Moral Generalizations and Moral Explanatory Pluralism

Acta Analytica 40 (2):209-228 (2025)
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Abstract

I argue that moral principles, construed as moral generalizations, can be genuinely explanatory. Specifically, I present and respond to a challenge according to which moral generalizations are explanatorily redundant. In response, I present and defend an explanatory dimension of moral generalizations that is based on the idea of unification. I do so in the context of motivating a realist-friendly moral explanatory pluralism (i.e., the view that there can be many, equally legitimate, explanations of moral facts). Finally, I appeal to the same theoretical resources to tackle an objection from explanatory circularity.

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Alexios Stamatiadis-Bréhier
University of Ioannina

References found in this work

New work for a theory of universals.David K. Lewis - 1983 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (4):343-377.
Thinking about mechanisms.Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden & Carl F. Craver - 2000 - Philosophy of Science 67 (1):1-25.
The metaphysics within physics.Tim Maudlin - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Depth: An Account of Scientific Explanation.Michael Strevens - 2008 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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