In her book Experience Embodied, Anik Waldow challenges and reimagines the traditional interpretative approach to the concept of experience in the early modern period. Traditionally, commentators have emphasized early moderns’ views on the first-person perspective and eschewed the relevance of our embodiment to their epistemological outlooks. My focus here is on Waldow’s chapter on Hume, wherein she analyzes Hume’s account of our capacity for reflective moral judgment, arguing that he understands it as natural despite the countless ways in which our (...) embodied social experiences impinge on it. After detailing Waldow’s contributions, I clarify, corroborate, and criticize them. Since I contend that Waldow is broadly successful in her interpretative efforts, I suggest that she undermines the traditional interpretative approach to experience in the early modern period, but not in the sense that she moves us away from the epistemological towards other lenses. Rather, Waldow should be understood as showing that, at least in the case of Hume’s metaethics, the epistemological is embodied, is social, and is both cognitive and sentimental. (shrink)

Are there any conditions under which to justify deliberately hiding or manipulating the expression of our opinions, emotions or character traits in front of others? this article examines David Hume’s answer to this question by discussing the practices that he calls good manners and impudence. the conclusion is that Hume’s description of the moral point of view allows for two conditions under which practices of opacity such as good manners and impudence can be morally assessed.

Gibbard''s theory of rationality is evolutionary in terms of its result as well as its underpinning argument. The result is that judgments about what is rational are analyzed as being similar to judgments of morality — in view of what Darwin suggests concerning the latter. According to the Darwinian theory, moral judgments are based on sentiments which evolve to promote the survival and welfare of human societies. On Gibbard''s theory, rationality judgments should be similarly regarded as expressing emotional attachments to (...) behavioral norms which originate and function to coordinate social interaction. Consequently, Gibbard''s theory of rationality might be used to illuminate Darwin''s theory of morality, and vice versa. Additionally, as argued in the present essay, both can be further elaborated, and defended, by developing related themes in philosophical ethics: viz., connected with Hume and 20th-century emotivists. The main problem is that this general Darwinian approach faces widespread opposition nowadays, not only in ethics but in philosophy of science. The purpose of this essay is to analyze Gibbard''s theory, critically and constructively, with emphasis on the pertinent commonalities in Darwin, Hume and the emotivists, while also critically addressing their common enemies. The pervasive methodological orientation is to relate this analysis to (philosophy of) science in general, and biological science in particular. (shrink)

Leader-managers face a myriad of competing values when they engage in ethical decision-making. Few studies help us understand why certain reasons for action are justified, taking precedence over others when people choose to respond to an ethical dilemma. To help address this matter we began with a qualitative approach to disclose leader-managers' moral motives when they decide to address a work-related ethical dilemma. One hundred and nine military officers were asked to provide their reasons for taking action, justifications of their (...) reasons, and to explain these justifications. We used network analysis techniques to identify a hierarchical motive structure. The motive structure is a cognitive map that identifies ethical motives and perceptions of how these ethical motives relate to each other. The motives identified represent classic conceptualizations of moral behavior; namely, virtue theories, consequentialism, and deontological theories, along with another category that expressed the emotional significance of the moral judgment, which we refer to as emotional empiricism. (shrink)

La filosofía de D. Hume ha sido tradicionalmente vinculada con el positivismo y con el subjetivismo moral. Si bien es innegable su explicita influencia en estas escuelas de pensamiento, ello no obsta a la existencia efectiva de relaciones de armonía entre propuestas tradicionalmente opuestas a la filosofía humeana. En el presente trabajo se presentarán sus convergencias con la ética de la ley natural, particularmente la desarrollada por la llamada New Natural LawTheory. Se argumentará el vínculo a partir de la importancia (...) de la vida común, de la experiencia y del rol de la filosofía en el comportamiento humano. (shrink)

In this paper I defend against a certain objection the view that it is possible to account for validity and kindred notions for moral language within a non-cognitivist framework by appeal to the descriptive meaning of moral terms. The objection is that such an account leads to an asymmetry in the accounts it offers for synonymy in different contexts; in certain contexts it holds that sameness of meaning for a moral term depends on its evaluative meaning, in other contexts that (...) it depends on the term's descriptive meaning. In the third part of the paper I try to show why non-cognitivists should be prepared to live with that asymmetry. In the process I also deal with two other objections. (shrink)

This paper is interested in the relationship between evolutionary thinking and moral behavior and commitments, ethics. There is a traditional way of forging or conceiving of the relationship. This is traditional evolutionary ethics, known as Social Darwinism. Many think that this position is morally pernicious, a redescription of the worst aspects of modern, laissez-faire capitalism in fancy biological language. It is argued that, in fact, there is much more to be said for Social Darwinism than many think. In respects, it (...) could be and was an enlightened position to take; but it flounders on the matter of justification. Universally, the appeal is to progress—evolution is progressive and, hence, morally we should aid its success. I argue, however, that this progressive nature of evolution is far from obvious and, hence, traditional social Darwinism fails. There is another way to do things. This is to argue that the search for justification is mistaken. Ethics just is. It is an adaptation for humans living socially and has exactly the same status as other adaptations, like hands and teeth and genitalia. As such, ethics is something with no standing beyond what it is. However, if we all thought that this was so, we would stop being moral. So part of the experience of ethics is that it is more than it is. We think that it has an objective referent. In short, ethics is an illusion put in place by our genes to make us good social cooperators. (shrink)

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.

This paper revisits Richard Price’s Review of the Principal Questions in Morals. Price was a defender of rationalism about ethics and he anticipated many views and arguments that became influential as the metaethical and ethical debates evolved over the later centuries. The paper explores and assesses Price’s arguments in favour of rationalism and against sentimentalism, with a view to how they bear on the modern metaethical debate.

This paper explores the details of Malebranche‘s philosophy of mind, paying particular attention to the mind-body relationship and the roles of the imagination and the passions. I demonstrate that Malebranche has available an alternative to his deontological ethical system: the alternative I expose is based around his account of the embodied aspects of the mind and the sensations experienced in perception. I briefly argue that Hume, a philosopher already indebted to Malebranche for much inspiration, read Malebranche in the positive way (...) that I here describe him. Malebranche should therefore be acknowledged as a serious influence on Enlightenment philosophy of sensibility. (shrink)

This article argues that Nietzsche’s meta-ethics is basically a form of sentimentalism, but a form of sentimentalism that includes cognitive components in the sentiments that are involved. The article also ascribes to Nietzsche the more original position that the moral sentiments in question vary dramatically between historical periods, cultures, and even individuals, sometimes indeed to the point of becoming inverted between one case and another. Finally, the article also attributes to Nietzsche a hermeneutic insight into certain problems that this situation (...) causes for the accurate interpretation of other people’s viewpoints. Along the way, the article in addition argues that Nietzsche’s positions on all these issues were molded not only by such well-known influences as Paul Rée and Hume, but also, and indeed more strongly, by Herder, and it develops some grounds for thinking that the positions in question are highly plausible ones. (shrink)

Vous pensez peut-être que la peine de mort est injuste ? Ou que l’avortement est moralement acceptable ? Se pourrait-il alors que vous vous trompiez ? C’est en tout cas l’avis des théoriciens de l’erreur. D’après ces philosophes, tous les jugements moraux sont faux parce qu’ils présupposent à tort l’existence de faits moraux à la fois objectifs et non naturels. Organisé autour de ce défi nihiliste, le présent ouvrage aborde les principales théories métaéthiques comme autant de tentatives, plus ou moins (...) fructueuses, de sauver la morale. Les théories qu’on y rencontre combinent invariablement une thèse psychologique (sur la nature des jugements moraux) et une thèse ontologique (sur l’existence d’une réalité morale conforme auxdits présupposés). Dans le style argumentatif sobre et précis qui caractérise la philosophie analytique, ce manuel de métaéthique – le premier en langue française – entreprend d’évaluer minutieusement un ensemble de théories sur la morale. Bien que destiné en premier lieu aux enseignants de philosophie et à leurs étudiants, il se veut accessible à tous ceux qu’intéresse l’éthique. (shrink)

In accordance to Adam Smith’s moral view, “sympathy” could be understood as a process of psychological and emotional empathy by which we reach to comprehend the other’s position. That process is moving from a position of subjective criteria to the maturity of an impartial perspective, respectful of the values implicit in human relations and we know through our feelings. Adam Smith’s contribution is fundamental for a new proposal of ethics of sympathy.

Jonathan Haidt has exhibited in several publications a strong influence by Hume as his inspiration to build up his Intuitionist Social Model especially in reference to the emotional and intuitive roots of morals. So, this article aims to go deeper into that influence to analyze, review and compare their concepts and hypotheses in order to establish common features in both Philosophers´ programs. By demonstrating some similarities between both authors -both critical to rationalism, and compelled to investigate the roots of morals (...) in Psychology-, their proposals will be compared and analyzed; and taking these critics into account the intuitionist assumptions that both Philosophers assume or could assume will be revised. In order to focus on the motivation of moral statements as a priority in Haidt research, the core of this article is dedicated to that issue. I will also explore Hume’s difficulty to conciliate his Emotivism with the rightness of moral statements that he considered necessary. Finally, my conclusions are that both positions sustain normative consequences ruled by an Ethics of Virtue. (shrink)

Mackie famously argued for a moral error theory on the basis that objective moral values, if they existed, would be very queer entities. Unfortunately, his argument is very brief and it is not totally obvious from what he says exactly where the queerness of moral values is supposed to lie. In this paper I will firstly show why a typical interpretation of Mackie is problematic and secondly offer a new interpretation. I will argue that, whether or not we have reason (...) to live in the morally correct way, what seems queer about moral properties is that there is a morally correct way in which to live in the first place. This interpretation makes sense of Mackie’s claim that theism might be able to solve the queerness problem; the notion of an objectively correct way to live may make sense if theism is true, but not otherwise. (shrink)

This chapter sketches four forms of realism ascribed to four great historical figures that provide an important set of determinate versions of moral realism. Plato provides a picture according to which moral facts exist in a non-concrete realm of abstract universal properties. Aristotle provides a picture according to which moral facts exist as concrete facts in the world. Hume provides a picture according to which moral facts have their basis in universal human sentiments. Kant provides a picture according to which (...) moral facts are simply truths of universal reason. It is argued that the revolution in our understanding of metaphysical explanations that occurred between Aristotle and Hume has important consequences for realist views. (shrink)

Through autobiography, I explain why I cannot accept conventional Christianity or any other form of religious belief. I sketch how, through modern evolutionary theory, I try to find an alternative world‐picture, one which is, however, essentially agnostic about ultimate meanings. I characterize my position as being that of “David Hume brought up‐to‐date by Charles Darwin.” I express sad skepticism about ever realizing the hopes on which Zygon was founded.

Does modern evolutionary theory (specifically Darwinism) pose a problem for the Christian's thinking about morality? It certainly poses threats for those who would argue that certain practices are wrong because they are “unnatural.” Liberal Christians can probably get around these questions. But at a deeper level, despite superficial similarities between its conclusions and the Love Commandment, Darwinism points to an essential relativism about morality, thereby striking at the very core of all Christian thought on moral behavior. Thus, those who are (...) worried about the clash between science and religion have good reasons for their worries. (shrink)

Does Darwinism generally, and human sociobiology in particular, lead to an unwarranted (and possibly socially offensive) determinism? I argue that one must separate out different senses of determinism, and that once one has done this, a Darwinian approach to human nature can be seen to shed important light on our intuitions about free will, constraint, and control.

Many commentators propose that Hume thinks that we are not or should not be motivated to perform naturally virtuous actions from moral sentiments if we want our actions to be genuinely virtuous. It is this proposal with which I take issue in this article, arguing that Hume fully incorporates the moral sentiments into his understanding of how human beings act when it comes to the natural virtues and that he does not see the moral sentiments as a problematic kind of (...) motivation that threatens or weakens the virtuous status of the action. (shrink)

This paper attempts to give a complete and coherent account of how Hume’s moral psychology can explain the cultivation of moral character. I argue that the outcome of a fully formed moral character is an agent who strengthens her calm moral sentiments into settled principles of action. I then take up the question of how the process of strengthening moral sentiments might occur, rejecting the possibilities of sympathy, “reflection,” and “resolution” because either they are too weak or else they make (...) the passion violent, preventing the essential calm nature of moral sentiments. I next argue that custom and the non-moral motives of pride and the love of fame play the critical roles in character formation. Custom can be considered as both the process of education, whereby certain impressions are habitually and formally inculcated into us by educators, and the process of experience in society and conversation, whereby we learn to associate pleasure with the virtues and pain with the vices. In both these processes, Hume implicitly appeals to certain non-moral motives, especially pride and the love of fame, in order to launch the effects of custom. (shrink)

Most naturalists think that the belief/desire model from Hume is the best framework for making sense of motivation. As Smith has argued, given that the cognitive state (belief) and the conative state (desire) are separate on this model, if a moral judgment is cognitive, it could not also be motivating by itself. So, it looks as though Hume and Humeans cannot hold that moral judgments are states of belief (moral cognitivism) and internally motivating (moral internalism). My chief claim is that (...) the details of Hume’s naturalistic philosophy of mind actually allow for a conjunction of these allegedly incompatible views. This thesis is significant, since readers typically have thought that Hume’s view that motivation is not produced by representations, coupled with his view that moral judgments motivate on their own, imply that moral judgments could never take the form of beliefs about, or representations of, the moral (virtue and vice). (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for an interpretation of Hume's Law that sees him as dismissing all possible arguments from is to ought on the basis of a comparison with his famous argument on induction.

It has long been claimed that moral judgements are dominated by reason. In recent years, however, the tide has turned. Many psychologists and philosophers now hold the view that there is a close empirical association between moral judgements and emotions. In particular, they claim that emotions (1) co-occur with moral judgements, (2) causally influence moral judgements, (3) are causally sufficient for moral judgements, and (4) are causally necessary for moral judgements. At first sight these hypotheses seem well-supported. In this paper (...) I show, however, that appearances are deceiving. If one considers the relevant scientific studies in detail, one finds that in many interpretations the above hypotheses are either not supported or even contradicted by the available evidence. This conclusion is significant both for our understanding of moral judgements qua empirical phenomena and for normative ethics and metaethics. (shrink)

My first paper on the Is/Ought issue. The young Arthur Prior endorsed the Autonomy of Ethics, in the form of Hume’s No-Ought-From-Is (NOFI) but the later Prior developed a seemingly devastating counter-argument. I defend Prior's earlier logical thesis (albeit in a modified form) against his later self. However it is important to distinguish between three versions of the Autonomy of Ethics: Ontological, Semantic and Ontological. Ontological Autonomy is the thesis that moral judgments, to be true, must answer to a realm (...) of sui generis non-natural PROPERTIES. Semantic autonomy insists on a realm of sui generis non-natural PREDICATES which do not mean the same as any natural counterparts. Logical Autonomy maintains that moral conclusions cannot be derived from non-moral premises.-moral premises with the aid of logic alone. Logical Autonomy does not entail Semantic Autonomy and Semantic Autonomy does not entail Ontological Autonomy. But, given some plausible assumptions Ontological Autonomy entails Semantic Autonomy and given the conservativeness of logic – the idea that in a valid argument you don’t get out what you haven’t put in – Semantic Autonomy entails Logical Autonomy. So if Logical Autonomy is false – as Prior appears to prove – then Semantic and Ontological Autonomy would appear to be false too! I develop a version of Logical Autonomy (or NOFI) and vindicate it against Prior’s counterexamples, which are also counterexamples to the conservativeness of logic as traditionally conceived. The key concept here is an idea derived in part from Quine - that of INFERENCE-RELATIVE VACUITY. I prove that you cannot derive conclusions in which the moral terms appear non-vacuously from premises from which they are absent. But this is because you cannot derive conclusions in which ANY (non-logical) terms appear non-vacuously from premises from which they are absent Thus NOFI or Logical Autonomy comes out as an instance of the conservativeness of logic. This means that the reverse entailment that I have suggested turns out to be a mistake. The falsehood of Logical Autonomy would not entail either the falsehood Semantic Autonomy or the falsehood of Ontological Autonomy, since Semantic Autonomy only entails Logical Autonomy with the aid of the conservativeness of logic of which Logical Autonomy is simply an instance. Thus NOFI or Logical Autonomy is vindicated, but it turns out to be a less world-shattering thesis than some have supposed. It provides no support for either non-cognitivism or non-naturalism. (shrink)

Derek Parfit claims that “Williams and Mackie…do not use the normative concepts that I and other Non-Naturalists use.” Whatever we think of Parfit’s interpretation of Williams, his interpretation of Mackie should be rejected. For understandable historical reasons, Mackie’s texts are ambiguous. But if we apply to the interpretation of Mackie the same principle of charity Parfit employs in interpreting Williams, we find decisive reason to interpret Mackie as using the same normative concepts as Non-Naturalists.

Different versions of the idea that individualism about agency is the root of standard game theoretical puzzles have been defended by Regan 1980, Bacharach, Hurley, Sugden :165–181, 2003), and Tuomela 2013, among others. While collectivistic game theorists like Michael Bacharach provide formal frameworks designed to avert some of the standard dilemmas, philosophers of collective action like Raimo Tuomela aim at substantive accounts of collective action that may explain how agents overcoming such social dilemmas would be motivated. This paper focuses on (...) the conditions on collective action and intention that need to be fulfilled for Bacharach’s “team reasoning” to occur. Two influential approaches to collective action are related to the idea of team reasoning: Michael Bratman’s theory of shared intention and Raimo Tuomela’s theory of a we-mode of intending. I argue that neither captures the “agency transformation” that team reasoning requires. That might be an acceptable conclusion for Bratman but more problematic for Tuomela, who claims that Bacharach’s results support his theory. I sketch an alternative framework in which the perspectival element that is required for team reasoning - the ‘we-perspective’ - can be understood and functionally characterized in relation to the traditional distinction between mode and content of intentional states. I claim that the latter understanding of a collective perspective provides the right kind of philosophical background for team reasoning, and I discuss some implications in relation to Tuomela’s assumption that switching between individual and collective perspectives can be a matter of rational choice. (shrink)

Hume is rightly credited with giving a brilliant, and perhaps the best, account of justice as convention. Hume's importance as a forerunner of modern economics has also long been recognized. However, most of Hume's readers have not fully appreciated how closely Hume's analysis of convention foreshadows a particular branch of economic theory, namely, game theory. Starting with the work of Barry, Runciman and Sen and Lewis, there has been a flowering of literature on the informal game-theoretic insights to be found (...) in classics of political philosophy such as Hobbes, Locke, Hume and Rousseau. A number of authors in this tradition, including Lewis, Gauthier, Mackie, and Postema, have identified passages in Hume which they interpret as giving informal examples of specific games. Yet, unlike his predecessors, Hobbes and Locke, Hume does much more than present examples which have a game-theoretic structure. In his account of convention, Hume gives general conditions which characterize the resolution of social interaction problems, and in the examples he uses to illustrate this account, Hume outlines several different methods by which agents can arrive at such a resolution. Hume's general account of convention and his explanations of the origins of particular conventions together constitute a theory of strategic interaction, which is precisely what game theory aspires to be. (shrink)

O presente artigo apresenta o cognitivismo moral pragmático como forma de superar as antinomias clássicas entre cegos e não-cegos e a possibilidade de representação mental do conteúdo moral. Esta posição é sustentada a partir da reconstrução do debate metaético instaurado entre cognitivistas e não-cognitivistas, especialmente nas interpretações fornecidas pelo realismo moral de McDowell e pelo quase-realismo de Blackburn. Assim, o pressuposto comum a essas duas teorias metaéticas [cognitivismo e não-cognitivismo] pretende ser superado pelo cognitivismo pragmático, uma vez que suas falsas (...) dicotomias partem da tese de que todo conhecimento moral é proposicional. Para sanar esse paradoxo, evitamos uma dicotomia radical entre fatos e valores, isto é, não há ações que podem ser valoradas extrinsecamente ao contexto do seu uso. (shrink)

This paper considers and argues against old and recent readings of Hume according to which his account of moral judgement is non-cognitivist. In previous discussions of this topic, crucial metaethical distinctions-between sentimentalism and non-cognitivism and between psychological and semantic non-cognitivism-are often blurred. The paper aims to remedy this and argues that making the appropriate metaethical distinctions undermines alleged support for non-cognitivist interpretations of Hume. The paper focuses in particular on Hume's so-called 'motivation argument' and argues that it is a poor (...) basis for non-cognitivist interpretations. While there is textual support for attributing to Hume what may be called 'modally weak' motivational internalism, there is no solid textual support for attributing to him either psychological or semantic non-cognitivism. The paper also challenges briefly some further alleged support for non-cognitivist interpretations. It concludes by offering some positive evidence against such interpretations, namely that Hume appears to hold that there are moral beliefs and moral knowledge. (shrink)

Although Hume has no developed semantic theory, in the heyday of analytic philosophy he was criticized for his “meaning empiricism,” which supposedly committed him to a private world of ideas, led him to champion a genetic account of meaning instead of an analytic one, and confused “impressions” with “perceptions of an objective realm.” But another look at Hume’s “meaning empiricism” reveals that his criterion for cognitive content, the cornerstone both of his resolutely anti-metaphysical stance and his naturalistic “science of human (...) nature,” provides the basis for a successful response to his critics. Central to his program for reforming philosophy, Hume’s use of the criterion has two distinct aspects: a critical or negative aspect, which assesses the content of the central notions of metaphysical theories to demonstrate their unintelligibility; and a constructive or positive aspect, which accurately determines the cognitive content of terms and ideas. (shrink)

Here is an appealing position: one reason to pursue interaction with people from backgrounds that differ from our own is that doing so can improve our moral judgment. As some scholars have noticed, this position seems pedigreed by support from the famed philosophers of human sociability, David Hume and Adam Smith. But regardless of whether Hume or Smith personally held anything like the appealing position, neither might have had theoretically grounded reason to do so. In fact, both philosophers explain moral (...) judgment in ways that seem to present obstacles to the acceptance of the appealing position. This paper entertains the possibility that either of their moral theories contains resources to overcome these obstacles and implies the appealing position. I argue that Smith's theory does so more straightforwardly than Hume's does. This difference, I also argue, reveals something important about the Hume-Smith philosophical relationship. I close by sketching a way to fit the source of the appealing position in Smith's moral psychology with his focus on the desire for mutual sympathy. (shrink)

El presente artículo ofrece una solución al problema metaético que florece en la ética humeana a propósito de la conciliación entre el cognitivismo derivado de la exigencia del General Point of View y el internalismo moral que se deriva de su argumento de la motivación. Asumiendo una descripción evolutiva en la construcción de la perspectiva evaluativa representada por el General Point of View, al tiempo que un proyectivismo epistemológico para los juicios causales que conectan las motivaciones, acciones y utilidad de (...) los distintos caracteres que surgen en el origen de la justicia, se puede conciliar -sin riesgo para la consistencia del planteamiento humeano- la existencia de individuos capaces de generar juicios morales cognitivos que derivan en una motivación moral internalista, identificada con el sentido del deber, e individuos con motivaciones claramente externalistas basadas en el uso instrumental de la razón. (shrink)

Early in his career and in critical engagement with ordinary language philosophy, John Mackie developed the roots of a methodology that would be fundamental to his thinking: Mackie argues that we need to clearly separate the conceptual analysis which determines the meaning of an ordinary term and the factual analysis which is concerned with the question what, if anything, our language corresponds to in the world. I discuss how Mackie came to develop this distinction and how central ideas of his (...) philosophy are based on it. Using the examples of Mackie’s moral skepticism and his work on Locke’s theory of perception I show how his methodology opens the door to error theories but can also support more positive claims. Finally, I put Mackie’s methodology in a historical perspective and argue that in cases like the Gettier debate, we can use it to cast light on the vagueness of the underlying methodology in some philosophical debates. (shrink)

The paper advances a Humean metaethical analysis of "intrinsic value" - a notion fundamental in moral philosophy in general and particularly so in environmental ethics. The analysis reduces an object's moral properties (e.g., its value) to the empirical relations between the object's natural properties and people's psychological dispositions to respond to them. Moral properties turn out to be both objective and subjective, but in ways compatible with, and complementary to, each other. Next, the paper investigates whether the Humean analysis can (...) support non-anthropocentric environmental ethical theories, which attribute intrinsic value to nonhuman natural entities. It argues that one of the most useful resources from Hume for non-anthropocentrism is his account of justice as an artificial virtue, which is a plausible model for the internalization of various environmentally friendly conventions and the creation of environmental values. Finally, the paper concludes that any Humean account of intrinsic value is empiricist all the way down. Moral questions about what things are intrinsically valuable, and to what extent they are so, are ultimately empirical questions about complex psychological capacities and dispositions of human beings, which cannot be single-handedly answered by philosophers a priori; and that ethics is more appropriately seen as an interdisciplinary investigation, requiring collaboration among the various psychological and social sciences, human biological and neurological sciences, and history and philosophy. (shrink)

Hume’s examination of the conventions of property, trade, and contract addresses the moral foundations that make business possible. In this light, Hume’s theory of justice is also a foundational work in business ethics. In Hume’s analysis of these conventions, both philosophers and game theorists have correctly identified “proto” game-theoretic elements. One of the few attempts to offer a Humean theory of business ethics rests on this game-theoretic interpretation of Hume’s argument. This article argues that game-theoretic reasoning is only one part (...) of a Humean business ethics and this can be shown by further analyzing Hume’s theory of justice. As we examine his theory, it becomes clear that Hume is not trying to show how it is always rational to respect the rules of business. Hume is not engaging in, or attempting, a reconciliation project and neither is a Humean business ethics. The final section of the article is a brief Humean analysis of the effectiveness of codes of ethics. The purpose of this section is not to decide the issue but to show how a Humean approach is both useful, relevant, and involves more than reconciling rationality and morality. (shrink)

RESUMO Neste texto argumento que a filosofia moral de Hume tem uma base realista num sentido específico. Os sentimentos "peculiares" da moralidade, as formas morais de dor e prazer na contemplação das ações, sentimentos e caracteres dos outros, estão assentados sobre uma base pertencente à nossa sensibilidade que envolve o fato bruto da realidade da dor e do prazer. Argumento que a ênfase de Hume na "praticalidade" da moral não está a serviço prioritariamente de um projeto filosófico de explicação do (...) fenômeno moral, mas remete ao fundamento realista da moralidade em sentimentos humanos: "coisas" sentidas por seres humanos a respeito de outros seres humanos. Embora com implicações para a discussão tradicional sobre a ontologia moral de Hume, minha análise procura mostrar que o fundamento encontrado responde, de acordo com a orientação empirista em filosofia, a uma pergunta anterior sobre o que é real quando estão em jogo os interesses práticos de nossas vidas, por oposição aos teóricos. ABSTRACT I argue that Hume's moral philosophy is, basically, realist in that the "peculiar" sentiments constituting morality, the moral forms of pain and pleasure in the contemplation of actions, sentiments and characters are based on our sensibility as it reveals the brute realities of pain and pleasure. I argue that the place of pride Hume gives to the "practicality" of morals is not primarily in the service of the explanation of the moral phenomenon, it concerns rather the realist grounding of morality in the human sentiments: what we feel in regard to other human beings. In spite of the implications to the traditional discussion about Hume's morals ontology, my analysis aims to show that such a grounding answers, in tandem with the empiricist commitments of Hume's philosophy, the previous question about what is real when what concerns us are the practical interests of our lives, not merely the theoretical ones. (shrink)

The moral error theory has become increasingly popular in recent decades. So much so indeed that a new issue emerged, the so-called “now-what problem”: if all our moral beliefs are false, then what should we do with them? So far, philosophers who are interested in this problem have focused their attention on the mode of the attitudes we should have with respect to moral propositions. Some have argued that we should keep holding proper moral beliefs; others that we should replace (...) our moral beliefs with fictional attitudes, beliefs in natural facts, or conative attitudes. But all these philosophers have set aside an important question about the content of these attitudes: which moral propositions, and more generally which moral theory, should we accept? The present paper addresses this neglected issue, arguing that moral error theorists should adopt a utilitarian moral fiction. In other words, they should accept the set of moral principles whose general acceptance would maximize overall well-being. (shrink)

J. L. Mackie argued that if there were objective moral properties or facts, then the supervenience relation linking the nonmoral to the moral would be metaphysically queer. Moral realists reply that objective supervenience relations are ubiquitous according to contemporary versions of metaphysical naturalism and, hence, that there is nothing especially queer about moral supervenience. In this paper we revive Mackie's challenge to moral realism. We argue: (i) that objective supervenience relations of any kind, moral or otherwise, should be explainable rather (...) than sui generis; (ii) that this explanatory burden can be successfully met vis-à-vis the supervenience of the mental upon the physical, and in other related cases; and (iii) that the burden cannot be met for (putative) objective moral supervenience relations. (shrink)