Most agree that when it comes to so-called 'first-order' normative ethics and political philosophy, constructivist views are a powerful family of positions. When it comes to metaethics, however, there is serious disagreement about what, if anything, constructivism has to contribute. In this paper I argue that constructivist views in ethics include not just a family of substantive normative positions, but also a distinct and highly attractive metaethical view. I argue that the widely accepted 'proceduralist characterization' of constructivism in ethics is (...) inadequate, and I propose what I call the 'practical standpoint characterization' in its place. I then offer a general taxonomy of constructivist positions in ethics. Since constructivism's standing as a family of substantive normative positions is relatively uncontested, I devote the remainder of the paper to addressing skeptics' worries about the distinctiveness of constructivism understood as a metaethical view. I compare and contrast constructivism with three other standard metaethical positions with which it is often confused or mistakenly thought to be compatible: realism; naturalist reductions in terms of an ideal response; and expressivism. In discussing the contrast with expressivism, I explain the sense in which, according to the constructivist, the distinction between substantive normative ethics and metaethics breaks down. I conclude by distinguishing between two importantly different debates about the mind-dependence of value. I argue that a failure to make this distinction is part of what explains why the possibility of constructivism as a metaethical view is often overlooked. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 18 Bart Streumer argues that all normative properties are descriptive properties. His first argument is based on the principle that necessarily coextensive predicates ascribe the same property, and the claim that there is a descriptive predicate that is necessarily coextensive with normative predicates. From this Streumer concludes that normative properties are identical with descriptive properties. I argue that, even if we accept, this conclusion does not follow. Normative properties could only be descriptive properties if there is (...) some descriptive way in which all instances of normative properties are similar. But Streumer does not show that, and the prospects for doing so are, I believe, not good. His second argument rests on the premise that the nature of normative properties cannot depend on which first order normative theory is true. I argue that this premise is false, and that the argument for it does not sit comfortably with. (shrink)

Some philosophers think that normative properties are identical to descriptive properties. In this paper, I argue that this entails that it is possible to say which descriptive properties normative properties are identical to. I argue that Frank Jackson's argument to show that this is possible fails, and that the objections to this argument show that it is impossible to say which descriptive properties normative properties are identical to. I conclude that normative properties are not identical to descriptive properties. I then (...) show that if we combine this conclusion with the conclusion of a different argument that Jackson has given to show that there are no irreducibly normative properties, it follows that there are no normative properties at all. (shrink)

I discuss Soames’s proposal that Moore could have avoided a central problem in his moral philosophy if he had utilized a method he himself pioneered in epistemology. The problem in Moore’s moral philosophy concerns what it is for a moral claim to be self-evident. The method in Moore’s epistemology concerns not denying the obvious. In review of the distance between something’s being self-evident and its being obvious, it is suggested that Soames’s proposal is mistaken.

This paper is about reasons to conserve, in particular why some things warrant being conserved. In discussing G. A. Cohen’s conservatism, I find strains of four answers to the question why, presumptively, we should not sacrifice existing valuable things, a fortiori destroy them for no overall gain in value. After criticizing the first three, I develop the fourth into a deflationary proposal. That is, it implicates just one sub-type of value and takes certain first-order properties – or the value supervening (...) on them – directly to warrant conservation of the things instantiating them. Rather than sanitizing status quo bias, moreover, my proposal happily bypasses it. (shrink)

Consider the utterances ‘our friendship is valuable’ and ‘I value our friendship’. On the face of it, these aren’t semantic equivalents: the former ascribes a property to our friendship, whereas the latter reports something about how I relate to our friendship. In this short paper, I first outline Samuel Scheffler’s account of valuing and of the difference between valuing and considering valuable. I then propose an amendment to his account of valuing, one which concerns how we interact with our value-related (...) emotions. Subsequently, I argue against Scheffler’s view of the distribution of valuing and considering valuable in the world. While I don’t deny that considering valuable without valuing is conceptually possible and indeed instantiated, I disagree that it’s typical within our evaluative lives. Next, I consider an obvious response to my empirical claim and sketch a dilemma which accompanies that response. Finally, I highlight two limits of my empirical claim. (shrink)

Consider the utterances ‘our friendship is valuable’ and ‘I value our friendship’. On the face of it, these aren’t semantic equivalents: the former ascribes a property to our friendship, whereas the latter reports something about how I relate to our friendship. In this short paper, I first outline Samuel Scheffler’s account of valuing and of the difference between valuing and considering valuable. I then propose an amendment to his account of valuing, one which concerns how we interact with our value-related (...) emotions. Subsequently, I argue against Scheffler’s view of the distribution of valuing and considering valuable in the world. While I don’t deny that considering valuable without valuing is conceptually possible and indeed instantiated, I disagree that it’s typical within our evaluative lives. Next, I consider an obvious response to my empirical claim and sketch a dilemma which accompanies that response. Finally, I highlight two limits of my empirical claim. (shrink)

The moving spotlight account (MS) is a view that combines an eternalist ontology and an A-theoretic metaphysics. The intuition underlying MS is that the present time is somehow privileged and experientially vivid, as if it were illuminated by a moving spotlight. According to MS-theorists, a key reason to prefer MS to B-theoretic eternalism is that our experience of time supports it. We argue that this is false. To this end, we formulate a new family of positions in the philosophy of (...) time, which differ from MS in that, intuitively, they admit a plurality of moving spotlights. We argue that these ‘deviant’ variants of MS cannot be dismissed as conceptually incoherent, and that they are as well-supported by our experience as is MS. One of these variants, however, is consistent with the B-theory. Thus, if our experience of time supports MS, then it supports the B-theory as well. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom generally seeks to support the notion that we cannot arrive at ethics by considerations of the state of the world. If we do this we are guilty of committing the ‘Naturalistic Fallacy’. This paper seeks to refute these contentions. I it I note that words are tools that humans use with the intention of promoting their survival. This ties into ethics, which are essentially a subset of the words used to promote human survival through their use in expressing (...) intentions of the way humans should behave. So ethics are a product of our evolution and, like words, they occupy the status of survival promoting tools. This paper argues that there is no category difference in the words that we use to describe the world or those used with the intention of promoting particular human behaviours—both are used with the intention of enhancing human survival. (shrink)

Consequentialists often assume rational monism: the thesis that options are always made rationally permissible by the maximization of the selfsame quantity. This essay argues that consequentialists should reject rational monism and instead accept rational pluralism: the thesis that, on different occasions, options are made rationally permissible by the maximization of different quantities. The essay then develops a systematic form of rational pluralism which, unlike its rivals, is capable of handling both the Newcomb problems that challenge evidential decision theory and the (...) unstable problems that challenge causal decision theory. (shrink)

Many take the claim that you cannot ‘get’ an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ to imply that non- moral beliefs are by themselves incapable of justifying moral beliefs. I argue that this is a mistake and that the position that moral beliefs are justified exclusively by non-moral beliefs—a view that I call moral inferentialism—presents an attractive non-sceptical moral epistemology.

So begins a recent ontological argument. But what if there are no most perfect beings? Letting God be one, that is, letting “God” name one at the very beginning seems premature. Clearly it is best to leave “God” out of the argument until one is in a position to introduce him by existential instantiation, or, by further argumentation, to identify him with a most perfect being: clearly it is best to leave “God” out of the argument until it has been (...) established that there is a most perfect being. (shrink)

Moral properties would supervene upon non-moral properties and be conceptually autonomous. That, according to Simon Blackburn, would make them if not impossible at least mysterious, and evidence for them best explained by theorists who say they are not real. In fact moral properties would not challenge in ways Blackburn has contended. There is, however, something new that can be gathered from his arguments. What would the supervenience of moral properties and their conceptual autonomy from at least total non-moral properties entail (...) not only for Intuitionists, who ‘knew this all along,’ but for all moral realists, that there are synthetic necessary moral principles? There is for all moral realists the problem of explaining ‘what in the world’ makes possible these necessities. (shrink)

Reply to Beaney: the closing of the historical mindIn his comments, Michael Beaney sets himself up as the arbiter of what is genuine history and what isn’t. While celebrating the outpouring of specialized scholarship on Frege, he has no patience with the enterprise outlined in the Précis, which attempts to construct a large-scale picture of the richness of the analytic tradition. That enterprise is one in which great figures of our recent past are challenged by aspects of contemporary thought, and (...) our current struggles are enriched by insights of theirs that haven’t been fully absorbed. Although some work of this sort can be done piecemeal, one historical figure at a time, there is much to be learned from a more encompassing perspective. While no picture constructed by a single author can be authoritative about everything, the attempt to give informative, connected assessments of major milestones in the tradition is our best hope of understanding who we are and where we have come from. (shrink)

A promising but underexplored view about normative reasons is contrastivism, which holds that considerations are fundamentally reasons for things only relative to sets of alternatives. Contrastivism gains an advantage over non-contrastive theories by holding that reasons relative to different sets of alternatives can be independent of one another. But this feature also raises a serious problem: we need some way of constraining this independence. I develop a version of contrastivism that provides the needed constraints, and that is independently motivated by (...) the widespread idea that reasons involve the promotion of various kinds of objectives. (shrink)

The idea that intuition plays a basic role in moral knowledge and moral philosophy probably began in the eighteenth century. British philosophers such as Anthony Shaftsbury, Francis Hutcheson, Thomas Reid, and later David Hume talk about a “moral sense” that they place in John Locke’s theory of knowledge in terms of Lockean reflexive perceptions, while Richard Price seeks a faculty by which we obtain our ideas of right and wrong. In the twentieth century intuitionism in moral philosophy was revived by (...) the works of G. E. Moore, H. A. Prichard, and W. D. Ross. These philosophers reject Kantian deontological ethics and utilitarianism insisting that intuition is the only source of moral knowledge. Recently, there is a renewed interest in intuition by philosophers doing meta-philosophy by reflecting on what philosophers do, and why they disagree. In this essay we plan to take some of this recent literature on intuition and apply it to moral philosophy. We will proceed by defining a conception of intuition, answering some skeptical challenges, delimiting its target, and arguing that intuition is often a source of moral knowledge. (shrink)

Most philosophers since Sidgwick have thought that the various forms of pleasure differ so radically that one cannot find a common, distinctive feeling among them. This is known as the heterogeneity problem. To get around this problem, the motivational theory of pleasure suggests that what makes an experience one of pleasure is our reaction to it, not something internal to the experience. I argue that the motivational theory is wrong, and not only wrong, but backwards. The heterogeneity problem is the (...) principal source of motivation for this, otherwise, highly counterintuitive theory. I intend to show that the heterogeneity problem is not a genuine problem and that a more straightforward theory of pleasure is forthcoming. I argue that the various experiences that we call pleasures all feel good. (shrink)

In debates on the ethics of artificial gametes, concepts of naturalness have been used in a number of different ways. Some have argued that the unnaturalness of artificial gametes means that it is unacceptable to use them in fertility treatments. Others have suggested that artificial gametes are no less natural than many other tissues or processes in common medical use. We suggest that establishing the naturalness or unnaturalness of artificial gametes is unlikely to provide easy answers as to the acceptability (...) of using them in fertility medicine. However, we also suggest that we should be cautious about repudiating any relationship between nature and moral evaluation. The property of being natural or man-made may not per se tell us anything about an entity’s moral status, but it has an important impact on the moral relationship between the creator and the created organism. (shrink)

Relatively short Dutch introduction to an evolutionary approach to morality. A synthesis is given of various models of moral evolution. Some remarks are made on a way to look at the evolution of a compatibilistic 'free will' and a model is given of a way in which the 'good' can be understood as the results of shared interests (which, of course, gives an incomplete model, but at the same time throws a lot of light on the way in which we (...) have to resolve ethical issues). (shrink)

The relevance of different concepts of computer software (henceforth SW) rights is analysed from the viewpoint of divergent sociopolitical doctrines. The question of software rights is considered from the ontological assumptions, on one extreme, to the relevance of current practical applications of SW rights (such as copyright and patent), on the other extreme. It will be argued (from a non-descriptive/non-cognitive account) that the current expression of SW rights in Western societies (namely copyright, excluding patent) can be seen to be fair (...) from the viewpoint of the theses of agreed rights and universalisability. Finally, given that such practice is neither immoral, nor irrelevant-but fair (based on the ad ignorantiam argument)-we have good reason to respect it rather than violate or demolish it. (shrink)

This paper applies the theory of teleosemantics to the issue of moral content. Two versions of teleosemantics are distinguished: input-based and output-based. It is argued that applying either to the case of moral judgements generates the conclusion that such judgements have both descriptive (belief-like) and directive (desire-like) content, intimately entwined. This conclusion directly validates neither descriptivism nor expressivism, but the application of teleosemantics to moral content does leave the descriptivist with explanatory challenges which the expressivist does not face. Since teleosemantics (...) ties content to function, the paper also offers an account of the evolutionary function of moral judgements. (shrink)

MacIntyre argues that management embodies emotivism, and thus is inherently amoral and manipulative. His claim that management is necessarily Weberian is, at best, outdated, and the notion that management aims to be neutral and value free is incorrect. However, new forms of management, and in particular the increased emphasis on leadership which emerged after MacIntyre’s critique was published, tend to support his central charge. Indeed, charismatic and transformational forms of leadership seem to embody emotivism to a greater degree than do (...) more Weberian, bureaucratic forms of management; hence, MacIntyre’s central contention about our emotivistic culture seems to be well founded. Having criticised the details but defended the essence of MacIntyre’s critique of management, this paper sketches a MacIntyrean approach to management and leadership by highlighting the affinities between MacIntyre’s political philosophy and Greenleaf’s concept of servant leadership. (shrink)

Ontological pluralism is the view that there are different fundamental ways of being. Trenton Merricks has recently raised three objections to combining pluralism with a generic way of being enjoyed by absolutely everything there is: first, that the resulting view contradicts the pluralist’s core intuition; second, that it is especially vulnerable to the charge—due to Peter van Inwagen—that it posits a difference in being where there is simply a difference in kind; and, third, that it is in tension with various (...) historically influential motivations for pluralism. I reply to each of these objections in turn. My replies will help to bring out the true nature of the pluralist’s basic commitments. (shrink)

Der Beitrag untersucht mögliche Kriterien für die normative Bewertung der künstlichen Ernährung bei nichteinwilligungsfähigen Patienten. Der in der aktuellen Diskussion immer wieder unternommene Versuch, den verpflichtenden Charakter bestimmter Formen der Ernährung aufgrund ihrer Zuordnung zu den Kategorien „Basisbetreuung“ oder „Remedia ordinaria“ zu begründen, erweist sich als naturalistischer Fehlschluss. Die Rechtfertigung der künstlichen Nahrungs- und Flüssigkeitszufuhr setzt vielmehr—wie die jeder anderen medizinischen Maßnahme—voraus, dass ihre Durchführung medizinisch begründet und vom Patienten gewollt ist. Dies trifft grundsätzlich auch auf den nicht mehr einwilligungsfähigen (...) Patienten zu; bei diesem kommt es auf den früher erklärten oder mutmaßlichen Willen an. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Beitrag untersucht mögliche Kriterien für die normative Bewertung der künstlichen Ernährung bei nichteinwilligungsfähigen Patienten. Der in der aktuellen Diskussion immer wieder unternommene Versuch, den verpflichtenden Charakter bestimmter Formen der Ernährung aufgrund ihrer Zuordnung zu den Kategorien „Basisbetreuung“ oder „Remedia ordinaria“ zu begründen, erweist sich als naturalistischer Fehlschluss. Die Rechtfertigung der künstlichen Nahrungs- und Flüssigkeitszufuhr setzt vielmehr—wie die jeder anderen medizinischen Maßnahme—voraus, dass ihre Durchführung medizinisch begründet und vom Patienten gewollt ist. Dies trifft grundsätzlich auch auf den nicht mehr einwilligungsfähigen (...) Patienten zu; bei diesem kommt es auf den früher erklärten oder mutmaßlichen Willen an. (shrink)

Kolodny and MacFarlane have made a pioneering contribution to our understanding of how the interpretation of deontic modals can be sensitive to evidence and information. But integrating the discussion of information-sensitivity into the standard Kratzerian framework for modals suggests ways of capturing the relevant data without treating deontic modals as “informational modals” in their sense. I show that though one such way of capturing the data within the standard semantics fails, an alternative does not. Nevertheless I argue that we have (...) good reasons to adopt an information-sensitive semantics of the general type Kolodny and MacFarlane describe. Contrary to the standard semantics, relative deontic value between possibilities sometimes depends on which possibilities are live. I develop an ordering semantics for deontic modals that captures this point and addresses various complications introduced by integrating the discussion of information-sensitivity into the standard semantic framework. By attending to these complexities, we can also illuminate various roles that information and evidence play in logical arguments, discourse, and deliberation. (shrink)

The International Commission on Radiological Protection — whose regularly updated recommendations are routinely adopted as law throughout the globe — recently issued the first-ever ICRP protections for the environment. These draft 2005 proposals are significant both because they offer the commission’s first radiation protections for any non-human parts of the planet and because they will influence both the quality of radiation risk assessment and environmental protection, as well as the global costs of nuclear-weapons cleanup, reactor decommissioning and radioactive waste management. (...) This piece argues that the 2005 recommendations are scientifically and ethically flawed, or gray, in at least three respects: first, in largely ignoring scientific journals while employing mainly “gray literature;” second, in relying on non-transparent dose estimates and models, rather than on actual radiation measurements; and third, in ignoring classical ethical constraints on acceptable radiation risk. (shrink)

Eighty percent of (commercial) genetically engineered seeds (GES) are designed only to resist herbicides. Letting farmers use more chemicals, they cut labor costs. But developing nations say GES cause food shortages, unemployment, resistant weeds, and extinction of native cultivars when “volunteers” drift nearby. While GES patents are reasonable, this paper argues many patent policies are not. The paper surveys GE technology, outlines John Locke’s classic account of property rights, and argues that current patent policies must be revised to take account (...) of Lockean ethical constraints. After answering a key objection, it provides concrete suggestions for implementing its ethical conclusions. (shrink)

US testing of nuclear weapons has resulted in about 800,000 premature fatal cancers throughout the globe, and the nuclear tests of China, France, India, Russia, and the UK have added to this total. Surprisingly, however, these avoidable deaths have not received much attention, as compared, for example, to the smaller number of US fatalities on 9-11-01. This essay (1) surveys the methods and models used to assess effects of low-dose ionizing radiation from above-ground nuclear weapons tests and (2) explains some (...) of the epistemological and logical problems (with these methods and models) that have caused scientists to decide against health screening of the most likely test victims. It also (3) argues that, once the faulty presuppositions and question-begging frames about testing and screening are recognized, there are compelling arguments in favor of nuclear-test nations'' screening fallout victims, at least among their citizens. Finally, it (4) suggests that logically and epistemically flawed fallout studies/recommendations against screening are more like to occur when scientists adopt a Laudan-style comparativist rationality, rather than when they adopt a metascience more like that of Kuhn and others. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the claim that self-consciousness is highly morally significant, such that the fact that an entity is self-conscious generates strong moral reasons against harming or killing that entity. This claim is apparently very intuitive, but I argue it is false. I consider two ways to defend this claim: one indirect, the other direct. The best-known arguments relevant to self-consciousness's significance take the indirect route. I examine them and argue that in various ways they depend on unwarranted (...) assumptions about self-consciousness's functional significance, and once these assumptions are undermined, motivation for these arguments dissipates. I then consider the direct route to self-consciousness's significance, which depends on claims that self-consciousness has intrinsic value or final value. I argue what intrinsic or final value self-consciousness possesses is not enough to generate strong moral reasons against harming or killing. (shrink)

A responsabilidade enquanto princípio ético proposta por Hans Jonas representa uma das reflexões morais indispensáveis à civilização tecnológica. Ao ampliar o universo moral também para a natureza extra-humana, e sua opção em recorrer à biologia como fundamento para o princípio responsabilidade, facilitou a associação do pensador com a moral naturalista. A tese aqui apresentada é de que o autor, embora recorra à biologia, não defende uma moral naturalista, afastando-se assim do que ficou conhecido como falácia naturalista. O “novo” da filosofia (...) de Jonas é que o dever fundamenta-se de modo ontológico, por isso a responsabilidade torna-se um dever ontológico e não moral: o homem tem que ser responsável porque ele é responsável ontologicamente. Não se trata de extrair uma ética da ontologia, pois a ética está contida no fato primordial da vida, visto que o dever ser está inserido no próprio Ser, o que faz Jonas usar da ontologia presente na natureza como fundamento da ética. Por ser ontológica e não racional, a liberdade não é um privilégio humano. Reinserido na natureza, o homem reafirma-se numa espécie de ontobiologia e sua proposta classifica-se como uma biologização do ser moral. (shrink)

This paper explores the ethical dimensions of some of the current issues engaging rural India, affecting 600 million people. It uses the evolutionary framework of Sri Aurobindo's integral yoga, and also tags on to it the rights concepts of Amartya Sen's ethics. It attempts to take a balanced view between Ambedkar's perception of the ancient Indian village as a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism, and the more common and traditional, but historically untrue, idealized view of (...) the Vedic times. In this process it also steers clear of the pitfalls in the Marxist writings or positivist research, which has taken a wrong position that there was no rule of law and therefore no ethics as understood in modern times. It then attempts to show the more eternal features of perennial ethics in India, the idiom, institutions and the instruments it has nurtured, and the manner it is getting integrated with and is supportive of evolving modern values of democracy and social justice in Indian villages. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Joel Feinberg was wrong to suppose that liberals must oppose any criminalization of “harmless immorality”. The problem with a theory that permits criminalization only on the basis of his harm and offense principles is that it is underinclusive, ruling out laws that most liberals believe are justified. One objection (Arthur Ripstein’s) is that Feinberg’s theory is unable to account for the criminalization of harmless personal grievances. Another (Larry Alexander’s and Robert George’s) is that it (...) cannot account for public decency laws. I shall reject both of these underinclusiveness objections in favor of one that focuses on the “free floating evil” of corpse desecration. Liberals need “pure” legal moralism (PLM) to explain their support for a criminal ban on mistreatment of the dead. I also argue that while deterrence is plausibly regarded as the primary rationale for criminalizing and punishing wrongs like murder or rape, it is not plausibly regarded as any part of the rationale for criminalizing free floating evils. The point of punishing corpse desecrators has to be either retribution or the promotion of virtue/discouraging of vice. Finally, I consider Feinberg’s reason for rejecting all PLM, namely, that competent adults have a right to personal sovereignty or autonomy, and the state’s duty to respect that right trumps the desirability of punishing or reducing the vice associated with harmless immorality. I argue that Feinberg’s argument here fails because it exaggerates the right’s strength and scope. (shrink)

Reply to Shafer-Landau, Mcpherson, and Dancy Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11098-010-9659-0 Authors Mark Schroeder, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116.

The paper clarifies what is at stake in the theory/antitheory debate in ethics and articulates the distinctive core of the method of reflective equilibrium which distinguishes it from a generic coherence constraint. I call this distinctive core 'maieutic reflection'. The paper then argues that if she accepts constructivist views in metaethics, a proponent of the method of reflective equilibrium will be committed to the existence of a moral theory.

ABSTRACT:In response to criticism of empirical or “positive” approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR), we defend the importance of these approaches for any CSR theory that seeks to have practical impact. Although we acknowledge limitations to positive approaches, we unpack the neglected but crucial relationships between positive knowledge on the one hand and normative knowledge on the other in the implementation of CSR principles. Using the structure of a practical syllogism, we construct a model that displays the key role of (...) empirical knowledge in fulfilling a firm’s responsibility to society, paying special attention to the implications of the “ought implies can” dictum. We also defend the importance of one particular class of empirical claims; namely, claims from the field of economics. Even positive economic theory, which is often criticized for endorsing profits rather than values, can cooperate in intriguing ways with non-economic concepts in the implementation of CSR goals. (shrink)

Over the past decade, New Atheists have campaigned against the influence of religion in public life and favored a more enlightened understanding of the world ? one based on the methods and theories of the natural sciences. Although the leaders of this movement refuse to give religion, even moderate religion, any place in determining moral conduct, they offer few alternatives. Most define moral responsibility by referring to facts about human biology or natural moral intuitions, yet without adequately defending this or (...) exploring the possibilities of non-naturalistic secular moralities. This essay argues that New Atheists' moral theories tend to be weak because of their naturalist assumptions. Its leading proponents seem to be unwilling to acknowledge that moral philosophy can play a role in developing secular moral precepts because philosophy fails to meet their strong criteria of scientific validity. This position is misguided not only because it has led New Atheists to defend weak moral theories but also because the methods of inquiry used in moral philosophy make it distinct from faith for many of the same reasons that the New Atheists think that science is distinct from faith. (shrink)

During the 1980s, empirical social sciences and normative theory seemingly converged within ethical debates. This tendency kindled new debates about the limits and possibilities of empirical-normative collaboration. The article asks for adequate ways of collaboration by taking a closer look at the philosophy of science of empirical social sciences as well as normative theory development and its logical groundings. As a result, three possible modes of cooperation are characterized: first, the empirical assessment of conditions that actually necessitate the translation of (...) normatively derived basic principles into practice rules; second, the empirical assessment of conditions for application of a moral norm which are formulated by bridging principles; third, the empirical assessment of social practice which allows to measure whether adopted norms actually are implemented in practice or not and to encounter new moral problems which are in need of ethical guidance. Finally, the article defends a symbiotic position in Weaver ’s and Trevino's triad of possible approaches to empirical-normative collaboration in ethics. (shrink)

What does it take to count as competent with the meaning of a thin evaluative predicate like 'is the right thing to do'? According to minimalists like Allan Gibbard and Ralph Wedgwood, competent speakers must simply use the predicate to express their own motivational states. According to analytic descriptivists like Frank Jackson, Philip Pettit and Christopher Peacocke, competent speakers must grasp a particular criterion for identifying the property picked out by the term. Both approaches face serious difficulties. We suggest that (...) these difficulties derive from a shared background assumption that competence conditions must be explained in terms of a determinate conceptual role. We propose a new way of characterizing competence with evaluative terms: what's required for competence is participation in a shared epistemic practice with a term. Our approach, we argue, better explains the nature of evaluative inquiry and the extent of disagreement about evaluative questions. (shrink)

The ‘adjustment strategy’ currently seems to be the most common approach to incorporating objective elements into one's theory of well‐being. These theories face a certain problem, however, which can be avoided by a different approach – namely, that employed by ‘partially objective multi‐component theories.’ Several such theories have recently been proposed, but the question of how to understand their mathematical structure has not been adequately addressed. I argue that the most mathematically simple of these multi‐component theories fails, so I proceed (...) to investigate more sophisticated ways to formulate such a theory. I conclude that one of these – the Discount/Inflation Theory – is particularly promising. (shrink)

. I will argue that the concept of law is a normative notion, irreducible to any factual description. Its conceptual function is that of relating certain properties a norm may possess to the conclusion that the norm is legally binding, namely, that it deserves to be endorsed and applied in legal reasoning. Legal validity has to be distinguished from other, more demanding, normative ideas, such as moral bindingness or legal optimality.