Summary |
"Anti-theory" is a label often applied to a group of ethical philosophers who, despite substantial disagreements in other areas, possess a shared skepticism towards the aspirations of moral theory. They share a sense that moral theories--in virtue of trying to reduce all moral considerations to a very small set of general values or principles--cannot do justice to the complexity, particularity or "messiness" of ordinary life. Insofar as moral theories aim to produce sets of reasons for action which aspire to rational authority over the lives of individual decision-makers, the anti-theorist claims that the moral theory must fail, and they will often (though, not always) point to some absurd or counterintuitive implication of a moral theory in support of that claim. |