Ordinary Language Philosophy has largely fallen out of favour, and with it the belief in the primary importance of analyses of ordinary language for philosophical purposes. Still, in their various endeavours, philosophers not only from analytic but also from other backgrounds refer to the use and meaning of terms of interest in ordinary parlance. In doing so, they most commonly appeal to their own linguistic intuitions. Often, the appeal to individual intuitions is supplemented by reference to dictionaries. In recent times, (...) Internet search engine queries for expressions of interest have become quite popular. Apparently, philosophers attempt to surpass the limits of their own linguistic intuitions by appealing to experts or to factual uses of language. I argue that this attempt is commendable but that its execution is wanting. Instead of appealing to dictionaries or Internet queries, philosophers should employ computer-based linguistic corpora in order to confirm or falsify hypotheses about the factual use of language. This approach also has some advantages over methods employed by experimental philosophers. If the importance of ordinary language is stressed, the use of linguistic corpora is hardly avoidable. (shrink)

Distributive egalitarians believe that distributive justice is to be explained by the idea of distributive equality (DE) and that DE is of intrinsic value. The socio-relational critique argues that distributive egalitarianism does not account for the “true” value of equality, which rather lies in the idea of “equality as a substantive social value” (ESV). This paper examines the socio-relational critique and argues that it fails because – contrary to what the critique presupposes –, first, ESV is not conceptually distinct from (...) DE, and second, the idea of ESV cannot serve as a “foundation” or “root” of distributive egalitarianism. (shrink)

According to G. E. Moore, moral expertise requires abilities of several kinds: the ability to factor judgments of right and wrong into (a) judgments of good and bad and (b) judgments of cause and effect, (2) the ability to use intuition to make the requisite judgments of good and bad, and (3) the ability to use empirical investigation to make the requisite judgments of cause and effect. Moore’s conception of moral expertise is thus extremely demanding, but he supplements it with (...) some very simple practical guidance. (shrink)

Este trabajo pretende ser una reconstrucción de uno del equilibrio reflexivo. Proporcionaré un concepto, enunciaré sus elementos y describiré cada uno de sus pasos. Afirmaré que puede suscribirse al uso del equilibrio reflexivo no solo desde esquemas coherentistas sino también –contrariamente a lo tradicionalmente sostenido- fundacionalistas. Afirmaré también que ambos esquemas pueden ser sensibles a la experiencia moral humana y que, por tanto, ninguno de los dos representa, necesariamente, un modo viciado de hacer filosofía moral. Finalmente, dado que muchas investigaciones (...) morales se edifican sobre la construcción de diferentes experimentos mentales, intentaré describir ciertas ventajas y desventajas de cada uno de ellos. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the philosophical relevance of empirical research on moral cognition. It distinguishes three central aims of normative ethical theory: understanding the nature of moral agency, identifying morally right actions, and determining the justification of moral beliefs. For each of these aims, the chapter considers and rejects arguments against employing cognitive scientific research in normative inquiry. It concludes by suggesting that, whichever of the central aims one begins from, normative ethics is improved by engaging with the science of moral (...) cognition. (shrink)

A basic conviction in moral non-cognitivism is: only hypothetical norms may be justified. Hartmut Kliemt argues for a moderate variant: there are only hypothetical justifications of norms whether the norms are hypothetical or categorical in kind. In this paper the con- cept of ‘hypothetical justification’ is analyzed. It is argued that hypothetical justifications are not of the kind that we should look for in normative ethics.

In this book, I defend the present-centered approach in historiography of science (i.e. study of the history of science), build an account for causal explanations in historiography of science, and show the fruitfulness of the approach and account in when we attempt to understand science. -/- The present-centered approach defines historiography of science as a field that studies the developments that led to the present science. I argue that the choice of the targets of studies in historiography of science should (...) be directly connected to our values and preferences in an intersubjective process. The main advantage of this approach is that it gives a clear motivation for historiography of science and avoids or solves stubborn conceptual and practical problems within the field. -/- The account of causal explanations is built on the notions of counterfactual scenarios and contrastive question-answer pairs. I argue that if and only if we track down patterns of counterfactual dependencies, can we understand history. Moreover, I define the notions of historical explanation, explanatory competition, explanatory depth, and explanatory resources. -/- Finally, I analyze the existing historiography of science with the framework built in the previous chapter, and I show that this framework clarifies many first-order (i.e. concerning the history of science) and meta-level issues (i.e. concerning the nature of science in general) that historians and philosophers tackle. As an illustration of the philosophical power of the framework, I explicate the notion of local explanation and analyze the question of whether the developments of science were necessary or contingent. (shrink)

According to the traditional Bayesian view of credence, its structure is that of precise probability, its objects are descriptive propositions about the empirical world, and its dynamics are given by conditionalization. Each of the three essays that make up this thesis deals with a different variation on this traditional picture. The first variation replaces precise probability with sets of probabilities. The resulting imprecise Bayesianism is sometimes motivated on the grounds that our beliefs should not be more precise than the evidence (...) calls for. One known problem for this evidentially motivated imprecise view is that in certain cases, our imprecise credence in a particular proposition will remain the same no matter how much evidence we receive. In the first essay I argue that the problem is much more general than has been appreciated so far, and that it’s difficult to avoid without compromising the initial evidentialist motivation. The second variation replaces descriptive claims with moral claims as the objects of credence. I consider three standard arguments for probabilism with respect to descriptive uncertainty—representation theorem arguments, Dutch book arguments, and accuracy arguments—in order to examine whether such arguments can also be used to establish probabilism with respect to moral uncertainty. In the second essay, I argue that by and large they can, with some caveats. First, I don’t examine whether these arguments can be given sound non-cognitivist readings, and any conclusions therefore only hold conditional on cognitivism. Second, decision-theoretic representation theorems are found to be less convincing in the moral case, because there they implausibly commit us to thinking that intertheoretic comparisons of value are always possible. Third and finally, certain considerations may lead one to think that imprecise probabilism provides a more plausible model of moral epistemology. The third variation considers whether, in addition to conditionalization, agents may also change their minds by becoming aware of propositions they had not previously entertained, and therefore not previously assigned any probability. More specifically, I argue that if we wish to make room for reflective equilibrium in a probabilistic moral epistemology, we must allow for awareness growth. In the third essay, I sketch the outline of such a Bayesian account of reflective equilibrium. Given that this account gives a central place to awareness growth, and that the rationality constraints on belief change by awareness growth are much weaker than those on belief change by conditionalization, it follows that the rationality constraints on the credences of agents who are seeking reflective equilibrium are correspondingly weaker. (shrink)

Recent trends in Cognitive Ethics have emphasized the conceptual debts with the development of the Science of Human Nature in the late 1600s and early 1700s. The paper deals mainly with two major theoretical approaches in the cognitive revolution, that is possible to offer an explanation of the cognitive mechanisms involved in moral decision processes in terms of abstract principles allegedly embedded in human nature; and that there might be substantive reasons to assume a moral faculty to account for the (...) capacity to issue a potential infinite number of considered moral judgments. (shrink)

How should an agent decide what to do when she is uncertain not just about morally relevant empirical matters, like the consequences of some course of action, but about the basic principles of morality itself? This question has only recently been taken up in a systematic way by philosophers. Advocates of moral hedging claim that an agent should weigh the reasons put forward by each moral theory in which she has positive credence, considering both the likelihood that that theory is (...) true and the strength of the reasons it posits. The view that it is sometimes rational to hedge for one's moral uncertainties, however, has recently come under attack both from those who believe that an agent should always be guided by the dictates of the single moral theory she deems most probable and from those who believe that an agent's moral beliefs are simply irrelevant to what she ought to do. Among the many objections to hedging that have been pressed in the recent literature is the worry that there is no non-arbitrary way of making the intertheoretic comparisons of moral value necessary to aggregate the value assignments of rival moral theories into a single ranking of an agent's options. -/- This dissertation has two principal objectives: First, I argue that, contra these recent objections, an agent's moral beliefs and uncertainties are relevant to what she rationally ought to do, and more particularly, that agents are at least sometimes rationally required to hedge for their moral uncertainties. My principal argument for these claims appeals to the enkratic conception of rationality, according to which the requirements of practical rationality derive from an agent's beliefs about the objective, desire-independent value or choiceworthiness of her options. Second, I outline a new general theory of rational choice under moral uncertainty. Central to this theory is the idea of content-based aggregation, that the principles according to which an agent should compare and aggregate rival moral theories are grounded in the content of those theories themselves, including not only their value assignments but also the metaethical and other non-surface-level propositions that underlie, justify, or explain those value assignments. (shrink)

In this essay, we argue against radical ethical views about human enhancement that either dismiss or endorse it tout court. Instead, we advocate the moderate stance that issues of enhancement should be examined with an open mind and on a case-by-case basis. To make this view plausible, we offer three reasons. The first lies in the fact that it is difficult to delineate enhancement conceptually, which makes it hard to argue for general ethical conclusions about it. The second is that (...) an appropriate view of the edifice of moral theory suggests that tenable moral judgements about human enhancement are the result of a careful consideration of the pros and cons that attach to the use of a specific enhancement technology. Lastly, we show that important normative factors in the enhancement debate can be used both in arguments for and in arguments against enhancement. The bottom line of our discussion is that we should treat issues of human enhancement like we do any other ethical issue, viz. by weighing up the reasons pro and con. (shrink)

Reflective equilibrium has been considered a paradigm method involving intuitions. Some philosophers have recently claimed that it is trivial and can even accommodate the sort of scepticism about the reliability of intuitions advocated by experimental philosophers. I discuss several ways in which reflective equilibrium could be thought of as trivial and argue that it is inconsistent with scepticism about the reliability of intuitions.

This paper proposes a Rawlsian conception of moral justification as a social activity. Through a close reading, Rawls’ view of ethical justification is shown to be significantly more dialogical and deliberative than is commonly appreciated. The result is a view that emphasizes the social nature of ethical justification and identifies information sharing between persons as the crux of justification in metaethics, in contrast to normative ethics. I call it Rawlsian reflective equilibrium to distinguish it from other varieties.

In contemporary philosophy about justice, a contrast between empirical and transcendental approaches can be identified. Hillel Steiner represents an empirical approach: he argues for building an account of justice-as-rights out of the minimal inductive material of psychological linguistic and moral intuitions. From this opening, he ultimately concludes that persons have original rights to self-ownership and to an initially equal share of natural resources. Emmanuel Levinas represents a transcendental approach: he argues that justice arises from a transcendent ethical relation of responsibility-for-the-Other. (...) This relation underpins all subjective cognition, and makes rationality, reasoning, and rights possible.Analysis of each of these positions reveals certain problems. On the one hand, Steiner’s argument contains a number of latent methodological, conceptual, and structural presuppositions. These include the pretheoretical concepts of “person”, “equality”, and “consistency”. These presuppositions prefigure and condition the conclusions which Steiner reaches. On the other hand, Levinas fails to provide a convincing account of how the self comes to be an object of my own deliberations about morality and justice. This amounts to an annihilation of the subject which undermines his argument for the subject as a site of responsible action. As Steiner identifies, justice encompasses equal moral agents. Levinas’s hyperbolic description of the ethical relation’s asymmetry must therefore be revised.Nevertheless, what remains is the strength of Levinas’s argument for the priority of the ethical relation over thematization, rationality, and consciousness. The hidden presuppositions supporting Steiner’s work are evidence of Levinas’s plausibility in this respect. Steiner’s account of justice-as-rights requires a prior ethical relation in which we recognise one another as separate persons, each possessing an ethical status of their own; an attitude of justice motivates Steiner’s description of justice. This attitude is evident in language, which is communication before it is thought. In that individual rights can be conceived only on the basis of a relation of responsibility, rights are primordially the rights of the Other. (shrink)

Does the method of reflective equilibrium involve ethical intuitions? If not, what are the so-called “considered judgments” invoked at the beginning of the process of reflective equilibrium? Contrary to the principal tendency in moral and political philosophy, I provide a negative answer to the first question. I hold that ethical intuitions are non-inferential beliefs. I then claim that RE does not involve ethical intuitions because its coherentist character rejects, by definition, any type of non-inferentiality. Concerning the second question above, I (...) provide an answer that preserves the epistemological consistency of RE: considered judgments should be defined as inferential beliefs. The possibility of their inferential character relies on the role of background beliefs in the process of reflective equilibrium. In brief, I criticise and reformulate the standard interpretation of RE by claiming that it does not involve ethical intuitions but only inferential beliefs. (shrink)

The three integrated articles of this dissertation are concerned with the epistemic status of moral intuitions. The first article argues in favour of moderate moral intuitionism, the view that while any successful moral epistemology must be intuitionist to at least some extent, it must also take intuitions to be fallible. This is accomplished by synthesizing work by Robert Audi and George Bealer into a view of moral intuitions which is capable of overcoming some major contemporary objections against intuitionism, particularly from (...) Sharon Street and Peter Singer. The next article raises a more powerful objection to intuitionism, applying feminist ethics and moral epistemology to suggest that powerful social forces impair our ability to distinguish mistaken intuitions from reliable ones. This objection is addressed with an argument, based on work by Michele Moody-Adams and Cheshire Calhoun, to the effect that the possibility of moral knowledge and resultant responsibility allow us to retain the capacity for making this important distinction between intuitions. Nevertheless, as George Sher argues, there is still reason to think that the intuitions we rely on to shape and justify our moral beliefs contains important mistakes which negatively impact the reliability of our resulting moral judgements. This major problem, that of distinguishing helpful from harmful moral intuitions, is the topic of the third article. Henry Sidgwick attempted to develop a decision procedure for this purpose in The Methods of Ethics, positing four major criteria, the fulfilment of which would confer the highest possible level of certainty on an intuition. Sidgwick's four tests are evaluated primarily with reference to contemporary feminist scholarship, and though they constitute a promising start to a rigorous intuitionist moral epistemology, they are also wanting in a number of ways. The article improves the epistemic status of Sidgwick's tests with a hybrid Sidgwickian-feminist theory, reinterpreting his tests as values to be respected but which allow flexibility and even tension. While this approach may not be able to confer the same level of certainty as Sidgwick's, it is more respectful of the complexities and nuances of a more reliable moral epistemology. (shrink)

How do we make good moral decisions? There is a tendency to answer this question by developing methods and procedures of moral decision making. In this paper I will show some limits and pitfalls of this approach. Good moral decisions need to take into account factors which cannot be codified into procedures. I draw attention to how analyzing the type of context is a necessary preamble for a better handling of procedures.

Este artículo examina los presupuestos metodológicos, axiológicos y normativos en los que descansa la que posiblemente sea la obra más conocida de Peter Singer, Liberación animal. Se exploran las tensiones entre la posición normativa, de compromisos mínimos, que se intenta adoptar en esa obra, y las posiciones de Singer acerca del utilitarismo de las preferencias y el argumento de la reemplazabilidad. Se buscará elucidar en particular el modo en el que surgen tales tensiones al abordarse la consideración del agregacionismo y (...) el interés en vivir en relación con el uso de animales no humanos. This paper examines the methodological, axiological and normative assumptions on which Animal Liberation -arguably the most poular work by Peter Singer- rests. It explores the tensions between the normative position this book intends to adopt, which tries to compromise as little as possible with any specific normative theory, and Singer's views on preference utilitarianism and the replaceability argument. In particular, the paper tries to assess the way in which such tensions arise when aggregationism and the question of the interest in living are considered in relation to the use of nonhuman animals. (shrink)

I argue for three central theses: ‘intuition’ is ambiguous, in material object metaphysics ‘intuition’ refers to pre-theoretical beliefs, and these pre-theoretical beliefs are generated by an innate physical reasoning system. I begin by outlining the relevant background discussions on the nature of intuitions and their role in philosophy to motivate the need for a more careful investigation of the meaning of ‘intuition’ and the role of intuitions in specific sub-disciplines of philosophy. In chapters one and two I argue that ‘intuition’ (...) is ambiguous between an inflationary and deflationary sense. In the inflationary sense, ‘intuition’ refers to a priori intellectual seemings with a special phenomenology, conceptual etiology, and modal content. In the deflationary sense, ‘intuition’ refers to beliefs or inclinations to believe. In chapter three I specifically examine the use of intuitions in material object metaphysics and conclude that in this sub-community ‘intuition’ is used in the deflationary sense to refer to pre-theoretical beliefs. Drawing from research on infant cognition, in the final chapter I argue that intuitions regarding material object metaphysics are those judgments that arise from an innate physical reasoning system. Based on this empirical observation, I argue that metaphysicians ought to give preference to abstract intuitions over intuitions regarding concrete cases because these abstract intuitions reflect the innate structure of our physical reasoning mechanisms. (shrink)