Methods in comparative work -- The sense of justice in Rawls -- The sense of justice in the analects -- Two senses of justice -- The contemporary relevance of a sense of justice.

The protection of species ranks highly among environmentalist priorities, and many environmentalists expect the public to respect and support efforts to protect and rehabilitate endangered species. There are a range of instrumental and anthropocentric justifications for these attitudes, yet some environmentalists want more. It is unclear that more is to be had. In particular, it is challenging to justify some environmentalist attitudes without appealing to some version of the claim that species are intrinsically valuable. However, this has been a notoriously (...) difficult thesis to defend, and it is clearly not available to those who doubt the existence of species. In this paper, I show how a number of environmentalist commitments that appear to be about the value of species can be interpreted and defended in a way that is compatible with antirealism about species. According to my proposal, the proper target of environmentalists’ evaluative concern is the irreplaceable design that is embodied by the individuals that make up a (putative) species. This approach can capture and justify many environmentalist attitudes about the value of biological variety without attributing intrinsic value to species, or even requiring a place for species in our ontology. This enables environmentalists to effectively sidestep a number of puzzling issues surrounding the nature and value of species. (shrink)

While Richard Joyce’s moral skepticism might seem to be an extreme metaethical view, it is actually far more moderate than it might first appear. By articulating four challenges facing his approach to moral skepticism, I argue that Joyce’s moderation is, in fact, a theoretical liability. First, the fact that Joyce is not skeptical about normativity in general makes it possible to develop close approximations to morality, lending support to moderate moral revisionism over moral error theory. Second, Joyce relies on strong, (...) contentious conceptual and empirical claims in support of his views. Third, Joyce’s evolutionary debunking argument threatens to backfire, generalizing to all normative judgments. Finally, Joyce fails to offer an adequate account of the normativity of desire. Each of these four challenges can be either sidestepped or embraced by radicalizing and defending a global form of normative skepticism. There are thus several ways in which global normative skepticism appears to be in a more robust dialectical position than Joyce’s moral skepticism. Furthermore, I argue, Joyce’s arguments against global normative skepticism are unconvincing. While this discussion is framed in terms of Joyce’s work, its arguments will apply to other moral skeptics who are not also global normative skeptics. The result is an invitation for Joyce and other moral skeptics to leave these problems behind and join the radical camp. (shrink)

_Families of Virtue_ articulates the critical role of the parent-child relationship in the moral development of infants and children. Building on thinkers and scientists across time and disciplines, from ancient Greek and Chinese philosophers to contemporary feminist ethicists and attachment theorists, this book takes an effective approach for strengthening families and the character of children. Early Confucian philosophers argue that the general ethical sensibilities we develop during infancy and early childhood form the basis for nearly every virtue and that the (...) parent-child relationship is the primary context within which this growth occurs. Joining these views with scientific work on early childhood, _Families of Virtue_ shows how Western psychology can reinforce and renew the theoretical underpinnings of Confucian thought and how Confucian philosophers can affect positive social and political change in our time, particularly in such areas as paid parental leave, breastfeeding initiatives, marriage counseling, and family therapy. (shrink)

David Enoch has recently proposed that the deliberative indispensability of irreducibly normative facts suffices to support their inclusion in our ontology, even if they are not necessary for the explanation of any observable phenomena. He challenges dissenters to point to a relevant asymmetry between explanation and deliberation that shows why explanatory indispensability, but not deliberative indispensability, is a legitimate guide to ontology. In this paper, I aim to do just that. Given that an entity figures in the actual explanation of (...) some phenomenon, it is not an open question whether that entity exists. Thus, if you can manage to find actual explanations, you can find answers to ontological questions. In contrast, even if some entity is indispensable to deliberation, it still might not exist. For example, even if some form of libertarian free will is deliberatively indispensable, we still might not have libertarian free will. So even if you manage to discover the indispensable commitments of deliberation, there is still more work to do to get to the bottom of things. That additional work is explanatory work, and so deliberative indispensability is not an independent guide to what there is. (shrink)

Evolutionary debunking arguments purport to undercut the justification of our moral judgments by showing why a tendency to make moral judgments would evolve regardless of the truth of those judgments. Machery and Mallon (2010. Evolution of morality. In J.M. Doris and The Moral Psychology Research Group (Eds.), The Moral Psychology Handbook (pp. 3-46). Oxford: Oxford University Press) have recently tried to disarm these arguments by showing that moral cognition – in the sense that is relevant to debunking – is not (...) the product of natural selection. Specifically, they present a barrage of increasingly influential challenges against reciprocity-based approaches to moral nativism. In the present paper I defend the nativist account of moral cognition against these criticisms, thereby bolstering the skeptical conclusions of evolutionary debunking arguments. However, Machery and Mallon's critique does successfully highlight several vulnerabilities in Richard Joyce's approach to debunking, suggesting several ways in which it can be revised toward generating a more robust version of the argument. (shrink)

Internalists and externalists disagree over how intimately normative judgment and motivation are linked. Proponents on both sides typically try to settle the issue by descriptively interpreting our concept of a normative judgment. Unfortunately, this approach has resulted in deep and apparently intractable disagreement. It is time to consider alternative strategies. In this paper, I argue that the internalist/externalist debate is particularly ripe for revisionary arguments that evaluate conceptions of normative judgment in light of the costs and benefits of their adoption. (...) I then develop a revisionary case for externalism by identifying three practical hazards that come with internalist conceptions of normative judgment. Along the way, I show how these internalist hazards are mirrored by externalist benefits. I also argue that two potential benefits of internalism are not very beneficial. Together, these considerations give us strong practical reasons to adopt externalist conceptions of normative judgment, regardless of which account is descriptively accurate. (shrink)

The metaphor of the heart or mind as a mirror appears not only in the work of Zhuangzi and Xunzi but also in the work of Western philosophers such as Kierkegaard and Rorty. This essay shows how a properly contextualized comparison of the mirror metaphor in the work of these four philosophers highlights the different ways in which they use it, helping us to understand more clearly critical differences between their views. The significance of the mirror metaphor in the work (...) of each thinker is studied in detail. Distinctively Chinese and Western understandings of mirrors, hearts, and minds are explored, and the importance of studying different cultural and philosophical understandings of metaphors is defended. The essay ends by assessing Edward Slingerland's claim that shared metaphors point toward deeper similarities between different views, in light of the foregoing analysis. (shrink)

This paper argues that a comparative study of the idea of a sense of justice in the work of John Rawls and the early Chinese philosopher Kongzi is mutually beneficial to our understanding of the thought of both figures. It also aims to provide an example of the relevance of moral psychology for basic questions in political philosophy. The paper offers an analysis of Rawls’s account of a sense of justice and its place within his theory of justice, focusing on (...) the features of this capacity and how it develops. It then provides an account of the sense of justice in Kongzi’s thought as it is seen in the Analects. Finally, it shows how examining the similarities and differences between the two accounts can deepen our understanding of both views, as well as our appreciation for the importance of understanding how a sense of justice develops. (shrink)

Cornell realists maintain that irreducible moral properties have earned a place in our ontology in virtue of the indispensable role they play in a variety of explanations. These explanations can be divided into two groups: those that employ thin ethical concepts and those that employ thick ethical concepts. Recent work on thick concepts suggests that they are not inherently evaluative in their meaning. If correct, this creates problems for the moral explanations of Cornell realists, since the most persuasive moral explanations (...) are those that employ thick concepts. If thick concepts are not inherently evaluative, then the most plausible explanations on offer cannot support Cornell realism. Moral explanations employing thin concepts, however, are too flimsy to support the view. Unless proponents can develop a compelling story about thick concepts or thin explanations, Cornell realism is in trouble. (shrink)

This article argues that Kongzi's religious ethics suggests an alternative way of understanding the relationship between the right and the good, in which neither takes clear precedence in terms of being more foundational for ethics. The religious underpinnings of Kongzi's understanding of the Way are examined, including the close relationship between tian ("Heaven") and the Way. It is shown that following the Way is defined primarily by the extent to which one's actions express certain virtues, and not whether one's actions (...) are conducive to the best overall outcome or whether they are inherently right irrespective of consequences. It is then argued that the Way is seen as constitutive of both the right and the good, and that this understanding of the right and the good has important implications for contemporary virtue ethics, religious ethics, and political philosophy. (shrink)

A central source of support for expressivist accounts of normative discourse is the intimate relationship between normative judgment and motivation. Expressivists argue that normative judgments must be noncognitive, desire-like states in order to be so tightly linked with motivation. Normative statements are then construed as expressions of these noncognitive states. In this paper, I draw on dual-process models in cognitive psychology to respond to this argument. According to my proposal, normative judgments are ordinary beliefs that are typically produced by two (...) kinds of process: intuitive-affective processes and domain-general reasoning. When produced by the first kind of process, motivation and judgment tend to align. When produced by the second kind, motivation and judgment might not align. Since the first kind of process is the most common pathway of normative belief formation, normative judgments are typically accompanied by aligning motivation. This proposal enables cognitivists to explain the intimate link between normative judgment and motivation, thereby removing the major obstacle to interpreting normative statements truth-conditionally. (shrink)

This article surveys contemporary scholarship on justice and early Confucianism and builds upon recent work on justice in the Analects by examining the relationship between justice and moral self-cultivation in the Mengzi (Mencius) and the Xunzi. It is argued that focusing on early Confucian accounts of how a sense of justice is cultivated offers insights into Confucian views of justice because it shows how remarks on justice in the Analects, Mengzi, and Xunzi are not tangential, but rather are an important (...) part of their accounts of Confucian moral self-cultivation. (shrink)

In The Moral Problem, Michael Smith argues that only motivational internalists can offer an adequate explanation of why changes in moral judgment tend to be accompanied by changes in motivation in morally virtuous people. Smith argues that the failure of motivational externalism to account for this phenomenon amounts to a reductio of the view. In this paper, I draw on dual-process models of moral judgment to develop an externalist response to Smith’s argument. The key to my proposal is that motivationally (...) efficacious states are often the source of our moral judgments, and changes in judgment are typically the result of changes in these states. However, moral judgments can also be formed via an alternative pathway that does not necessarily affect motivation, and so motivation and judgment can come apart. This response not only defuses Smith’s objections to externalism, but challenges Smith to square his internalist proposal with the empirical details of moral judgment. (shrink)

Many environmentalists hold that the loss of a species is intrinsically bad, and many also think that we have moral obligations to species as such. In an attempt to capture these thoughts, some philosophers have suggested that species are bearers of intrinsic value. This approach works well in paradigmatic cases. However, it begins to break down in more difficult scenarios, such as when species boundaries are unclear or when resources are scarce. The case study of the Galápagos giant tortoises in (...) this essay illustrates the limitations of traditional accounts of the non-instrumental value of species. Careful attention to this case indicates how species-centric accounts diverge from the evaluative attitudes of environmentalists, and suggests new directions for theoretical replacements. (shrink)

Abstract:Should we use modern bioengineering techniques to design species? An instrumentalist account of species’ value offers permissive guidance. But what if species exemplify final value? Is it always very good to create new species? Is it always very wrong to blend or modify existing species? In this paper, I argue that both extremes are implausible. However, final value theories struggle to deliver a flexible, moderate treatment of these issues, and so the ethics of designing species presents a challenge for final (...) value theorists. Fortunately, a design-based account of the value of species has the resources to offer plausible, nuanced, context-sensitive guidance on the ethics of designing species. It holds that designing species is sometimes very bad, sometimes quite good, and sometimes neither very good nor very bad. The plausibility of these results lends credibility to the design-based framework, and gives final value theorists reason to prefer the design-based approach. (shrink)

The Nurse-Family Partnership, a thirty-year program of research in the United States focused on early childhood preventive intervention, offers a powerful example of the kinds of programs and public policies that Confucian understandings of parent–child relationships and moral cultivation might recommend in contemporary societies today. NFP findings, as well as its theoretical foundations, lend empirical support to early Confucian views of the role of parent–child relationships in human moral development, the nature and possibility of moral self-cultivation, and the task of (...) creating and sustaining a good society, which gives philosophers who are interested in ethical claims that reflect and inform actual practice good reasons to take Confucian ethics seriously. Additionally, the evidence provided by the NFP and early Confucian accounts can both be used to promote social change, which highlights how the sciences and the humanities can work together in complementary ways to address societal problems. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 5, Page 16-18, May 2012.

This essay presents a case study of how normative and descriptive approaches to comparative religious ethics, as well as textual and empirical approaches, can be mutually enriching. Taking early Confucian ethical views on the centrality of parent‐child relationships in childhood moral development as an example, I examine how empirical evidence can be brought to bear on certain dimensions of traditional ethical views in order to deepen our appreciation for them and help us to see how their insights might be applied (...) in a contemporary setting. I also show how empirical evidence can sometimes serve as a helpful guide in further developing, refining, and amending certain dimensions of traditional ethical views. I illustrate the value of this approach by examining several aspects of Confucian views on infancy, childhood, parent‐child relationships, and moral cultivation in relation to attachment theory. (shrink)

Early Confucian philosophy affirms and lends support to Karen Stohr’s argument that manners are a primary means by which we express moral attitudes and commitments and carry out important moral goals. Indeed, Confucian views on ritual can extend her insights even further, both by highlighting the role that manners play in cultivating good character and by helping us to probe the conceptual boundaries of manners. The various things that we call etiquette, social customs, and rituals do much of the same (...) work for us, ethically, and this work not only expresses moral attitudes and commitments, but cultivates them as well. Accordingly, Confucian thinkers can help us to recognize how Stohr’s argument can be applied more broadly than etiquette, and how good manners both express and cultivate good character. (shrink)

We agree with White, Jankowski, and Shelton (2014) that professionalization of health care ethics practice requires serious consideration of a written examination to assess core knowledge competenc...

There has lately been substantial interest in scrutinizing our evaluative attitudes in light of our evolutionary history. However, these discussions have been hampered by an insufficiently expansive vantage. Our history did not begin ex nihilo a few million years ago with the appearance of hominins, or apes, or primates—those are very recent chapters of a much larger story that spans billions of years. This paper situates the mechanisms underlying normative thought within this broader context. I argue that this historical perspective (...) creates difficulties for metaethical nonnaturalists. The expanded scope enables the story to be anchored in negative claims about value, making room for novel epistemological and metaphysical challenges that are more threatening than extant evolutionary debunking arguments. (shrink)

Deferred internalists accept that sometimes, agents can form genuine normative judgments without any accompanying motivation. However, they propose that these judgments can only exist when they are embedded within psychologies or communities in which judgment and motivation typically align. In this paper, I sketch a version of externalism that challenges the interpretation of key evidence claimed by deferred internalists. According to this account, there is a robust but contingent connection between judgment and motivation that is explained by the structure of (...) the neurocognitive apparatus we happen to employ in evaluative thought. This proposal allows that all of our judgments lacking accompanying motivation are contingently parasitic on judgments that are accompanied by motivation. It also suggests that it is not possible to create communities of _beings like us_ whose judgments and motivation radically come apart. These results undermine current strategies for supporting deferred internalism. Proponents will need to find support elsewhere. (shrink)

In recent years a number of works have explored the similarities and differences between Western philosophy and Confucianism. While works that compare the thought of Confucius and Western philosophy are diverse, they share the view that comparative study is worthwhile and seek to address in various ways some of the common challenges that comparative studies face. In light of this body of work, this chapter examines different answers to the question of why comparative philosophy is worthwhile, and highlights three different (...) kinds of challenges that frequently arise in comparative philosophy. (shrink)

Ombudsmen are profoundly a part of the ethos of newspaper journalism. In this essay, I argue that Daniel Okrent's tenure as the public editor of The New York Times provides American journalism and individual ombudsmen a model by which to meet part of the ethical standard Meyers (2000) posits. I assume that individual ombudsmen should assert moral authority in the position through a persuasive use of rhetorical ethos. The ethical appeals of Okrent and Michael Getler, ombudsman at the Washington Post, (...) were compared. Despite structural and institutional similarities in the positions, Okrent's ethical appeal fits Meyers' model and Getler's does not. (shrink)