Why We Should Not Worry about the Triviality of Normative Supervenience

Ethics 133 (3):355-380 (2023)
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Abstract

A common worry regarding normative supervenience theses is that they are easily trivialized unless we somehow restrict the set of descriptive base properties on which the normative properties supervene. The idea is that if all descriptive properties are included in the base, any two individuals that share all their base properties must be the same individual in the same world, from which it follows that they have the same normative properties. We argue that this trivial explanation for unrestricted normative supervenience fails. Moreover, we argue that even if it succeeded, this wouldn’t undermine the explanation challenges associated with normative supervenience.

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Author Profiles

Teemu Toppinen
Tampere University
Vilma Venesmaa
Tampere University

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References found in this work

The Possibility of Physicalism.Shamik Dasgupta - 2014 - Journal of Philosophy 111 (9-10):557-592.
Comments on Gibbard’s Thinking How to Live.Allan Gibbard - 2006 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (3):699-706.
How Principles Ground.David Enoch - 2019 - Oxford Studies in Metaethics 14:1-22.
Moral supervenience.Anandi Hattiangadi - 2018 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 48 (3-4):592-615.
What is a Moral Law?Gideon Rosen - 2017 - Oxford Studies in Metaethics 12.

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