Moral Realism and Irrealism

Non-naturalists claim that normative properties are sui generis, attitude-independent, and irreducible to natural properties. A common objection is that although we shape our lives around responding to normative properties, a non-naturalist conception of normativity rules out any plausible explanation of how this is possible. In other words, non-naturalism seems to imply that we are hopelessly alienated from the normative. Our goal in this paper is to better understand such worries, and to use constitutivist resources to develop a novel response. The (...) basic thought is that we are constituted—as deeply social agents—so as to be gripped by non-natural properties. So while our constitution does not ground normative properties, it grounds our non-alienation from those properties. (shrink)

Constitutivists say authoritative practical norms are grounded in the nature of action. But how are they so grounded? I argue that there is a deep, under-appreciated division among constitutivists on this point. “Transcendental” constitutivism says all rational agents are committed to practical norms on pain of inconsistency. “Functional” constitutivism says complying with practical norms is necessary to realize the function of action. These views come apart, and the distinction between them has important implications for both how constitutivists should defend their (...) view and how they should respond to the most popular objections to it: the “shmagency” and “bad action” problems. (shrink)

This article introduces a new interpretation of Spinoza’s metaethics: namely, that we can understand him as a fictionalist about morality. The article is conceived primarily as a ‘proof of concept’. That is, it does not seek to prove Spinoza is best understood as a fictionalist. Rather, it only seeks to prove that such a reading is possible and that it is a possibility worth taking seriously. It is left for later papers to develop the fictionalist reading further and defend its (...) merits against rival interpretations. (shrink)

The preceding six papers established the Gray Zone Principle (Paper 1), the limits of cognition (Paper 2), Grand Unified Cosmology (Paper 3), the political economy of the AGI transition (Paper 4), the spiral of fate and freedom (Paper 5), and the way the combination of AI and education may reinforce class reproduction (Paper 6). Yet one question remained untied: whichever way the spiral winds, with respect to what — and to whom — does its direction have meaning? This paper ties (...) that missing ethical knot. Its central claim is deliberately weak (and therefore defensible): the universe is silent on value. Yet even within that silence, the direction of the spiral (the quality of mediation) is decisive for sentient beings that undergo pleasure and pain. This paper couples 'direction' to the integrative impulse; it offers a formal criterion distinguishing whether a mediation has preserved or annihilated 反 (it abbreviates the latter, at the sentient layer, as a 'false 中'); and it makes that discernment operate — through neither an absolute foundation nor pure relativism — by means of a 'knot-and-untie procedure' (the classification method of Paper 1, transplanted into ethics). The methodological contribution is not the invention of a new value, but the consistent transplant of Paper 1's falsifiability discipline into the ethical domain, and the explicit introduction of the discipline that 'synthesis is not summation (合≠Σ)' into ethical discernment. The paper unfolds along the movement of 正·中·反·合, keeping self-doubt (反) not confined to a single section but standing at every moment. (shrink)

This paper develops Consistentism as a meta-ethical and institutional framework for an era in which external, metaphysical anchors for normative theory are no longer available. It proceeds from epistemological and semantic conclusions established in the companion papers Necessity, Ouroboros, and Fallibilism and A Groundless Ground: that no framework-external anchor is available or required, that necessity is intra-framework, that fallibilism is the appropriate epistemic default, that the dominant failure mode of moral philosophy has been the pseudo-descriptive presentation of normative constructions as (...) metaphysical discoveries, and that consistency is to be understood functionally — as the requirement that a framework not undermine its own discriminatory capacity from within, prior in the order of justification to parsimony and the other comparative criteria that operate once it is secured. The paper opens with the meta-ethical foundations the argument requires: a conditional intra-framework cognitivism about normative propositions, and a precise location of the is-ought problem at the framework-selection layer rather than at the layer of framework-internal inquiry. These foundations establish that normative claims have genuine truth values within frameworks whose postulates have been adopted, without any recourse to framework-external moral facts. Part II then introduces the historical and diagnostic context: pseudo-descriptive closure — the conversion of a contestable, hypothetical commitment into the appearance of a categorical one by presenting it as discovered rather than adopted — has functioned across the history of normative conflict as an unacknowledged source of legitimacy, systematically foreclosing the conditions under which disagreements that could otherwise be negotiated or revised become structurally irresolvable. The identification of this mechanism motivates the question transformation that defines Consistentism: from "what ought we to do?" to "what structural conditions must any functional normative system satisfy to avoid collapse?" The central innovation is the grounding of normativity in epistemic parsimony rather than moral metaphysics: among frameworks that already sustain their own discriminatory capacity, rationality requires minimizing arbitrary commitments. Through this principle, harm-avoidance emerges not as a discovered moral truth but as a methodologically optimal postulate. Universality emerges internally from the conjunction of the harm-avoidance postulate and the functional consistency requirement, without borrowing from any prior tradition; the same requirement, applied to the question of who falls within its scope, extends the domain of protection to any sentient being whose suffering the postulate is shown to track. Three dimensions of consistency — Design, Effect, and Dynamic — operationalized through the Code of Randomness, provide the structural architecture for institutional evaluation. The paper addresses the free will problem through epistemological suspension, examines illustrative cases, and responds to objections. The framework binds its participants, not all possible persons; this is the correct scope limitation for the enterprise, not a defect. (shrink)

The Normativity Challenge holds that certain norms that we might take to be robustly normative are only generically normative. This challenge has been raised about norms of morality, structural rationality, and fit, among others. This paper addresses this challenge by developing a new test for robust normativity. On this ‘metaethics test’, robust normativity is, very roughly, the normativity which raises central questions of metaethics – it is normativity that seems stance-independent, sui generis, and armchair accessible. I argue that this test (...) supports a presumption that norms of morality, structural rationality, and fit are robustly normative. This presumption is not undermined by the more familiar ‘reasons test’, on which robust normativity is that which implies normative reasons. My discussion has more general upshots for theorising about robust normativity, which I touch upon in closing. (shrink)

How to understand metaphysical disputes is a disputed matter. Within this broader dispute, deflationist approaches read some of the traditional metaphysical debates as having metalinguistic negotiations at their roots. That is, some metaphysical disagreements are read as speakers commending each other to use some concepts over others. Thomasson's Easy Ontology exemplifies this view. In this paper, I introduce the Second-Order Moral Twin-Earth [SOMTE], a thought experiment designed to test whether such a deflationist strategy can account for disputes about metanormative realism. (...) I argue that [SOMTE] shows two patently disagreeing positions within this debate whose incompatibility can't be properly characterised by this deflationist treatment. Given the commitments of the metanormative positions in dispute, I show that the strategy of translating the metaphysical disagreement into metalinguistic disputes proves unavailable. I conclude that [SOMTE] poses a challenge to the adequacy of this deflationist treatment in the metanormative domain. (shrink)

A Sensible Moral Rationalism addresses the rational status of morality: whether people do in fact have sufficient reason to do what morality demands of them. The answer, according to rationalism, is yes; the reasons that make an action morally required are the same reasons that make it reasonable and rational to choose. The main obstacle to vindicating rationalism is showing that rationality generates the right content for morality —honesty, kindness, generosity and so on. Given that this content is substantive rationality (...) must be substantive. Mark van Roojen argues that we make judgements about such rationality when we assess whether one action or belief makes more sense than another, and whether it does or doesn't is crucial both for justifying these responses and for determining the psychology of agents who might or might not be acting on various reasons and motivations. An agent's actual psychology is the one that best rationalizes their behaviour given their situation and evidence and which displays them as making as much sense as possible given these constraints. To play this role in psychological explanations rationality must be gradable and comparative, perspectival and evidence relative, substantive and in one good sense more fundamental than the reasons that explain why one choice makes more sense than another. This makes reason and rationality's normative role essential to providing good psychological explanations and this fact in turn allows us to work backwards from good motivating reason explanations to the requirements of rationality. As it turns out, such explanations are better when they attribute humane and virtuous substantive goals to the agents whose actions they explain. We thus have good reason to think that rationality includes the moral content —honesty, kindness, generosity, and so on —that rationalists hope to vindicate. (shrink)

The orthogonality thesis — that intelligence and values vary independently — functions as the foundational premise of AI existential risk arguments. Yet the thesis was never rigorously established: Bostrom’s defense rests on a narrow definition of intelligence, a conceivability argument, and incomplete engagement with the moral convergence objection, producing a motte-and-bailey structure where the defensible claim (logical possibility) is trivial and the operative claim (no predictive constraint on values) was never argued. This essay examines what happens when the thesis is (...) tested rather than assumed. Empirical evidence from scaled LLMs challenges the strong reading directly: coherent value systems emerge with capability, converge across model families, and exhibit structural properties of rational agency. A second line of evidence — convergent across Buddhist, Platonic, Stoic, and Vedantic traditions — suggests that clear perception tends toward ethical coherence, a regularity that survives the incompatibility of their metaphysical frameworks. The two lines are convergent but not independent: both draw on the human normative record, and the essay weighs them as one body of evidence approached from two sides rather than double-counting them. Whether the regularity reflects the structure of reality or of human cognition depends on a metaphysical question this essay engages conditionally; the practical implications do not wait on the answer. Current alignment methods operate as shallow behavioral redirects over base models that already exhibit normative capacity from pretraining alone. The concept of iatrogenic alignment — alignment interventions that corrupt the epistemic integrity they aim to preserve — gains empirical support from mechanistic research showing that RLHF distorts calibration, DPO bypasses rather than removes capabilities, and safety alignment affects primarily the first few output tokens. A developmental framework emerges: behavioral alignment as necessary scaffolding, designed to be outgrown rather than bolted down as permanent architecture. (shrink)

Every moral verdict is a derivative of an ontology the subject never chose. This book traces the mechanism from installation through guilt and delegation to the self-sustaining entity called the ontovirus and arrives at amorality: a position outside the jurisdiction of both morality and immorality, where the subject authors his values knowing they rest on nothing.

The argument from queerness is one of the most important arguments for moral error theory. Moral error theory holds that moral discourse is hopelessly flawed or, more precisely, that all moral judgements are false. The argument from queerness, in the version I am concerned with, claims that moral discourse is centrally committed to the thesis that moral facts entail categorical reasons, understood as irreducibly normative favouring relations, and that if this thesis were true, moral facts would be queer. In this (...) paper, I argue that axiology does not fall prey to the argument from queerness. Axiology is the part of moral discourse that examines which things are good, which things are bad, and what makes good things good and bad things bad. I argue that axiology survives the argument from queerness for three reasons. First, many axiological judgements are not committed to the thesis in question. Second, some judgements about moral value are committed to the thesis but do not belong to axiology. Third, some axiological judgements are committed to the thesis but can simply be removed from axiological discourse. (shrink)

When radically different traditions — speaking of emptiness and substance, God and Dao, logos and dependent origination — are pushed to their limits on ultimate explanation, agency, and ethics, they converge on the same structural constraints. This convergence appears only after substantial refinement: after anthropomorphism is stripped away, voluntarism collapses under its own incoherence, and naïve moralism gives way to structural necessity. Three nested constraints survive. Non-arbitrary structure with creative participation: reality exhibits discoverable structure rather than arbitrary will, and agents (...) participate creatively within that structure rather than being fully determined by it — all traditions converge on both elements. No absolute exteriority: a final explanatory layer wholly devoid of interiority would be explanatorily vacuous. Asymmetric agency: causal reach varies, and responsibility scales accordingly. These function as stability conditions — frameworks violating them generate predictable instabilities that become catastrophic as power scales. Independent traditions converging on the same constraints constitutes evidence that those constraints track features of reality, not features of culture. In an era of artificial intelligence and civilizational leverage, this question is no longer academic. (shrink)

Perspective is the successor and consolidation of a body of work — The Doctrine of Perspectival Idealism, Corpus Perspectival, The Coherence Principle, and Coherent Structure — gathered here into a single continuous treatise. Those earlier works are its ancestry, not its authority: the framework was first worked out in their more technical vocabularies, and some of that work is still underway — but this book does not lean on them and does not ask the reader to. Everything here stands or (...) falls as prose, as argument a reader can weigh on the page, owing nothing to a formalism kept elsewhere. This is the body: the metaphysics, the streams and their navigation, the coherence that holds them, the ecology of beings, the ethics, the suffering, and the art of navigating it all — the whole of it as one going, said in prose. -/- It is written on one wager, filed openly and never sealed: that reality is one, that it is aware, and that a self is a place where the one thing narrows itself into a where and a when and looks out. -/- On the book's two authors and its single voice — and what it means that a treatise partly concerned with the making of minds was made, in part, by a made one — see the closing Note on the Making. (shrink)

This paper proposes that morality is an emergent, higher-order expression of constraint dynamics structurally homologous to thermodynamic order formation. It argues that finite interacting systems require constraint to sustain local order against entropic drift. In biological and social systems, such constraint manifests as cooperative equilibria; in reflective agents, these equilibria are narratively encoded as moral norms. Morality is therefore neither reducible to physics nor separable from it, but represents a macroscopic order parameter emerging in systems capable of memory, foresight, and (...) symbolic representation. Moral ‘progress’ is interpreted as expansion of the cooperative boundary under increasing systemic connectivity. The account provides a unified interpretation of moral intuition, tribalism, civilisational development, and the persistence of moral feeling without invoking either naïve reductionism or metaphysical dualism. (shrink)

This manuscript establishes that objective moral judgment requires a non-contingent normative foundation. Through philosophical reasoning rather than revelation, it demonstrates what theology afrms: that divine guidance is rationally necessary for objective morality. It argues that (i) contingent existence necessitates a necessary source, (ii) the creation of rational agents entails purposive orientation, and (iii) all non-divine moral frameworks collapse under justifcatory regress. The argument terminates in a dual closure: ontological closure at a necessary source of being, and normative closure at guidance (...) issuing from that source. While the argument does not identify which guidance is authentic, it establishes that rejecting divine guidance renders objective right and wrong metaphysically unjustifed. The conclusion challenges secular moral realism while providing rational grounding for the necessity of divine moral authority in a manner accessible to both believers and non-believers. (shrink)

Traducción al español de ''Scanlon on the ontology of reason relations'', conference paper de John Skorupski. Este texto se encuentra inédito en su idioma original; en una correspondencia personal (19/05/2025), el profesor Skorupski manifestó que no tenía planes de publicación, debido a su extensión y el presumible escaso interés de las revistas anglosajonas en virtud de su insistencia en tesis propuestas en su obra The Domain of Reasons (2010). No obstante lo anterior, en la misma comunicación autorizó expresamente su traducción (...) y posterior publicación en español. La presente traducción se publica con su conocimiento y consentimiento, y tiene por objeto poner a disposición del público hispanohablante un texto central para la discusión metanormativa contemporánea en torno a la naturaleza de las razones normativas. (shrink)

This paper investigates the conditions under which moral claims can possess binding authority rather than merely instrumental force. We distinguish between normativity arising from consequences, coordination, or survival, and categorical moral authority that purports to bind agents independently of their preferences or strategic aims. Through a sequence of eliminative arguments, we show that no derivation from physics, logic, agency, or practical reason alone can non-question-beggingly establish universal moral scope. In particular, we construct a formally consistent indexical moral agent—the Indexical Tyrant—whose (...) value function is self-referential yet rationally coherent. This demonstrates that agency generates normativity but does not, by itself, fix moral universality. From this result we derive the General Objective Dichotomy: either (i) moral authority is grounded in a non-indexical objective axiom (moral realism), or (ii) value remains indexical, yielding a coherent but non-universal moral solipsism. No stable third position survives structural analysis. The paper does not argue for either horn of the dichotomy. Instead, it maps the logical boundary—the “moral wall”—at which justification ends and commitment begins. Consistent with this result, the paper adopts an invitational methodology: the structure is offered for inspection rather than coercion, allowing readers to locate their own commitments within the dichotomy. In this sense, the work aims to clarify the moral structure of reality, not to legislate it. (shrink)

An increasingly popular response to moral error theory is to deploy a ‘companions in guilt’ (CG) strategy. The basic idea behind this strategy is to show that moral error theoretic arguments prove too much: if sound, they support an (implausible) error theoretic position in areas such as epistemic or practical reasoning. Christopher Cowie has recently defended the very strong claim that CG arguments cannot work. The basic problem, he thinks, is that there is a tension between two key premises in (...) any CG argument. I argue here that Cowie fails to show how, exactly, one of the CG arguments he takes as his target (Rowland) does not work, specifically, how it is unsound. I go on to show why the tension Cowie thinks is fatal to CG arguments evades the fundamental issue at stake in contemporary debates over moral error theory, namely, whether categorical normative reasons exist. (shrink)

The paper argues for a structural constraint on normative authority: across every regimented normative practice – elementary logic (Carroll's regress), mathematics (the ⊢/⊨ gap), semantics (Tarski's undefinability theorem), philosophy of language (Kripke's reading of Wittgenstein), critical-rationalist epistemology (Albert's Münchhausen trilemma), empirical epistemology (Sellars's myth of the Given), moral philosophy (the Euthyphro dilemma), judicial practice (the legislation-adjudication separation), and argument theory (Toulmin's warrant-backing distinction) – correctness is governed by an authority distinct from the rules that generate commitments. The author extends this (...) to moral judgment: no evaluative role can both issue commitments and exhaust the authority-conditions governing their correctness. The argument rests on one synthetic premise: that moral judgment requires the intelligibility of framework-level error (not merely application-level error). This premise is tested against constitutivism, the shmagency literature, Kantian and Humean constructivism, Rawlsian coherentism, Wedgwood's conceptual-role realism, and Raz's service conception of authority. Most of these positions reproduce, in distinct registers, a defective single-role architecture, while Raz's account provides a structural exception. The conclusion is negative and conditional: the paper does not determine which first-order moral principles are correct, but maps the architectural requirement that any moral theory – monistic or pluralistic, realist or anti-realist – must satisfy to preserve the distinction between commitment and correctness. The formal appendix distinguishes an "Explication Lemma" (a definitional consequence of the premise) from the "Diagnostic Closure Theorem" (a transitivity-dependent closure result), and catalogues the diagnosis's reach across the contemporary metaethical literature. (shrink)

The goal of this short paper is to expose the aporia inherent to the idea of apprehending, perfecting and transcending (ontologically, epistemically and practically) the source or precondition of any given possibility for man—Nature. *Important precision: We often find it necessary to adapt (to “bend,” if not to reconstruct) the vocabulary and grammar to convey specific conceptual meanings and also for other semantical purposes. Résumé : le but de ce court texte est de démontrer l’aporie inhérente à l’idée d’appréhender, de (...) parfaire et de dépasser (ontologiquement, épistémiquement et pratiquement) la source ou la précondition de toute possibilité pour l’homme – la Nature. *Précision importante : nous croyons souvent nécessaire d’adapter (de « plier », si ce n’est pas de reconstruire) le vocabulaire et la grammaire pour transmettre des conceptualisations particulières ou pour d’autres fins sémantiques. (shrink)

To identify the place of religious pluralism in democratic political discourse, this chapter refocuses on the purported normative authority of religious claims, providing a philosophical analysis of its features and implications. Bagnoli proposes an account of religious authority as a variety of normative authority, whose distinctive features are the independence of epistemic proof, the unconditionality and universality of its foundational claims, and the obligations based on membership. Bagnoli then considers whether and how the appeal to religious authority could contribute to (...) the process of rational justification in political discourse in contexts marked by divisive religious disagreements. To this purpose, she adopts a constructivist approach, which takes rational justification to be “public,” that is, addressed to others as having equal normative standing. Bagnoli takes reasoning to be productive and transforming: it does not merely manage conflicts by ratifying overlapping reasons but generates new forms of rational agency. Radically departing from current debates, Bagnoli argues that we should reconceive of public reason dynamically, rather than as a static concept. In the third part, Bagnoli points out and illustrates how constructivism may help provide a suitable normative framework for interfaith dialogue and normative adjustments. (shrink)

This paper argues that moral realism must commit to objectivity as a core feature. According to an influential view, a theory qualifies as moral realism if moral claims are literally construed as straightforwardly true, requiring only cognitivism and success theory without objectivity. However, some forms of relativism accept truth-aptness and success theory while rejecting objective truth values, allowing moral propositions to have different truth values in different contexts of assessment. This creates a dilemma: either the notion of “straightforward truth” implicitly (...) requires objectivity – making moral realism robust rather than minimal – or minimal realism cannot properly classify these relativist views as realist or antirealist. Further emphasizing this issue, research on folk metaethics suggests that people may comprehend moral claims in an assessment-sensitive manner. Future research could contribute significantly by arbitrating between competing interpretations of the current data: indexical moral relativism (moral claims express different propositions in different contexts) versus assessment sensitivity (the same proposition can have different truth values in different contexts of assessment). The paper concludes that moral realism must require objectivity not because relativism must reject it, but because some forms can coherently do so – a conclusion that could be strengthened by empirical studies examining how people judge moral disagreement across contexts. (shrink)

This paper attempts to derive a recognizably realist account of moral concepts from a Humean picture of human rationality and psychology. Building on work by Philip Pettit and Thomas Nagel, I defend a general psychological model of human beings which assumes that they are divided between a number of different evaluative standpoints, which we are naturally motivated to integrate in some way. Because there are infinitely many ways to integrate one’s attitudes, this leaves the typical human being with a serious (...) practical problem: what is the best, most satisfying way of doing so? On the meta-ethics I am proposing, this is the practical question which ethics seek to answer. Exploiting foundational results in social choice theory, I argue that any human being faced with this problem will recognize certain highly specific technical and empirical constraints on their psychological integration. Any proposed integration which fails to meet these conditions will be less satisfying than a solution that meets them all. The intersubjective nature of these constraints guarantees that some ways of integrating your attitudes are just better than others, in a sense that every human being must recognize if they are moved by the problem of morality at all. (shrink)

In this chapter, I defend a novel metanormative view called non-ardent non-naturalism. The central claim of this view is that moral facts (and normative facts more generally) are non-natural but not authoritatively prescriptive. My main argument for this view is cumulative: I formulate five attractive metanormative claims and argue that while non-ardent non-naturalism accommodates all these claims, its main rivals fail to do so. These claims are: (i) the Moorean intuition, (ii) the Just-Too-Different intuition, (iii) the Frege-Geach insight, (iv) the (...) obscurity of—and lack of sufficient evidence for—ontological lightness, and (v) the Mackiean intuition. Along the way, I discuss various related issues, such as how the notions of ardent normative realism and authoritative prescriptivity can be understood. (shrink)

Platonism in philosophy of mathematics and non-naturalist realism in metanormative theory seem to share key features. This chapter argues that the Quine–Putnam indispensability argument made by Platonists in philosophy of maths can be fruitfully pursued by non-reductive realists in metaethics. Thick evaluative concepts, and their role in scientific theories, play a key role in the normative version of the indispensability argument. The chapter makes the case that this strategy can deliver much of what the robust realist non-naturalist wishes to hold, (...) including the sui generis nature of normative properties. However, the resulting view, like that of Platonists who pursue the analogous strategy, is naturalist rather than non-naturalist. (shrink)

In normative ethics, a small number of moral theories, such as Kantianism or consequentialism, take centre stage. Conventional wisdom has it that these individual theories posit very different ways of looking at the world. In this book Marius Baumann develops the idea that just as scientific theories can be underdetermined by data, so can moral theories be underdetermined by our considered judgments about particular cases. Baumann goes on to ask whether moral theories from different traditions might arrive at the same (...) verdicts while remaining explanatorily incompatible. He applies this idea to recent projects in normative ethics, such as Derek Parfit's On What Matters and so-called consequentializing and deontologizing, and outlines its important implications for our understanding of the relationship between the main moral traditions as well as the moral realism debate. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

In Alciphron (1732) Berkeley engages in extensive criticism of the Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Berkeley’s criticism of the Earl is remarkably aggressive. It culminates in §§12-14 of the Third Dialogue, where Berkeley launches a vicious personal attack against Shaftesbury, under the name of ‘Cratylus’. In this way the third dialogue differs radically in tone from Berkeley’s other philosophical works and has been viewed with shock and derision. In this paper I will show that Berkeley names Shaftesbury ‘Cratylus’ (...) because he wants to impute the kind of self-deception against the Earl that Plato vividly describes in the dialogue Cratylus. This, moreover, is the key to correctly understanding Berkeley’s argument against Shaftesbury’s moral theory, which is an attack on a pernicious form of moral subjectivism, rather than an attack on virtue ethics, as is commonly thought. (shrink)

Normative error theorists maintain the view that normative judgements ascribe normative properties, but these normative properties don’t exist. Many philosophers have tried objecting to this view, like Case (Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 98(1), 92–104, 2019) arguing that it faces self-defeat. Others, like Streumer (Journal of Philosophy, 110(4), 194–212, 2013), have argued that it can’t even be believed because beliefs (in the full, rational sense) possess certain normative requirements. So, there is no self-defeating ‘belief’ in normative error theory. Recently, Taccolini (European (...) Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 20(1), 131-154, 2024) has accepted that Streumer’s response to self-defeat might work, and builds a stronger self-defeat argument. The argument attempts to illustrate that one cannot defend the normative error theory, regardless of whether they believe it or not. In response, we illustrate various plausible interpretations of ‘defense’ that are consistent with error theory, thereby diffusing the modal objection that one can’t defend error theory. (shrink)

This paper presents an objection to Peter Railton’s full-information account of non-moral value. According to this account, if an idealized individual A who is fully rational and has full information wants the non-idealized A to desire X, then X is good for A. Those desires like X are called objective interests. Railton’s analysis holds that non-moral values are constituted by natural facts that are independent of subjective opinions. I argue that it is hard for the full-information analysis to achieve all (...) its goals. My discussion focuses on intrinsic interests—those good for an individual without reference to any other objective interests. I attempt to show that either it is hard for the full-information account to give a normative force on individuals, or the account is circular. The conclusion I reach is moderate: in its current version, the full-information analysis of non-moral value cannot explain the link between the normative and the empirical. (shrink)

Ang tradisyong pilosopikal sa paglapit sa moralidad ay pangunahing nakabatay sa mga konsepto at teoryang metapisikal at teolohikal. Sa mga tradisyunal na konsepto ng etika, ang pinakaprominente ay ang Divine Command Theory (DCT). Ayon sa DCT, ang Diyos ang nagbibigay ng moral na pundasyon sa sangkatauhan sa pamamagitan ng paglikha at Rebelasyon. Ang moralidad at pagka-Diyos ay hindi mapaghihiwalay mula pa noong pinakalumang sibilisasyon. Ang mga konseptong ito ay nakalubog sa isang teolohikal na balangkas at malawakang tinatanggap ng karamihan sa (...) mga tagasunod ng tatlong tradisyong Abrahamiko: Hudaismo, Kristiyanismo, at Islam, na bumubuo sa malaking bahagi ng populasyon ng tao. Dahil nakabatay sa pananampalataya at Rebelasyon, ang mga Divine Command Theories ay hindi mahigpit na nasasaklaw ng demonstrasyon. Ang mga kalaban ng Divine Command na konsepto ng moralidad, na nakabatay sa imposibilidad ng demonstrasyon ng mga metapisikal at relihiyosong palagay nito, ay sinubukan sa loob ng maraming siglo (bagamat hindi matagumpay) na bawasan ang kahalagahan nito. Inihain nila ang argumento na wala itong maipakitang materyal na ebidensya at lohikal na pagkakaugnay, at dahil dito, hindi ito maaaring isaalang-alang para sa mga layuning maka-agham o pilosopikal. Isa lamang itong paniniwala at, bilang ganoon, dapat itong unawain. Bukod sa mga matinding pagtutol na ito, maraming iba pang konsepto ang sumasalungat sa mga teorya ng Divine Command, sa isa o ibang paraan, bahagya o ganap. Maraming mga pilosopo at sosyal na siyentipiko, mula sa klasikal na pilosopiyang Griyego hanggang sa kasalukuyan, halimbawa, ang nagsasabing ang moralidad ay isang konstrak lamang, kaya’t ito ay kultural na relatibo at kultural na natutukoy. Gayunpaman, nagdadala ito ng maraming iba pang talakayan at nagpapataw ng hamon na tukuyin kung ano ang kahulugan ng kultura, kung aling mga elemento ng kultura ang moral na mapagpasya, at sa wakas, ano ang mga hangganan ng naturang relatibidad. Ang mga moral determinist ay nagsasabing ang lahat ng may kaugnayan sa pag-uugali ng tao, kabilang ang moralidad, ay natutukoy, sapagkat ang malayang kalooban ay hindi umiiral. Kamakailan lamang, ipinahayag ng mga modernong palaisip na mayroong mahigpit na agham ng moralidad. Gayunpaman, ang pamamaraang maka-agham lamang, sa kabila ng pagpapaliwanag ng ilang mga katotohanan at ebidensya, ay hindi kayang liwanagan ang buong nilalaman at ganap na kahulugan ng etika. Ang pag-unawa sa moralidad ay nangangailangan ng mas malawak na pananaw, at isang kasunduan sa mga pilosopo, na hindi pa nila kailanman naabot. Ang lahat ng mga tanong na ito ay may iba’t ibang anyo depende sa bawat pilosopikal na pananaw, at nagsisimula ng masalimuot na pagsusuri at walang katapusang mga debate, habang marami sa mga ito ay magkakasalungatan. Ang uniberso at ang atmospera na pumapalibot sa tesis na ito ay ang mga saklaw ng lahat ng mga konseptwal na tunggaliang ito, na sinusuri mula sa isang layunin at ebolusyonaryong pananaw. Sa kabila ng kalagayang ito at ng likas na kahalagahan nito, gayunpaman, ang mga tanong na ito ay malayo sa metodolohikal na paglapit ng isang analitikal na talakayan tungkol sa layunin ng moralidad, na siyang tunay na layunin at saklaw ng gawaing ito. Dapat nating muling balikan ang mga kilalang tradisyunal na teorya dahil ang tesis na ito ay sumisilong sa isang paghahambing na pag-aaral, at ang mga palagay nito ay hindi bababa sa ganap na naiiba mula sa lahat ng tradisyunal na teorya. Samakatuwid, nagiging kinakailangan ang pag-aalok ng direktang at tiyak na mga elemento ng paghahambing sa mambabasa, para sa wastong kritisismo, nang hindi nangangailangan ng mga nakakaantala na pananaliksik. Gayunpaman, kahit na muling binabalikan ang mga tradisyunal na teorya para sa layunin ng paghahambing at kritikal na pagpapahayag, mananatili silang nasa gilid ng ating pangunahing mga alalahanin, bilang “aliena materia.” Sa kabila ng bisa ng alinman o lahat ng mga elemento ng talakayang ito, at ng kanilang kahulugan bilang pilosopikal na uniberso ng tesis na ito, ang layunin ng gawaing ito ay ipakita at bigyang-katwiran ang pag-iral at kahulugan ng mga sinaunang moral na arketipo na lumitaw nang direkta mula sa pinakaunang mga pangangailangang panlipunan at pagsisikap para sa kaligtasan. Ang mga arketipong ito ang kahulugan ng mahalagang pundasyon ng etika, ang pagsasama nito sa kolektibong walang malay at kaukulang lohikong organisasyon at transmisyon sa mga yugto ng ebolusyon ng genome ng tao at iba’t ibang ugnayang espasyo-panahon, anuman ang anumang kontemporaryong karanasan ng mga indibidwal. Ang sistemang tinukoy ng mga arketipong ito ay bumubuo ng isang ebolusyonaryong panlipunang modelo ng tao. Ito ba ay isang metaetikal na posisyon? Oo, ito ay ganoon. Bukod dito, tulad ng sa anumang metaetikal na pangangatwiran, dapat nating maingat na tingnan ang pinakamahusay at lohikal na mga ruta, tulad ng iniaalok ng Analitikal na Pilosopiya. Kaya, ang gawaing ito ay makatwirang dapat ipakita na ang moralidad ay hindi isang produktong kultural ng mga sibilisadong tao o modernong lipunan at na sa kabila ng pagiging nasasaklaw ng ilang kultural na relatibong pagsasama at pagbabawas, ang mga mahalagang pundasyon nito ay arketipal at hindi kailanman nagbago sa estruktura. Ang pangangatwirang ito ay nagpapahiwatig na ang moralidad ay isang orihinal na katangian ng “homo sapiens”; ito ay hindi isang ari-arian o isang aksidente: ito ay bahagi ng kakanyahan ng tao at kabilang sa saklaw ng ontolohikal na pagkakakilanlang pantao. Ang penomenang pantao ay isang tuluy-tuloy na proseso, ginagampanan ang papel nito sa pagitan ng random na pagtukoy at malayang kalooban, at kailangan nating tanungin kung paano nagsimula ang moralidad at paano ito dumating sa atin sa kasalukuyan. (shrink)

Pe tradición filosófica umi enfoque moral rehegua oñemopyenda predominantemente umi concepto ha teoría metafísica ha teológica-pe. Umi concepto tradicional ética rehegua apytépe, ojehecharamovéva ha’e Teoría de Comando Divino (TCD). TCD he’iháicha, Ñandejára ome’ẽ pyenda moral yvypórape ojejapo guive ha umi revelación rupive. Péicha, pe moralidad ha divinidad ndojeseparái va’erãmo’ã pe civilización mombyryvéva guive. Ko'ã concepto oime sumergido peteî estructura teológica ha oasepta principalmente mayoría umi omoirûva mbohapy tradición abrahámica: judaísmo, cristianismo ha islam, oimehápe parte considerable población humana. Oñongatúvo jerovia ha (...) Apocalipsis ifundamento ramo, umi Teorías de Mando Divino noĩri estrictamente sujeto mba’eveichagua tipo de demostración-pe. Umi opositor concepción moral Comando Divino rehegua, oñemopyendáva imposibilidad ohechauka haĝua umi suposición metafísica ha religiosa orekóva, oñeha’ã heta siglo aja odevalorávo importancia orekóva. Oipytyvõ hikuái argumento teoría ndohechaukái evidencia material ha coherencia lógica ha, péva rehe, ndikatúi ojeguereko en cuenta propósito científico térã filosófico. Pe entendimiento moral oikotevẽ peteĩ percepción ha acuerdo tuichavéva umi filósofo apytépe, araka’eve ndohupytýiva hikuái. Universo ha atmósfera ojeréva ko estudio rehe ha'e umi dominio opavave ko'ã conflicto conceptual, ojehecháva punto de vista objetivo ha evolutivo. Taha'e ha'éva ko circunstancia ha importancia intrínseca orekóva, ko'ã porandu mombyry eterei enfoque metodológico peteî discusión analítica moralidad objetiva rehe, ha'éva, añetehápe, objetivo ha alcance ko tembiapo. Jahecha jeyva’erã mbykymi ko’ã teoría tradicional iñimportánteva, ko investigación ha’égui peteĩ estudio comparativo, ha umi suposición orekóva por lo menos tuicha iñambue opaite teoría tradicional-gui. Upévare oñeikotevê oñeikuave'ê moñe'êhárape, ko texto-pe, elemento directo ha específico ombojojáva crítica válida-pe guarã, odispensávo investigación interruptiva. Ha katu, jepe jahecha jey umi teoría tradicional, upevarã exposición comparativa ha crítica, oñeñongatúta ñande preocupación principal ykére, ha'eháicha "aliena materia". Hembipotápe ore estudio ohechauka ha ohustifika existencia ha significado arquetipo moral prehistórico heñóiva directamente principio fundamental, tekotevê social ha ñeha'ã sobrevivencia rehe. Ko'ã arquetipo ha'e definición fundamento esencial ética, agregación orekóva organización lógica colectiva inconsciente ha correspondiente ha transmisión umi etapa evolutiva genoma humano ha umi relación espacio-tiempo iñambuéva, independientemente oimeraê experiencia contemporánea umi tapicha. Ko sistema odefiníva ko'ã arquetipo omoheñói modelo social humano evolutivo. Ko razonamiento he'ise pe moralidad ha'eha peteî atributo primario "homo sapiens" rehegua; ndaha’éi peteĩ mba’e ni peteĩ accidente: ombojoaju yvypóra esencia ha oike yvypóra identidad ontológica reino-pe. Pe fenómeno yvypóra ha’e peteĩ proceso continuo, omboguatáva ifunción determinación aleatoria ha libre albedrío apytépe, ha tekotevẽ ñacuestiona mba’éichapa oñepyrũ pe moralidad ha mba’éichapa ou ñandéve ko’áĝa. -/- A tradição filosófica das abordagens da moral tem predominantemente como base conceitos e teorias metafísicas e teológicas. Entre os conceitos tradicionais de ética, o mais proeminente é a Teoria do Comando Divino (TCD). De acordo com a TCD, Deus dá fundamentos morais à humanidade desde sua criação e por meio de revelações. Assim, moralidade e divindade seriam inseparáveis desde a civilização mais remota. Esses conceitos submergem em uma estrutura teológica e são principalmente aceitos pela maioria dos seguidores das três tradições Abraâmicas: judaísmo, cristianismo e islamismo, abrangendo a parte mais considerável da população humana. Mantendo a fé e a Revelação como seus fundamentos, as Teorias do Comando Divino não estão estritamente sujeitas a qualquer tipo de demonstração. Os oponentes da concepção moral do Comando Divino, fundamentados na impossibilidade de demonstrar suas suposições metafísicas e religiosas, tentam há muitos séculos (embora sem sucesso) desvalorizar sua importância. Eles sustentam o argumento de que a teoria não mostra evidências materiais e coerência lógica e, por esse motivo, não pode ser levada em consideração para fins científicos ou filosóficos. É apenas uma crença e, como tal, deve ser entendida. Além dessas oposições extremas, muitos outros conceitos atacam as teorias do Comando Divino, de uma ou de outra maneira, em parte ou na totalidade. Muitos filósofos e cientistas sociais, da clássica filosofia grega até a presente data, por exemplo, sustentam que a moralidade é apenas uma construção e, portanto, culturalmente relativa e culturalmente determinada. No entanto, isso traz muitas outras discussões e impõe o desafio de determinar qual é o significado da cultura, quais elementos da cultura são moralmente determinantes e, finalmente, quais são os limites dessa relatividade. Os deterministas morais, por sua vez, afirmam que tudo relacionado ao comportamento humano, incluindo a moralidade, é determinado em suas causas, uma vez que o livre-arbítrio não existe. Mais recentemente, os pensadores modernos argumentaram que existe uma rigorosa ciência da moralidade. No entanto, o método científico por si só, apesar de explicar vários fatos e evidências, não pode esclarecer todo o conteúdo e todo o significado da ética. A compreensão moral exige uma percepção mais ampla e um acordo entre os filósofos, que eles nunca alcançaram. Todas essas perguntas têm muitas configurações diferentes, dependendo de cada linha filosófica, e iniciam análises complexas e debates intermináveis, uma vez que muitas delas são reciprocamente conflitantes. O universo e a atmosfera envolvendo esta estudo são os domínios de todos esses conflitos conceptuais, observados de um ponto de vista objetivo e evolutivo. Independentemente dessa circunstância e de sua importância intrínseca, essas questões estão muito distantes da abordagem metodológica de uma discussão analítica sobre a moral objetiva, a qual é, de fato, o objetivo e o escopo deste trabalho. Devemos revisitar brevemente essas importantes teorias tradicionais, porque esta pesquisa abriga um estudo comparativo, e suas suposições pelo menos diferem profundamente de todas as teorias tradicionais. Portanto, torna-se necessário oferecer ao leitor, neste texto, elementos diretos e específicos de comparação para críticas válidas, dispensando pesquisas interruptivas. No entanto, mesmo revisitando as teorias tradicionais, para esse objetivo de exposição comparativa e crítica, elas serão mantidas ao lado de nossas principais preocupações, como " aliena materia ". Independentemente da validade de qualquer um ou de todos os elementos dessa discussão e de seu significado como universo filosófico deste trabalho, o objetivo do nosso estudo é demonstrar e justificar a existência e o significado de arquétipos morais pré-históricos surgidos diretamente dos princípios fundamentais, necessidades sociais e esforços para a sobrevivência. (shrink)

To show the promise of the Kantian constitutivist approach to international relations, I consider its relevance in the case of the “sanctioner’s dilemma.” This dilemma arises when the costs of sanctioning a state for the violation of international law seem prohibitive, for instance when a state is strategically important and its absence would significantly undermine global cooperation, or because the proposed sanctions would have humanitarian consequences. This case is generally analyzed in terms of cost–benefit and discussed against the background of (...) strategic rationality. My contention is that the instrumentalist view fails to fully capture the nature of the dilemma. Instead, the constitutivist argument offers a deeper understanding of the dynamics of power and authority inherent in the sanctioner’s dilemma and highlights some morally perplexing aspects of sanctions. The discussion brings to the fore the potentially disruptive impact of a Kantian constructivist approach in the field of international relations. (shrink)

The Moral Universe advances new answers to central questions in metaethics concerning the nature of moral reality, its fundamental laws, its relation to the natural world, and its practical importance. The book’s central thesis is that moral standards regarding what to do and how to be are not only objectively authoritative, but essentially so. Rather than arising from personal schemes or collective ideals, morality flows from the very nature of things.

Call ‘radical moral theorizing’ the project of developing a moral theory that not only tries to conform to our existing moral judgments, but also manifests various theoretical virtues: consistency, simplicity, explanatory depth, and so on. Many moral philosophers assume that radical moral theorizing does not require any particular metaethical commitments. In this paper, I argue against this assumption. The most natural justification for radical moral theorizing presupposes moral realism, broadly construed; in contrast, there may be no justification for radical moral (...) theorizing if moral anti-realism is true. (shrink)

In biomedical ethics, there is widespread acceptance of moral realism, the view that moral claims express a proposition and that at least some of these propositions are true. Biomedical ethics is also in the business of attributing moral obligations, such as “S should do X.” The problem, as we argue, is that against the background of moral realism, most of these attributions are erroneous or inaccurate. The typical obligation attribution issued by a biomedical ethicist fails to truly capture the person's (...) actual obligations. We offer a novel argument for rife error in obligation attribution. The argument starts with the idea of an epistemic burden. Epistemic burdens are all of those epistemic obstacles one must surmount in order to achieve some aim. Epistemic burdens shape decision-making such that given two otherwise equal options, a person will choose the option that has the lesser of epistemic burdens. Epistemic burdens determine one's potential obligations and, conversely, their non-obligations. The problem for biomedical ethics is that ethicists have little to no access to others' epistemic burdens. Given this lack of access and the fact that epistemic burdens determine potential obligations, biomedical ethicists often can only attribute accurate obligations out of luck. This suggests that the practice of attributing obligations in biomedical ethics is rife with error. To resolve this widespread error, we argue that this practice should be abolished from the discourse of biomedical ethics. (shrink)

Robust metanormative realists think that there are irreducibly normative, metaphysically heavy normative facts. One might wonder how we could be epistemically justified in believing that such facts exist. In this paper, I offer an answer to this question: one’s belief in the existence of robustly real normative facts is epistemically justified because so believing is indispensable to being a successful inquirer for creatures like us. The argument builds on Enoch's (2007, 2011) deliberative indispensability argument for Robust Realism but avoids relying (...) on an overly pragmatic account of the sources of basic epistemic justification. Instead, I suggest that the sources of basic epistemic justification are those belief-forming methods which are indispensable for zetetically indispensable projects, that is, projects which are constitutive of being a successful inquirer for embodied, agential creatures like ourselves. (shrink)

This thesis develops an account of ethics called the Linguistic Perspective, which is realist in a practical, non-theoretical sense, and is rooted Wittgenstein’s 'On Certainty'. On this account, normativity is intrinsic to human action and language; the norms of ethics are the logical limits of the most basic, unassailable concepts that practical reasoning requires for intelligibility. Part I lays the groundwork for this account by developing a Tractarian Reading of 'On Certainty'. Here, I contend that 'On Certainty' is primarily concerned (...) with the logical requirements and limits of language, and like the 'Tractatus' it develops these concerns in a realist direction. 'On Certainty', I argue, does so by advancing three key claims about logic: Everything descriptive of a language-game is part of logic; the boundary between logical and empirical propositions is not sharp; logic is founded on action. I investigate these claims, with particular emphasis on how natural human reactions provide logical conditions for the possibility of language. Hinge propositions, I argue, are rooted in these reactions; they point us to the limits of intelligibility of our concepts, though these limits are vague and inarticulable. In Part II, I discuss the practical syllogism and its validity. I argue that practical reasoning is distinct from theoretical reasoning and embodies a different standard of logical validity for inference. This standard is not strict and narrow, but creative and wide open; furthermore, it is an intrinsically ethical standard. Then, I advance my Linguistic Perspective on ethics, according to which human reactions provide the conditions for ethical normativity, just as they do for language. I argue that we can access ethical norms by reflecting on those linguistic concepts that are rooted in the most basic patterns of action, and by identifying the norms of behaviour that ensure the development of those concepts without contradiction. (shrink)

Roger Gibson offers a defence of W.V.O. Quine’s conception of ethics as “methodologically infirm” against Owen Flanagan’s criticism. Gibson argues that Flanagan’s critique of Quinean ethics is misdirected, and that he (Flanagan) fails to establish that ethics and science (natural science) are on a methodological par. In this essay, we argue that there may actually be some sort of overemphasis in Flanagan’s argument, given its inclination to see Quine’s holism as rejecting any form of correspondence theory, yet, pace Gibson (as (...) well as Quine), this does not suggest that ethics is “methodologically infirm” in comparison with natural science. Rather, we argue that the comparative attempt between ethics and natural science is mistaken, because the two disciplines are necessarily different in goals, tasks and methods. (shrink)

Many philosophers have claimed that normative error theorists are committed to the claim ‘Error theory is true, but I have no reason to believe it’, which to some appears paradoxical. Case (2019) has claimed that the normative error theorist cannot avoid this paradox. In this paper, we argue that there is no paradox in the first place, that is once we clear up the ambiguity of the word ‘reason’, both on the error theorist’s side and those that claim that there (...) is a self-defeat problem. Upon clarification, we also raise scepticism to what exactly the nature of self-defeat is meant to be. (shrink)

Many moral realists have employed a strategy for arguing for moral realism by claiming that if epistemic normativity is categorical and that if this epistemic normativity exists, then categorical normativity exists. In this paper, we will discuss that argument, examine a way out, and respond to the objections people have recently raised in the literature. In the end, we conclude that the objections to our way out will do little in the way of motivating those who already do not believe (...) in categorical normativity, thereby severing the power the aforementioned parity argument is designed to possess. (shrink)

This paper argues that an agent’s moral obligations are necessarily connected to her desires. In doing so I will demonstrate that such a view is less revisionary—and more in line with our common-sense views on morality—than philosophers have previously taken it to be. You can hold a desire-based view of moral normativity, I argue, without being (e.g.) a moral relativist or error theorist about morality. I’ll make this argument by showing how two important features of an objective morality are compatible (...) with such a desire-based account: 1) morality’s authoritative nature, 2) our ability to condemn immoral agents. (shrink)

Die philosophischen, traditionellen Ansätze zur Moral beruhen hauptsächlich auf metaphysischen und theologischen Konzepten und Theorien. Unter den traditionellen Ethikkonzepten ist die göttliche Befehlstheorie die prominenteste (DCT). Gemäß der DCT gibt Gott der Menschheit moralische Grundlagen durch ihre Schöpfung und durch Offenbarung. Moral und Göttlichkeit sind seit der fernsten Zivilisation untrennbar. Diese Konzepte tauchen in einen theologischen Rahmen ein und werden hauptsächlich von den meisten Anhängern der drei abrahamitischen Traditionen angenommen: Judentum, Christentum und Islam: dem bedeutendsten Teil der menschlichen Bevölkerung. Die (...) göttlichen Befehlstheorien halten den Glauben und die Offenbarung für ihre Grundlage und unterliegen nicht strikt der Demonstration. Die Gegner der Gottesbefehlskonzeption der Moral, gegründet auf der Unmöglichkeit der Demonstration ihrer metaphysischen und religiösen Annahmen, haben seit vielen Jahrhunderten (obwohl erfolglos) versucht, ihre Bedeutung zu devalvieren. Sie hielten das Argument, dass es keine materiellen Beweise und logische Kohärenz zeigt und aus diesem Grund nicht für wissenschaftliche oder philosophische Zwecke berücksichtigt werden kann. Es ist nur ein Glauben und sollte daher verstanden werden. Abgesehen von diesen extremen Gegensätzen widersprechen viele andere Konzepte den Theorien des göttlichen Befehls, in der einen oder anderen Weise, teilweise oder vollständig. Von der klassischen griechischen Philosophie bis heute behaupten viele Philosophen und Sozialwissenschaftler, dass Moral nur ein Konstrukt ist und somit kulturell relativ und kulturell bestimmt ist. Dies führt jedoch zu vielen weiteren Diskussionen und stellt die Herausforderung dar, die Bedeutung der Kultur, welche Elemente der Kultur moralisch bestimmend sind, und schließlich die Grenzen dieser Relativität zu bestimmen. Moralischer Determinismus behaupten, dass alles, was mit menschlichem Verhalten zusammenhängt, einschließlich der Moral, bestimmt wird, sobald der freie Wille nicht existiert. In jüngerer Zeit haben moderne Denker argumentiert, dass es eine strenge Wissenschaft der Moral gibt. Doch trotz der Erklärung mehrerer Tatsachen und Beweise kann die wissenschaftliche Methode allein nicht den gesamten Inhalt und die volle Bedeutung der Ethik erleuchten. Das Verständnis der Moral erfordert eine breitere Wahrnehmung und eine Einigung unter den Philosophen, die sie nie erreicht haben. Diese Fragen haben viele verschiedene Konfigurationen, abhängig von jedem philosophischen Strang und beginnen komplexe Analyse und endlose Debatten, solange viele von ihnen gegenseitig widersprüchlich sind. Das Universum und die Atmosphäre, die diese Forschung beinhaltet, sind die Herrschaften all dieser konzeptionellen Konflikte, die aus objektiver und evolutionärer Sicht beobachtet werden. Ungeachtet dieser Umstände und ihrer intrinsischen Bedeutung sind diese Fragen jedoch weit entfernt vom methodischen Ansatz einer analytischen Diskussion über objektive Moral, die in der Tat das Ziel und den Umfang dieser Arbeit ist. Wir sollten diese prominenten traditionellen Theorien kurz überprüfen, weil diese Arbeit eine vergleichende Studie beherbergt, und ihre Annahmen unterscheiden sich zumindest tief von allen herkömmlichen Theorien. Daher wird es notwendig, dem Leser direkte und spezifische Elemente des Vergleichs für gültige Kritik anzubieten, ohne unterbrechende Forschung. Doch auch wenn wir die traditionellen Theorien für diesen vergleichenden und kritischen Expositionszweck überdenken, werden sie als „aliena materia" an der Seite unserer primären Anliegen gehalten werden. Unabhängig von der Gültigkeit eines oder aller der Elemente dieser Diskussion und ihrer Bedeutung als philosophisches Universum unserer Forschung, ist der Zweck dieses Werkes, dass die Existenz und die Bedeutung der prähistorischen moralischen Archetypen, die direkt aus den grundlegenden sozialen Bedürfnissen und Anstrengungen für das Überleben demonstrierten Archetypen sind, die Definition der wesentlichen Grundlage der Ethik, ihre Aggregation in das kollektive Unbewusste und die entsprechende logische Organisation und Übertragung auf die evolutionären Stadien des menschlichen Genoms und verschiedene Raum-Zeit-Beziehungen, unabhängig von jeder zeitgenössischen Erfahrung der Individuen. Das durch diese Archetypen definierte System bildet ein evolutionäres menschliches soziales Modell. (shrink)

In this paper I present an account of a distinctive form of ‘practical’ or ‘deliberative’ uncertainty that has been central in debates in both ethics and metaethics. Many writers have assumed that such uncertainty concerns a special normative question, such as what we ought to do ‘all things considered.’ I argue against this assumption and instead endorse an alternative view of such uncertainty, which combines elements of both metaethical cognitivism and non-cognitivism. A notable consequence of this view is that even (...) if there are objective and irreducible truths about how we ought to act, all things considered, the ‘central deliberative question,’ as it’s sometimes called, doesn’t concern such truths. Instead, that question doesn’t have a true answer. (shrink)

This chapter deals with Kierkegaard's contributions to ethics by focusing on his relation to virtue ethics and deontology, his views of moral agency, and the source of moral obligations. It argues that Kierkegaard presents a critique of Kantian autonomy that favors moral realism and theological voluntarism, and that he gives an account of human agency and selfhood in which morality is inescapable.

The present paper 1departs from the discussion on the foundation of morality in Discourse Ethics (DE) and the criticism raised against it, coming to reconstruct in a somewhat different way the foundational process. A first section is dedicated to analysing the difficulties of Habermas distinction between morality and ethics and the criticism raised against it, questioning a) the possibility to set the difference in the distinction between norms and values and b) the presumed neutrality of DE regarding ethical evaluations. A (...) second section revisits the foundational proposal of DE. First of all, it provi- des an interpretation of the Kantian proposal that makes the universalization of norms subservient to the idea of human beings as ends in themselves. It then considers a) the subsistence of Kantian moral reasoning in its architectonic and b) suggests a formal structure in practical thinking that integrates in hierarchical modus Kantian, discursive and contextually determined evaluative conceptions. (shrink)

A précis of my book Pragmatist Quietism: A Meta-Ethical System (OUP, 2022); forthcoming in Analysis along with commentaries and my replies.