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Moral coherence and value pluralism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Patricia Marino
Patricia Marino*
Affiliation:
aDepartment of Philosophy, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada
*
* E-mail: pmarino@uwaterloo.ca
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Abstract

This paper addresses the question of what value pluralism tells us about the pursuit of moral coherence as a method of moral reasoning. I focus on the status of the norm of ‘systematicity, ’ or the demand that our principles be as few and as simple as possible. I argue that, given certain descriptive facts about the pluralistic ways we value, epistemic ways of supporting a systematicity norm do not succeed. Because it is sometimes suggested that coherence functions in moral reasoning as it does in scientific reasoning, my argument considers analogies and disanalogies between moral reasoning and scientific reasoning.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , 2013 , pp. 117 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2013

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