Moral Epistemology

Moral properties are widely held to be response-dependent properties of actions, situations, events and persons. There is controversy as to whether the putative response-dependence of these properties nullifies any truth-claims for moral judgements, or rather supports them. The present paper argues that moral judgements are more profitably compared with theoretical judgements in the natural sciences than with the judgements of immediate sense-perception. The notion of moral truth is dependent on the notion of moral knowledge, which in turn is best understood as a possible endpoint of theory change for the better. I Introduction. To some empirically-minded philosophers, morality comprises a vast set of human experiences and practices. Some of them are pathological, but none are categorically veridical or illusory , right or wrong. Moral judgements, on this purely anthropologi-cal view, reflect the responses of neurologically diverse and culturally constrained observers but have no epistemic standing. The regulations, penalties and rewards deemed appropriate and imposed by different cultures and subcultures—their moral systems —seem to be extensions, curtailments and embellishments of basic patterns of reactivity. Some moral attitudes and practices change; other seem robust. As there is a range of body types and faces, all of them recognizably human, some of them quite odd, and none of them specially privileged, there is a range of moral sensibilities delivering partially overlapping sets of moral judgements, all of them recognizably human, some of them quite odd, and none of them specially privileged. Of some 'we' approve; of others 'we' disapprove; and other people and other cultures and subcultures classify and describe

This thesis investigates whether the epistemology of ethical intuitionism successfully accounts for moral knowledge in particular with regards to the following two questions: Do moral intuitions justify basic moral beliefs? Do moral intuitions count toward the truth of basic moral beliefs? I have four central goals. My first goal is to show that Robert Audi’s intuitionistic epistemology is mistaken with regards to what justifies a moral belief and what an intuition is (chapters 1-2.2). My second goal is to defend a revised version of Audi’s intuitionistic epistemology (chapter 2.3). My third goal is to show that intuitions are reliable cognitive deliverances that aim at truth, that is, having an intuition in support of a basic moral belief increases the epistemic probability of the belief (chapter 3.4-3.5). My fourth goal is to support the thesis that intuitions establish a direct awareness of basic moral truths (chapter 3.1-3.3 and 4)

In this paper I examine the relation between intentional action and morality from the perspective of practical epistemology. In other words I study the relation between knowledge of one’s own intentional actions (knowledge in action) and knowledge of what is good to do or what one ought to do in particular circumstances (knowledge in the circumstances).  If practical knowledge in the former sense (knowledge in action) and practical knowledge in the latter sense (knowledge in the circumstances) turn out to constitute exercises of one and the same capacity for knowledge, as I will argue they do, this will give us strong reason to believe that what is known in the two cases (i.e. intentional action and the moral fabric of the world) is in some sense the same.

In examining the relation between practical knowledge of one’s own intentional actions and practical knowledge of what is good to do I draw from two traditions of thought on practical epistemology.  The first is the tradition of Anscombe’s conception of knowledge in action and the second is the tradition of Murdoch’s conception of knowledge in the circumstances.  What is striking about these traditions is that they tend to understand practical knowledge by reference to the possible involvement therein of perception.  Thus Anscombe claims in her Intention[1] that knowledge in action is specified as knowledge without observation; a claim to the effect that the epistemological status of knowledge in action is determined by reference to the lack of a certain sort of involvement therein of perception.  And Iris Murdoch in her Sovereignty of the Good[2] proposes that what makes knowledge in the circumstances knowledge is a form of sensitivity to particular features or aspects of the circumstances in which the agent finds herself.  Thus, for Murdoch, knowledge in the circumstances owes its status as knowledge to the capacity of the agent to perceive what she ought to do in particular circumstances.

In this paper I will argue that both of these forms of knowledge are instances of the exercise of one and the same capacity for knowledge.  But the question now arises.  How can we both claim that the two forms of practical knowledge are instances of the exercise of one and the same capacity for knowledge and that perception plays such a diverse role in their epistemological grounding?  In the main body of this paper I will show how to interpret the Murdochian and the Anscombean claims so as to provide the materials with which we can answer this question.  If the argument of this paper works, it will transpire that both of these forms of knowledge are instances of the exercise of our capacity for self-knowledge.  This account of practical knowledge opens the way for understanding intentional action and the moral fabric of the world as knowable as the self.  And it is thus that what is known in the two forms of knowing (i.e. intentional action and the moral fabric of the world) is in some sense the same.
[1] Anscombe, 1957.
[2] Murdoch, 1970.

An ongoing challenge within all approaches to ethical decision making is reducing the degree of doubt about what action is right, good, or at least better in a given situation. The process of moral discern-ment within Christian thought is no exception; however, different Christian communities tend to understand moral doubt and moral certainty differently, to pursue different ways of allaying doubt, and to expect-and accept-different degrees of moral certainty. Drawing especially from Aristotelian virtue theory, selected teachings from the Eastern Orthodox tradition on humility, and recent discussions of the 'grace of self-doubt, ' I sketch an account of virtuous moral doubt as a mean between the extremes of excessive and deficient moral doubt. In doing so, I hope to make space and provide the framework for an ecumenical understanding of doubt's proper role in moral discernment. "Have mercy on those who suffer doubt. " (Jude 1:22)

Those who criticize as well as those who nowadays defend constructivism in metaethics consider John Rawls’s constructivism to be incomplete. According to them, his ontological agnosticism makes evident this incompleteness; I question this widely accepted charge. I propose an alternative interpretation, according to which Rawls’s agnosticism is the effect of his metaethics rather than a lack of metaethics. Thanks to this interpretation, I question the originality and attractiveness of Rawls’s metaethics. My claim is that Rawls’s metaethics adequately captures the specific historical nature of political norms.

Les critiques aussi bien que les défenseurs contemporains du constructivisme métaéthique jugent incomplet le constructivisme développé par John Rawls. Ils considèrent que son agnosticisme ontologique est un signe évident de l’incomplétude de sa position métaéthique. L’ambition de cet article est de contester ce verdict généralement accepté, en produisant une interprétation alternative de l’agnosticisme ontologique de Rawls, selon laquelle cet agnosticisme est l’effet de sa position métaéthique plutôt qu’un défaut de position métaéthique. Sur cette base, je pose à nouveaux frais la question de l’originalité et de l’attractivité de la métaéthique rawlsienne. Je montre que
l’attractivité de la métaéthique rawlsienne se situe dans sa capacité à saisir l’historicité spécifique des normes de justice.

u neformalnijim trenucima. Mnogo ih je bilo od kojih sam jako puno dobio. Nadam se da neću biti nepravedan, budem li istaknuo, pored Nebojše Zelića, koji je sada kolega na Odsjeku, Milicu Czerny i Iris Vidmar. Na raznim znanstvenim skupovima gdje sam izložio dijelove ovoga rada, ili čitanjem i komentiranjem ranijih verzija pojedinih dijelova, korisnim primjedbama i savjetima pomogli su mi: Kao što će čitatelj primijetiti, u nekim se dijelovima knjige, preciznije u onima koji su bliže vezani uz opću epistemologiju, oslanjam na radove Snježane Prijić-Samaržije, ili svoja razmatranja pokrećem krenuvši od njih. O epistemologiji sam najviše naučio od nje. Ona za mene predstavlja uzor kvalitetne filozofske kreativnosti i preciznosti, kao i radne ozbiljnosti. Još

Bioethics and a Contemporary Critique of Praxis.
Reflections on Ethics in the Era of Biotechnology



The paper attempts a critical assessment of the methodological status of bioethics as a normative endeavour aiming at the moral evaluation of forms of practice made possible through the advances in the biomedical sciences and biotechnology. Firstly, the emergence of bioethics is unraveled and socio-historical factors that contributed to its rise are reconstructed. Secondly, its methodological continuity with normative ethical theory is investigated  and defended. Against a somewhat dominant tendency in the field  to view bioethics as a form of “applied ethics”, thereby aiming at “applying” received moral principles to cases, it is argued that theoretical analysis and justification is indispensable if it is to adequately sustain its status as a normative enterprise. The interdisciplinary work in bioethics acquires unity, cohesion and practical relevance through its methodological continuity with moral philosophy. In this context, classical topoi of the latter are explored, and a line of argument is invoked that draws from themes of Kant’s practical philosophy. The “axiom of autonomy”, relevant in bioethical reasoning, is reconstructed along Kantian lines. Against some contemporary atomistic reductions to individual preferential choice, or second-order rational choosing, autonomy is conceptually linked with “universal self-legislation”, ie. it is reconstructed as a formal constraint that shows which principles can be adopted by all (autonomy as a constitutive requirement in moral thinking derived from the act of universalization, characteristic of moral thinking ). Lastly, in the light of criteria of moral deliberation derived from the categorical framework of (moral) autonomy, certain substantial moral considerations are  defended, regarding genetic and biotechnological interventions, and the moral limits of such interventions are explored.

“体知”是杜维明提出的一个重要概念，用来说明儒家传统所强调的 一种特殊的知识类型。这种知识类型在宋明儒学中被称作“德性之知”，而与“闻 见之知”相区别。这种知识有两个主要特征:一方面，要获得这样的知识，不能只 靠理智的认知活动，还需要有内心的体验活动;另一方面，这样的知识不只让其拥 有者知道孰是孰非，而且还会让他好是恶非、行是除非。这种知识类型既与西方传 统认识论强调的命题性知识(knowing-that)不同，也与 20 世纪中叶为赖尔所强调 的能力之知(knowing-how)不同。就其能够驱使其拥有者做出与这种知识相应的 行动而言，它是一种动力之知(knowing-to);就这种知识不只是信念(belief)而且 也是欲望(desire)而言，它是一种信欲(besire)。在这个意义上，作为动力之知的“体知”概念的提出是对当代认识论特别是道德认识论的一个重要贡献。

This volume presents a history of the concept of moral motivation.  The contributors are eminent scholars in the history of philosophy, covering Plato, Aristotle, later Peripatetic philosophy, medieval philosophy, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Kant, Fichte and Hegel, and the consequentialist tradition.  The study of moral motivation examines why and how morals motivate a subject's action, and how those motivations may constitute a genuinely ethical act.  The book shows the complexity of the historical treatment of moral motivation and, moreover, how intertwined moral motivation is with central aspects of ethical theory.

An introduction of a forthcoming volume on comparative metaethics. The chapters in the volume offer lessons for contemporary metaethics drawn from thinkers ranging from ancient Egypt to Susan Sontag. In this introduction, I summarize the chapters, consider the question of why comparative metaethics is a relatively unexplored field (hint: it's Kant's fault), and consider some of the particular challenges comparative metaethics faces.

This study intends to offer an introductory map to Giuseppe Abbà’s work in moral philosophy, favoring the contribution he made to the overall approach of the discipline. The exposition presents the significant works of the Salesian philosopher, framing them in the systematic perspective that guided his research and attempting to elaborate their possible developments.
Thus, the significant problems of moral philosophy are intercepted, articulated in an original and logically coherent way: moral experience as a reference of philosophical elaboration, the peculiarity of moral knowledge, the dialectical comparison between different figures of moral philosophy, the structure of the human act, the foundation of the moral law, the examination of true human happiness, the role that virtues play in it, the configuration of moral education. The outline of a good course in moral philosophy with a Thomistic approach emerges.

In this paper, I argue against the epistemology of some contemporary moral intuitionists who believe that the notion of self-evidence is more important than that of intuition. Quite the contrary, I think the notion of intuition is more basic if intuitions are construed as intellectual seemings. First, I will start with elaborating Robert Audi's account of self-evidence. Next, I criticise his account on the basis of the idea of " adequate understanding. " I shall then present my alternative account of self-evidence which is based on the seeming account of intuition. Finally, I show how the seeming account of self-evidence can make the moral intuitionist epistemology more tenable.

1. La filosofia morale e la filosofia dell'arte sono da sempre due dei campi privilegiati della riflessione filosofica. In alcune occasioni si tratta di riflessioni che si intersecano. L'arte ha un significato (positivo o negativo) morale? La dimensione morale ha un ruolo nell'attribuire un giudizio di valore all'arte o a singole opere d'arte? L'arte può aiutarci a sviluppare le nostre conoscenze, in primo luogo quelle morali? Molti sanno dell'avversione di Platone per l'arte. Dall'altro lato c'è una posizione radicale di assoluto entusiasmo filosofico per l'arte. Questa posizione viene chiamata 'utopismo' ed è caratterizzata dall'idea che l'arte in quanto tale è portatrice di progresso, permettendoci di vedere prospettive diverse da quelle determinate dalla nostra contingenza storica e sociale. Una terza posizione, invece, è chiamata autonomismo, in quanto afferma che non esiste alcuna influenza della dimensione morale nella determinazione del valore dell'arte o di singole opere d'arte. Infine, vi sono autori che reputano che non si può stabilire un atteggiamento di principio sul rapporto tra arte e morale. Il rapporto può essere rilevante, ma varia nelle singole opere d'arte. 1 In questo testo [...] mi occuperò della [...] questione se l'arte ci possa aiutare a sviluppare le nostre conoscenze, con un riferimento soprattutto a quelle morali. Vi sono varie posizioni che negano questa possibilità. In primo luogo, si dice che l'arte non ha alcuna rilevanza per lo sviluppo della conoscenza in quanto i pensieri che l'arte ci trasmette sono banali e non rappresentano alcuna novità conoscitiva per noi. Pensiamo a un grande 1 Per un'esposizione più dettagliata di quanto brevemente esposto nella parte introduttiva dell'articolo, vedi: N. Carroll, Art, Narrative, and Moral Understanding, in Levinson, J. (a cura di), Aesthetics and Ethics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1998, 126-160. romanzo come Delitto e castigo. Il romanzo ci trasmette il pensiero che l'omicidio sia un'azione moralmente inaccettabile. Ovviamente, si tratta di un pensiero banale che possedevamo già prima di leggere questo notevole romanzo.

Epistemologists have long worried that the willingness of open-minded people to reconsider their beliefs in light of new evidence is both a condition of improving their beliefs and a risk factor for losing their grip on what they already know. In this paper I introduce and attempt to resolve a moral variation of this puzzle: A willingness to engage people having strange or (to us) repugnant moral ideals looks like a condition of broadening our moral horizons, but also a risk factor for doing the wrong thing or becoming bad. I pursue a contractualist line according to which such hazardous engagement is a virtue only when it matters to our interlocutors whether they can justify themselves to us on terms we can accept—and for our sake or for the sake of their own virtue, not instrumentally or to get something out of us. When it does not so matter, openness can be unintelligent or gullible, i.e. not virtuous.

W. D. Ross über moralische Erkenntnis, das Richtige und das Gute1 William David Ross (1877-1971) widmete sein langes Wissenschaftlerleben in erster Linie der Aristotelesforschung. Sein Name ist jedoch ebenso sehr mit der von ihm entwickelten Moralphilosophie verbunden-und das, obwohl seine Beschäftigung mit dieser Disziplin nur eine Episode blieb: Fast alle ethischen Schriften von Ross erschienen in dem relativ kurzen Zeitraum von 1927 bis 1939. Sie kulminieren in den beiden 1930 bzw. 1939 erschienenen Monographien The Right and the Good (= RG) und Foundations of Ethics (= FE),2 von denen die erste hier erstmals in deutscher Übersetzung vorgelegt wird. RG bildet bereits einen vorläufigen Abschluss der Ross'schen Moralphilosophie, die durch das auf die Gifford Lectures von 1935/36 zurück

Psychologists and philosophers use the term 'intuition' for a variety of different phenomena. In this paper, I try to provide a kind of a roadmap of the debates, point to some confusions and problems, and give a brief sketch of an empirically respectable philosophical approach.

"Este trabajo se ocupa del desarrollo histórico-filosófico de las posiciones subjetivistas sobre los valores surgidas a partir del siglo XVIII con David Hume, en el seno de la tradición del empirismo analítico. Partiendo de esta posición, se centra en la transformación del subjetivismo axiológico de raigambre analítica en el siglo XX hacia el emotivismo, en el marco del giro lingüístico de la filosofía contemporánea. Los filósofos cuyas posiciones se examinan son David Hume, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Alfred Ayer, Bertrand Russell y John Leslie Mackie.
A partir de la dicha indagación, se examinan las posibilidades actuales del emotivismo como propuesta de análisis del lenguaje moral. En las Conclusiones se toma posición frente a dos importantes objeciones que surgieron contra el emotivismo: su incapacidad para dar cuenta de las pretensiones de verdad o de validez que estarían presentes en todo juicio de valor, y su imposibilidad de ofrecer una explicación suficiente del sentido de la discusión moral, al restringir la misma a mera retórica y negar que existan razones para apoyar un juicio de valor.
Mediante un examen crítico de esas dificultades, se vislumbra en qué medida el emotivismo (y más en general el no-cognitivismo) puede aún hoy ser reivindicado como una posición metaética posible, o bien si debe considerarse definitivamente superado. En ese sentido, se analiza también qué aspectos del emotivismo pueden reformularse de modo de mantener alguna vigencia, incorporando elementos del estudio de los juicios de valor provenientes de otras tradiciones metaéticas.
El capítulo I contextualiza la corriente del ‘empirismo analítico’, a la vez que se ocupa del tipo de tratamiento con que esta tradición filosófica abordó la problemática de la ética en general y del estatus de los valores en particular. Desde el capítulo II al VI, se presentan las posiciones de Hume, el 1º Wittgenstein, Ayer, Russell y Mackie. El capítulo VII ofrece un intento de clasificación de las distintas posturas que reciben el nombre genérico de ‘subjetivismo axiológico’. El capítulo VIII versa acerca de las relaciones del empirismo analítico con diversos temas relevantes para la ética (argumentos contra el objetivismo axiológico, posibilidad de fundamentar la ética, papel de la razón en la práctica moral, emotivismo y empirismo, etc.). Finalmente las Conclusiones recapitulan las diferentes posiciones metaéticas y de la argumentación moral expuestas, a los fines de reexaminarlas a la luz de algunas de las críticas que pretendieron impugnar el emotivismo. Se intenta así demarcar el papel que juegan las pretensiones de verdad o de validez en los juicios de valor, no tenidas en cuenta por dicha doctrina. También se examina y se defiende la posibilidad de dar cuenta de un genuino razonamiento moral en el marco de una posición emotivista."

Versione leggermente modificata del testo pubblicato in: "La Battana", 51, 196, 2015Battana", 51, 196, , 17-31 22.1.2016 La filosofia dell'arte conosce un lungo e intenso dibattito che indaga se l'aspetto morale di un'opera d'arte influisca sul suo valore artistico. In primo luogo, è necessario definire il concetto di valore artistico. Un'opera d'arte, infatti, può possedere valore da parecchi punti di vista. Alcuni aspetti costituiscono indubbiamente (almeno parte) del valore artistico di un'opera d'arte. Molti autori (ma non tutti) affermano che il valore estetico di un'opera d'arte costituisce indubbiamente (almeno una parte) del valore artistico di un'opera d'arte. Nell'altro estremo, si può nominare il valore commerciale di un'opera d'arte. A un convegno di teoria e filosofia dell'arte dedicato al valore dell'arte sono stato molto sorpreso da una comunicazione di una collega, storica dell'arte, che descriveva come si formava il valore commerciale dei lavori di Tiziano. Non c'era bisogno di sentire una professoressa di storia dell'arte, per sapere che le opere d'arte hanno anche valore commerciale. Ma nessuno, credo, sostiene che il valore commerciale costituisca anche una parte del valore artistico di un'opera d'arte. Il valore commerciale è soltanto valore commerciale. È questo il motivo perché sono stato sorpreso dalla comunicazione che nomino sopra in un convegno sul valore dell'arte.

For moral sentimentalists, our emotions and desires play a leading role in the anatomy of morality. Some believe moral thoughts are fundamentally sentimental, others that moral facts make essential reference to our sentimental responses, or that emotions are the primary source of moral knowledge. Some believe all these things. The two main attractions of sentimentalism are making sense of the practical aspects of morality, on the one hand, and finding a place for morality within a naturalistic worldview, on the other. The corresponding challenges are accounting for the apparent objectivity and normativity of morality. Recent psychological theories emphasizing the centrality of emotion in moral thinking have prompted renewed interest in sentimentalist ethics.

Il presente lavoro riguarda problemi di metaetica, cioè riflessioni sulla natura della morale. I limiti di questa discussione sono quelli della riflessione filosofica angloamericana contemporanea. Quelle dottrine che, seppure molto influenti e di fondamentale rilevanza storica, non hanno oggi una presenza nelle discussioni contemporanee saranno presentate molto brevemente nell'introduzione. La loro esposizione servirà soltanto a spiegare i termini del dibattito attuale. L'analisi della natura della morale nell'ambito angloamericano contemporaneo assume aspetti molteplici. In gran parte, però, come è ampiamente noto, consiste nell'analisi del linguaggio morale. Tale approccio dovrebbe rivelare la natura della morale stessa. Seguendo quella che ci appare essere una tendenza dominante in questi ultimi anni, analizzeremo tale dibattito con attenzione particolare alle categorizzazioni epistemologiche e ontologiche -qual è la natura dei fatti morali e quale conoscenza possiamo averne? -.

This chapter examines the relevance of the cognitive science of morality to moral epistemology, with special focus on the issue of the reliability of moral judgments. It argues that the kind of empirical evidence of most importance to moral epistemology is at the psychological rather than neural level. The main theories and debates that have dominated the cognitive science of morality are reviewed with an eye to their epistemic significance.

This chapter discusses contemporary scientific research on the role of reason and emotion in moral judgment. The literature suggests that moral judgment is influenced by both reasoning and emotion separately, but there is also emerging evidence of the interaction between the two. While there are clear implications for the rationalism-sentimentalism debate, we conclude that important questions remain open about how central emotion is to moral judgment. We also suggest ways in which moral philosophy is not only guided by empirical research but continues to guide it. Word count: 9,310 (all inclusive)

Wittgenstein teaches us that, contrary to current philosophical and scientific trends, the understanding of others is not to be achieved though some kind of emotional tool providing an access-pass to otherwise hidden 'mental contents'. This insight goes against the popular grain of empathy as a form of informational 'mindreading', founded upon John Locke's assumption that understanding another is a matter of obtaining and decoding the stored in their mind. We would do best to replace this radically distorted account of what it takes to understand others with a stance which places priority on sharing aspects of our lives. Only then can we even begin to try and tackle our moral, cultural, religious, and socio-political differences. Prologue In his book of interviews with the documentary maker Nick Broomfield, Jason Woods describes the flowing scene from Broomfield's 1975 film Juvenile Liaison, a case study of the questionable 'no-nonsense' methods employed by the officers of a unit in Blackburn, Lancashire (UK) focused on young offenders from 'impoverished working-class backgrounds': There's a sequence with a young Asian girl who is accused of stealing pencils, and what becomes all too apparent from the reaction of her teachers and from the female police officer who visits the girl's parents is that there is absolutely 1 In De la Colina & Turrent (1986:160). 2 Jung (2009:317-318).

Simandan D (2005) "Pragmatic Scepticism and the Possibilities of Knowledge" Timisoara, Editura Universitatii de Vest/West University Press, 256 pp.

This book distiled my own way of understanding the relation between epistemology, ontology, and politics, and the best name I found for labelling that way is pragmatic scepticism. Throughout the book, I stay away from the temptation to give a dictionary-like definition of this philosophy. I do not even like to think of it as a philosophy. Instead, I see pragmatic scepticism as a way of being and as a way of relating. A way of being human, i.e. enmeshed in language and limited by our senses; and a way of relating, i.e. crafted by the happy and sad encounters with theories, things, and lifeís happenings. The book is structured in three parts, which together give a sense of the potentials of pragmatic scepticism: as a way of thinking about the world, as a way of approaching theoretical dilemmas, as a way of mapping one's inner contradictions. The first part of the book introduces pragmatic scepticism in relation to the general questions underwriting the philosophy of knowledge and the study of science. The second part is more specific in that it deploys the pragmatic sceptical attitude to the central metatheoretical questions of the discipline of geography. The last part of the book groups under the heading "philosophies of struggle" two more applied essays on the political economy and the political epistemology of conflicts over knowledge in the globalised landscape of higher education in general and geography in particular.

Institutionalized and internalized,‭ ‬competence intersubjectivity contain many user-illusions and an imaginary or manifest image of reality,‭ ‬including of themselves‭ (‬Dennett and Sellars‭)‬,.‭ ‬This can be contrasted we a comprehension or comprehensive,‭ ‬understanding intersubjectivity.‭ ‬It is possible and perhaps even necessary to transform or replace the competence intersubjectivity to a comprehension or understanding‭ (‬scientific,‭ ‬Dennett and Sellars‭) ‬image of reality and themselves.Ethics and morality and studies of ethics and morality deal with the reality of competence intersubjectivity‭ (‬by means of socio-cultural practices that are derived from,‭ ‬based on an created by means of this restrictive,‭ ‬misleading,‭ ‬unreal,‭ ‬illusory,‭ ‬unrealistic intersubjectivity and the life-worlds associated with it‭)  ‬and human life-worlds constituted on the basis of and in terms of this intersubjectivity.‭ ‬This is why I am a nihilist,‭ ‬a libertarian,‭ ‬at least a minarchist or rather an anarchist and epistemologically a sceptic.

Kant’s‭ ‬things in themselves are similar‭ ‬to Dennett and Searle‭’‬s‭ ‬notions of manifest and scientific image.‭ ‬With my addition that we‭  ‬are socialized and internalize the competent,‭ ‬know how to do it,‭  ‬institutionalized manifest,‭ ‬everyday intersubjectivity,‭ ‬instead of the comprehension,‭ ‬insights and understanding knowing that,‭ ‬scientific intersubjectivity of all scientific disciplines.‭


This piece can be read as independent as comments on meta-ethics,‭ ‬or it can be read as a chapter in my Book‭ ‘‬Intersubjectivity‭ (‬continued‭)’‬,‭ ‬or it can be read as an introduction to my thoughts on philosophy and more specifically Intersubjectivity as‭ –


Determining the nature of‭  ‬philosophy


Determining the nature of the subject-matter of philosophy,‭ ‬sociology,‭ ‬social psychology,‭ ‬aspects of cognitive sciences,‭ ‬ethics,‭ ‬epistemology,‭ ‬etc,


Determining the nature of philosophical methodology and approaches.

Reasons why I have refrained from reflecting and writing on ethics and morality‭ ‬-‭

a‭)‬  The intersubjectivity that are institutionalized,‭ ‬socialized and internalize and therefore being employed to constitute reality,‭ ‬life-worlds,‭ ‬selves,‭ ‬discourses and socio-cultural practices,‭ ‬including specialized disciplines,‭ ‬eg philosophy,‭ ‬is that of‭  ‬Kantian things-for-us or Searle‭’ ‬and Dennett’s notion of manifest,‭ ‬imaginary,‭ ‬competent or know-how,‭ ‬knowing-how-to images.‭ ‬This kind of intersubjectivity underlies human morality and ethics,‭ ‬as well as approaches of philosophers to these and other branches of philosophy.

‭ ‬b‭) ‬How philosophers exist and how they live,‭ ‬their attitudes and beliefs,‭ ‬are very different from the theories of human existence,‭ ‬consciousness,‭ ‬selves,‭ ‬ethics,‭ ‬morality,‭ ‬epistemology,‭ ‬ontology,‭ ‬metaphysics,‭ ‬etc they advocate or express in and as their theories.‭ ‬Philosophers have their own private ways or personal styles of im/morality and being a-ethical while they advocate theories of ethics‭ (‬and other branches of philosophy‭) ‬that are completely different from their real attitudes and beliefs.

c‭) ‬As far as institutionalized and lived ethics and morality go I am a nihilist,‭ ‬an anarchist,‭ ‬or at least a minarchist,‭ ‬a Pyrrhonist,‭ ‬or at least a Humean or Kantian sceptic if not a fallibilist.

A suggestion before I paste the usual,‭ ‬contemporary encyclopaedic notions of ethics as a branch of philosophy and present notions of the‭ ‘‬division‭’ ‬of the subject and approaches to ethics and meta-ethics.‭

When a compatibilist says free will and determinism are compatible,‭ ‬and critics say they are mistaken‭ – ‬see below‭ – ‬they talk about specific situations,‭ ‬while those who points out that there do exists some kinds of determinisms after all,‭ ‬the latter take a more general,‭ ‬big picture view and make a statement on a greater or higher level of generality or generalization.

Evolutionary debunking arguments appeal to selective etiologies of human morality in an attempt to undermine moral realism. But is morality actually the product of evolution by natural selection? Although debunking arguments have attracted considerable attention in recent years, little of it has been devoted to whether the underlying evolutionary assumptions are credible. In this paper, we take a closer look at the evolutionary hypotheses put forward by two leading debunkers, namely Sharon Street and Richard Joyce. We raise a battery of considerations, both empirical and theoretical, that combine to cast doubt on the plausibility of both hypotheses. We also suggest that it is unlikely that there is in the vicinity a plausible alternative hypothesis suitable for the debunker's cause.

The technological advances of contemporary society have outpaced our moral understanding of the problems that they create. How will we deal with profound ecological changes, human cloning, hybrid people, and eroding cyberprivacy, just to name a few issues? In this book, Lorenzo Magnani argues that existing moral constructs often cannot be applied to new technology. He proposes an entirely different ethical approach, one that blends epistemology with cognitive science. The resulting moral strategy promises renewed dignity for overlooked populations, both of today and of the future.

Gilbert Ryle has made the famous distinction between intellectual knowing-that and practical knowing-how. Since knowledge in Confucianism is not merely intellectual but also practical, many scholars have argued that such knowledge is knowing-how or, at least very similar to it. In this essay, focusing on Wang Yangming’s moral knowledge (liangzhi 良知), I shall argue that it is neither knowing-that nor knowing-how, but a third type of knowing, knowing-to. There is a unique feature of knowing-to that is not shared by either knowing-that or knowing-how: a person with knowing-to (for example, knowing to love one’s parents) will act accordingly (for example, love his or her parents), while neither knowing-that (for example, the knowing that one ought to love one’s parents) nor knowing-how (for example, the knowing how to love one’s parents), whether separately or combined, will dispose or incline its possessor to act accordingly (for example, love one’s parents).

[Updated draft] The Reliability Challenge to moral non-naturalism has received substantial attention recently in the literature on moral epistemology. In this paper, I argue that the Reliability Challenge is confused and misconceived in a number of ways. After explaining these confusions, I present a different – and better – account of the core worries underlying the Reliability Challenge.

This paper was the runner-up for the 2017 Marc Sanders Prize in Metaethics

Recent epistemological history has inclined towards ‘testimonial optimism’, keen to stress the division of epistemic labour and how ubiquitously we depend upon the words of others. Its counterpart, ‘testimonial pessimism’, marks out a cluster of gloomier views, which stress -- in different ways -- testimony’s' epistemic shortcomings. My project in this paper is to establish a robust connection between pessimist readings of testimony, and two different commitments one might have in the philosophy of language: 'emotionism', and what I call ‘strong’ readings of the de re. I do not aim to say, in this paper, what I think we ought to do with these connections; that is, I aim to remain agnostic on whether we should take the connections I sketch to give us a way of vindicating pessimism, or whether they are better read as part of an error theoretic project.

Is the epistemology of moral intuitions compatible with admitting a role for emotion? I argue in this paper that moral intuitions and emotions can be partners without creating an epistemic threat. I start off by offering some empirical findings to weaken Singer’s (and Greene’s and Haidt’s) debunking argument against moral intuition, which treat emotions as a distorting factor. In the second part of the paper, I argue that the standard contrast between intuition and emotion is a mistake. Moral intuitions and emotions are not contestants if we construe moral intuition as non-doxastic intellectual seeming and emotion as a non-doxastic perceptual-like state. This will show that emotions support, rather than distort, the epistemic standing of moral intuitions.

Introductory courses dealing with sex, gender and sexuality are usually quite biased, going as far as to deny the reality of biology. Drawing on the Catholic tradition (Aquinas), this article presents an accessible argument aimed at restoring deliberative balance in the classroom.

Many ethicists believe that if it is possible to know a true moral proposition, it is always possible to ascertain a priori the normative content of that proposition. I argue that this is wrong; the only way to ascertain the normative content of some moral propositions requires the use of a posteriori information.
I examine what I call determinate core moral propositions. I assume that some of these propositions are true and that actual agents are able to know them. Ethicists whom I call core-apriorists believe that it is always possible to ascertain a priori the normative content of such propositions. Core-aposteriorists believe that this is false, and that sometimes a posteriori information must be used to ascertain that normative content.
I develop what I call the a posteriori strategy to show that core-apriorists are likely to be wrong, and so core-aposteriorists are correct. The strategy examines the details of particular core-apriorist theories and then shows that the theories have one of two problems: either some of the knowable determinate core moral propositions in the theories are not knowable a priori, or some of the propositions are not determinate, so they cannot perform the epistemological work required of them. Therefore, some knowable determinate core moral propositions are only knowable with the aid of a posteriori information.
I apply the strategy to four different core-apriorist theories. The first is Henry Sidgwick’s theory of self-evident moral axioms, as recently developed by Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer. The second is Matthew Kramer’s moral realism. I then examine Michael Smith’s moral realism, and Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit’s moral functionalism. The a posteriori strategy shows that there are serious difficulties with all four theories. I conclude that it provides good evidence that the core-apriorist is mistaken, and that the core-aposteriorist is right.

NATURALIZM "Etyka jest pochodzenia naturalnego", "dobro i powinność są czymś naturalnym"tak mogłyby brzmieć najogólniejsze i zarazem najbardziej intuicyjne odpowiedzi osoby niewyszkolonej specjalnie filozoficznie na pytanie o to, czym może być naturalizm etyczny. W rzeczy samej, odpowiedzi te stanowią punkt wyjścia dociekań ściśle filozoficznych: teza bazowa naturalisty etycznego brzmi bowiem mniej więcej właśnie w ten sposób: "Naturalizm etyczny jest stanowiskiem mówiącym, że to, co etyczne, jest naturalne" 1 . Piszę «mniej więcej», bo jeśli naturalizmu nie traktujemy -jak to zwykle ma miejsce -jako terminu, który "nosi znaczenie wypisane na swoim czole" 2 , to zasadniczo każdy z elementów wchodzących w skład tej quasi-definicji wymaga odpowiedniego sprecyzowania czy krytyki, żeby w ogóle dało się tu mówić o definicji. Jak można się domyślać, obiektem szczególnej uwagi musi być to, co naturalne. W niniejszym rozdziale postaram się, po uprzednim wyróżnieniu najważniejszych płaszczyzn refleksji naturalistycznej, omówić metaetycznie istotne dystynkcje i płaszczyzny rozważań, które pomogą objaśnić akceptowalne pojęcie naturalizmu etycznego. Zanim przedsięwzięcie to zostanie zainaugurowane, warto jednak dokonać pewnego rozróżnienia. W literaturze poświęconej naturalizmowi w etyce spotkać można dwa różne określenia, które odsyłają do rozważanego zagadnienia: naturalizm etyczny i etyka naturalistyczna. Druga z tych nazw jest genetycznie pierwotna: w dyskursie metaetycznym zadomowiła się dzięki -tyleż wpływowej, co często krytykowanej -znanej pracy George'a E. Moore'a, Principia Ethica 3 . Drugi termin został wprowadzony do etyki głównie za sprawą recepcji dzieła Moore'a 4 . Moore pisał: 1 Moore, Principia Ethica, dz. cyt., rozdział II. 4 Określenie to pojawiło się w artykule C.L. Stevensona, poźniej -w najbardziej znanej książce Richarda Brandta, a także u E.M. Adamsa. Zob. C.L. Stevenson, Moore's Argument against Certain Forms of Ethical Naturalism, w: The Philosophy of G.E. Moore, ed. P. Schilpp, Evanston, Northwestern UP 1942, s. 71-90; R.B. Brandt, Etyka…, dz. cyt., (rozdz. VII); E.M. Adams, Ethical Naturalism and the Modern World-View, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press 1960, passim.