Oldenquist on moral judgments and moral principles

1969 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-51
Author(s):  
Douglas Greenlee
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Principles

scholarly journals On James Sterba’s Refutation of Theistic Arguments to Justify Suffering

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 64
Author(s):  
Bruce R. Reichenbach
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Divine Intervention ◽  
Horrendous Evils ◽  
Consistent Application ◽  
Moral Requirements

In his recent book Is a Good God Logically Possible? and article by the same name, James Sterba argued that the existence of significant and horrendous evils, both moral and natural, is incompatible with the existence of God. He advances the discussion by invoking three moral requirements and by creating an analogy with how the just state would address such evils, while protecting significant freedoms and rights to which all are entitled. I respond that his argument has important ambiguities and that consistent application of his moral principles will require that God remove all moral and natural evils. This would deleteriously restrict not only human moral decision making, but also the knowledge necessary to make moral judgments. He replies to this critique by appealing to the possibility of limited divine intervention, to which I rejoin with reasons why his middle ground is not viable.

Normative Principles are Synthetic A Priori

Episteme ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-383
Author(s):  
Paul Boghossian
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Principle ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
Normative Concepts ◽  
Open Question Argument ◽  
Moral Domains ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Open Question

AbstractI argue for the claim that there are instances of a priori justified belief – in particular, justified belief in moral principles – that are not analytic, i.e., that cannot be explained solely by the understanding we have of their propositions. §1–2 provides the background necessary for understanding this claim: in particular, it distinguishes between two ways a proposition can be analytic, Basis and Constitutive, and provides the general form of a moral principle. §§3–5 consider whether Hume's Law, properly interpreted, can be established by Moore's Open Question Argument, and concludes that it cannot: while Moore's argument – appropriately modified – is effective against the idea that moral judgments are either (i) reductively analyzable or (ii) Constitutive-analytic, a different argument is needed to show that they are not (iii) Basis-analytic. Such an argument is supplied in §6. §§7–8 conclude by considering how these considerations bear on recent discussions of “alternative normative concepts”, on the epistemology of intuitions, and on the differences between disagreement in moral domains and in other a priori domains such as logic and mathematics.

Folklorisation and the Emergent Moral Degeneration: A Functionalist Approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Siziwe Mandubu
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
South African ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Behavioral Norms ◽  
South African Society ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Societal Norms ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
The Social ◽  
Functionalist Approach

Living in an egalitarian society has resulted in the corrosion of the moral base among certain sectors in the community. Some people misconstrue egalitarianism as an authorisation to act as they see fit. Young people, in particular, are gradually losing touch with reality in relation to acceptable behavioral norms in the South African society. Based on the functionalist theory of balancing the social equilibrium among people, the article delineates moral standards as the most fundamental and general principles of behaviour and reflects on how the society expects one to act in certain situations. The article, therefore, explores the primary concepts within functionalism and attempts to outline that the society is a system of interconnected parts that work together in harmony to maintain a state of stability and social cohesion. The article will use the folktale “uDyakalashe noMvolofu” (“The Jackal and the Wolf”) to reflect on the expected societal norms. It demonstrates that folktales, which used to transfer values, morals and shape the conduct of people in the olden days are still appropriate in reshaping the outlook and perceptions of today’s generation. As such, the shrewd nature of folklore in the moral regeneration of the current generation of young people is exposed. While there are many folktales in this category, “uDyakalashe noMvolofu” (“The Jackal and the Wolf”) provides the theme relevant for the analysis of the topic to highlight that moral standards generate moral principles and moral judgments.

Metaethics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Finlay
Keyword(s):  
Applied Ethics ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Moral Goodness ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Many ◽  
Normative Ethical Theory

A tripartite distinction is often drawn in moral philosophy between (i) applied ethics, (ii) normative ethical theory, and (iii) metaethics. Applied ethics seeks answers to moral questions about specific practices like abortion, euthanasia and business, while normative ethics seeks abstract moral principles that apply generally. We can loosely define metaethics as seeking answers to questions about normative ethics. It does not, at least directly, seek answers to moral or normative questions about (e.g.) which acts are right, what things are good, or how we ought to live our lives; instead it asks a variety of nonmoral questions about morality. While it is sometimes claimed that metaethics is morally neutral in the sense that it leaves normative questions open, metaethical theories can have normative implications, and it is sometimes argued that they all do. Since there is in principle no limit to the kinds of nonmoral questions one might ask about morality, there is no limit to the possible kinds of metaethical questions other than their relation to the subject of morality. One central kind of question is semantic, concerning the meaning of moral language. For example, what do we mean by saying that something is ‘right’ or ‘good’? Another central kind of question is metaphysical. For example, what kind of property is moral goodness, and does such a thing exist? A third central kind of question is epistemological, concerning how we might come to know moral truths. Some of the many other kinds of metaethical questions are psychological (concerned with the mental attitudes we call ‘moral judgments’ and how they motivate us to action), logical (concerning the inferences we can legitimately draw between different moral claims), sociobiological (concerning how humans may have evolved as beings with a moral sense), and – although it may blur the distinction between metaethics and normative ethics – normative (concerning the rational justification for acting morally). The boundaries of metaethics are vague. For example, just as normative ethics on a broader conception concerns itself not merely with morality narrowly construed but with all practical or normative questions about how to act, choose and live, so too metaethics on a broader conception asks nonnormative questions about normativity more generally.

Not Our Fault

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 568-575
Author(s):  
Michael Gilead ◽  
Yair Ben David ◽  
Yael Ecker
Keyword(s):  
Social Distance ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Intuitions ◽  
End Points ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Psychological Continuum ◽  
Positive Rights

The current research aimed to delineate the moral intuitions that underlie apathy toward the suffering of socially distant others. Past research has shown that people endorse in-group-focused morality, according to which the fate of socially distant others is discounted, and harm-focused morality, according to which the omission of care is viewed less negatively as compared to the commission of harm. In the current study, we investigated how these two moral principles interact, by examining whether increased social distance differentially attenuates the severity of moral judgments concerning acts of apathy and harm. The results of five studies show that judgments concerning the omission of care are dependent on social distance, whereas judgments concerning the commission of harm are not. The findings challenge normative theories of morality that deny the legitimacy of “positive rights” and positive theories of morality that see harm and care as two end points of the same psychological continuum.

Logic of ethical discourse

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Timmons
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Deontic Logic ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Inference Rules ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Ethical Discourse ◽  
The Subject

Logic, as a discipline, is largely concerned with discovering principles and methods for evaluating the evidential strength between the premises and conclusions of arguments. Because the meanings of terms (and the concepts they express) that occur in arguments bear importantly on questions about evidential relations, much of the work on the topic of logic and ethics has been preoccupied with questions about the meanings of moral terms and concepts, and with the correct linguistic analysis of sentences that contain them. Taking logic to include issues about meaning (which has commonly been done by those who refer to the so-called ‘logic of moral discourse’) is to construe the subject broadly. But the field of logic is often construed quite narrowly to refer to the study of formal languages whose syntax, axioms and inference rules are sufficiently determinate to allow decisions about what counts as the theorem in such a language. On the narrower understanding of logic, the intersection of logic and ethics has mainly to do with work in deontic logic. This article takes up issues concerning the intersection of ethics and logic broadly construed. The intersection of logic and ethics concerns questions about the nature of moral reasoning. Some philosophers have attempted to deduce substantive moral conclusions from factual statements – in particular, to derive ‘ought’ statements from ‘is’ statements. If one can successfully carry out such deductions, then moral reasoning is guided properly by consideration of nonmoral facts from which moral conclusions can be derived. However, the eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume is often credited with arguing that no such deductions are correct; that there is a gap between factual ‘is’ statements and moral ‘ought’ statements. There is disagreement over whether or not Hume’s negative claim is correct; but even if it is, there may still be logical features of moral concepts that impose constraints on proper moral reasoning. One such widely discussed constraint is the thesis of universalizability, according to which relevantly similar cases must receive the same moral evaluation. One implication of this thesis is that moral judgments about particular cases entail universal moral principles and so some have argued that all correct moral reasoning must be understood in terms of subsuming particular cases under general moral principles. Although many philosophers have accepted this subsumptive model of moral reasoning, it has come under attack by philosophers who argue that proper moral reasoning is primarily a matter of sensitively discerning the morally relevant details of a case under consideration and rendering a moral judgment about it without the guidance of principles.

Common Sense and First Principles in Sidgwick's Methods

1994 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
David O. Brink
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
First Principles ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
First Principle ◽  
Moral Intuitions ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
The One ◽  
Considered Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Convictions

What role, if any, should our moral intuitions play in moral epistemology? We make, or are prepared to make, moral judgments about a variety of actual and hypothetical situations. Some of these moral judgments are more informed, reflective, and stable than others (call these our considered moral judgments); some we make more confidently than others; and some, though not all, are judgments about which there is substantial consensus. What bearing do our moral judgments have on philosophical ethics and the search for first principles in ethics? Should these judgments constrain, or be constrained by, philosophical theorizing about morality? On the one hand, we might expect first principles to conform to our moral intuitions or at least to our considered moral judgments. After all, we begin the reflection that may lead to first principles from particular moral convictions. And some of our moral intuitions (e.g., that genocide is wrong) are more fixed and compelling than any putative first principle. If so, we might expect common moral beliefs to have an important evidential role in the construction and assessment of first principles. On the other hand, common moral beliefs often rest on poor information, reflect bias, or are otherwise mistaken. We often appeal to moral principles to justify our particular moral convictions or to resolve our disagreements. Insofar as this is true, we may expect first principles to provide a foundation on the basis of which to test common moral beliefs and, where necessary, form new moral convictions.

scholarly journals Motivated moral judgments about freedom of speech are constrained by a need to appear consistent

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolai Haahjem Eftedal ◽  
Lotte Thomsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Dominance Orientation ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Consistent Functions ◽  
Political Alignment ◽  
Speech Content ◽  
Made In

Speech is a critical means of negotiating political, adaptive interests in human society. Prior research on motivated political cognition has found that support for freedom of speech depends on whether one agrees with its ideological content. However, it remains unclear if people (A) openly hold that some speech should be more free than other speech; or (B) want to appear as if speech content does not affect their judgments. Here, we find support for (B) over (A), using social dominance orientation and political alignment to predict support for speech. Study 1 demonstrates that if people have previously judged restrictions of speech which they oppose, they are less harsh in condemning restrictions of speech which they support, and vice versa. Study 2 finds that when participants judge two versions of the same scenario, with only the ideological direction of speech being reversed, their answers are strongly affected by the ordering of conditions: While the first judgment is made in accordance with one’s political attitudes, the second opposing judgment is made so as to remain consistent with the first. Study 3 is a preregistered replication and elaboration on Study 2. Study 4 suggests that this effort to appear consistent functions to oblige the opposition to (also) protect one's own speech: We find that support for equal protection of all speech is stronger if a member of the opposition proposes it, rather than a member of one's own political coalition. These results are consistent with notions of an evolutionary arms race of social manipulation, and suggest that although people selectively endorse universal moral principles depending on their own political agenda, they conceal their bias from others and, perhaps, themselves.

scholarly journals Modern problems of bioethics (review)

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-150
Author(s):  
O.V. Letov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
General Point ◽  
Fear Of Childbirth ◽  
Biomedical Sciences ◽  
Freedom Of Choice ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Analytical Review ◽  
The Subject

The article is an analytical review of English-language articles on contemporary issues of bioethics. Ethical categories such as informed consent of the patient, the principle of freedom of choice of the subject, risk ethics, consequentialism and deontologism, etc. are considered. It is noted, in particular, that some moral principles provide an essential general point of view regard­ing judgments in the field of biomedical sciences, and that these principles cannot be convinc­ingly ranked hierarchically. It is shown how the processes of specification and balancing connect broad principles and rules with specific moral judgments necessary in practical ethics. A deeper understanding of women’s experiences of fear of childbirth, interpreted through the metaphor of “being at a point where there is no return”, is demonstrated.

Moral principles in May's Regard for Reason in the Moral Mind

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Marshall
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Principles

Abstract Joshua May offers four principles that might serve as the rational foundations of moral judgments. I argue that these principles, if they are independent of affect, are too weak to be the basis of any substantive moral judgment and do not fit with the idea that morality is categorical.

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