Normative Reference Magnets

Philosophical Review 127 (1):41-71 (2018)
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Abstract

The concept of moral wrongness, many think, has a distinctive kind of referential stability, brought out by moral twin earth cases. This article offers a new account of the source of this stability, deriving it from a metaphysics of content: “substantive” radical interpretation, and first-order normative assumptions. This story is distinguished from extant “reference magnetic” explanations of the phenomenon, and objections and replies are considered.

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Robert Williams
University of Leeds

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The moral problem.Michael R. Smith - 1994 - Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell.
Fact, Fiction, and Forecast.Nelson Goodman - 1983 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
New work for a theory of universals.David K. Lewis - 1983 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (4):343-377.
Reason, Truth and History.Hilary Putnam - 1981 - New York: Cambridge University Press.

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