Moral realism and program explanation

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 84 (3):417 – 428 (2006)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Alexander Miller has recently considered an ingenious extension of Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit's account of 'program explanation' as a way of defending non-reductive naturalist versions of moral realism against Harman's explanatory criticism. Despite the ingenuity of this extension, Miller concludes that program explanation cannot help such moral realists in their attempt to defend moral properties. Specifically, he argues that such moral program explanations are dispensable from an epistemically unlimited point of view. I show that Miller's argument for this negative claim is inadequate, and that he has, in spite of himself, identified a promising defence of moral realism.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,423

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

A Biological Alternative to Moral Explanations.Joseph Millum - 2008 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 46 (3):385-407.
Devitt on Moral Realism.Boran Berčić - 2006 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 6 (1):63-68.
Do Moral Explanations Matter?Charles Sayward - 1988 - Philosophy Research Archives 14:137-142.
Program explanations and causal relevance.Sven Walter - 2005 - Acta Analytica 20 (36):32-47.
New Wave Moral Realism Meets Moral Twin Earth.Terence Horgan & Mark Timmons - 1991 - Journal of Philosophical Research 16:447-465.
Moral Realism.Michael Devitt - 2002 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 2 (1):1-15.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
143 (#127,383)

6 months
16 (#149,885)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Mark T. Nelson
Westmont College

Citations of this work

Mathematical Explanations Of Empirical Facts, And Mathematical Realism.Aidan Lyon - 2012 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90 (3):559-578.
Ethical Reductionism.Neil Sinhababu - 2018 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 13 (1):32-52.
The explanationist argument for moral realism.Neil Sinclair - 2011 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 41 (1):1-24.
Expressivist Explanations.Neil Sinclair - 2012 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 9 (2):147-177.

View all 16 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

The nature of morality: an introduction to ethics.Gilbert Harman - 1977 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Objectivity and Truth: You’d Better Believe it.Ronald Dworkin - 1996 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 25 (2):87-139.
The Nature of Morality.D. Z. Phillips & Gilbert Harman - 1977 - Philosophical Quarterly 28 (110):89.

View all 7 references / Add more references