology, and Kwame Gyekye contends that his ‘moderate communitarian’ morality is derived from a certain conception of the self. Chapter 2 shows how these and similar rationales fail to clear the ‘is/ought gap’, as it is known in Western meta-ethics, and also how strategies one might use to bridge the gap do not work. It concludes that a more suitable way to defend a moral theory is to argue ‘internally’ to morality by appealing to intuitions, i.e., by determining which comparatively more controversial general principle of right action easily entails and best explains less controversial particular moral claims.

Locke and his Early Critics and Defenders: Moral and Religious Differences

2021 ◽  
pp. 246-278
Author(s):  
Ruth Boeker
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Moral Personhood ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Religious Differences ◽  
Divine Law

This chapter focuses on Shaftesbury’s and Hume’s responses to Locke’s account of persons and personal identity. Both philosophers generally share Locke’s metaphysically agnostic views, but disagree with Locke on moral and religious grounds. By contrasting their moral and religious views we can see how their different moral and religious views shape their thinking about persons and personal identity and understand why Shaftesbury and Hume develop views that differ from Locke’s. The chapter pays particular attention to how Shaftesbury and Hume each criticize psychological accounts of personal identity and what role their underlying moral and religious views play. Moreover, both philosophers reject moral theories grounded in divine law like Locke’s. Since Locke’s account of moral personhood can be separated from his psychological account of personal identity, it is interesting to ask how philosophers who do not share Locke’s moral views approach or can approach moral personhood.

Epilogue

2021 ◽  
pp. 241-242
Author(s):  
Thaddeus Metz
Keyword(s):  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
African Country ◽  
Good Position ◽  
African Students ◽  
Intellectual Traditions ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Political Philosopher ◽  
Do So

At the end of the first chapter (1.5), I noted that, since having moved to an African country, I have considered myself to have had a moral obligation to engage with its intellectual traditions when teaching and researching. I would have rightly felt guilt had I taught merely Western ethics to African students and contributed only Euro-American-Australasian perspectives to journals published in the sub-Saharan region. Having been principally trained as an analytic moral and political philosopher, I have been in a good position to articulate normative-theoretic interpretations of African morality, to evaluate these moral theories by appealing to intuitions, and to apply them to a range of practical controversies. Now, it would be welcome if the relational moral theory I have defended in this book could explain why I had a duty to make such a contribution to the field. And indeed it does. I have had an obligation of some weight to teach and research African philosophical ideas as I am particularly able to do so for a reason that is by now familiar to the reader. In the way that a newly trained doctor has an obligation of some weight to give something back to his country before emigrating (...

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