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  1. An Adam Smithian Account of Humanity.Nir Ben-Moshe - 2023 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 10 (32):908-936.
    In The Sources of Normativity, Korsgaard argues for what can be called “The Universality of Humanity Claim” (UHC), according to which valuing humanity in one’s own person entails valuing it in that of others. However, Korsgaard’s reliance on the claim that reasons are essentially public in her attempt to demonstrate the truth of UHC has been repeatedly criticized. I offer a sentimentalist defense, based on Adam Smith’s moral philosophy, of a qualified, albeit adequate, version of UHC. In particular, valuing my (...)
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  2. The comparison problem for approximating epistemic ideals.Marc-Kevin Daoust - 2023 - Ratio 36 (1):22-31.
    Some epistemologists think that the Bayesian ideals matter because we can approximate them. That is, our attitudes can be more or less close to the ones of our ideal Bayesian counterpart. In this paper, I raise a worry for this justification of epistemic ideals. The worry is this: In order to correctly compare agents to their ideal counterparts, we need to imagine idealized agents who have the same relevant information, knowledge, or evidence. However, there are cases in which one’s ideal (...)
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  3. Response-Dependence and Aesthetic Theory.Alex King - 2023 - In Chris Howard & Rach Cosker-Rowland (eds.), Fittingness. OUP. pp. 309-326.
    Response-dependence theories have historically been very popular in aesthetics, and aesthetic response-dependence has motivated response-dependence in ethics. This chapter closely examines the prospects for such theories. It breaks this category down into dispositional and fittingness strands of response-dependence, corresponding to descriptive and normative ideal observer theories. It argues that the latter have advantages over the former but are not themselves without issue. Special attention is paid to the relationship between hedonism and response-dependence. The chapter also introduces two aesthetic properties that (...)
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  4. (2 other versions)Considering Dispositional Moral Realism.Prabhpal Singh - 2022 - In Francis Fallon (ed.), Insights Into Ethical Theory and Practice: Principia Eclectica. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 32-49.
    An updated reprint of Singh, Prabhpal. 2018. "Considering Dispositional Moral Realism". Perspectives: An International Postgraduate Journal of Philosophy 8(1): 14-22.
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  5. A Defense of Modest Ideal Observer Theory: The Case of Adam Smith’s Impartial Spectator.Nir Ben-Moshe - 2021 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 24 (2):489-510.
    I build on Adam Smith’s account of the impartial spectator in The Theory of Moral Sentiments in order to offer a modest ideal observer theory of moral judgment that is adequate in the following sense: the account specifies the hypothetical conditions that guarantee the authoritativeness of an agent’s (or agents’) responses in constituting the standard in question, and, if an actual agent or an actual community of agents are not under those conditions, their responses are not authoritative in setting this (...)
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  6. Adversariality and Ideal Argumentation: A Second-Best Perspective.Marc-Kevin Daoust - 2021 - Topoi 40 (5):887-898.
    What is the relevance of ideals for determining virtuous argumentative practices? According to Bailin and Battersby (2016), the telos of argumentation is to improve our cognitive systems, and adversariality plays no role in ideally virtuous argumentation. Stevens and Cohen (2019) grant that ideal argumentation is collaborative, but stress that imperfect agents like us should not aim at approximating the ideal of argumentation. Accordingly, it can be virtuous, for imperfect arguers like us, to act as adversaries. Many questions are left unanswered (...)
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  7. Sentimentalism (International Encyclopedia of Ethics).Antti Kauppinen - 2021 - In Hugh LaFollette (ed.), International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
    Sentimentalism comes in many varieties: explanatory sentimentalism, judgment sentimentalism, metaphysical sentimentalism, and epistemic sentimentalism. This encyclopedia entry gives an overview of the positions and main arguments pro and con.
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  8. The Benevolent Ideal Observer Theory.Michael John Patrick Campbell - 2018 - Dissertation, Duke University
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  9. On Three Defenses of Sentimentalism.Noriaki Iwasa - 2013 - Prolegomena 12 (1):61-82.
    This essay shows that a moral sense or moral sentiments alone cannot identify appropriate morals. To this end, the essay analyzes three defenses of Francis Hutcheson's, David Hume's, and Adam Smith's moral sense theories against the relativism charge that a moral sense or moral sentiments vary across people, societies, cultures, or times. The first defense is the claim that there is a universal moral sense or universal moral sentiments. However, even if they exist, a moral sense or moral sentiments alone (...)
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  10. Meaningful Lives, Ideal Observers, and Views from Nowhere.Jason Kawall - 2012 - Journal of Philosophical Research 37:73-97.
    In recent discussions of whether our lives are or can be meaningful, appeals are often made to such things as “a view from nowhere,” or “the viewpoint of the universe.” In this paper I attempt to make sense of what it might mean for a being to possess such a perspective, and argue that common appeals to such perspectives are inadequately developed; crucially, they do not adequately account for the character of the beings taken to possess these viewpoints. In the (...)
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  11. The epistemic demands of environmental virtue.Jason Kawall - 2009 - Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 23 (1-2):109-28.
    To lead an environmentally virtuous life requires information—about morality, environmental issues, the impacts of our actions and commitments, our options for alternatives, and so on. On the other hand, we are finite beings with limited time and resources. We cannot feasibly investigate all of our options, and all environmental issues (let alone moral issues, more broadly). In this paper I attempt to provide initial steps towards addressing the epistemic demands of environmental virtue. In the first half of the paper I (...)
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  12. Virtue theory, ideal observers, and the supererogatory.Jason Kawall - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 146 (2):179-96.
    I argue that recent virtue theories (including those of Hursthouse, Slote, and Swanton) face important initial difficulties in accommodating the supererogatory. In particular, I consider several potential characterizations of the supererogatory modeled upon these familiar virtue theories (and their accounts of rightness) and argue that they fail to provide an adequate account of supererogation. In the second half of the paper I sketch an alternative virtue-based characterization of supererogation, one that is grounded in the attitudes of virtuous ideal observers, and (...)
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  13. On the Moral Epistemology of Ideal Observer Theories.Jason Kawall - 2006 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 9 (3):359-374.
    : In this paper I attempt to defuse a set of epistemic worries commonly raised against ideal observer theories. The worries arise because of the omniscience often attributed to ideal observers – how can we, as finite humans, ever have access to the moral judgements or reactions of omniscient beings? I argue that many of the same concerns arise with respect to other moral theories (and that these concerns do not in fact reveal genuine flaws in any of these theories), (...)
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  14. Moral response-dependence, ideal observers, and the motive of duty: Responding to Zangwill.Jason Kawall - 2004 - Erkenntnis 60 (3):357-369.
    Moral response-dependent metaethical theories characterize moral properties in terms of the reactions of certain classes of individuals. Nick Zangwill has argued that such theories are flawed: they are unable to accommodate the motive of duty. That is, they are unable to provide a suitable reason for anyone to perform morally right actions simply because they are morally right. I argue that Zangwill ignores significant differences between various approvals, and various individuals, and that moral response-dependent theories can accommodate the motive of (...)
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  15. Thomas L. Carson, Value and the Good Life. [REVIEW]Jason Kawall - 2002 - Philosophy in Review 22 (4):260-262.
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  16. Virtue theory and ideal observers.Jason Kawall - 2002 - Philosophical Studies 109 (3):197 - 222.
    Virtue theorists in ethics often embrace the following characterizationof right action: An action is right iff a virtuous agent would performthat action in like circumstances. Zagzebski offers a parallel virtue-basedaccount of epistemically justified belief. Such proposals are severely flawedbecause virtuous agents in adverse circumstances, or through lack ofknowledge can perform poorly. I propose an alternative virtue-based accountaccording to which an action is right (a belief is justified) for an agentin a given situation iff an unimpaired, fully-informed virtuous observerwould deem the (...)
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