The Is/Ought Gap pt. II: On Its Implications for Reductionism and Intuitionism

I’ve very much enjoyed the excellent discussions that have been occurring in the comments section of my recent post on the Is/ought gap. All of the commentators have been provocative and informative, but Larry posted some fantastically critical remarks of two positions I was advancing in that post, (I) that the is/ought thesis has no […]

The Is/Ought Gap: It’s real but doesn’t pose a problem for “scientific moralists”

In the past two weeks I’ve stumbled upon blog entries that argued for a “scientific morality”, and in doing so challenged the “is/ought thesis”, which seems to be a rite of passage to be a naturalist these days. Unfortunately, the writers misunderstand the “is/ought” thesis, and so their arguments against it fail (but both entries […]

Review of Mark Timmons’ Morality Without Foundations pt III (of III): on Timmons’ Contextualist Epistemology

Timmons then turns to matters of moral epistemology, arguing for a contextualist epistemology that borrows from foundationalist and coherentist views to develop an account of how regular persons can have justified moral beliefs – a criterion that he says the other epistemological views don’t take seriously enough. Timmons notes, before getting things going, that he […]

Wedgwood on Moral Knowledge and Moral Epistemology pt. II

Section Three: The Epistemology of Normative Belief Part II: Disagreement and the A Priori Having articulated a theory of how we can come to have moral knowledge (see here), Wedgwood turns to whether such knowledge is a priori, and if so, how there can be such widespread moral disagreement. Wedgwood takes Kant’s work on the […]

Wedgwood on Moral Knowledge and Moral Epistemology pt I

Section Three: The Epistemology of Normative Belief. Part I: The Status of Normative Intuitions (Part II will cover the next chapter of the section on moral epistemology, entitled, “Disagreement and the A Priori”) Wedgwood turns to the crucial question of how we might be justified in moral beliefs, using again the thesis that the intentional […]

Notes on Robert Audi’s Moral Knowledge and Ethical Character, pt V: Conclusion

Conclusion “The Moral Justification of Actions and the Ethical Character of Persons” In this concluding essay, Audi makes further points on how a Rossian intuitionistic pluralism can be supplemented with Kant’s categorical imperative. A moral theory can be normatively complete on two levels, the first being that the theory accounts for the diversity of moral […]

Notes on Robert Audi’s Moral Knowledge and Ethical Character, pt IV: Practical Reason and the Foundations of Ethics

Section IV: Practical Reason and the Foundations of Ethics “Autonomy, Reason and Desire” In a way, this essay is best understood as a further defense of the theory of responsibility Audi argues for in “Responsible Action and Virtuous Character” (in pt III). The intent of the current essay is to develop the conception of autonomy […]

Notes on Robert Audi’s Moral Knowledge and Ethical Character, pt II: Ethical Concepts and Moral Realism

Section II: Ethical Concepts and Moral Realism “Moral Epistemology and the Supervenience of Ethical Concepts” This essay focuses on the epistemological status of moral principles by attending to whether empiricism or rationalism is better suited for moral knowledge in light of the supervenience of moral properties on non-moral properties; Audi, unsurprisingly, concludes in favor of […]

Notes on Audi’s Moral Knowledge & Ethical Character, pt I: Moral Epistemology

I’ve frequently criticized virtue ethics on this blog, so it seems worthwhile to comment on Robert Audi’s theories on moral realism, which seek to integrate an Aristotelian virtue conception into an otherwise intuitionistic Kantianism (or Kantian intuitionism; Audi admits either description of his view works, but as his epistemology is intuitionistic for the most part, […]