scholarly journals Hume as an Error Theorist

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-113
Author(s):  
Rafael Graebin Vogelmann
Keyword(s):  
Character Traits ◽  
Causal Beliefs ◽  
Moral Sentimentalism ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Metaphysical Claim ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
Error Theories ◽  
Moral Convictions

Neste artigo considero e rejeito uma leitura não-cognitivista do sentimentalismo moral de Hume (segundo a qual ele identifica convicções morais com impressões de um tipo particular) bem como uma leitura disposicionalista (segundo a qual Hume concebe convicções morais como crenças causais a respeito do poder de traços de caráter de produzir certos sentimentos em espectadores apropriados). Sustento que as falhas dessas leituras mostram que Hume é mais bem compreendido como um teórico do erro, de acordo com quem embora convicções morais sejam crenças elas jamais são verdadeiras. Em contraste com teorias do erro contemporâneas, contudo, a tese de Hume não se baseia em uma alegação metafísica para efeito de que não há propriedades morais. Antes, ele sustenta que ideias morais não são ideias de qualidades que possam ser corretamente predicadas de ações ou traços de caráter, mas ideias de sentimentos e que, portanto, crenças morais incorporam sistematicamente um erro categorial.  AbstractIn this paper I consider and reject a noncognitivist reading of Hume’ s moral sentimentalism (according to which he identifies moral convictions with impressions of particular kind) as well as a dispositional reading (according to which Hume takes moral convictions to be causal beliefs about the power of character traits to produce certain feelings in suitable spectators). I argue that the shortcomings of these views show that Hume is best understood as an error theorist, according to whom although moral  convictions are beliefs they are never true. In contrast with contemporary error theories, however, Hume’s view is not grounded on a metaphysical claim to the effect that there are no moral properties. He holds instead that moral ideas are not at all ideas of qualities that could be truthfully predicated of actions or character traits but rather ideas of feelings and, therefore, that moral beliefs systematically incorporate a category error.

scholarly journals Evaluating Others If They Stand Up for Their Moral Convictions, and Evaluating Ourselves If We Don't Stand Up

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florien M. Cramwinckel ◽  
Kees van den Bos ◽  
Eric van Dijk
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Sexual Minorities ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Moral Courage ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Situational Demands ◽  
Moral Convictions

AbstractActing on one’s moral principles is not always easy. Upholding one’s moral beliefs may run counter to one’s social environment or situational demands. It may often cause people to remain silent on their convictions, while at the same time some may show the moral courage to speak out. How do people evaluate those who do stand up, and how does it affect their self-evaluations? In two experimental studies (Ns = 207 and 204), we investigated both types of evaluations. The studies demonstrate that people who failed to uphold their moral beliefs still had positive evaluations of others who showed moral courage. More specifically, pro-gay participants who went along with writing an anti-gay essay denouncing equal rights for sexual minorities had positive evaluations of another person who spoke up and refused this task. The failure to display moral courage had negative consequences for participants’ self-concepts. In Experiment 1, we show that pro-gay participants’ positive self-concepts were lowered after writing an anti-gay essay (vs. a pro-gay essay). In Experiment 2, we reveal that participants' positive self-concepts were lowered only when they were confronted with morally courageous behavior and their own failure to uphold their moral beliefs was visible to the experimenter.

scholarly journals Moral sense by Charles Darwin

2009 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-59
Author(s):  
Drago Djuric
Keyword(s):  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Descriptive Ethics ◽  
Scientific Approach ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
And Behaviors

At the beginning of this paper Darwin's approach to science will be presented. This will be illustrated with his own modality of his main claims and modesty he had shown in evaluating the worth of his theory. Than we shall present his four suppositions important for preservation and evolution of moral sense. After that we will consider the issue of relation between inherited and acquired moral properties and main characteristics which according to Darwin, make difference between social instinct in lower animals and moral sense in man. At the end some we shall present some arguments for thesis that in evolutionary scientific approach to ethics there is no room for unbridgeable gap between facts and values, 'ought' and 'is', and some arguments for thesis that from the point of view of the theory of evolution we can have descriptive ethics, but not any prescriptive or normative ethics except predictions that some moral beliefs and behaviors can be evolutionary successful.

Common Sense and First Principles in Sidgwick's Methods

1994 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
David O. Brink
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
First Principles ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
First Principle ◽  
Moral Intuitions ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
The One ◽  
Considered Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Convictions

What role, if any, should our moral intuitions play in moral epistemology? We make, or are prepared to make, moral judgments about a variety of actual and hypothetical situations. Some of these moral judgments are more informed, reflective, and stable than others (call these our considered moral judgments); some we make more confidently than others; and some, though not all, are judgments about which there is substantial consensus. What bearing do our moral judgments have on philosophical ethics and the search for first principles in ethics? Should these judgments constrain, or be constrained by, philosophical theorizing about morality? On the one hand, we might expect first principles to conform to our moral intuitions or at least to our considered moral judgments. After all, we begin the reflection that may lead to first principles from particular moral convictions. And some of our moral intuitions (e.g., that genocide is wrong) are more fixed and compelling than any putative first principle. If so, we might expect common moral beliefs to have an important evidential role in the construction and assessment of first principles. On the other hand, common moral beliefs often rest on poor information, reflect bias, or are otherwise mistaken. We often appeal to moral principles to justify our particular moral convictions or to resolve our disagreements. Insofar as this is true, we may expect first principles to provide a foundation on the basis of which to test common moral beliefs and, where necessary, form new moral convictions.

After the fall: Religious capacities and the error theory of morality

2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 751-752 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Stingl ◽  
John Collier
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Moral Belief ◽  
Error Theory ◽  
Competitive Environment ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Target Article ◽  
Psychological Capacities ◽  
Error Theories

The target article proposes an error theory for religious belief. In contrast, moral beliefs are typically not counterintuitive, and some moral cognition and motivation is functional. Error theories for moral belief try to reduce morality to nonmoral psychological capacities because objective moral beliefs seem too fragile in a competitive environment. An error theory for religious belief makes this unnecessary.

scholarly journals Moral Value, Response-Dependence, and Rigid Designation

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brad Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Value ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Rigid Designation ◽  
The Future ◽  
Epistemological Obstacles ◽  
Moral Properties ◽  
Response Dependence

It is part of our notion of moral properties (certain forms of relativism to the contrary) that they are in some sense independent of our moral beliefs. A murderer cannot make his action moral simply by believing that it is so. Slavery was immoral even if a large number of people once believed that it was permissible, and it would remain so in the future even if every person came to believe that it was morally acceptable. But views that take moral properties to be objective and thoroughly mind-independent constituents of reality face familiar metaphysical and epistemological obstacles.

Renewing Moral Intuitionism

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 440-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Tropman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Moral Intuitionism ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Intuitionistic Theory ◽  
Moral Properties

AbstractAccording to moral intuitionism, moral properties are objective, but our cognitions of them are not always based on premises. In this paper, I develop a novel version of moral intuitionism and argue that this new intuitionism is worthy of closer attention. The intuitionistic theory I propose, while inspired by the early twentieth-century intuitionism of W.D. Ross, avoids the alleged errors of his view. Furthermore, unlike Robert Audi's contemporary formulation of intuitionism, my theory has the resources to account for the non-inferential character of particular, as opposed to merely general, moral beliefs. I achieve this result by avoiding the appeal to self-evidence to explain the possibility of non-inferential moral knowledge.

scholarly journals Doubts about Moral Perception

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pekka Väyrynen
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Moral Experience ◽  
Moral Perception ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Moral Properties

This chapter defends doubts about the existence of genuine moral perception, understood as the claim that at least some moral properties figure in the contents of perceptual experience. The doubts are local: even if perceptual experiences generally can be cognitively penetrable and rich, standard examples of moral perception are better explained as habitual implicit inferences or transitions in thought. The chapter sketches a model on which the relevant transitions in thought can be psychologically immediate depending on how readily and reliably non-evaluative perceptual inputs, jointly with the subject’s background moral beliefs, training, and habituation, trigger the kinds of phenomenological responses that moral agents are disposed to have when they represent things as being morally a certain way. It is then argued that this rival account of moral experience explains at least as much as the moral perception hypothesis but is simpler and (at least by one relevant measure) more unified.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document