Moral Pluralism

By any reasonable standard of assessment, it is clear that human beings lead lives of wildly varying quality. People who live in different societies or belong to different social classes often differ greatly in their life expectancy, material resources, political rights and personal freedoms, and levels of nutrition and health, as well as in their access to education and medical care and their vulnerability to violence and assault. At the extremes, at least, these differences are normally accompanied by great differences (...) in the range of options people have available to them, in their prospects of achieving their aims, and in their sense of satisfaction with their own lives. Whereas many people in many countries enjoy a high level of prosperity and material comfort, and have a reasonable chance of achieving a significant measure of personal fulfillment over the course of their lives, there are many others who can look forward to little more than a miserable life and an early death. Although great progress has been made in combating the worst forms of poverty in recent decades, there continue to be people who live in conditions of extreme deprivation and malnutrition; people whose lack of medical care leaves them defenseless against infection and disease; people who have never received a formal education, have no political.. (shrink)

Corruption prevention can be more effective if it does not rely merely on legal enforcement. This theoretical review aimed to propose a hypothetical psychological model capable of explaining the behavior of corruption. Moral disengagement is a variable that is considered ontologically closest in “distance” to the variable of corruption behavior. Counterfeit self, implicit self-theory, ethical mindset and moral emotion are taken into account as the pivotal factors of the corruption behavior and its mechanism of moral disengagement. Counterfeit self along with (...) some moderating variables are regarded to “set” one’s future corrupt behavior based on his/her past/prior ethical or unethical behavior and moral emotions. This review discovered a conjectural-theoretical model of the corruption psychology. It can be used to design a social intervention and training for individuals to manage the mindset and emotion that can buffer counterfeit self effect. In addition, the users of these research findings are recommended to be aware of the surroundings that consist of groups of people with particular ethical mindset, moral emotion proneness and self-theory. (shrink)

No matter how it is viewed, as a plausible version of anti-utilitarianism or of non-consequentialist, or even as a plausible version of deontology, the theory of prima facie duties certainly makes W. D. Ross one of the most important moral philosopher of the twentieth-century. By outlining his pluralistic deontology, this paper attempts to argue for a positive answer to the question of whether Ross’s theory can offer a solution to the issue of conflicting duties. If such a solution is convincing, (...) as I believe it is, it would indicate the possibility to justify within the deontological framework, i.e., without committing to the principle of good-maximizing, those “hard cases” where people should break a promise or other (prima facie) duty in order to prevent a disastrous outcome. The theory of prima facie duties might then suggest that deontology and utilitarianism would likely be reconcilable. (shrink)

A number of Christian theologians and philosophers have been critical of overly moralizing approaches to the doctrine of sin, but nearly all Christian thinkers maintain that moral fault is necessary or sufficient for sin to obtain. Call this the “Moral Consensus.” I begin by clarifying the relevance of impurities to the biblical cataloguing of sins. I then present four extensional problems for the Moral Consensus on sin, based on the biblical catalogue of sins: (1) moral over-demandingness, (2) agential unfairness, (3) (...) moral repugnance, and (4) moral atrocity. Next, I survey several partial solutions to these problems, suggested by the recent philosophical literature. Then I evaluate two largely unexplored solutions: (a) genuine sin dilemmas and (b) defeasible sinfulness. I argue that (a) creates more problems than it solves and that, while (b) is well-motivated and solves or eases each of the above problems, (b) leaves many biblical ordinances about sin morally misleading, creating (5) a pedagogical problem of evil. I conclude by arguing that (5) places hefty explanatory burdens on those who would appeal to (b) to resolve the four extensional problems discussed in this paper. So Christian thinkers may need to consider a more radical separation of sin and moral fault. (shrink)

Where does the impetus towards ethical theory come from? What drives humans to make values explicit, consistent, and discursively justifiable? This paper situates the demand for ethical theory in human life by identifying the practical needs that give rise to it. Such a practical derivation puts the demand in its place: while finding a home for it in the public decision-making of modern societies, it also imposes limitations on the demand by presenting it as scalable and context-sensitive. This differentiates strong (...) forms of the demand calling for theory from weaker forms calling for less, and contexts where it has a place from contexts where it is out of place. In light of this, subjecting personal deliberation to the demand turns out to involve a trade-off. (shrink)

This project is concerned with the attempt to diagnose certain types of deductive inferences as exhibiting failure of transmission of justification. The canonical example of alleged transmission failure is G. E. Moore’s infamous ‘proof’ of the external world, in which Moore reasoned here is a hand, therefore the external world exists. If the transmission failure diagnosis is correct, then this inference is incapable of providing a route to learning of its conclusion on the grounds that it is only if one (...) already has some justification to believe its conclusion that one can acquire justification for its premise. The thesis presents two novel problems for the transmission failure diagnosis. Firstly, this diagnosis is only appealing if it is able to safeguard epistemic closure, but it is unclear whether it is able to do this once we distinguish between propositional and doxastic justification. Secondly, a dilemma is presented for entitlement theory, the traditional framework for understanding how there could be justification for believing the conclusions at issue. The dilemma arises once we consider the question of what the apposite degree of confidence is that is licenced by an entitlement, the upshot of which is that either entitlement theory is unmotivated, or it leads to irrational doxastic attitudes. In light of these problems, an alternative framework for understanding the phenomenon of transmission failure is presented. This framework rejects a common assumption in the literature that we can only accommodate the phenomenon by appealing to internalist notions of justification. The resulting externalist framework is defended against two potentially devastating objections. Finally, implications for how these views regarding the structure of justification bear on issues in the epistemology of testimony are considered, and it is argued that a certain family of views in the literature on testimony are committed to certain problematic views regarding the structure of justification. (shrink)

A review of Bongrae Seok ed. (2020), Naturalism, Human Flourishing, and Asian Philosophy: Owen Flanagan and Beyond.

The paper deals with the methodological clash between idealism and anti-idealism in political philosophy, and highlights its importance for public reason (PR) and public justification (PJ) theorising. Upon reviewing the broader context which harks back to Rawls’s notion of a realistic utopia, we focus on two major recent contributions to the debate in the work of David Estlund (the prototypical utopian) and Gerald Gaus (the cautious anti-utopian). While Estlund presents a powerful case on behalf of ideal theorising, claiming that motivational (...) incapacity and other non-ideal features of “human nature” – the so-called bad facts – do not normally refute the desirability of highly utopian theories of justice, we show that Gaus is correct in stressing the importance of feasibility considerations, including empirical knowledge about human societies. Because moral disagreement is to be expected even among cognitively and morally excellent reasoners, we argue that Estlund’s search for Truth about justice must idealise away normative diversity as just another bad fact. This methodological dispute has important ramifications for current debates about PR and PJ as the grounds of liberal legitimacy. Because consensual approaches rely on strong idealisation which results in exclusion of numerous comprehensive doctrines from consideration, we conclude that convergence-based liberal political theory has distinct advantage as regards exploiting normative diversity to the advantage of everyone. (shrink)

In this chapter, I consider the claim for pluralism commonly advanced in political philosophy as a claim concerning the standards, methods, and norms for forming belief and judgment about certain kinds of facts rather than the nature of facts themselves. After distinguishing between descriptive and normative epistemic pluralism, I contend that in this context, pluralism needs to rest on grounds that are stronger than fallibilism yet weaker than relativism in order to enjoy a distinct standing. The idea of reasonable pluralism (...) seems to devise a variety of normative pluralism designed to meet this demand. I argue, however, that this is an unstable position and suggest that an epistemic view of deliberation may be better suited to making sense of political justification. The latter view, though, is bound to dispense with normative pluralism. (shrink)

This paper discusses the prospects of a comprehensive philosophical account of promising that relies centrally on the notion of trust. I lay out the core idea behind the Trust View, showing how it convincingly explains the normative contours and the unique value of our promissory practice. I then sketch three distinct options of how the Trust View can explain the normativity of promises. First, an effect based-view, second, a view drawing on a wider norm demanding respect to those whom one (...) has invited to something, and finally, as a new suggestion, a Normative Interest View. This view holds that promising is a normative power that serves our interest in facilitating or enabling the relationship of trust between promisor and promisee. I argue that only those embracing the third view can fully account for the distinctive obligation that results from the giving of a valid promise in all cases. (shrink)

Drawing on archival and published sources from 1926 to 1932, this chapter analyzes “Three Independent Factors in Morals” (1930) as a blueprint to Dewey’s chapters in the 1932 Ethics. The 1930 presentation is Dewey’s most concise and sophisticated critique of the quest in ethical theory for the central and basic source of normative justification. He argued that moral situations are heterogeneous in their origins and operations. They elude full predictability and are not controllable by the impositions of any abstract monistic (...) principle. Moral life instead has at least three distinct experiential roots that cannot be encompassed in one ideal way to proceed. More specifically, Dewey hypothesized that each of the primary Western ethical systems (represented for him by Aristotle, Kant, and the British moralists) represents a basic, non-arbitrary force, or factor of moral life: aspiration, obligation, and approbation, respectively. Each factor is expressed in that system’s leading fundamental concept: good, duty, and virtue, respectively. Yet he contended that aspirations, obligations, and approbations are distinctive phenomena that cannot be blanketed by a single covering concept. By exposing Dewey’s own generalizations to scrutiny, the promises and limitations of his approach can be critically evaluated. (shrink)

This chapter explores some features of pragmatic pluralism as an ethical perspective on climate change. It is inspired in part by Andrew Light’s work on climate diplomacy as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Energy for International Affairs, and by Bryan Norton’s environmental pragmatism, while drawing more explicitly than Light or Norton from classical pragmatist sources such as John Dewey. The primary aim of the chapter is to characterize, differentiate, and advance a general pragmatist approach to climate ethics. The main line of (...) argument is that we are suffering culturally from a sort of “moral jetlag” due in part to “moral fundamentalist” habits, and that a critical focus on pragmatic pluralism—in moral theory generally and climate ethics particularly—would be salutary for our recovery if philosophers are to speak more effectively to “wicked problems” in a way that aids public deliberation and social learning. Moral fundamentalist habits, and the monistic one-way assumption that unintentionally—but not blamelessly—exercises and unduly reinforces them, are obstacles to fostering habits of moral and political inquiry better suited to dealing with predicaments rapidly transforming our warming planet. (shrink)

The existence of fundamental moral disagreements is a central problem for moral realism and has often been contrasted with an alleged absence of disagreement in mathematics. However, mathematicians do in fact disagree on fundamental questions, for example on which set-theoretic axioms are true, and some philosophers have argued that this increases the plausibility of moral vis-à-vis mathematical realism. I argue that the analogy between mathematical and moral disagreement is not as straightforward as those arguments present it. In particular, I argue (...) that pluralist accounts of mathematics render fundamental mathematical disagreements compatible with mathematical realism in a way in which moral disagreements and moral realism are not. 11. (shrink)

The history of contractarian moral theory is long and varied. It includes the classic social contract theories of Hobbes (1651), Hume (1739/1740), and Kant (1785) as well as modern versions of these theories, such as those of Gauthier (1986), Scanlon (1998), Darwall (2006), and Southwood (2010). In Minimal Morality: A Multilevel Social Contract Theory (2018), I continue this tradition by developing a ‘multilevel social contract theory’ that combines Humean, Hobbesian, and Kantian moral features. In this article, I reply to comments (...) by Fred D’Agostino, John Thrasher, Christopher W. Morris, and Peter Vanderschraaf. I am deeply grateful for these commentators’ constructive and engaging comments that, in their own way, shed light on core assumptions and features of the theory. Due to space restrictions, I focus on what I consider to be the main criticisms and have organized my responses thematically. I hope that doing so will also help readers who are less familiar with my work to understand the relevance of multilevel social contract theory for morally diverse societies. (shrink)

This book provides a systematic defense of moral contractarianism as a distinct approach to the social contract. It elucidates, in comparison to moral conventionalism and moral contractualism, the distinct features of moral contractarianism, its scope, and conceptual and practical challenges that concern the relationship between morality and self-interest, the problems of assurance and compliance, rule-following, counterfactualism, and the nexus between morals and politics. It argues that, if appropriately conceived, moral contractarianism is conceptually coherent, empirically sound, and practically relevant, and has (...) much to offer to contemporary moral philosophy. (shrink)

Contemporary moral contractarianism originates with Hobbes’s moral theory. When considering the structure of Hobbes’s moral theory, however, it is often argued that moral contractarianism does not justify any specific moral demands concerning questions of climate change because currently no global Leviathan in Hobbes’s sense exists that could enforce any such demands in our world. I do not dispute the fact that currently no global Leviathan in Hobbes’s sense exists in our world. Nevertheless, I argue that Hobbesian moral contractarianism offers an (...) adequate moral framework to guide our considerations concerning questions of climate change. Methodologically, the approach is sufficiently pluralistic to consider ethical and economic considerations as well as political feasibility constraints. Conceptually, I argue that, despite the fact that currently no global Leviathan in Hobbes’s sense exists in our world, a Hobbesian-inspired modus vivendi is sufficient as a starting point to address some of the most pressing issues of climate change in our world. Specifically, I argue that the shift in climate change negotiations from the Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement could be considered to be guided by reasoning that underlies Hobbesian moral contractarianism. (shrink)

Sometimes citizens disagree about political matters, but a decision must be made. We have two theoretical frameworks for resolving political disagreement. The first is the framework of social choice. In it, our goal is to treat parties to the dispute fairly, and there is no sense in which some are right and the others wrong. The second framework is that of collective decision-making. Here, we do believe that preferences are truth apt, and our moral consideration is owed not to those (...) who disagree but to the community that stands to benefit or suffer from the decision. In this chapter, I describe and explore these two frameworks. I conclude two things. First, analysis of real-world disagreement suggests that collective decision-making is the right way to model politics. In most, possibly even all, political disagreement, all parties believe (if implicitly) that there is an objective standard of correctness. Second, this matter is connected to the concept of pluralism. If pluralism is true, then collective decision-making cannot be applied to some political disagreements. More surprisingly, pluralism may rule out the applicability of social choice theory as well. (shrink)

Drawing on unpublished and published sources from 1926-1932, this chapter builds on John Dewey’s naturalistic pragmatic pluralism in ethical theory. A primary focus is “Three Independent Factors in Morals,” which analyzes good, duty, and virtue as distinct categories that in many cases express different experiential origins. The chapter suggests that a vital role for contemporary theorizing is to lay bare and analyze the sorts of conflicts that constantly underlie moral and political action. Instead of reinforcing moral fundamentalism via an outdated (...) quest for the central and basic source of normative justification, we should foster theories with a range of idioms and emphases which, while accommodating monistic insights, better inform decision-making by opening communication across diverse elements of moral and political life, placing these elements in a wider context in which norms gain practical traction in non-ideal conditions, and expanding prospects for social inquiry and convergence on policy and action. (shrink)

This volume deals with some of the major issues in contemporary moral philosophy. The core metaethical argument illuminates the structure of a moral system and emphasizes the importance of a phenomenological attitude toward the moral subject. From this starting point, further questions (typically addressed in normative ethics) arise: “How does moral deliberation work?” “How is moral justification possible?” “What is moral pluralism?” “How do we give an account of supererogatory acts?” Regarding all these questions, the volume works out the following (...) answer: only through complexity. This view entails the belief that a life lived well is richer if we endorse a moral system that denies theoretical oversimplifications and favors the abundance of the constraints of moral obligations. As such, the overall goal of this volume involves mapping and recognizing different instances of moral complexity. This acknowledgment comes with several assumptions. Only through complexity can we make sense of what lies beyond the call of duty. Only through complexity can we give an account of how morality works from the first-person perspective. Only through complexity can we better promote the pursuit of a flourishing life. (shrink)

In his _Natural Law and the Nature of Law_, Jonathan Crowe has written an important and interesting book, one that should be read by people interested in jurisprudence, ethics, and political philosophy. Its distinctive strength is in the way Crowe shows how much can be done within a natural law framework that does not assume a theological background. A distinctive feature of Crowe's approach to natural law, one that distinguishes it from other well-known approaches, is its argument that only a (...) minimal state, if any state at all, is required by or even compatible with natural law. It is this claim that I focus on in this paper. I show that these anti-state arguments do not work, and that a much more robust, largely state-like, type of political society is necessary if the requirements of natural law that Crowe accepts are to be met. In doing this, I also draw some related conclusions about the proper understanding and reach of the common good. In arguing for this conclusion I do not attack Crowe's general approach, but rather make what I hope to be an internal critique of the argument. If I am successful in this, then there will be reason for people who are sympathetic to the overall project to reject some of Crowe’s sub-conclusions, even if they wish to remain working in the natural law tradition overall. And, there will be reason to accept that something like the modern state will be necessary - at least for some time and for people like us - if we are to live good lives. (shrink)

Abstract. In Minimal Morality (2018), I develop a multilevel social contract theory that accommodates deep moral pluralism. In this article, I reply to comments by Gaus, Van Schoelandt and Cooper concerning the three core projects of the book that aim to (i) revive orthodox rational choice contractarianism as a viable approach to the social contract, (ii) integrate this approach into a comprehensive social contract theory and (iii) show the applicability of the theory to the real world. My replies clarify some (...) of the main features of the theory, defend its core projects and expand discussion of some of its details in order to show that the theory can address the challenges raised. (shrink)

In Minimal Morality, I develop a multilevel social contract theory that, in contrast to existing theories in the liberal tradition, does not merely assume a restricted form of reasonable moral pluralism, but is tailored to the conditions of deeply morally pluralistic societies that may include liberal moral agents, nonliberal moral agents, and, according to the traditional understanding of morality, nonmoral agents. The theory takes its main inspiration from the moral theories of Hobbes (1651), Hume (1739/1740), and Kant (1785, 1795, and (...) 1797), and some of their contemporary followers, such as Rawls (1971) and Gauthier (1986). In its simplified form, the theory combines what I call traditional first-level morality with second-level pure instrumental morality and derives, in the form of the weak principle of universalization, a principle of conflict resolution that defines the minimal behavioral restrictions that are necessary to ensure, compared to violent conflict resolution, mutually beneficial peaceful long-term cooperation in deeply morally pluralistic societies. I argue that, despite its ideal nature, this theory is, in principle, applicable to the real world and, for the conditions described, most promising for securing mutually beneficial peaceful long-term cooperation in a world in which a fully just society, due to moral pluralism, is unattainable. (shrink)

Thanks to Michel Foucault, one might say it has become possible to conceive that the political relevance of humanity in modern thought does not have to do with its “philosophical essence” but rather with its “nonessence.” Yet this very idea surfaced earlier in Western thought, at the time of the revolutionary turn towards a politicized humanitarianism, and helped to shape some crucial political strategies making up modern liberal democracy. Its potential eluded even Foucault. I contend that tracing the contours of (...) this classical, if long unthinkable idea, can inform our response to the other of social critique. (shrink)

How should contractualists seek to accommodate and respond to the existence of radical pluralism within contemporary liberal states? Ryan Muldoon has recently argued that a) the dominant Kantian liberal model of contractualism is hopelessly ill equipped to do so but that b) there is a particular kind of Hobbesian contractualism that can do much better. I raise some problems concerning the capacity of Muldoonian contractualism to respond appropriately to the problem of radical pluralism. I then propose a very different kind (...) of solution that involves embracing an advice model of contractualism. Keywords: contractualism; contractarianism; pluralism; diversity; disagreement . (shrink)

The normative and metanormative pluralism that figures among core self-descriptions of democratic theory, which seems incompatible with democratic theorists’ practical ambitions, may stem from the internal logic of research traditions in the social sciences and humanities and in the conceptual structure of political theory itself. One way to deal productively with intradisciplinary diversity is to appeal to the idea of a meta-consensus; another is to appeal to the argument from cognitive diversity that fuels recent debates on epistemic democracy. For different (...) reasons, both strategies fail, such that a metatheoretical step aside may be desirable, one that entails modeling democratic theory after the public justification approach. (shrink)

The public intellectual has been the subject of a lively scholarly debate for over two decades, especially in the US. There, it is often said that intellectuals have increasingly lost interest in speaking to a broad public and engaging with important real-world issues. Advocates of this view condemn academics’ distance from reality and their propensity for abstract theorizing – something that it is said has been primarily inspired by Rawls’s normative political theory. Supporters of ‘engaged’ philosophy argue that this abstract (...) and ostensibly sophisticated framework is highly obscure to the public. In addition, its implicit moralism is at odds with the actual needs of the political realm towards which it is directed. This paper suggests that Rawls’s normative theory had a unique impact on Italian philosophy. Here, what I call the ‘public intellectual’ refers to a new approach to both political philosophy and intellectual activity, which was developed in Italy as a theoretical alternative to a more traditional ‘engaged’ model. (shrink)

In this essay, I discuss some elements of Hume’s virtue ethics that distinguish​ it from the neo-Aristotelian approach. I stress some of its characteristics – its emphasis on character traits rather than on actions, the role it reserves for moral education, its being sentimentalist – and highlight its points of strength with respect to the neo-Aristotelian version. I do that by defending an interpretation of Hume’s virtue ethics in terms of a form of subjectivism hinging on individuals possessing virtuous or (...) vicious characters. (shrink)

Ethical pluralists hold that moral values and systems are irreducibly diverse and incommensurable according to a common scale. One criticism of the view is that accepting such incommensurability renders them unable to criticize values, practices, institutions, and so forth that are genuinely bad. This paper considers two ways that pluralists have appealed to human nature to answer this criticism. One way appeals to nature to ground a positive conception of human flourishing, whereas the other appeals to nature as a source (...) of constraints. I argue that both views fail to meet the criticism in a satisfactory way and then advance a view that improves upon the existing options. Specifically, I argue that human nature is the standard by which it is possible to assess humaneness, which is a kind of beauty that represents the elevation or refinement of human nature. Accordingly, pluralists can deploy judgments of humaneness to criticize practices, institutions, and so forth that are not worth tolerating without violating the spirit of pluralism. (shrink)

In the face of differences between the ethical religio-philosophies believed across the globe, how should a media ethicist theorize or make recommendations in the light of theory? One approach is relativist, taking each distinct moral worldview to be true only for its own people. A second approach is universalist, seeking to discover a handful of basic ethical principles that are already shared by all the world's peoples. After providing reasons to doubt both of these approaches to doing media ethics, consideration (...) is given to a third. This under-explored approach offers moral claims that would be reasonable for nearly all long-standing cultures to accept even though they currently do not, with the aim of creating new common ground among them. The chapter advances some rights and responsibilities, particularly as they concern the media's role in respect of self-government and self-expression, on which many of those with African, Confucian, Islamic, and Western foundational commitments could sensibly converge. (shrink)

It is a central tenet of ethical intuitionism as defended by W. D. Ross and others that moral theory should reflect the convictions of mature moral agents. Hence, intuitionism is plausible to the extent that it corresponds to our well-considered moral judgments. After arguing for this claim, I discuss whether intuitionists offer an empirically adequate account of our moral obligations. I do this by applying recent empirical research by John Mikhail that is based on the idea of a universal moral (...) grammar to a number of claims implicit in W. D. Ross’s normative theory. I argue that the results at least partly vindicate intuitionism. (shrink)

I argue in favour of the central claim of virtue-ethical accounts of right action: that right action is virtuous action. First, I disambiguate this claim and argue for a specific interpretation of it. Second, I provide reasons to prefer target-centred over both agent-centred and motive-centred accounts of virtuous action. Third, I argue that an action is right if, only if, and because it is overall virtuous. Finally, I respond to important arguments to the contrary.

Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad, says a Nigerian proverb. These words of wisdom re-echo in traditional approaches to mental health ethics in sub-Saharan Africa. Among many cultures in Nigeria, it is customary to subject persons with mental health illness, especially those who present with violent behavior, to physical restraint and beatings. The belief is that such subjugation could restore mental health in the early stages of madness. Physical restraint and beatings only form a part (...) of the healing process, as it also has communitarian cum spiritual aspects. The healing process is carried out by family members or community, who share in the life of the mentally ill person. Their... (shrink)

In this accessible yet throught-provoking work, Lisa Tessman takes us through gripping examples of the impossible demands of morality -- some epic, and others quotidian -- whose central predicament is: How do we make decisions when morality demands we do something that we cannot?

This article examines Nietzsche’s understanding of happiness and a good life going back to the ancient roots of his thought. It claims that his understanding is oriented by the category of a “form of life” (bios), which is central for Plato’s and Aristotle’s thought on a good and happy life. Like Nietzsche, both ancient philosophers place a life of contemplation at the top of the hierarchy of forms of life. The article argues that Nietzsche should be interpreted as a proponent (...) of a heroic art of living and of heroic philosophical cognition that are connected to his ideal “to live dangerously”. (shrink)

In a recent article, Gauthier rejects orthodox rational choice contractarianism in favor of a revisionist approach to the social contract that, according to him, justifies his principle of maximin proportionate gain as a principle of distributive justice. I agree with Gauthier that his principle of maximin proportionate gain cannot be justified by orthodox rational choice contractarianism. I argue, however, that orthodox rational choice contractarianism, before and after Gauthier, is still a viable approach to the social contract, although the scope of (...) this approach is limited. Orthodox rational choice contractarianism can be applied fruitfully to moral philosophy only in situations of deep moral pluralism in which moral reasoning is reduced to instrumental reasoning, because the members of society do not share, as assumed by traditional moral theories, a consensus on moral ideals as traditionally conceived as a starting point for the derivation of moral rules but only an overarching end that they aim to reach. If orthodox rational choice contractarianism is applied adequately, then it offers a viable approach to the social contract that, in contrast to Gauthier’s theory, justifies a rival principle for distributive conflicts that is valid for deeply morally pluralistic societies. (shrink)

This is a short review of a collection of articles entitled Weighing Reasons edited by Errol Lord and Barry Maguire.

According to Robert Talisse, ‘we have sufficient epistemological reasons to be democrats’ and these reasons support democracy even when we are tempted to doubt the legitimacy of democratic government. As epistemic agents, we care about the truth of our beliefs, and have reasons to want to live in an environment conducive to forming and acting on true, rather than false, beliefs. Democracy, Talisse argues, is the best means to provide such an environment. Hence, he concludes that epistemic agency, correctly understood, (...) supports the legitimacy of democracy. This reply highlights the interest, but also the difficulties, of this argument and, in particular, of its assumptions about epistemic agency, morality and democracy. (shrink)

Political philosophy has seen vibrant debate over the connection, if any, between liberalism and pluralism. Some philosophers, following Isaiah Berlin, reckon a close connection between the two concepts. Others--most notably John Gray--believe that liberalism and pluralism are incompatible. In this essay, I argue that the puzzle can be solved by distinguishing the responsibilities of liberal states to their peoples from the responsibilities of liberal states to other states. There is an entailment from pluralism to liberalism, and it in turn implies (...) that while liberal states must tolerate "illiberal" lifestyles within their borders, liberal states must not tolerate illiberal states. The fact of liberal intolerance, however, does not justify unreasonably aggressive intervention by liberal states, nor does it mean that illiberal states deserve to be punished. (shrink)

According to Arpaly and to Markovits, actions have moral worth iff they are done for the reasons that make them right. Can this view have implications for normative ethics? I argue that it has such implications, as you can start from truths about the moral worth of actions to truths about the reasons that make them right. What makes actions right is the question of normative ethics. I argue from the moral worth view to a pluralistic view of ethics - (...) not Kantianism or utilitarianism but an account according to which there are at least two important moral factors, one of which is wellbeing. Part of this argument involves objecting to Kant's view of the moral worth of actions performed out of altruism and not universalizability. I also specify various implications for the relationship between the true normative theory and common sense morality. (shrink)

Most of us wonder how to make sense of the apparent moral excellences or virtues of those who have different visions of the good life or different religious commitments than our own. Rather than flattening or ignoring the deep difference between various visions of the good life, as is so often done, this book turns to Thomas Aquinas to find a better way. Thomas, it argues, shows us how to welcome the outsider and her virtue as an expression rather than (...) a betrayal of one's own distinctive vision. It shows how Thomas, driven by a Christian commitment to charity and especially informed by Augustine, synthesized Augustinian and Aristotelian elements to construct an ethics that does justice—in love—to insiders and outsiders alike. Decosimo offers the first analysis of Thomas on pagan virtue and a reinterpretation of Thomas's ethics and synthesis of theology and philosophy, while providing a model for our own efforts to articulate a truthful hospitality and do ethics in our pluralist, globalized world. (shrink)

Richard Nisbett and Dov Cohen’s (1996) influential account of “cultures of honor” speculates that honor norms are a socially-adaptive deterrence strategy. This theory has been appealed to by multiple empirically-minded philosophers, and plays an important role in John Doris and Alexandra Plakias’ (2008) antirealist argument from disagreement. In this essay, I raise four objections to the Nisbett-Cohen deterrence thesis, and offer another theory of honor in its place that sees honor as an agonistic normative system regulating prestige competitions. Since my (...) account portrays honor norms as radically different from liberal ones, it actually strengthens Doris and Plakias’ case in some respects: cultures of honor are not merely superficially different from Western liberal ones. Nonetheless, the persistent appeal of honor’s principles, and their moral plausibility in certain contexts, suggests not antirealism, but pluralism—a reply on behalf of realism that itself has considerable empirical support. (shrink)

Institutions have often been characterized as responses to conflict, and assumptions about the nature of conflict have frequently determined the structure and scope of political activity. Two prevalent interpretations of conflict portray it as either a conflict of interest or a competition for resources. Yet there is another view of conflict that regards it in terms of a contest of values, something that raises a different set of questions and issues. These issues involve concerns about the incommensurability and incompatibility of (...) values, and challenge contemporary arguments that rely upon the ordering of preferences or that urge the pursuit of a normative consensus. As I argue, both preference based theories and theories of deliberative democracy prove to deal inadequately with the challenges of moral pluralism and value conflict. (shrink)

Alan Reynolds: This paper is divided into three sections. First, I describe the wide plurality of views on issues of animal ethics, showing that our disagreements here are deep and profound. This fact of reasonable pluralism about animal ethics presents a political problem. According to the dominant liberal tradition of political philosophy, it is impermissible for one faction of people to impose its values upon another faction of people who reasonably reject those values. Instead, we are obligated to justify our (...) political actions to each other using reasons that everyone can accept. Thus, in the second section I suggest that our condition of reasonable pluralism inspires us to turn toward some form of contractarianism. The social contract tradition emerged precisely as an attempt to think about how a society characterized by deep moral disagreement could nonetheless agree about the basic principles of justice. I will show, in this section, that although the social contract tradition would seem to contain the best tools for thinking about how to deal with moral disagreement, it fails to help us think through the important issues of animal ethics. In the concluding section, I suggest some ways in which political philosophy might move beyond contractarianism when thinking about this issue, including embracing an agonistic style of politics. -/- Cet article est divisé en trois sections. Tout d’abord, je décris la grande pluralité des opinions existant sur les questions de l’éthique animale, montrant que nos désaccords sur le sujet sont profonds. Cette réalité du pluralisme raisonnable en matière d’éthique animale pose un problème politique. Selon la tradition libérale dominante de la philosophie politique, une faction de personnes ne peut imposer ses valeurs à une autre faction qui rejette raisonnablement ces valeurs. Au lieu de cela, nous sommes obligés de justifier nos actions politiques en utilisant des raisons que tout le monde peut accepter. Ainsi, dans la seconde section, je suggère que notre condition de pluralisme raisonnable nous mène à une forme de contractualisme. La tradition du contrat social est justement apparue comme une tentative de réfléchir à la façon dont une société caractérisée par un profond désaccord moral peut néanmoins s’entendre sur les principes fondamentaux de la justice. Dans cette section, je montre que, bien que la tradition du contrat social semble offrir les meilleurs outils pour définir la manière de traiter le désaccord moral, elle ne parvient pas à nous aider à réfléchir aux questions essentielles de l’éthique animale. Dans la dernière section, je suggère quelques façons susceptibles de permettre à la philosophie politique de dépasser le contractualisme dans sa réflexion sur cette question, ceci comprenant l’adoption d’un style de politique agonistique. (shrink)

Moral obligations rest on circumstances. But what are these obligating reasons and in virtue of what are they such reasons? Nomological conceptions define such reasons in terms of moral laws. I argue that one such conception cannot be correct and that others do not support the familiar and plausible view that obligating reasons are pro tanto reasons, either because they entail that this view is false or else because they cannot explain—or even help to explain—how it could be true. I (...) also argue that a particular dispositional conception of obligating reasons does support this view of obligating reasons by enabling an explanation of how it could be true. Moreover, my arguments show that the dispositional moral metaphysic on which this conception is predicated can do something that nomological alternatives cannot: explain why obligating reasons and moral obligations are pro tanto reasons and obligations. (shrink)

In this dissertation I discuss the epistemology of ethical intuitionism, in particular the claim that mature moral agents possess self-evident moral knowledge. Traditional intuitionists such as W.D. Ross have claimed that by reflection, we can acquire knowledge of our basic moral duties such as the duty of veracity or benevolence. Recent defenders of intuitionism such as Robert Audi have further developed this theory and argued that adequate understanding can be sufficient for moral knowledge. I criticize this view and argue that (...) such accounts fail to make a convincing case for a foundationalist moral epistemology. Instead, I propose to separate the question of how we acquire moral knowledge from an account that justifies moral beliefs. In response to the first issue, I draw an analogy between our moral intuitions and chosmkian linguistics; in both areas, I argue, human beings possess a universal, unconscious and (partly) inaccessible system of rules that explains how we come to learn language and to make moral judgments. In regards to the justificatory issue, I address recent evolutionary debunking arguments designed to undermine the claim that our moral judgments track stance-independent truths. I try to show that this conclusion only follows under the assumption of an instrumentalist interpretation of moral reasoning which the intuitionist is not forced to accept. (shrink)