Moral Rationalism Edited by Christopher Michael Cloos (University of California at Santa Barbara)

Related categories
Siblings:
38 found
Search inside:
(import / add options)   Sort by:
  1. Robert Audi (1998). Moderate Intuitionism and the Epistemology of Moral Judgment. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 1 (1):15-44.
    This paper outlines and defends a moderate intuitionism. The point of departure is the intuitionism of W. D. Ross (1930) in The Right and the Good, conceived as ethically pluralist and epistemologically rationalist. The paper articulates a conception of self-evidence – including mediate as well as immediate kinds – appropriate to a moderate intuitionism, explores some of the resources and varieties of that position, and considers some problems and prospects for a rationalist version of intuitionism. The final section addresses the (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: springerlink.com dx.doi.org jstor.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  2. Carla Bagnoli (2007). Phenomenology of the Aftermath: Ethical Theory and the Intelligibility of Moral Experience. In Sergio Tenenbaum (ed.), New Trends in Moral Psychology. Kluwer.
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  3. David O. Brink, Handout #2: Moral Motivation and Rationalism.
    We have looked at worries about expressivism and other forms of noncognitivism. The externalist solution may also seem to be a solution of last resort, because it may seem to deny the platitude that moral judgments are motivationally efficacious. For this reason, we might look seriously at rationalist theories of moral motivation, because they promise to represent moral judgments as intrinsically motivational without giving up cognitivism.
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation | Scholar | More options ...
  4. David Owen Brink (1989). Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics. Cambridge University Press.
    This book is a systematic and constructive treatment of a number of traditional issues at the foundations of ethics. These issues concern the objectivity of ethics, the possibility and nature of moral knowledge, the relationship between the moral point of view and a scientific or naturalist world-view, the nature of moral value and obligation, and the role of morality in a person's rational lifeplan. In striking contrast to traditional and more recent work in the field, David Brink offers an integrated (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  5. George R. Carlson (1994). Moral Realism and Wanton Cruelty. Philosophia 24 (1-2):49-56.
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: springerlink.com dx.doi.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  6. Stephen Cohen (1979). Gewirth's Rationalism: Who is a Moral Agent? Ethics 89 (2):179-190.
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: jstor.org journals.uchicago.edu dx.doi.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  7. Peter Danielson (2005). Playing with Ethics: Games, Norms and Moral Freedom. Topoi 24 (2):221-227.
    Morality is serious yet it needs to be reconciled with the free play of alternatives that characterizes rational and ethical agency. Beginning with a sketch of the seriousness of morality modeled as a constraint, this paper introduces a technical conception of play as degrees of freedom. We consider two ways to apply game theory to ethics, rationalist and evolutionary game theory, contrasting the way they model moral constraint. Freedom in the rationalist account is problematic, subverting willful commitment. In the evolutionary (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: springerlink.com dx.doi.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  8. Alan Donagan (1984). Consistency in Rationalist Moral Systems. Journal of Philosophy 81 (6):291-309.
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: jstor.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  9. James Doyle (2000). Moral Rationalism and Moral Commitment. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (1):1-22.
    Moral rationalism is identified as the view that moral constraints are rational constraints. This view seems implausible to many because it seems to involve belief in the fantastic-sounding possibility of egoist-conversion: that, in principle, an argument for moral constraints could be produced which would motivate a rational person who does not yet accept those constraints (i.e., an egoist) to observe them. Furthermore, the Humean want-belief model of motivation-the view that beliefs alone are incapable of motivating-seems to provide a good explanation (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: jstor.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  10. James Dreier (1996). Book Review: The Moral Problem by Michael Smith. [REVIEW] Mind 105 (418):363-367.
  11. Stephen Finlay (2007). Four Faces of Moral Realism. Philosophy Compass 2 (6):820-849.
    This essay explains for a general philosophical audience the central issues and strategies in the contemporary moral realism debate. It critically surveys the contribution of some recent scholarship, representing expressivist and pragmatist nondescriptivism (Mark Timmons, Hilary Putnam), subjectivist and nonsubjectivist naturalism (Michael Smith, Paul Bloomfield, Philippa Foot), nonnaturalism (Russ Shafer-Landau, T. M. Scanlon) and error theory (Richard Joyce). Four different faces of ‘moral realism’ are distinguished: semantic, ontological, metaphysical, and normative. The debate is presented as taking shape under dialectical pressure (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: blackwell-synergy.com dx.doi.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  12. Scott Forschler (2007). How to Make Ethical Universalization Tests Work. Journal of Value Inquiry 41 (1).
    Richard Hare described the "ethical fanatic" as an agent who appeared to be able to rationally universalize morally horrendous values by "fanatically" accepting the consequences of those values even if their universalization harmed the original agent. This challenges the project of basing ethics on universalization tests, as advocated by Hare, Immanuel Kant, and others. Hare later argued that fanatics are irrational by appealing to a "principle of prudence," but this violates his meta-principle of not basing fundamental ethical principles upon intuitions (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  13. James Franklin (2004). On the Parallel Between Mathematics and Morals. Philosophy 79 (1):97-119.
    The imperviousness of mathematical truth to anti-objectivist attacks has always heartened those who defend objectivism in other areas, such as ethics. It is argued that the parallel between mathematics and ethics is close and does support objectivist theories of ethics. The parallel depends on the foundational role of equality in both disciplines. Despite obvious differences in their subject matter, mathematics and ethics share a status as pure forms of knowledge, distinct from empirical sciences. A pure understanding of principles is possible (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: journals.cambridge.org journals.cambridge.org jstor.org dx.doi.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  14. Joshua Gert (2008). Michael Smith and the Rationality of Immoral Action. Journal of Ethics 12 (1):1 - 23.
    Although it goes against a widespread significant misunderstanding of his view, Michael Smith is one of the very few moral philosophers who explicitly wants to allow for the commonsense claim that, while morally required action is always favored by some reason, selfish and immoral action can also be rationally permissible. One point of this paper is to make it clear that this is indeed Smith’s view. It is a further point to show that his way of accommodating this claim is (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: jstor.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  15. Michael B. Gill (2008). Teaching & Learning Guide For: Moral Rationalism Vs. Moral Sentimentalism: Is Morality More Like Math or Beauty? Philosophy Compass 3 (2):397–400.
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: interscience.wiley.com dx.doi.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  16. Michael B. Gill (2007). Moral Rationalism Vs. Moral Sentimentalism: Is Morality More Like Math or Beauty? Philosophy Compass 2 (1):16–30.
    One of the most significant disputes in early modern philosophy was between the moral rationalists and the moral sentimentalists. The moral rationalists — such as Ralph Cudworth, Samuel Clarke and John Balguy — held that morality originated in reason alone. The moral sentimentalists — such as Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson and David Hume — held that morality originated at least partly in sentiment. In addition to arguments, the rationalists and sentimentalists developed rich analogies. The (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: dx.doi.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  17. Irwin Goldstein (2002). The Good's Magnetism and Ethical Realism. Philosophical Studies 108 (1-2):1-14.
    People support ethical antirealism with various arguments. Gilbert Harman thinks if a property of goodness existed, it would have detectable effects on objects that have it. However, Harman reasons, the good has no such detectable effects. Internalists think if good objects had some goodness property, that property would bond to desire and action in a way inconsistent with ethical realism. I defend ethical realism from the two arguments. I explain how good can both name a property and how objects with (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: springerlink.com jstor.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  18. Irwin Goldstein (1980). Why People Prefer Pleasure to Pain. Philosophy 55 (July):349-362.
    Against Hume and Epicurus I argue that our selection of pleasure, pain and other objects as our ultimate ends is guided by reason. There are two parts to the explanation of our attraction to pleasure, our aversion to pain, and our consequent preference of pleasure to pain: 1. Pleasure presents us with reason to seek it, pain presents us reason to avoid it, and 2. Being intelligent, human beings (and to a degree, many animals) are disposed to be guided by (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: links.jstor.org journals.cambridge.org jstor.org dx.doi.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  19. Logi Gunnarsson (2000). Making Moral Sense: Beyond Habermas and Gauthier. Cambridge University Press.
    Is it rational to be moral? Can moral disputes be settled rationally? Which criteria determine what we have a good reason to do? In this innovative book, Logi Gunnarsson takes issue with the assumption made by many philosophers faced with the problem of reconciling moral norms with a scientific world view, namely that morality must be offered a non-moral justification based on a formal concept of rationality. He argues that the criteria for the rationality of an action are irreducibly substantive, (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  20. Terry Horgan & Mark Timmons (2007). Morphological Rationalism and the Psychology of Moral Judgment. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 10 (3):279 - 295.
    According to rationalism regarding the psychology of moral judgment, people’s moral judgments are generally the result of a process of reasoning that relies on moral principles or rules. By contrast, intuitionist models of moral judgment hold that people generally come to have moral judgments about particular cases on the basis of gut-level, emotion-driven intuition, and do so without reliance on reasoning and hence without reliance on moral principles. In recent years the intuitionist model has been forcefully defended by Jonathan Haidt. (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: jstor.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  21. Michael Huemer, Reason, Objectivity, and Goodness.
    This paper will focus on my conception of the nature of morality, which I call intuitionism. My conception is inspired in large part by earlier intuitionists (Moore, Ross, and Prichard), though I do not claim they would all agree exactly with everything I say.
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation | Scholar | More options ...
  22. Jeanette Kennett (2006). Do Psychopaths Really Threaten Moral Rationalism? Philosophical Explorations 9 (1):69 – 82.
    It is often claimed that the existence of psychopaths undermines moral rationalism. I examine a recent empirically based argument for this claim and conclude that rationalist accounts of moral judgement and moral reasoning are perfectly compatible with the evidence cited.
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: informaworld.com dx.doi.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  23. James Klagge (1991). Rationalism, Supervenience, and Moral Epistemology. Southern Journal of Philosophy 29 (S1):25-28.
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: dx.doi.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  24. Heidi Lene Maibom (2005). Moral Unreason: The Case of Psychopathy. Mind and Language 20 (2):237-57.
    Psychopaths are renowned for their immoral behavior. They are ideal candidates for testing the empirical plausibility of moral theories. Many think the source of their immorality is their emotional deficits. Psychopaths experience no guilt or remorse, feel no empathy, and appear to be perfectly rational. If this is true, sentimentalism is supported over rationalism. Here, I examine the nature of psychopathic practical reason and argue that it is impaired. The relevance to morality is discussed. I conclude that rationalists can explain (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: blackwell-synergy.com ingentaconnect.com dx.doi.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  25. Nicholas Maxwell (2001). Can Humanity Learn to Create a Better World? The Crisis of Science Without Wisdom. In Tom Bentley & Daniel Stedman Jones (eds.), The Moral Universe.
    Can we learn to create a better world? Yes, if we first create traditions and institutions of learning rationally devoted to that end. At present universities all over the world are dominated by the idea that the basic aim of academic inquiry is to acquire knowledge. Such a conception of inquiry, judged from the standpoint of helping us learn wisdom and civilization, is grotesquely and damagingly irrational. We need to change our approach to academic enterprise if we are to create (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  26. P. Michael McCullough & Sam Faught (2005). Rational Moralists and Moral Rationalists Value-Based Management: Model, Criterion and Validation. Journal of Business Ethics 60 (2):195 - 205.
    This paper considers ethical decision making by blending three streams of related research: cognitive moral development of the decision maker, rational choice theory and a subjective expected utility model. Ethical dilemmas can be defined as situations where moral certainty is compromised by rational cognition. In this paper, the authors assume that some people use a morality-first perspective and others a rationality-first perspective. Ethical scenarios were written and used to test hypotheses derived from this perspective. The instrument developed was shown to (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: jstor.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  27. Christian Miller (2006). Shafer-Landau and Moral Realism. Social Theory and Practice 32 (2):311-331.
    In 1903 G.E. Moore celebrated a robust nonnaturalistic form of moral realism with the publication of his Principia Ethica. Subsequent years have witnessed the development and refinement of a number of views motivated at least in part by a deep resistance to the metaphysical and epistemological commitments of nonnaturalism. Over time, Moore’s view arguably has become the position of last resort for philosophers working in metaethics. Exactly one hundred years later, analytic metaethics has come full circle with the publication of (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: pdcnet.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  28. Shaun Nichols, Moral Rationalism and Empirical Immunity.
    With the rapid recent growth of naturalized metaethics, Richard Joyce’s paper sounds an appropriate cautionary note. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by sexy new data and to neglect the difficulties in using the data to draw major philosophical conclusions. One of the central views in the sights of naturalists has been moral rationalism. Jonathan Haidt (2001), Joshua Greene (this volume), Jesse Prinz (forthcoming), and I (2002, 2004b) have all used recent empirical findings to challenge moral rationalist views. Although Joyce is (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation | Scholar | More options ...
  29. Shaun Nichols, How Psychopaths Threaten Moral Rationalism, or is It Irrational to Be Amoral?
    Over the last 20 years, a number of central figures in moral philosophy have defended some version of moral rationalism, the idea that morality is based on reason or rationality (e.g., Gewirth 1978, Darwall 1983, Nagel 1970, 1986, Korsgaard 1986, Singer 1995; Smith 1994, 1997). According to rationalism, morality is based on reason or rationality rather than the emotions or cultural idiosyncrasies, and this has seemed to many to be the best way of securing a kind of objectivism about moral (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation | Scholar | More options ...
  30. Douglas W. Portmore (forthcoming). Consequentialism and Moral Rationalism. Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics.
    I argue that we should reject all traditional forms of act-consequentialism if moral rationalism is true. (Moral rationalism, as I define it, holds that if S is morally required to perform x, then S has decisive reason, all things considered, to perform x.) I argue that moral rationalism in conjunction with a certain conception of practical reasons (viz., the teleological conception of reasons) compels us to accept act-consequentialism. I give a presumptive argument in favor of moral rationalism. And I argue (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: public.asu.edu   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  31. Michael Smith (2004). Ethics and the a Priori: Selected Essays on Moral Psychology and Meta-Ethics. Cambridge University Press.
    Over the last fifteen years, Michael Smith has written a series of seminal essays about the nature of belief and desire, the status of normative judgment, and the relevance of the views we take on both these topics to the accounts we give of our nature as free and responsible agents. This long awaited collection comprises some of the most influential of Smith's essays. Among the topics covered are: the Humean theory of motivating reasons, the nature of normative reasons, Williams (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  32. Andrew Sneddon (2009). Normative Ethics and the Prospects of an Empirical Contribution to Assessment of Moral Disagreement and Moral Realism. Journal of Value Inquiry 43 (4).
    The familiar argument from disagreement has been an important focal point of discussion in contemporary meta-ethics. Over the past decade, there has been an explosion of interdisciplinary work between philosophers and psychologists about moral psychology. Working within this trend, John Doris and Alexandra Plakias have made a tentative version of the argument from disagreement on empirical grounds. Doris and Plakias present empirical evidence in support of premise 4, that ethics is beset by fundamental disagreement. They examine Richard Brandt on Hopi (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  33. Stephen J. Sullivan (1991). Book Review:Rationalism, Realism, and Relativism: Perspectives in Contemporary Moral Epistemology. Robert L. Arrington. Ethics 101 (2):406-.
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: dx.doi.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  34. Mark van Roojen (2010). Moral Rationalism and Rational Amoralism. Ethics 120 (3):495–525.
    Huck Finn's refusal to turn in his friend Jim was not a failure of rationality. It is partly on the basis of such examples that many theorists conclude that the requirements of ethics cannot be the requirements of practical reason. In this essay I will defend rationalism against these worries. But I hope to do more than that. I intend to show how the rationality of people like those described above is compatible with two plausible versions of internalism. Second, I (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: mvr1.com journals.uchicago.edu dx.doi.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  35. Pekka Väyrynen (2004). Review of Christian Illies, The Grounds of Ethical Judgement: New Transcendental Arguments in Moral Philosophy. [REVIEW] Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2004 (3).
    This is a review of Christian Illies: The Grounds of Ethical Judgement: New Transcendental Arguments in Moral Philosophy (Clarendon Press, 2003).
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  36. Candace A. Vogler (2002). Reasonably Vicious. Harvard University Press.
    Is unethical conduct necessarily irrational? Answering this question requires giving an account of practical reason, of practical good, and of the source or point of wrongdoing. By the time most contemporary philosophers have done the first two, they have lost sight of the third, chalking up bad action to rashness, weakness of will, or ignorance. In this book, Candace Vogler does all three, taking as her guides scholars who contemplated why some people perform evil deeds. In doing so, she sets (...)
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  37. Hans-Peter Weikard (1992). A Methodological Note on Ethics, Economics, and the Justification of Action. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 5 (2).
    Two disciplines claim to provide justification of action. Ethics gives you moral reasons to act upon, whereas economics exploits the concept of rationality. The paper discusses two theories of interdisciplinarity of ethics and economics in order to clarify the relationship. The traditional view of a hierarchical ordering of ethics and economics is rejected, and it is claimed that there are substantial economic contributions to ethical justification.
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
  38. Aaron Z. Zimmerman (2009). A Conflict in Common Sense Moral Psychology. Utilitas 21 (4):401-423.
    Ordinary moral thinking about morality and rationality is inconsistent. To arrive at a view of morality that is as faithful to common thought as consistency will allow we must admit that it is not always irrational to knowingly act against the weight of reasons.
    Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |  Remove from this list |
     
    My bibliography  |
     
    Export citation  | Other links: journals.cambridge.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ...