In this article, I shall consider a method for conceptual analysis which has been called the Canberra Plan and which might perhaps be conceived as an alternative approach to conceptual analysis in the classical sense. The Canberra Plan is not, however, aimed primarily at the elucidation of the relevant concept, but at the metaphysical question of identifying the descriptive (or natural or physical) property that corresponds to the concept.[1] The idea of the Canberra Plan is, more specifically, (a) to clarify (...) the import of the concept by reference to the role the concept plays in a network of concepts, principles, and claims, and (b) to investigate and see what, if any, descriptive property corresponds to the concept thus analyzed. What I want to do in this article, then, is first to introduce the Canberra Plan and give some consideration to its advantages and disadvantages and, secondly, to apply it to the concept of law, in order not only to clarify the import of this concept, but also to find out what, if any, descriptive property corresponds to the concept. The question of what descriptive property, if any, corresponds to the concept of law should be of considerable interest to jurisprudents, not only because the meta-ethical question of whether legal properties are descriptive, or even natural or physical, is generally interesting, but also because the existence of such descriptive (or natural or physical) legal properties is precisely what is asserted by legal positivists through the so-called social thesis, which has it that we determine what the law is using factual criteria. That is to say, if the analyst succeeds in establishing that the property of being law is a descriptive property, he would seem to have offered at least some support for the social thesis of legal positivism and, therefore, for legal positivism. In order to investigate this interesting question, I shall carry out a Canberra-style analysis of the concept of law, and I shall argue, tentatively, (1) that X is law if, and only if, (i) X is a relation between (a) a system of norms all of which can be traced back to one of several recognized sources of law that can be handled on the basis of exclusively factual considerations, and (b) an organization that is constituted and regulated by the norms of the system and whose task it is to interpret and apply these norms, (ii) X aspires to regulate social life in general, (iii) X is non-optional, and (iv) X claims to trump competing normative systems. In addition, I shall argue, equally tentatively, (2a) that the property of being law is precisely the descriptive property that satisfies the conditions (i)-(iv), (2b) that this property is a role property, not a realizer property, and (2c) that there is very little to be said about the legal realizer property on a general level and that the legal realizer property differs in this regard from moral and mental realizer properties. I shall, however, also argue (3a) that the analyst who applies the Canberra Plan to the concept of law will almost certainly find it very difficult to come up with a collection of sufficiently rich analytic platitudes, especially what Frank Jackson calls input and output clauses, (3b) that he is not likely to get much help from the idea of mature legal thinking (introduced here as an analog to Jackson’s idea of mature folk morality), and (3c) that the so-called permutation problem, which is very problematic, will arise as a result of the above-mentioned lack of input and output clauses. And I shall therefore argue (4) that, as things stand, the Canberra Plan will not help us clarify the nature of law or lend support to the strong social thesis of legal positivism. (shrink)

This paper discusses varieties of normative phenomena, ranging from morality, to epistemic justification, to the rules of chess. It canvases a number of distinctions among these different normative phenomena. The most significant distinction is between formal and authoritative normativity. The prior is the normativity exhibited by any standard one can meet or fail to meet. The latter is the sort of normativity associated with phenomena like the "all-things-considered" ought. The paper ends with a brief discussion of reasons for skepticism about (...) authoritative normativity. (shrink)

Part of the Elements Philosophy of Religion series, this short book focuses on the spiritual dimensions of life’s meaning as they have been discussed in the recent English and mainly analytic philosophical literature. The overarching philosophical question that this literature has addressed is about the extent to which, and respects in which, spiritual realities such as God or a soul would confer meaning on our lives. There have been four broad answers to the question, namely: God or a soul is (...) necessary for meaning in our lives; they are not necessary for it; one or both would enhance the meaning in our lives; and they would detract from it. These views have been largely advanced in chronological order through the history of Western philosophy, with the view that life would be meaningless without God and a soul having been most prominent in the medieval period, the rejection of this claim having arisen in the modern era, and then sophisticated positions about enhancement or reduction having appeared in earnest only in the past 20 years. This book addresses all four positions, paying particular attention to the more recent views. Beyond familiarizing readers with these positions, it presents prima facie objections to them, points out gaps in research agendas, and suggests argumentative strategies that merit development. (shrink)

After describing the disorder of psychopathy, I examine the theories and the evidence concerning the psychopaths’ deficient moral capacities. I first examine whether or not psychopaths can pass tests of moral knowledge. Most of the evidence suggests that they can. If there is a lack of moral understanding, then it has to be due to an incapacity that affects not their declarative knowledge of moral norms, but their deeper understanding of them. I then examine two suggestions: it is their deficient (...) practical reason or their stunted emotions that are at fault. The evidence supports both explanations. I conclude with an overview of the debate concerning whether they are morally or legally responsible for their actions. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of work on human development in evolutionary anthropology from a Thomist perspective. I show that both fields view care for others as fundamental to human nature and interpret cooperative breeding as expression of the virtue of charity. I begin with an analysis of different approaches to the relationship between evolutionary anthropology and moral theory. I argue that ethical naturalism is the approach best suited to interdisciplinary dialogue, since it holds that natural facts are useful for (...) moral theory but do not encompass it. This forms the basis for a Thomist analysis of some key features of human evolution including bipedalism, higher encephalisation and extended childhood. In each case I explain how these parts of our nature contributed to the evolution of modern humans, and how each is reliant upon communal care. Finally, I offer three observations on these facts from a Thomist perspective. Firstly, that a good human life necessarily involves caring for others and being cared for ourselves. Secondly, that this is exemplified in the virtue of charity, which is the ground of all virtue. Finally, that the need for such care shows that human flourishing cannot be attained without divine aid. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a critique of the naturalist version of the Desire-Based Reasons Model. I first set the scene by spelling out the connection between naturalism and the Model. After this, I introduce Christine Korsgaard’s circularity argument against what she calls the instrumental principle. Since Korsgaard’s targets, officially, were non-naturalist advocates of the principle, I show why and how the circularity charge can be extended to cover the naturalist Model. Once this is done, I go on to investigate (...) in some detail the different ways of responding to the circularity challenge. I argue that none of these responses succeed, at least not without serious costs to their advocates. I then end the paper with a brief summary and some concluding remarks. (shrink)

Metaethical realists disagree about the nature of normative properties. Naturalists think that they are ordinary natural properties: causally efficacious, a posteriori knowable, and usable in the best explanations of natural and social sciences. Non-naturalist realists, in contrast, argue that they are sui generis: causally inert, a priori knowable and not a part of the subject matter of sciences. It has been assumed so far that naturalists can explain causally how the normative predicates manage to refer to normative properties, whereas non-naturalists (...) are unable to provide equally satisfactory metasemantic explanations. This article first describes how the previous non-naturalist accounts of reference fail to tell us how the normative predicates could have come to refer to the non-natural properties rather than to the natural ones. I will then use the so-called qua-problem to show how the causal theories of reference of naturalists also fail to fix the reference of normative predicates to unique natural properties. Finally, I will suggest that, just as naturalists need to rely on the non-causal mechanism of reference magnetism to solve the previous problem, non-naturalists, too, can rely on the very same idea to respond to the pressing metasemantic challenges that they face concerning reference. (shrink)

Neo-Aristotelian naturalism purports to explain morality in terms of human nature, while maintaining that the relevant aspects of human nature cannot be known scientifically. This has led some to conclude that neo-Aristotelian naturalism is not a form of ethical naturalism in the standard, metaphysical sense. In this paper, I argue that neo-Aristotelian naturalism is in fact a standard form of ethical naturalism that is committed to metaphysical naturalism about moral truths and presents a distinctive and underappreciated argument for it. I (...) reconstruct the neo-Aristotelian argument for ethical naturalism in terms of a continuity between the ethical domain and the natural domain of life. I argue that clarifying the meta-ethical import of neo-Aristotelian naturalism not only helps to situate it among other positions in meta-ethics, but also facilitates better critical engagement with the view. (shrink)

Scott Woodcock has levied a number of objections against Aristotelian naturalism which claims that ethical norms are grounded by reason and biology. His most recent “membership objection” is a synthesis of earlier objections and consists in a trilemma. If Aristotelian naturalists answer the first horn of the trilemma by stipulating that determinations of species-membership are grounded non-empirically, and the second horn of the trilemma by stipulating rationality is species-specific, then they are confronted by a moral outsider—someone who claims that they (...) have non-empirically determined their species membership and are thus guided by different norms of rationality than the rest of us. This permits the moral outsider to act heinously without moral sanction from Aristotelian naturalism. Critics have neglected Alasdair MacIntyre’s Aristotelian naturalism. And he has faced moral-outsider-type counterexamples before. I develop a new response to counterexamples MacIntyre’s account has faced and argue that MacIntyre’s Aristotelian naturalism is able to answer Woodcock’s membership objection. I do this by developing an empirical taxonomy-based approach that enables us to justify the moral outsider’s responsibilities while preserving the best of Aristotelian naturalism. (shrink)

Some versions of moral naturalism are faulted for implausibly denying that moral obligations and prescriptions entail categorical reasons for action. Categorical reasons for action are normative reasons that exist and apply to agents independently of whatever desires they have. I argue that several defenses of moral naturalism against this charge are unsuccessful. To be a tenable meta-ethical theory, moral naturalism must accommodate the proposition that, necessarily, if anyone morally ought to do something, then s/he has a categorical reason to do (...) it. Versions of moral naturalism that deny this claim would, if widely believed, disable some crucial practical uses of moral concepts. In particular, if the existence of normative reasons for action is taken to be dependent on agents’ desires, it would breed profound skepticism about the legitimacy of evaluating others’ actions from a moral point of view. Also, it would raise doubts about whether people ought to correct their own behavior in light of moral considerations. Following Richard Joyce, I take these consequences to indicate that the concept of a categorical reason is a “non-negotiable” part of moral concepts. (shrink)

Wenn eine Person unter einer tödlichen Krankheit leidet und nicht über die Ressourcen für eine medizinische Behandlung verfügt, sind wir normalerweise dazu verpflichtet, ihr die notwendigen Ressourcen bereitzustellen. Wären wir aber in einem biotechnischen Zukunftsszenario, in dem die menschliche Lebensspanne durch Eingriffe in den Alterungsprozess erhöht werden kann, auch dazu verpflichtet, anderen Personen die notwendigen Ressourcen für solche Maßnahmen bereitzustellen? John Harris hat argumentiert, dass wir zu solch einer direkten biotechnischen Lebensverlängerung verpflichtet wären, da ein Leben zu verlängern das Gleiche (...) sei, wie ein Leben zu retten. Im vorliegenden Aufsatz wird gezeigt, dass Harris’ Argument nicht schlüssig ist, da entgegen seiner Prämisse ein begrifflicher Unterschied zwischen der Rettung und der Verlängerung eines Lebens besteht. Auf Grundlage von Harris’ zurückgewiesenem Argument werden dann aber zwei alternative Argumente für eine (prima facie) Pflicht zur direkten Lebensverlängerung konstruiert. Das erste Argument basiert auf der Überlegung, dass durch eine direkte biotechnische Lebensverlängerung trotz des begrifflichen Unterschieds mit einer substanziellen Wahrscheinlichkeit Leben gerettet werden würden. Das zweite Argument besagt, dass trotz deskriptiver Unterschiede eine moralische Äquivalenz zwischen der Rettung und der Verlängerung eines Lebens besteht, sofern durch die bloße Lebensverlängerung das Leben um die gleiche Dauer und Qualität verlängert wird wie durch die Lebensrettung. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When a person suffers from a deadly disease and is lacking the resources for a medical treatment, we are normally obliged to provide the necessary resources. But would we also be morally obliged to provide the resources for an extension of someone’s lifespan through anti-aging treatments which might be developed due to biotechnological progress? John Harris has argued that there would be an obligation to such a direct biotechnical life extension because extending a life is the same as saving a life. In the present paper, it will be shown that Harris’ argument is not sound since, contrary to his premise, there is a conceptual difference between extending and saving a life. On the basis of Harris’ rejected argument, though, two alternative arguments for a (prima facie) obligation to direct biotechnical life extension will be developed. The first argument is based on the idea that, despite the conceptual difference, one saves someone’s life with a substantial probability when extending it by direct biotechnical means. In the second argument, it will be argued that there is a moral equivalence between extending and saving someone’s life despite the descriptive differences as far as the additional lifetime has the same duration and quality in both cases. (shrink)

Throughout his career, Derek Parfit made the bold suggestion, at various times under the heading of the "Normativity Objection," that anyone in possession of normative concepts is in a position to know, on the basis of their competence with such concepts alone, that reductive realism in ethics is not even possible. Despite the prominent role that the Normativity Objection plays in Parfit's non-reductive account of the nature of normativity, when the objection hasn't been ignored, it's been criticized and even derided. (...) We argue that the exclusively negative attention that the objection has received has been a mistake. On our reading, Parfit's Normativity Objection poses a serious threat to reductivism, as it exposes the uneasy relationship between our a priori knowledge of a range of distinctly normative truths and the typical package of semantic commitments that reductivists have embraced since the Kripkean revolution. (shrink)

This paper argues that there is significant motivation for contemporary ethicists to affirm a view I call “moral property eliminativism.” On this eliminativist view, there are no moral properties, but there are moral truths that are made true by only nonmoral entities. Moral property eliminativism parallels eliminativist views defended in other domains of philosophical inquiry, but has gone nearly entirely overlooked by contemporary ethicists. I argue that moral property eliminativism is motivated by the claim that there cannot be differences in (...) moral truths without differences in nonmoral ontology—a claim widely endorsed by contemporary ethicists. Engaging with a variety of ways whereby one might resist the motivation I cite for moral property eliminativism, I argue that alternative contemporary metaethical views tend to purchase moral properties at the price of unnecessary theoretical complexity. (shrink)

Why is it that forgetting moral knowledge, unlike other paradigmatic examples of knowledge, seems so deeply absurd? Previous authors have given accounts whereby moral forgetting in itself either is uniformly absurd and impossible (Gilbert Ryle, Adam Bugeja) or is possible and only the speech act is absurd (Sarah McGrath). Considering findings in moral psychology and the experimental philosophy of personal identity, I argue that the knowledge of some moral truths—especially those that are emotional, widely held, subjectively important, and contribute to (...) social relationships—cannot be forgotten because they’re too tightly tied to one’s true self. Moral knowledge at the level of individual propositions, when it does not have these attributes and so is not so tied to the agent’s identity, can sometimes be forgotten. I identify two such cases: (1) where the moral knowledge results partly from an emotional trigger that has been forgotten, and (2) where the moral knowledge results partly from a process of reflection that has been forgotten. (shrink)

The term ‘naturalism’ has no very precise meaning in contemporary philosophy. Its current usage derives from debates in America in the first half of the last century. The self-proclaimed ‘naturalists’ from that period included John Dewey, Ernest Nagel, Sidney Hook and Roy Wood Sellars. These philosophers aimed to ally philosophy more closely with science. They urged that reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing ‘supernatural’, and that the scientific method should be used to investigate all areas of reality, including the (...) ‘human spirit’ (Krikorian 1944, Kim 2003). (shrink)

Biological research has the capacity to inform ethical discussions. There are numerous questions about the nature of sexual orientation, intelligence, gender identity, etc., and many of these questions are commonly approached with the benefit of implicit or explicit biological commitments. The answers to these sorts of questions can have a powerful impact on social, ethical, and political positions. In this project I examine the prospect of naturalizing ethics under the umbrella of developmental systems theory (DST). If one is committed to (...) DST, then those ideas involved in DST that steer biological research will also have implications for ethics. There has been much debate over whether certain human traits or attributes are the consequence of nature or nurture. This kind of question tends to be articulated in dichotomous terms where the focal point of the discussion is over which opposing causal mechanism asserts the most power over the development of these attributes. The debate places particular importance on such distinctions as that between gene and environment, and biology and culture. DST seeks to dismiss such dichotomous accounts. In this sense, DST is an attempt to do biology without these dichotomies. In the process, DST articulates a reconceptualized notion of "the natural." I am interested in how DST’s reconceptualization of the natural can inform a naturalistic approach to ethics. Thus, the aim of this project is to examine the ramifications of taking DST as a guiding principle in the naturalization of ethics. (shrink)

The naturalistic fallacy according to Moore and its relation to Hume will be analyzed for an exposition both clear and updated in contemporary formal logics, which will denounce its limited scope in current metaethics. I’ll identify the origins of the expression naturalistic fallacy in Moore and atempt to refne its meaning and use, contrasting its relationship to the open-question argument and Hume’s Law. Its application is identifed in four aspects: invalidly as the openquestion argument for not establishing a metaphysical connection (...) and providing false cognates, and validly as a categorical error, a misidentifcation error and an inferential error; this last one relatable with Hume’s Law as a procedural argumentation error. Brief applications show the limits of the naturalistic fallacy in that, contradictorily, it isn’t a fallacy but by one of its uses, as well as not rebuting every naturalistic theory (as hedonism and utilitarianism) besides being also an argument in favor of some (non-cognitivists). (shrink)

This thesis defends a hedonistic theory of value consisting of two main components. Part 1 offers a theory of pleasure. Pleasures are experiences distinguished by a distinct phenomenological quality. This quality is attitudinal in nature: it is the feeling of liking. The pleasure experience is also an object of this attitude: when feeling pleasure, we like what we feel, and part of how it feels is how this liking feels: Pleasures are Internally Liked Experiences. Pleasure plays a central role in (...) the motivational system such that pleasure tends to influence, and in turn be influenced by, other motivational, dispositional and evaluative states of the agent. While this connection is strong, it is often indirect and contingent - the necessary attitudinal connection is a matter of how pleasure feels, not of how it functions. -/- Part 2 is concerned with the nature of value. What kind of problem is it that value poses, and what ought a theory of value to do? In face of the fundamental disagreements that persist over these questions, we try to gather and systemize what we can agree upon about value, and then develop a theory that accounts for (enough of) those things. Meta-ethical naturalism, as developed here, is the view that value is a natural property, identified via the role “value” plays according to the best systematization of moral and evaluative thought. The theory engaging meta-ethics with the scientific investigation of matters relevant to value: we need to understand the causal processes behind our beliefs in order to make an informed decision about which of the competing theories offers the best explanation of value. Finally, the argument is made that the nature and function of pleasure shows it to play the kind of explanatory role necessary for a sound naturalistic reduction of value: it makes many of our beliefs about value true, and it is causally responsible for most of our attributions and beliefs about value. (shrink)

Ethicists struggle to take reductive views seriously. They also have trouble conceiving of some supervenience failures. Understanding why provides further evidence for a kind of hybrid view of normative concept use.

A brief overview of metaethics, written for students.

Christine Korsgaard has attempted to defend a distinct approach to metaethics – Neo-Kantian Constructivism. Not only does she present a positive case for her own view, she also attacks existing metaethical positions and even the disctinctions that metaethics has traditionally relied on. This thesis is a sustained examination of this position. I consider whether Korsgaard can legitimately claim to be offering a metaethical position at all, providing her with some defence against the scepticism of some metaethicists. I also examine her (...) attacks on traditional metaethical positions. I argue that her attack on moral realism can be avoided if the realism on offer takes a particular form. In the case of expressivism I claim that Korsgaard’s attack, though not fully developed in her work, motivates an examination of contemporary hybrid-expressivist theories. I argue that these are, as of yet, no advance over their non-hybrid cousins. Finally I examine Korsgaard’s own position, attempting to make it clearer by combining her claims with a framework developed by Crispin Wright for judgement-dependent qualities. This gives Korsgaard her best chance of a distinctive metaethical position. Ultimately, though, the Neo-Kantian approach to morality fails. (shrink)

Usually, natural theology is understood as the project of providing arguments for the existence of God. This project is endorsed by Moreland and Craig. McGrath, on the other hand, says that this project fails. In the first part of this article, I show how McGrath’s dismissal of arguments for the existence of God follows from his view of natural theology. In the second part, I argue that McGrath’s natural theology contains an accurate critique of Moreland and Craig’s way of doing (...) natural theology, a critique that exposes two major problems in their treatment of the moral argument for the existence of God. In the third part, I propose a way of providing arguments for the existence of God that avoids the problems pointed out by McGrath, namely a way of arguing that seek to show how theology may improve a certain non-theistic understanding of a natural phenomenon. (shrink)