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  1. 5 Challenges to Naturalistic, Secular Moral Realism.Mayer Paul - manuscript
    In this paper I discuss five meta-ethical challenges to Naturalistic Moral Realism, which includes secular moral codes such as Secular Humanism that, in my view, naturalists need to address to keep their commitment to moral realism from looking like special pleading. The five challenges are as follows: 1. The Ontological Problem (OP): How do such moral principles exist? 2. The Epistemic Problem (EP): How does our moral sense/intuition track such principles? 3. The Influence Problem (IP): What authority does the existence (...)
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  2. Epistemic Non-Factualism and Methodology.Justin Clarke-Doane - forthcoming - In Michael Klenk (ed.), Higher Order Evidence and Moral Epistemology.
    I discuss methodology in epistemology. I argue that settling the facts, even the epistemic facts, fails to settle the questions of intellectual policy at the center of our epistemic lives. An upshot is that the standard methodology of analyzing concepts like knowledge, justification, rationality, and so on is misconceived. More generally, any epistemic method that seeks to issue in intellectual policy by settling the facts, whether by way of abductive theorizing or empirical investigation, no matter how reliable, is inapt. The (...)
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  3. Metaethical Experientialism.Andrew Y. Lee - forthcoming - In Geoffrey Lee & Adam Pautz (eds.), The Importance of Being Conscious. Oxford University Press.
    I develop and defend metaethical experientialism, the thesis that phenomenal facts explain certain kinds of value facts. I argue, for example, that anyone who knows what it’s like to feel extreme pain is in a position to know that that kind of experience is bad. I argue that metaethical experientialism yields genuine counterexamples to the principle that no ethical conclusion can be derived from purely descriptive premises. I also discuss the prospects for a pluralistic metaethics, whereby different metaethical theories hold (...)
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  4. Against and for Ethical Naturalism Or: How Not To "Naturalize" Ethics.Berit Brogaard & Michael Slote - 2022 - American Philosophical Quarterly 59 (4):327-352.
    Moral realism and ethical naturalism are both highly attractive ethical positions but historically they have often been thought to be irreconcilable. Since the late 1980s defenders of Cornell Realism have argued that the two positions can consistently be combined. They make three constitutive claims: (i) Moral properties are natural kind properties that (ii) are identical to (or supervene) on descriptive functional properties, which (iii) causally regulate our use of moral terms. We offer new arguments against the feasibility of Cornell realism (...)
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  5. Constructing a Moorean ‘Open Question’ Argument: The Real Thought Move and the Real Objective.Nicholas Shackel - 2021 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 98 (3):463-88.
    How Moore’s open question argument works, insofar as it does, remains a matter of controversy. My purpose here is to construct an open question argument based on a novel interpretation of how Moore’s argument might work. In order to sidestep exegetical questions, I do not claim here to be offering Moore’s own argument. Rather, I offer a reconstruction making use of important elements of Moore’s methodology and assumptions that could be reasonable within a Moorean viewpoint. The crucial role within the (...)
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  6. One‐Person Moral Twin Earth Cases.Neil Sinhababu - 2019 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 8 (1):16-22.
    This paper presents two cases demonstrating that theories allowing the environment to partially determine the content of moral concepts provide incorrect truth-conditions for moral terms. While typical Moral Twin Earth cases seek to establish that these theories fail to account formoral disagreement, neither case here essentially involves interpersonal disagreement. Both involve a single person retaining moral beliefs despite recognizing actual or potential mismatches with the purportedly content-determining facts. This lets opponents of such theories grant objections that standard Moral Twin Earth (...)
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  7. Categorical Norms and Convention‐Relativism about Epistemic Discourse.Cameron Boult - 2017 - Dialectica 71 (1):85-99.
    Allan Hazlett has recently developed an alternative to the most popular form of anti-realism about epistemic normativity, epistemic expressivism. He calls it “convention-relativism about epistemic discourse”. The view deserves more attention. In this paper, I give it attention in the form of an objection. Specifically, my objection turns on a distinction between inescapable and categorical norms. While I agree with Hazlett that convention-relativism is consistent with inescapable epistemic norms, I argue that it is not consistent with categorical epistemic norms. I (...)
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  8. Phenomenal, Normative, and Other Explanatory Gaps: A General Diagnosis.Neil Mehta - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 98 (3):567-591.
    I assume that there exists a general phenomenon, the phenomenon of the explanatory gap, surrounding consciousness, normativity, intentionality, and more. Explanatory gaps are often thought to foreclose reductive possibilities wherever they appear. In response, reductivists who grant the existence of these gaps have offered countless local solutions. But typically such reductivist responses have had a serious shortcoming: because they appeal to essentially domain-specific features, they cannot be fully generalized, and in this sense these responses have been not just local but (...)
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  9. Intuitions about Disagreement Do Not Support the Normativity of Meaning.Derek Baker - 2016 - Dialectica 70 (1):65-84.
    Allan Gibbard () argues that the term ‘meaning’ expresses a normative concept, primarily on the basis of arguments that parallel Moore's famous Open Question Argument. In this paper I argue that Gibbard's evidence for normativity rests on idiosyncrasies of the Open Question Argument, and that when we use related thought experiments designed to bring out unusual semantic intuitions associated with normative terms we fail to find such evidence. These thought experiments, moreover, strongly suggest there are basic requirements for a theory (...)
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  10. An Assumption of Extreme Significance: Moore, Ross and Spencer on Ethics and Evolution.Hallvard Lillehammer - 2016 - In Uri D. Leibowitz & Neil Sinclair (eds.), Explanation in Ethics and Mathematics: Debunking and Dispensability. Oxford University Press.
    In recent years there has been a growing interest among mainstream Anglophone moral philosophers in the empirical study of human morality, including its evolution and historical development. This chapter compares these developments with an earlier point of contact between moral philosophy and the moral sciences in the early decades of the Twentieth century, as manifested in some of the less frequently discussed arguments of G. E. Moore and W. D. Ross. It is argued that a critical appreciation of Moore and (...)
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  11. Reducing Reasons.Matthew Silverstein - 2016 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 10 (1):1-22.
    Reasons are considerations that figure in sound reasoning. This is considered by many philosophers to be little more than a platitude. I argue that it actually has surprising and far-reaching metanormative implications. The view that reasons are linked to sound reasoning seems platitudinous only because we tend to assume that soundness is a normative property, in which case the view merely relates one normative phenomenon (reasons) to another (soundness). I argue that soundness is also a descriptive phenomenon, one we can (...)
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  12. Naturalism in Metaethics.Jussi Suikkanen - 2016 - In Kelly James Clark (ed.), Blackwell Companion to Naturalism. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 351-368.
    This chapter offers an introduction to naturalist views in contemporary metaethics. Such views attempt to find a place for normative properties (such as goodness and rightness) in the concrete physical world as it is understood by both science and common sense. The chapter begins by introducing simple naturalist conceptual analyses of normative terms. It then explains how these analyses were rejected in the beginning of the 20th Century due to G.E. Moore’s influential Open Question Argument. After this, the chapter considers (...)
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  13. Semantic Challenges to Normative Realism.Tristram McPherson - 2013 - Philosophy Compass 8 (2):126-136.
    Normative realists might be assumed to have few worries about semantics. After all, a realist might initially hope to simply adopt the best semantic theory about ordinary descriptive language. However, beginning with the non-cognitivist appropriation of the open question argument, a number of philosophers have posed serious objections to the realist’s ability to offer a plausible semantic theory. This paper introduces the two most influential semantic challenges to normative realism: the open question argument, and the Moral Twin Earth argument. It (...)
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  14. Mind-Body Meets Metaethics: A Moral Concept Strategy.Helen Yetter-Chappell & Richard Yetter Chappell - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 165 (3):865-878.
    The aim of this paper is to assess the relationship between anti-physicalist arguments in the philosophy of mind and anti-naturalist arguments in metaethics, and to show how the literature on the mind-body problem can inform metaethics. Among the questions we will consider are: (1) whether a moral parallel of the knowledge argument can be constructed to create trouble for naturalists, (2) the relationship between such a "Moral Knowledge Argument" and the familiar Open Question Argument, and (3) how naturalists can respond (...)
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  15. Identifying Goodness.Charles R. Pigden - 2012 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90 (1):93 - 109.
    The paper reconstructs Moore's Open Question Argument (OQA) and discusses its rise and fall. There are three basic objections to the OQA: Geach's point, that Moore presupposes that ?good? is a predicative adjective (whereas it is in fact attributive); Lewy's point, that it leads straight to the Paradox of Analysis; and Durrant's point that even if 'good' is not synonymous with any naturalistic predicate, goodness might be synthetically identical with a naturalistic property. As against Geach, I argue that 'good' has (...)
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  16. Valeurs et émotions, les perspectives du néo-sentimentalisme.Christine Tappolet - 2012 - Dialogue 51 (1):7-30.
    ABSTRACT: Neo-sentimentalism is the view that to judge that something has an evaluative property is to judge that some affective or emotional response is appropriate to it, but this view allows for radically different versions. My aim is to spell out what I take to be its most plausible version. Against its normative version, I argue that its descriptive version can best satisfy the normativity requirement that follows from Moore’s Open Question Argument while giving an answer to the Wrong Kind (...)
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  17. Does Semantic Naturalism Rest on a Mistake?Susana Nuccetelli & Gary Seay - 2011 - In Nuccetelly & Seay Susana & Gary (ed.), Ethical Naturalism: Current Debates. Cambridge University Press.
    More than a century ago, G. E. Moore famously attempted to refute ethical naturalism by offering the so-called open question argument (OQA), also charging that all varieties of ethical naturalism commit the naturalistic fallacy. Although there is consensus that OQA and the naturalistic-fallacy charge both fail, OQA is sometimes vindicated, but only as an argument against naturalistic semantic analyses. The naturalistic-fallacy charge, by contrast, usually finds no takers at all. This paper provides new grounds for an OQA thus restricted. But (...)
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  18. The knowledge argument, the open question argument, and the moral problem.Michael Pelczar - 2009 - Synthese 171 (1):25 - 45.
    Someone who knew everything about the world’s physical nature could, apparently, suffer from ignorance about various aspects of conscious experience. Someone who knew everything about the world’s physical and mental nature could, apparently, suffer from moral ignorance. Does it follow that there are ways the world is, over and above the way it is physically or psychophysically? This paper defends a negative answer, based on a distinction between knowing the fact that p and knowing that p. This distinction is made (...)
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  19. Desire-based Reasons, Naturalism, and the Possibility of Vindication.Attila Tanyi - 2009 - Polish Journal of Philosophy 3 (2):87-107.
    The aim of the paper is to critically assess the idea that reasons for action are provided by desires (the Model). I start from the claim that the most often employed meta-ethical background for the Model is ethical naturalism; I then argue against the Model through its naturalist background. For the latter purpose I make use of two objections that are both intended to refute naturalism per se. One is G. E. Moore’s Open Question Argument (OQA), the other is Derek (...)
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  20. Desire-based Reasons, Naturalism, and Tolerable Revisionism: Lessons from Moore and Parfit.Attila Tanyi - 2009 - Cuadernos de Anuario Filosófico 212:49-57.
    My aim in this paper is to critically assess the idea that reasons for action are provided by desires (the Desire-based Reasons Model or the Model). I start from the claim that the most often employed meta-ethical background for the Model is ethical naturalism; I then consider attempts to argue against the Model through its naturalism. I make use of two objections that are both intended to refute naturalism per se. One is the indirect version of G. E. Moore’s Open (...)
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  21. Desire-Based Reasons, Naturalism, and the Possibility of Vindication.Attila Tanyi - 2009 - Polish Journal of Philosophy 3 (2):87-107.
    The aim of the paper is to critically assess the idea that reasons for action are provided by desires (the Model). I start from the claim that the most often employed meta-ethical background for the Model is ethical naturalism; I then argue against the Model through its naturalist background. For the latter purpose I make use of two objections that are both intended to refute naturalism per se. One is G.E. Moore’s Open Question Argument (OQA), the other is Derek Parfit’s (...)
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  22. Desiring to Desire: Russell, Lewis and G.E.Moore.Charles Pigden - 2007 - In Susana Nuccetelli & Gary Seay (eds.), Themes from G.E.Moore. Oxford University Press. pp. 244-260.
    I have two aims in this paper. In §§2-4 I contend that Moore has two arguments (not one) for the view that that ‘good’ denotes a non-natural property not to be identified with the naturalistic properties of science and common sense (or, for that matter, the more exotic properties posited by metaphysicians and theologians). The first argument, the Barren Tautology Argument (or the BTA), is derived, via Sidgwick, from a long tradition of anti-naturalist polemic. But the second argument, the Open (...)
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  23. Naturalism and Triviality.Attila Tanyi - 2006 - Philosophical Writings 32 (Summer):12-31.
    The paper examines Derek Parfit’s claim that naturalism trivializes the agent’s practical argument and therefore abolishes the normativity of its conclusion. In the first section, I present Parfit’s charge in detail. After this I discuss three possible responses to the objection. I show that the first two responses either fail or are inconclusive. Trying to avoid Parfit’s charge by endorsing irreductionist naturalism is not a solution because this form of naturalism is metaphysically untenable. Non- descriptive naturalism, on the other hand, (...)
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  24. Review of G.E.Moore’s Ethical Theory by Brian Hutchinson. [REVIEW]Charles Pigden - 2004 - International Philosophical Quarterly:543-547.
    The history of philosophy can be seen either as a contribution to history or a contribution to philosophy or perhaps as a bit of both. Hutchinson fail on both counts. The book is bad: bad in itself (since it quite definitely ought not to be) and bad as a companion to Principia (since it sets students a bad example of slapdash, lazy and pretentious philosophizing and would tend to put them off reading Moore). As a conscientious reviewer I ploughed through (...)
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  25. Naturalism.Charles Pigden - 1991 - In Peter Singer (ed.), A Companion to Ethics. Blackwell. pp. 421-431.
    Survey article on Naturalism dealing with Hume's NOFI (including Prior's objections), Moore's Naturalistic Fallacy and the Barren Tautology Argument. Naturalism, as I understand it, is a form of moral realism which rejects fundamental moral facts or properties. Thus it is opposed to both non-cognitivism, and and the error theory but also to non-naturalism. General conclusion: as of 1991: naturalism as a program has not been refuted though none of the extant versions look particularly promising.
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  26. Errata: The Normative Stance.Marcus Arvan - manuscript
    Due to a production error, two block-quotations were originally omitted from the final publication. These passages have been corrected in the web-version on the journal’s website (DOI: 10.1111/phil.12282), but cannot be corrected in the print/PDF version. Readers of the PDF version, please note the two corrections herein.
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  27. Comments on Mark Kalderon's “The Open Question Argument, Frege's Puzzle, and Leibniz's Law”.Peter Alward - unknown
    A standard strategy for defending a claim of non-identity is one which invokes Leibniz’s Law. (1) Fa (2) ~Fb (3) (∀x)(∀y)(x=y ⊃ (∀P)(Px ⊃ Py)) (4) a=b ⊃ (Fa ⊃ Fb) (5) a≠b In Kalderon’s view, this basic strategy underlies both Moore’s Open Question Argument (OQA) as well as (a variant formulation of) Frege’s puzzle (FP). In the former case, the argument runs from the fact that some natural property—call it “F-ness”—has, but goodness lacks, the (2nd order) property of its (...)
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