Ethics and the Question of What to Do

Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 25 (2) (2023)
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Abstract

In this paper I present an account of a distinctive form of ‘practical’ or ‘deliberative’ uncertainty that has been central in debates in both ethics and metaethics. Many writers have assumed that such uncertainty concerns a special normative question, such as what we ought to do ‘all things considered.’ I argue against this assumption and instead endorse an alternative view of such uncertainty, which combines elements of both metaethical cognitivism and non-cognitivism. A notable consequence of this view is that even if there are objective and irreducible truths about how we ought to act, all things considered, the ‘central deliberative question,’ as it’s sometimes called, doesn’t concern such truths. Instead, that question doesn’t have a true answer.

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Olle Risberg
Uppsala University

Citations of this work

When Reasons Run Out.Jason Kay - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.
Replies to Rosen, Leiter, and Dutilh Novaes.Justin Clarke-Doane - 2023 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 107 (3):817-837.
Meta‐Skepticism.Olle Risberg - 2023 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 106 (3):541-565.
Knowing what to do.Ethan Jerzak & Alexander W. Kocurek - 2025 - Noûs 59 (1):160-190.

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References found in this work

Alienation, consequentialism, and the demands of morality.Peter Railton - 1984 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 13 (2):134-171.
Ought, Agents, and Actions.Mark Schroeder - 2011 - Philosophical Review 120 (1):1-41.
Ifs and Oughts.Niko Kolodny & John MacFarlane - 2010 - Journal of Philosophy 107 (3):115-143.
Meta‐ethics and the problem of creeping minimalism.James Dreier - 2004 - Philosophical Perspectives 18 (1):23–44.

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