Moral Explanations of Moral Beliefs
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (1):193-208 (2005)
Abstract
Gilbert Harman and Judith Thomson have argued that moral facts cannot explain our moral beliefs, claiming that such facts could not play a causal role in the formation of those beliefs. This paper shows these arguments to be misguided, for they would require that we abandon any number of intuitively plausible explanations in non-moral contexts as well. But abandoning the causal strand in the argument over moral explanations does not spell immediate victory for the moral realist, since it must still be shown that moral facts do figure in our best global explanatory theory.Author's Profile
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0031-8205
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Citations of this work
Theism and Explanationist Defenses of Moral Realism.Andrew Brenner - 2018 - Faith and Philosophy 35 (4):447-463.
Making Sense of Explanatory Objections to Moral Realism.Elizabeth Tropman - 2013 - American Philosophical Quarterly 50 (1):37-50.
A defence of metaphysical ethical naturalism.[author unknown] - unknown