Abstract

This Dissertation philosophically critiques three approaches to explicating the nature of moral judgments, formalism, the content approach and virtue ethics. Based on the above theories, philosophical models of moral judgment-making are developed, with an "integrated model" explicated and philosophically defended. ;Under the formalist approach the work of R. M. Hare and Lawrence Kohlberg is explicated and philosophically analyzed, with specific reference to a critique of the concepts of "prescriptivity" and "universalizability." The content approach is represented by Kurt Baier and Stephen Toulmin. The notion of a non-moral characteristic identifying moral judgments is analyzed. Finally, the virtue ethics approach is represented by Alasdair MacIntyre and James Wallace. The virtue ethics approach is found wanting due to the ambiguity regarding the concept of "virtue" itself, among other reasons. ;The final half of the Dissertation argues that a more wholistic approach to the characteristics of moral judgment-making is necessary. A "soft" thesis which notes that certain approaches to moral judgment-making are appropriate in some moral situations while inappropriate in others is developed. And a "hard" thesis which develops and advocates an "integrated model" of moral judgment-making is philosophically justified