Download or read book Companions in Guilt Arguments in Metaethics written by Christopher Cowie and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comparisons between morality and other ‘companion’ disciplines – such as mathematics, religion, or aesthetics – are commonly used in philosophy, often in the context of arguing for the objectivity of morality. This is known as the ‘companions in guilt’ strategy. It has been the subject of much debate in contemporary ethics and metaethics. This volume, the first full length examination of companions in guilt arguments, comprises an introduction by the editors and a dozen new chapters by leading authors in the field. They examine the methodology of companions in guilt arguments and their use in responding to the moral error theory, as well as specific arguments that take mathematics, epistemic norms, or aesthetics as a ‘companion’, and the use of the companions in guilt strategy to vindicate claims to moral knowledge. Companions in Guilt Arguments in Metaethics is essential reading for advanced students and researchers working in moral theory and metaethics, as well as those in epistemology and philosophy of mathematics concerned with the intersection of these subjects with ethics.

Download or read book Companions in Guilt written by H. Lillehammer and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-05-22 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a systematic study of 'companions in guilt' arguments in moral philosophy. Lillehammer distinguishes between two distinct forms of these, which he calls 'arguments by entailment' and 'arguments by analogy' respectively. For each strategy, Lillehammer examines three of its most prominent manifestations in contemporary ethical thought.

Download or read book Moral Error Theory written by Jonas Olson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonas Olson presents a critical survey of moral error theory, the view that there are no moral facts and so all moral claims are false. Part I explores the historical context of the debate; Part II assesses J. L. Mackie's famous arguments; Part III defends error theory against challenges and considers its implications for our moral thinking.

Download or read book Moral Realism written by Russ Shafer-Landau and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-06-19 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moral Realism is a systematic defence of the idea that there are objective moral standards. In the tradition of Plato and G. E. Moore, Russ Shafer-Landau argues that there are moral principles that are true independently of what anyone, anywhere, happens to think of them. These principles are a fundamental aspect of reality, just as much as those that govern mathematics or the natural world. They may be true regardless of our ability to grasp them, and their truth is not a matter of their being ratified from any ideal standpoint, nor of being the object of actual or hypothetical consensus, nor of being an expression of our rational nature. Shafer-Landau accepts Plato's and Moore's contention that moral truths are sui generis. He rejects the currently popular efforts to conceive of ethics as a kind of science, and insists that moral truths and properties occupy a distinctive area in our ontology. Unlike scientific truths, the fundamental moral principles are knowable a priori. And unlike mathematical truths, they are essentially normative: intrinsically action-guiding, and supplying a justification for all who follow their counsel. Moral Realism is the first comprehensive treatise defending non-naturalistic moral realism in over a generation. It ranges over all of the central issues in contemporary metaethics, and will be an important source of discussion for philosophers and their students interested in issues concerning the foundations of ethics.

Download or read book The Normative Web written by Terence Cuneo and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2010-03-04 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Antirealist views about morality claim that moral facts or truths do not exist. Do these views imply that other types of normative facts, such as epistemic ones, do not exist? The Normative Web develops a positive answer to this question. Terence Cuneo argues that the similarities between moral and epistemic facts provide excellent reason to believe that, if moral facts do not exist, then epistemic facts do not exist. But epistemic facts, it is argued, do exist: to deny their existence would commit us to an extreme version of epistemological skepticism. Therefore, Cuneo concludes, moral facts exist. And if moral facts exist, then moral realism is true. In so arguing, Cuneo provides not simply a defense of moral realism, but a positive argument for it. Moreover, this argument engages with a wide range of antirealist positions in epistemology such as error theories, expressivist views, and reductionist views of epistemic reasons. If the central argument of The Normative Web is correct, antirealist positions of these varieties come at a very high cost. Given their cost, Cuneo contends, we should find realism about both epistemic and moral facts highly attractive.

Download or read book Morality and Mathematics written by Justin Clarke-Doane and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-12 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To what extent are the subjects of our thoughts and talk real? This is the question of realism. In this book, Justin Clarke-Doane explores arguments for and against moral realism and mathematical realism, how they interact, and what they can tell us about areas of philosophical interest more generally. He argues that, contrary to widespread belief, our mathematical beliefs have no better claim to being self-evident or provable than our moral beliefs. Nor do our mathematical beliefs have better claim to being empirically justified than our moral beliefs. It is also incorrect that reflection on the genealogy of our moral beliefs establishes a lack of parity between the cases. In general, if one is a moral antirealist on the basis of epistemological considerations, then one ought to be a mathematical antirealist as well. And, yet, Clarke-Doane shows that moral realism and mathematical realism do not stand or fall together — and for a surprising reason. Moral questions, insofar as they are practical, are objective in a sense that mathematical questions are not, and the sense in which they are objective can only be explained by assuming practical anti-realism. One upshot of the discussion is that the concepts of realism and objectivity, which are widely identified, are actually in tension. Another is that the objective questions in the neighborhood of factual areas like logic, modality, grounding, and nature are practical questions too. Practical philosophy should, therefore, take center stage.

Download or read book Metaepistemology written by Christos Kyriacou and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-09-19 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains twelve chapters by leading and up-and-coming philosophers on metaepistemology, that is, on the nature, existence and authority of epistemic facts. One of the central divides in metaepistemology is between epistemic realists and epistemic anti-realists. Epistemic realists think that epistemic facts (such as the fact that you ought to believe what your evidence supports) exist independently of human judgements and practices, and that they have authority over our judgements and practices. Epistemic anti-realists think that, if epistemic facts exist at all, they are grounded in human judgements and practices, and gain any authority they have from our judgements and practices. This book considers both epistemic realist and anti-realist perspectives, as well as perspectives that 'transcend' the realism/anti-realism dichotomy. As such, it constitutes the 'state of the art' with regard to metaepistemology, and will shape the debate in years to come.

Download or read book Practical Tortoise Raising written by Simon Blackburn and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-30 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simon Blackburn presents a selection of his philosophical essays from 1995 to 2010. He offers engaging and illuminating discussions of a wide range of topics, including moral philosophy, the theory of meaning, pragmatism, and the theory of reason and reasoning.

Download or read book The Repugnant Conclusion written by Christopher Cowie and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-18 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Repugnant Conclusion is a controversial theorem about population size. It states that a sufficiently large population of lives that are barely worth living is better than a smaller population of high quality lives. This is highly counter-intuitive. It implies that we can improve the world by trading quality of life for quantity of lives. Can it be defended? Christopher Cowie explores these questions and unpacks the controversies surrounding the Repugnant Conclusion. He focuses on whether the truth of the Repugnant Conclusion turns - as some have claimed - on the uncomfortable claim that many people’s lives are actually bad for them and that even privileged people lead lives that are only just worth living. Highly recommended for those interested in ethics, applied ethics and population studies The Repugnant Conclusion will also be of interest to those in related disciplines such as economics, development studies, politics and international relations.

Download or read book Cambridge Pragmatism written by Cheryl Misak and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-12 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cheryl Misak offers a strikingly new view of the development of philosophy in the twentieth century. Pragmatism, the home-grown philosophy of America, thinks of truth not as a static relation between a sentence and the believer-independent world, but rather, a belief that works. The founders of pragmatism, Peirce and James, developed this idea in more (Peirce) and less (James) objective ways. The standard story of the reception of American pragmatism in England is that Russell and Moore savaged James's theory, and that pragmatism has never fully recovered. An alternative, and underappreciated, story is told here. The brilliant Cambridge mathematician, philosopher and economist, Frank Ramsey, was in the mid-1920s heavily influenced by the almost-unheard-of Peirce and was developing a pragmatist position of great promise. He then transmitted that pragmatism to his friend Wittgenstein, although had Ramsey lived past the age of 26 to see what Wittgenstein did with that position, Ramsey would not have like what he saw.

Download or read book Unbelievable Errors written by Bart Streumer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-11 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Unbelievable Errors, Bart Streumer defends an error theory about all normative judgements: not just moral judgements, but also judgements about reasons for action, judgements about reasons for belief, and instrumental normative judgements. This theory says that these judgements are beliefs that ascribe normative properties, but that these properties do not exist. It therefore entails that all normative judgements are false. Streumer also argues, however, that we cannot believe this error theory. This may seem to be a problem for the theory, but he argues that it is not. Instead, he argues, our inability to believe this error theory makes the theory more likely to be true, since it undermines objections to the theory, it makes it harder to reject the arguments for the theory, and it undermines revisionary alternatives to the theory. Streumer then sketches how certain other philosophical views can be defended in a similar way, and how philosophers should modify their method if there can be true theories that we cannot believe. He concludes that to make philosophical progress, we should sharply distinguish the truth of a theory from our ability to believe it

Download or read book A Dictionary of Ethics written by Terence Cuneo and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-23 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This authoritative dictionary contains clear, concise definitions of over 150 key terms from ethical theory and touches upon a variety of relevant subfields including meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. It addresses a number of sub topics which have been under-represented within current literature, including the ethics of eating, feminist ethics, and disability ethics. Other entries cover relevant contemporary concepts, such as care ethics, moral nativism, and constitutivism, offering a thorough and accessible understanding to those working in conjunction with relevant fields. A Dictionary of Ethics is a valuable reference resource for academics, practitioners, and students of moral philosophy, applied ethics, and public policy. It will also be of interest to readers looking to familiarize themselves with ethical terms and the concepts they express.

Download or read book Moral Disagreement written by Folke Tersman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-03-13 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Folke Tersman explores the nature of moral thinking by examining moral disagreement.

Download or read book Ethics for A Level written by Mark Dimmock and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2017-07-31 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does pleasure have to do with morality? What role, if any, should intuition have in the formation of moral theory? If something is ‘simulated’, can it be immoral? This accessible and wide-ranging textbook explores these questions and many more. Key ideas in the fields of normative ethics, metaethics and applied ethics are explained rigorously and systematically, with a vivid writing style that enlivens the topics with energy and wit. Individual theories are discussed in detail in the first part of the book, before these positions are applied to a wide range of contemporary situations including business ethics, sexual ethics, and the acceptability of eating animals. A wealth of real-life examples, set out with depth and care, illuminate the complexities of different ethical approaches while conveying their modern-day relevance. This concise and highly engaging resource is tailored to the Ethics components of AQA Philosophy and OCR Religious Studies, with a clear and practical layout that includes end-of-chapter summaries, key terms, and common mistakes to avoid. It should also be of practical use for those teaching Philosophy as part of the International Baccalaureate. Ethics for A-Level is of particular value to students and teachers, but Fisher and Dimmock’s precise and scholarly approach will appeal to anyone seeking a rigorous and lively introduction to the challenging subject of ethics. Tailored to the Ethics components of AQA Philosophy and OCR Religious Studies.

Download or read book Real Beauty written by Eddy Zemach and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Self Expression written by Mitchell S. Green and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-11-22 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This systematic philosophical study of self-expression explores the ways in which it reveals our states of thought, feeling, and experience. Green defends striking new theses on such topics as our ability to perceive emotion in others, artistic expression, empathy, expressive language, meaning, facial expression, and speech acts.

Download or read book Ethical Theory written by Russ Shafer-Landau and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2007-07-30 with total page 815 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In presenting this reader on ethical theory, Shafer-Landau (philosophy, U. of Wisconsin) has made sure to cover the standard topics of the day, consequentialism, deontology, contractarianism, and virtue ethics, but has also sought to include areas that are less common in sections on moral standing, moral responsibility, moral knowledge, and works that question the very possibility of systematic ethics. He also includes a section that discusses ethics and religion and another that examines prima facie duties and particularism. Rather than include critics' views following the various theoretical presentations, he has instead decided to include more works of allied thinkers in order to provide readers with a more nuanced view of the particular view in question. Selections from classic writers such as Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, Immanuel Kant, and Plato are accompanied by more contemporary writings. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) -- Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, LLC.