scholarly journals Why Moral Error Theorists Should Become Revisionary Moral Expressivists

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toby Svoboda
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Moral Disagreement ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Error ◽  
Better Than

Moral error theorists hold that morality is deeply mistaken, thus raising the question of whether and how moral judgments and utterances should continue to be employed. Proposals include simply abolishing morality (Richard Garner), adopting some revisionary fictionalist stance toward morality (Richard Joyce), and conserving moral judgments and utterances unchanged (Jonas Olson). I defend a fourth proposal, namely revisionary moral expressivism, which recommends replacing cognitivist moral judgments and utterances with non-cognitivist ones. Given that non-cognitivist attitudes are not truth apt, revisionary expressivism does not involve moral error. Moreover, revisionary expressivism has the theoretical resources to retain many of the useful features of morality, such as moral motivation, moral disagreement, and moral reasoning. Revisionary expressivism fares better than the three major alternatives in both avoiding moral error and preserving these useful features of morality. I also show how this position differs from the “revolutionary expressivism” of Sebastian Köhler and Michael Ridge.

scholarly journals Moral Reasoning Performance Determines Epistemic Peerdom

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H.B. McAuliffe ◽  
Michael E. McCullough
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Review Literature ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Disagreement ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Cognitive Reflection ◽  
Friendly Criticism

We offer a friendly criticism of May's fantastic book on moral reasoning: It is overly charitable to the argument that moral disagreement undermines moral knowledge. To highlight the role that reasoning quality plays in moral judgments, we review literature that he did not mention showing that individual differences in intelligence and cognitive reflection explain much of moral disagreement. The burden is on skeptics of moral knowledge to show that moral disagreement arises from non-rational origins.

scholarly journals Moral reasoning performance determines epistemic peerdom

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. B. McAuliffe ◽  
Michael E. McCullough
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Review Literature ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Disagreement ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Cognitive Reflection ◽  
Friendly Criticism

Abstract We offer a friendly criticism of May's fantastic book on moral reasoning: It is overly charitable to the argument that moral disagreement undermines moral knowledge. To highlight the role that reasoning quality plays in moral judgments, we review literature that he did not mention showing that individual differences in intelligence and cognitive reflection explain much of moral disagreement. The burden is on skeptics of moral knowledge to show that moral disagreement arises from non-rational origins.

Publicity and the Development of Bentham’s Theory of Value

2019 ◽  
pp. 72-93
Author(s):  
Gerald J. Postema
Keyword(s):  
Simple Model ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Deliberation ◽  
Core Theory ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
Law Making

Bentham was tempted to think of the welfare of the community as a grand composite of the pleasures and pains of individuals and he suggested that it is possible to construct a powerful ethical deliberating machine capable of churning out precise, determinate, and publicly verifiable judgments and prescriptions for all moral occasions (the “felicific calculus”). Yet, he also articulated a sophisticated critique of the assumptions on which this model rests. Although pleasure and pain must ultimately anchor all moral judgments, he insisted that the language of the ordinary business of utilitarian moral deliberation, policy making, and law making must be fully public. Despite his criticisms of the quale conception of pleasure, Bentham did not abandon rationality or the principle of utility. Proper utilitarian reasoning still, in Bentham’s view, involved “calculation”—that is, tracing out the consequences of all the options for action, laws, or institutions, consequencesassessed in terms of their impact on the welfare of all the members of the community in view. But these calculations need not fit the simple model, in fact, they must not, since the simple model cannot meet the demands of moral reasoning, in particular the demands of publicity. Bentham’s universal consequentialism took for its core theory of value concerns about expectations and interests, rather than immediate sensings of pleasure or pain.

Defining features of moral sensitivity and moral motivation: pathways to moral reasoning in medical students1

2006 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly R. Morton ◽  
Joanna S. Worthley ◽  
John K. Testerman ◽  
Marita L. Mahoney
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Moral Sensitivity

Losing your footing, losing your morality

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 497-510
Author(s):  
Heng Li ◽  
Yu Cao
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Visual Experience ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Tilt Table ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Bodily Experience ◽  
Downstream Effects ◽  
Normal Text ◽  
Sample Experiment

Abstract What influences how people render their moral judgment? Focusing specifically on the conceptual metaphors “moral is upright” and “immoral is tilted”, we sought to investigate whether physical slant can influence people’s harsh moral judgment. Experiment 1 induced physical slant by having participants complete the questionnaire at a tilt table. We observed a significant effect with participants who experienced physical slant rendering a less severe moral judgment than did those who wrote their responses at a level table. Using a new manipulation of physical slant and a larger, more diverse sample, Experiment 2 asked participants to complete the questionnaires with rotated text or normal text. We observed a difference between the two groups: compared to participants who read the normal text, those with a visual experience of slant lessened the severity of their moral judgments. Taken together, the results showed that the consequence of tilted experience exerts downstream effects on moral reasoning, which suggests that incidental bodily experience affects how people render their decisions.

Age, Education, and Sex Effects on Adult Moral Reasoning

1988 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 271-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles B. White
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Scoring System ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Stage Theory ◽  
Sex Effects ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
Effect Of Age

The role of age and education in adult moral reasoning was examined utilizing Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental stage theory of moral development and the most recent Standard Scoring System for assessing moral judgments. Individual interviews utilizing standard Kohlberg moral dilemmas were conducted with 195 adults ranging in age from nineteen to eighty-two years and in years of education from three to twenty-five years. Results indicated no overall significant effect for age of reasoner, no significant effect for sex, and a significant effect for education ( p < .01). However, the effect of age was significant in the group with eighteen or more years of education, but not in the group with less than eighteen years of education.

Moral Reasoning and Moral Character: Relationships between the Kohlberg and the Hogan Models

1977 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 215-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Haier
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Character ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Alternative Measure ◽  
Empirical Relationships

The empirical relationships between Kohlberg's model of moral reasoning and Hogan's model of moral character were examined in 132 college students to test the hypothesis that moral judgments are a reflection of the structure of moral character. No relationships were found between measures of moral reasoning and measures of moral character. Kohlberg's measure of moral reasoning, however, was related to an alternative measure of moral reasoning ( r = .51, p < .01); moral character measures of empathy ( r = .40, p < .01) and socialization ( r = −.44, p < .01) were related to the use of marijuana as predicted. It was concluded that moral reasoning and moral character are empirically independent domains.

scholarly journals Equity or equality? Moral judgments follow the money

2014 ◽  
Vol 281 (1797) ◽  
pp. 20142112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter DeScioli ◽  
Maxim Massenkoff ◽  
Alex Shaw ◽  
Michael Bang Petersen ◽  
Robert Kurzban
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Disagreement ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Allocation Rule ◽  
Unequal Division ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Moral Debate ◽  
Simple Economic

Previous research emphasizes people's dispositions as a source of differences in moral views. We investigate another source of moral disagreement, self-interest. In three experiments, participants played a simple economic game in which one player divides money with a partner according to the principle of equality (same payoffs) or the principle of equity (payoffs proportional to effort expended). We find, first, that people's moral judgment of an allocation rule depends on their role in the game. People not only prefer the rule that most benefits them but also judge it to be more fair and moral. Second, we find that participants' views about equality and equity change in a matter of minutes as they learn where their interests lie. Finally, we find limits to self-interest: when the justification for equity is removed, participants no longer show strategic advocacy of the unequal division. We discuss implications for understanding moral debate and disagreement.

scholarly journals Précis of Moral Error Theory: History, Critique, Defence

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 397-402
Author(s):  
Jonas Olson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Error Theory ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Moral Error Theory ◽  
Ontological Question ◽  
Moral Error ◽  
Contemporary Perspective ◽  
Moral Facts

Moral error theorists and moral realists agree about several disputed metaethical issues. They typically agree that ordinary moral judgments are beliefs and that ordinary moral utterances purport to refer to moral facts. But they disagree on the crucial ontological question of whether there are any moral facts. Moral error theorists hold that there are not and that, as a consequence, ordinary moral beliefs are systematically mistaken and ordinary moral judgments uniformly untrue. Perhaps because of its kinship with moral realism, moral error theory is often considered the most notorious of moral scepticisms. While the view has been widely discussed, it has had relatively few defenders. Moral Error Theory: History, Critique, Defence (henceforth met) examines the view from a historical as well as a contemporary perspective, and purports to respond to some of its most prominent challenges. This précis is a brief summary of the book’s content.

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