A unificationist vindication of moral explanation
Philosophical Forum 42 (2):131-146 (2011)
| Abstract | There are two putative disanalogies between moral explanations and other sorts of higher-order explanations. First, moral properties epistemically depend on their non-normative base properties. Some might thus argue that the explanatory role of moral properties entirely derive from the role of non-normative base properties. Second, moral explanations seem to be characteristically mediated by our moral beliefs, attitudes, and sensibilities, etc., in a way in which most higher-order explanations are not. It could thus be argued that alleged moral explanations are just an elliptical form of psychological explanation. These arguments against moral explanation don’t seem to challenge many other kinds of higher-order explanations. In my paper, I attempt to show that the two putative disanalogies do not in the end raise serious challenges to the explanatory efficacy of the moral. In doing so, I appeal to a unificationist account of explanation to vindicate the explanatory efficacy of moral properties. I argue that moral facts or properties can have explanatory power due to their distinctive unifying role (even if they are irreducible to non-normative properties). | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,709 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesLei Zhong (2012). An Explanatory Challenge to Moral Reductionism. Theoria 78 (4):309-325.
Joseph Millum (2008). A Biological Alternative to Moral Explanations. Southern Journal of Philosophy 46 (3):385-407.
Rebecca Schweder (2005). A Defense of a Unificationist Theory of Explanation. Foundations of Science 10 (4).
Don Loeb (2005). Moral Explanations of Moral Beliefs. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (1):193–208.
Uri D. Leibowitz (2011). Scientific Explanation and Moral Explanation. Noûs 45 (3):472-503.
Mark T. Nelson (2006). Moral Realism and Program Explanation. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 84 (3):417 – 428.
Neil Sinclair (2013). Moral Explanations. In Hugh LaFollette (ed.), International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Blackwell.
Suzanne Bliss & Jordi Fernández (2010). Program Explanation and Higher-Order Properties. Acta Analytica 25 (4):393-411.
Brad Majors (2003). Moral Explanation and the Special Sciences. Philosophical Studies 113 (2):121 - 152.
Jorn Sonderholm (2008). Why Supervenience is a Problem for Brink's Version of Moral Realism. Journal of Philosophical Research 33:203-213.
Neil Sinclair (2011). The Explanationist Argument for Moral Realism. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 41 (1):1-24.
Seiriol Morgan (2006). Naturalism and Normativity. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (2):319-344.
William A. Rottschaefer & David Martinsen (1991). The Insufficience of Supervenient Explanations of Moral Actions: Really Taking Darwin and the Naturalistic Fallacy Seriously. Biology and Philosophy 6 (4):439-445.
Josep Corbí (2004). Normativity, Moral Realism, and Unmasking Explanations. Theoria 19 (2):155-172.
Neil Sinclair (2012). Expressivist Explanations. Journal of Moral Philosophy 9 (2):147-177.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2011-05-05Total downloads14 ( #83,218 of 549,766 )Recent downloads (6 months)2 ( #37,450 of 549,766 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
