Meta-Ethics

2020 ◽  
pp. 264-278
Author(s):  
Terence Irwin
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Natural Properties ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Objective Property ◽  
The Way ◽  
Moral Facts

Moore’s arguments begin a debate that revives sentimentalist and rationalist arguments. According to Moore, ‘good’ is indefinable, because there is no definition of it that mentions only ‘natural’ properties. Non-naturalist objectivists argue that we know about objective moral properties, but not in the way we know about other properties. Non-cognitivists argue that goodness is not an objective property at all; when we say that something is good, we are not stating a fact about it, but expressing an emotion, or issuing some prescription. Even if objectivism is correct about the meaning of moral judgments, we may still deny that any moral judgments are true, on the ground that we have no reason to believe that there are any moral facts of the sort that objectivists claim to describe. Further discussion of these arguments against objectivism requires closer attention to the difference between moral concepts and moral properties.

Was Reid a Moral Realist?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Graham
Keyword(s):  
Good Reason ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Moral Realist ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
Intellectual Power ◽  
Moral Facts

This chapter argues that, contrary to a very widely held view, Reid’s express disagreement with Hume on the matter of morality cannot satisfactorily be pressed into the “realism versus sentimentalism” dichotomy. Hume is certainly a sentimentalist, but there is good reason to interpret Reid’s use of the analogy between moral sense and sense perception in a way that does not imply the existence of “real” moral properties. Reid makes judgment central to the analogy, and this gives the exercise of an intellectual “power” primacy over passive sensual experience. The analogy thus allows him to apply the concepts “true” and “false” to moral judgments, without any quasi-realist appeal to moral facts.

Spinoza’s Moral Realism

2019 ◽  
pp. 40-60
Author(s):  
Youpa Andrew
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Moral Realism ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Moral Realist ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Objective Property ◽  
The Way

This chapter shows that Spinoza is committed to a type of moral realism. By “moral realism” is meant a theory of the way of life that is best for us as human beings, a theory based on a view on which good and bad are objective properties. By “objective property” is meant a property whose instance(s) does (do) not directly depend on anyone’s desires, emotions, or beliefs about its existence and nature. The author argues that, for Spinoza, the properties of goodness and badness are objective properties. Instances of goodness do not directly depend on someone’s desires, emotions, and beliefs about the existence and nature of goodness. The same holds for badness. His argument for this reading hinges on the conception of human nature that Spinoza appeals to in his definition of “virtue” (4D8). This conception of human nature serves as the foundation for the objectivity of the properties of goodness and badness, and the author contends that it is this that makes Spinoza a type of moral realist.

scholarly journals THE PRONOUNCED (LITERAL) MEANING OF THE LEGISLATIVE TEXT (AL-MANṬŪQ) IN SHAFII SCHOOL OF LAW

2019 ◽  
pp. 253-265
Author(s):  
Šukrija Ramić
Keyword(s):  
Legal Status ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Literal Meaning ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Way

This paper explores the theoretical interpretations of the pronounced meaning of the legislative text (al-manṭūq) in the Shafii school of law and the consequences of such an interpretation for the rules that the Shafiis came to through their legal reasoning (ijtihād). At the beginning of the work, the discipline of linguistics is explained in the context of the Methodology of Islamic Law (Uṣūlu-l-fiqh) as well as its significance for ijtihad, followed by the difference between the Ḥanafis and the Shafiis in the classification of textual allusions (ad-dalalāt) of legislative texts, and the linguistic and terminological definition of the concept of al-manṭūq in the Shafii school of law. Also, the classification of al-manṭūq in the Shafii school of law is presented. Providing examples, the author clarifies the significance of al-manṭūq in the Shafii school of law and the way in which the Shafiis used al-manṭūq in their argumentation in support of legal rules. Furthermore, the author presents the classification of al-manṭūq and the restriction of its meaning with respect to the mafhūm al-muwāfeqa and mafhūm al-muhālefe. Finally, the value of al-manṭūq and its legal status as well as the indications in Shariah are clarified.

Utilitarianism and Its Critics

2020 ◽  
pp. 279-290
Author(s):  
Terence Irwin
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Respect For Persons ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Correct Account ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
Considered Moral Judgments ◽  
Supreme Principle

Later defences of utilitarianism, by Lewis and Hare, support Sidgwick’s claim that the utilitarian outlook is the outlook of practical reason. They argue that the appropriate extension of sympathy requires imaginative identification with the pleasures and pains of other people, in a way that leads to the utilitarian attitude. Ross, however, argues that utilitarianism gives us neither a correct account of moral concepts nor a correct account of moral properties. When we consider what makes right actions right, we have good reason to agree with Price in rejecting utility as the supreme principle of morality. Rawls defends this argument against utilitarianism. To decide what our considered moral judgments commit us to, we describe fair conditions in which we can choose between different principles of justice. In these fair conditions we accept principles that conflict with utilitarianism, but conform to Kant’s principle of respect for persons as ends.

Ethical Dimensions of Assertion

2019 ◽  
pp. 784-805
Author(s):  
Terence Cuneo
Keyword(s):  
Normative Theory ◽  
Bodily Harm ◽  
Moral Reality ◽  
Illocutionary Acts ◽  
Intimate Link ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
The Way ◽  
Moral Facts

This article considers the ethical dimensions of acts of assertion. Acts of assertion often have moral features, such as being wrong. In this regard, they are like many other familiar acts such as invasions of privacy and inflictions of bodily harm, which are also often wrong. But might assertion have an even more intimate link to moral reality than these other actions? Might it be that how things are ethically explains how it is that we could perform illocutionary acts such as asserting? A version of what the author calls the normative theory of speech answers in the affirmative. This view maintains that the performance of illocutionary acts such as asserting not only often have moral properties, such as being morally wrong, but also that there are cases in which moral facts explain (in part) how it is that agents can perform these acts. The article presents the rudiments of the normative theory of speech, paying attention to why it maintains that moral facts are among the features that explain how it is that we can assert. Along the way, the author points to some interesting metaethical implications of the position.

Assimilative Moral Realism and Supervenience

Dialogue ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Yasenchuk
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Ethical Naturalism ◽  
Common Features ◽  
Important Respect ◽  
Natural Properties ◽  
The World ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
Macrophysical Properties ◽  
David Brink ◽  
The Way

David Brink has recently argued for the “parity” of ethics and the sciences. While the parity claim alone might be metaphysically neutral, Brink favours a form of ethical naturalism on which moral properties “are” natural properties, just as non-moral macrophysical properties “are” the microphysical states that compose them. Brink supports this claim by showing that both types of properties share certain important features: specifically, that both may be (and typically are) constituted, supervening and synthetically necessitated. I shall argue that notwithstanding these common features, there remain significant modal differences in the way the two types of properties are assigned to the world. These differences represent an important respect in which moral properties are not on par with their scientific counterparts.

Thomas Reid on Common Sense and Morals

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Lehrer
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Moral Disagreement ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Philosophical Theory ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Moral Faculty ◽  
Moral Properties

Reid's philosophy of the moral faculty must be interpreted in the context of his philosophical theory concerning the human faculties and their connection with truth. One purpose of this paper is to offer an account of the development of our moral concepts that accords with a proposal of Esther Kroeker (Kroeker 2010) and also my own ( Lehrer 2010 ). Another is to explain how Reid combines an account of the objectivity of moral judgments with the denial of the existence of moral properties, the affirmation of a necessary connection of the moral judgments with sentiment and the accommodation of moral disagreement.

Why People With High Alexithymia Make More Utilitarian Judgments

2020 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-30
Author(s):  
Xiangyi Zhang ◽  
Zhihui Wu ◽  
Shenglan Li ◽  
Ji Lai ◽  
Meng Han ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Empathic Concern ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Affective Processing ◽  
Process Dissociation ◽  
The Difference

Abstract. Although recent studies have investigated the effect of alexithymia on moral judgments, such an effect remains elusive. Furthermore, moral judgments have been conflated with the moral inclinations underlying those judgments in previous studies. Using a process dissociation approach to independently quantify the strength of utilitarian and deontological inclinations, the present study investigated the effect of alexithymia on moral judgments. We found that deontological inclinations were significantly lower in the high alexithymia group than in the low alexithymia group, whereas the difference in the utilitarian inclinations between the two groups was nonsignificant. Furthermore, empathic concern and deontological inclinations mediated the association between alexithymia and conventional relative judgments (i.e., more utilitarian judgments over deontological judgments), showing that people with high alexithymia have low empathic concern, which, in turn, decreases deontological inclinations and contributes to conventional relative judgments. These findings underscore the importance of empathy and deontological inclinations in moral judgments and indicate that individuals with high alexithymia make more utilitarian judgments over deontological judgments possibly due to a deficit in affective processing.

Klein with Lacan: A Study on the Reception of Lacanian Ideas in Uruguay and Its Effects on Clinical Practices (1955–82)

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-361
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Grau-Pérez ◽  
J. Guillermo Milán
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Clinical Material ◽  
Clinical Practices ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Discursive Approach ◽  
The Way ◽  
Clinical Cases

In Uruguay, Lacanian ideas arrived in the 1960s, into a context of Kleinian hegemony. Adopting a discursive approach, this study researched the initial reception of these ideas and its effects on clinical practices. We gathered a corpus of discursive data from clinical cases and theoretical-doctrinal articles (from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s). In order to examine the effects of Lacanian ideas, we analysed the difference in the way of interpreting the clinical material before and after Lacan's reception. The results of this research illuminate some epistemological problems of psychoanalysis, especially the relationship between theory and clinical practice.

The Distinction between [P] and [S]

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galen Strawson
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Legal Responsibility ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Over Time

This chapter examines the difference between John Locke's definition of a person [P], considered as a kind of thing, and his definition of a subject of experience of a certain sophisticated sort [S]. It first discusses the equation [P] = [S], where [S] is assumed to be a continuing thing that is able to survive radical change of substantial realization, as well as Locke's position about consciousness in relation to [P]'s identity or existence over time as [S]. It argues that Locke is not guilty of circularity because he is not proposing consciousness as the determinant of [S]'s identity over time, but only of [S]'s moral and legal responsibility over time. Finally, it suggests that the terms “Person” and “Personal identity” pull apart, in Locke's scheme of things, but in a perfectly coherent way.

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