Traditional Moral Knowledge and Experience of the World

2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedict Smith
Keyword(s):  
Moral Epistemology ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
The World ◽  
Moral Demands

AbstractMacIntyre shares with others, such as John McDowell, a broad commitment in moral epistemology to the centrality of tradition and both regard forms of enculturation as conditions of moral knowledge. Although MacIntyre is critical of the thought that moral reasons are available only to those whose experience of the world is conceptually articulated, he is sympathetic to the idea that the development of subjectivity involves the capacity to appreciate external moral demands. This paper critically examines some aspects of MacIntyre’s account of how knowledge is related to tradition, and suggests ways in which the formation of moral subjectivity involves the ability to experience the world.

"Taking in the world". L'ereditŕ kantiana in John McDowell

PARADIGMI ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 141-155
Author(s):  
Anselmo Aportone
Keyword(s):  
Final Part ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
The World

McDowell carries on the dialogue with Kant opened by Sellars and Strawson. He is particularly interested in Kant's idea of intuition as an impression that is already an actualization of the conceptual capacities exercised by the knowing subject in judging. It enables him to release the contemporary discussion on intentionality from the stalemate between bald naturalism and coherentism. Because of the issues raised by both philosophers and some features of their arguments, it is undoubted that Mc- Dowell belongs to the Kantian heritage and exploits some of its elements. The final part of the essay aims at showing that these have in their original context a stronger und more definite meaning than in McDowell's proposal, and that it could be what we are in need of to make the latter more accurate.

The Pittsburgh Kantians: Brandom, Conant, Haugeland, and McDowell on Kant

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Jacob Browning
Keyword(s):  
Shared Reading ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
Important Distinction ◽  
University Of Pittsburgh ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
The World ◽  
Novel Reading ◽  
John Haugeland ◽  
The University

Abstract Over the last thirty years, a group of philosophers associated with the University of Pittsburgh—Robert Brandom, James Conant, John Haugeland, and John McDowell—have developed a novel reading of Kant. Their interest turns on Kant’s problem of objective purport: how can my thoughts be about the world? This paper summarizes the shared reading of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction by these four philosophers and how it solves the problem of objective purport. But I also show these philosophers radically diverge in how they view Kant’s relevance for contemporary philosophy. I highlight an important distinction between those that hold a quietist response to Kant, evident in Conant and McDowell, and those that hold a constructive response, evident in Brandom and Haugeland. The upshot is that the Pittsburgh Kantians have a distinctive approach to Kant, but also radically different responses to his problem of objective purport.

Observation and Experience

2019 ◽  
pp. 106-150
Author(s):  
Sarah McGrath
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Moral Community ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Testimony ◽  
The World ◽  
Moral Claims

This chapter explores how experience and observation contribute to moral knowledge. It defends the view that experience and observation can contribute to moral knowledge in any of the ways in which they contribute to our ordinary, non-moral knowledge of the world around us, including by empirically confirming and disconfirming moral claims. I argue that moral testimony has important implications for the possibility of confirming moral views by non-moral observations. I also argue that membership in a moral community, which puts one in a position to compare the moral opinions of others with one’s own, can contribute to moral knowledge not only by affording evidence for or against one’s opinions, but also by providing feedback that can serve to calibrate one’s capacity for judgment so that future exercises of that judgment are more likely to deliver knowledge. The chapter concludes with a discussion of a priori moral knowledge.

The history of gambling regulation and the rise of the industry

2018 ◽  
pp. 11-22
Author(s):  
Pekka Sulkunen ◽  
Thomas F. Babor ◽  
Jenny Cisneros Örnberg ◽  
Michael Egerer ◽  
Matilda Hellman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
Global Industry ◽  
Gambling Regulation ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

From its ancient origins in small-scale gaming sites in local communities, gambling in the 21st century has become a global industry and an increasingly standardized pastime across the world. The growth started in the early the 20th century, and accelerated in the past few decades. The history of gambling is a history of regulation. Gambling has always been controlled by political powers and still is in both democratic and non-democratic countries. Islamic and communist regimes have been most negative for moral reasons. Countries dominated by Protestant Christian faith have been critical, because of the value they have placed on work and honesty, even when they have not seen prosperity as a sin. Since the 1980s gambling has been de-regulated in many countries, with the justification that gambling is legitimate economic activity and problem gambling should be the policy target.

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.

scholarly journals The Role of the Holy Will

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. Callanan
Keyword(s):  
Moral Epistemology ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Practice ◽  
Moral Perfection ◽  
Immoral Action ◽  
The Ideal

AbstractIt is well known that Kant uses the notion of the holy will in the Groundwork so as to contrast it with the finite wills of human beings. It is less clear, however, what function this contrast is supposed to perform. I argue that one role of the holy will is to illustrate transcendental idealism’s account of the relation between moral knowledge and moral practice. The position is one intended to negotiate between ostensibly competing traditions. Kant uses the holy will as a way of endorsing the metaphysical picture of the scholastic tradition’s so-called ‘ethics of freedom’, whereby the ideal of moral perfection is conceived as the perfection of one’s power of freedom to the point where one is constitutively incapable of immoral action. This position is married however with the claim that the holy will’s inaccessibility to human cognition motivates a subject-oriented moral epistemology more usually associated with Enlightenment humanism. I conclude by claiming that the nuanced role for the holy will can be understood as part of Kant’s expansion of the value of religious faith [Glaube] to the domain of practical inquiry in general.

Heidegger on the Connection between Nihilism, Technology, Art, and Politics (1992)

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Fast Food ◽  
Food Industry ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Global Information ◽  
Fast Food Industry ◽  
Art And Politics ◽  
Power Stations ◽  
The World

Dreyfus defines nihilism as the leveling of all meaningful differences, as a result of which existence no longer has inherent meaning. Human existence loses its goal or direction, and thus nothing can have authority for us, make a claim on us, or demand a commitment from us. Dreyfus follows Heidegger in arguing that modern nihilism is ultimately rooted in background practices that subject everything—including our moral knowledge—to detached reflection. We rightly celebrate our ability to get everything clear and under control—an ability fostered by foreground practices as diverse as power stations, the fast food industry, and global information technologies. But these practices for the total organization of the world depend on our background practices revealing everything as a resource to be optimized and controlled.

Moral Action in Zhan Ruoshui’s 湛若水 (1466–1560) Philosophical Anthropology

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 318-341
Author(s):  
Youngmin Kim
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
The Self ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Wang Yangming ◽  
The World ◽  
Philosophical Questions

This article frames Zhan Ruoshui’s philosophical anthropology in a way as to compare it with two competing positions—those of Chen Xianzhang and Wang Yangming—and explores it as an answer to a set of questions many mid-Ming philosophers shared, rather than to perennial, ahistorical philosophical questions. As against Chen Xianzhang and Wang Yangming, Zhan proposes his characteristic motto, suichu tiren tianli, as a way to unite the self and the world. The implication is that moral knowledge must be pursued neither (merely) in the dimension of things and affairs, nor outside the dimension of things and affairs.

Perception and the Justification of Belief

2019 ◽  
pp. 97-124
Author(s):  
Alan Millar
Keyword(s):  
John Mcdowell ◽  
The World

The discussion in this chapter is critical of theories that treat experiences, conceived in a non-relationalistic fashion, as evidence for beliefs, as in the work of Earl Conee and Richard Feldman. It is also critical of James Pryor’s theory of immediate justification. Judgements implicated in recognition, being exercises of general recognitional abilities, are regarded as rationally responsive to ways the world is. Justification for beliefs acquired in acts of recognition is provided by truths as to what one perceives to be so. An account is given of our access to such truths, and objections to the view of justification are addressed. Affinities with, and differences from, views advanced by John McDowell are explored, with particular attention given to his conceptions of experience. Implications for empiricism are drawn out.

Inclusion and the Epistemic Benefits of Deliberation

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-69
Author(s):  
John B. Min
Keyword(s):  
Complete Picture ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
Popular Belief ◽  
Epistemic Virtues ◽  
The World

Contrary to the popular belief, I argue that a more inclusive polity does not necessarily conflict with the goal of improving the epistemic capacities of deliberation. My argument examines one property of democracy that is usually thought of in non-epistemic terms, inclusion. Inclusion is not only valuable for moral reasons, but it also has epistemic virtues. I consider two epistemic benefits of inclusive deliberation: (a) inclusive deliberation helps to create a more complete picture of the world that everyone dwells together; and (b) inclusive deliberation can be helpful in reducing biases and errors endemic to a society. Having advanced two epistemic arguments for inclusive deliberation, I argue that the Deweyan model best captures the knowledge-pooling function of deliberation.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document