Collective Reasons and Agent-Relativity

Could it be true that even though we as a group ought to do something, you as an individual ought not to do your part? And under what conditions, in particular, could this happen? In this article, I discuss how a certain kind of case, introduced by David Copp, illustrates the possibility that you ought not to do your part even when you would be playing a crucial causal role in the group action. This is because you may have special agent-relative reasons against participating that are not shared by the group as a whole. I defend the claim that these are indeed cases in which you ought not to do your part in what the group ought to do. I then argue that we can expect these cases to produce a troubling kind of rational conflict.

PODE O NATURALISMO REDUCIONISTA DE DAVID COPP ACOMODAR O REALISMO E O CONSTRUTIVISMO MORAL?

Segundo David Copp, o cenário moral requer a compreensão de três aspectos inter-relacionados básicos: identificar a natureza dos juízos morais, especificar a justificação dessas decisões e determinar o papel da sociedade moral neste esquema. Para isso, o autor discute a necessidade de uma teoria cognitivista da linguagem normativa (standard based theory), assim como uma teoria da justificação dos códigos morais (society centered theory). O propósito deste artigo é analisar em que medida a teoria moral de Copp consegue acomodar a metodologia construtivista sobre as bases realistas de seu naturalismo moral sem desmantelar seu propósito naturalista de relacionar (e reduzir) propriedades morais à propriedades naturais.

EXPRESSIVISMO REALISTA: SOBRE UMA POSSÍVEL CONVERGÊNCIA ENTRE TEORIAS METAÉTICAS

O objetivo do presente trabalho é reconstruir e analisar criticamente a proposta defendida por David Copp, em Morality in a Natural World – Selected Essays in Metaethics, de uma teoria metaética chamada “expressivismo realista”. Na primeira parte do trabalho, vou reconstruir os traços mais gerais do pensamento ético de Copp e, mais especificamente, vou apresentar o expressivismo realista como opção metaética. Na segunda, vou avaliar criticamente a possibilidade de compatibilizar o expressivismo com o realismo mostrando que o cognitivismo prático evita os problemas do expressivismo realista e possui inúmeras outras vantagens.

Moral Reasons and Rational Status

The question “Why be moral?” is open to at least three extremely different interpretations. One way to distinguish these interpretations is by picturing the question as being asked by, respectively, Allan, who is going to act immorally unless he can be convinced to act otherwise, Beth, who is perfectly happy to do what is morally required on a certain occasion but who wants to know what is it about the act that makes it morally required, and Charles, who is trying to understand why rational people act morally. An answer to the question as understood by Allan is, for some, the holy grail of moral philosophy, and it is also perhaps the default understanding of the question. The question as asked by Beth is what David Copp, in his contribution to this volume, calls the “why-think-morality-requires-this” question. The question as asked by Charles can be called the “what-rationally-justifies-moral-behaviour” question. Charles’ question, importantly, is about rational permissibility, and it is most pointed when moral behaviour requires sacrifice.

Political Legitimacy and the Duty to Obey the Law

A growing number of political and legal theorists deny that there is a widespread duty to obey the law. This has lent a sense of urgency to recent disagreements about whether a state's legitimacy depends upon its ‘subjects’’ having a duty to obey the law. On one side of the disagreement, John Simmons, Robert Paul Wolff, David Copp, Hannah Pitkin, Leslie Green, George Klosko, and Joseph Raz hold that a state could only be legitimate if the vast majority of its subjects have a duty to obey the law. On the other side, M.B.E. Smith, Jeffrey Reiman, Kent Greenawalt, Christopher Morris, Rolf Sartorius, Jeremy Waldron, Christopher Wellman, William Edmundson and Allen Buchanan claim that a state could be legitimate even if its subjects lacked a duty to obey the law.This disagreement contains two separate disputes. One is a linguistic dispute about the meaning of ‘legitimacy,’ or about what it means to call something a ‘legitimate state.’ The other is a Substantive dispute about whether the various aspects of legitimacy are linked together. Since discussing the linguistic dispute will help us examine the Substantive dispute, let us consider it first.