Online research in philosophy

Can a certain sort of property supervene on another sort of property without reducing to it? Many philosophers find the superveniencel irreducibility combination attractive in the philosophy of mind and in moral philosophy (Davidson 1980 and Moore 1903). They think that mental properties supervene upon physical properties but do not reduce to them, or that moral properties supervene upon natural properties without reducing to them. Other philosophers have tried to show that the combination is ultimately untenable, however attractive it might initially appear. Thus Ted Honderich and Jaegwon Kim argue that the combination cannot explain the causal efhcacy of the supervening properties (Honderich 1982, Kim 1984b). And Simon..

My goal in this article is to provide support for the claim that moral flaws can be detrimental to an artwork's aesthetic value. I argue that moral flaws can become aesthetic flaws when they defeat the operation of good-making aesthetic properties. I do not defend a new theory of aesthetic properties or aesthetic value; instead, I attempt to show that on both the response-dependence and the supervenience account of aesthetic properties, moral flaws with an artwork are relevant to what aesthetic properties obtain. I provide a description of the main features of both theories of aesthetic properties, and then explain how moral flaws can become aesthetic flaws on either account. I address several objections to moralism about art including the "moralistic fallacy.".

Sydney Shoemaker has recently given an account of emergent properties according to which emergent properties are a special type of structural property and the determination relation holding between emergent properties and their base properties is one of “mere nomological supervenience.” According to Shoemaker, emergent properties are what he calls type-2 microstructural properties, whereas physical properties are type-1 microstructural properties. After highlighting the advantages of viewing emergent properties as a special class of microstructural properties, I show how according to his own causal theory of properties type-2 microstructural properties actually reduce to type-1 microstructural properties, and thus do not truly count as emergent. I then suggest an alternative view according to which emergent properties are actually a third type of microstructural property, one not considered by Shoemaker. I conclude with reflections why we might view the dependence relation between emergent properties and their physical base properties as a causal relation rather than one of mere supervenience.

G. E. Moore famously argued on the basis of semantic intuitions that moral properties are not reducible to natural properties, and therefore that moral predicates refer to nonnatural properties. This clearly represents a version of “moral realism,” but it is a testament to the strength of naturalist intuitions in contemporary philosophical debate that, insofar as one accepts Moore’s arguments, this is typically seen as a boon for antirealists rather than realists. For many philosophers worry that putative nonnatural properties would be too metaphysically and epistemologically queer to be admissible into our ontology. These philosophers conclude that if moral properties cannot be understood as natural properties, then it is more reasonable to abandon commitment to moral properties than to follow Moore into nonnaturalism.

In this dialectical milieu, three positions have become popular. Naturalists argue that Moorean arguments are bunk; moral properties can be understood as natural properties. Constructivists argue that Moore was right that moral properties cannot be understood as objective natural properties—that is, the properties that are logically independent of the attitudes of human agents—however, quasi‐objective moral properties can be constructed out of the attitudes of human agents. And noncognitivists argue that moral predicates are nonreferential, and so the best understanding of moral discourse is one which does not construe it as committed to the existence of moral properties.

Russ Shafer‐Landau’s new book is distinctive in that it argues against each of these three popular positions while developing and defending a contemporary nonnaturalist version of moral realism.

THE OBJECTIVIST CLAIMS THAT MORAL JUDGMENTS ARE STATEMENTS WHICH ARE TRUE OR FALSE. HE MAY BE A NATURALIST OR AN ANTI-NATURALIST. IF A NATURALIST, HE MAY MAINTAIN EITHER THAT MORAL PROPERTIES ARE NATURAL PROPERTIES, OR THAT, THOUGH MORAL PROPERTIES ARE DISTINCT FROM NATURAL PROPERTIES, POSSESSION OF NATURAL PROPERTIES SOMETIMES ENTAILS POSSESSION OF MORAL PROPERTIES. THE ONLY PLAUSIBLE OBJECTIVIST POSITION IS THE LATTER FORM OF NATURALISM. VARIOUS ARGUMENTS AGAINST OBJECTIVISM ARE CONSIDERED, INCLUDING THE ARGUMENT THAT MORAL MATTERS CANNOT BE SETTLED BY ARGUMENT AND THE ARGUMENT THAT AGREEMENT ABOUT MORAL MATTERS INVOLVES AGREEMENT IN ATTITUDE, WHEREAS AGREEMENT ABOUT FACTUAL MATTERS DOES NOT. ALL THESE ARGUMENTS ARE SHOWN TO FAIL. FINALLY A POSITIVE ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF OBJECTIVISM IS PUT FORWARD.

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.

Non-reductive moral realism is the view that there are moral properties which cannot be reduced to natural properties. If moral properties exist, it is plausible that they strongly supervene on non-moral properties- more specifically, on mental, social, and biological properties. There may also be good reasons for thinking that moral properties are irreducible. However, strong supervenience and irreducibility seem incompatible. Strong supervenience entails that there is an enormous number of modal truths (specifically, truths about exactly which non-moral properties necessitate which moral properties); and all these modal truths must be explained. If these modal truths can all be explained, then it must be a fundamental truth about the essence of each moral property that the moral property is necessarily equivalent to some property that can be specified purely in mental, social and biological terms; and this fundamental truth appears to be a reduction of the moral property in question. The best way to resist this argument is by resorting to the claim that mental and social properties are not, strictly speaking, natural properties, but are instead properties that can only be analysed in partly normative terms. Acceptance of that claim is the price of non-reductive moral realism.

One of the primary motivations behind moral anti-realism is a deep-rooted scepticism about moral knowledge. Moral realists attempt counter this worry by sketching a plausible moral epistemology. One of the most radical proposals in the recent literature is that we know moral facts by perception – we can literally see that an action is wrong, etc. A serious objection to moral perception is the causal objection. It is widely conceded that perception requires a causal connection between the perceived and the perceiver. But, the objection continues, we are not in appropriate causal contact with moral properties. Therefore, we cannot perceive moral properties. This papers demonstrates that the causal objection is unsound whether moral properties turn out to be secondary, natural properties; non-secondary, natural properties; or non-natural properties. 1.

This paper argues that Nonreductive ethical naturalism is a viable approach to normative ethical theory. Central to Nonreductive ethical naturalism is the identification of moral properties with natural ones. Natural properties are objective and pertain to facts. It follows that moral properties are factual in nature. In the proposed theory pain and harm are the natural properties that are also moral in nature. Pain and harm are not identical. Pain is the chief indicator of harm. The concept of harm entails injury. Injury to an individual is both a factual and moral issue. The well-being of individuals constitutes the foundation of morality. Consequently, that which runs counter to an individual's well-being is what we mean by evil. It follows that injury is evil and its intentional infliction upon other people is morally evil. The factual nature of ethical properties provides the basis for universal agreement on which forms of behavior are evil. As such, acceptance of this theory would go a long way in resolving many of the global problems that confront us all at the onset of the 2 1 s t century.

Moral properties would supervene upon non-moral properties and be conceptually autonomous. That, according to Simon Blackburn, would make them if not impossible at least mysterious, and evidence for them best explained by theorists who say they are not real. In fact moral properties would not challenge in ways Blackburn has contended. There is, however, something new that can be gathered from his arguments. What would the supervenience of moral properties and their conceptual autonomy from at least total non-moral properties entail not only for Intuitionists, who `knew this all along,' but for all moral realists, that there are synthetic necessary moral principles? There is for all moral realists the problem of explaining `what in the world' makes possible these necessities.