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A Procedural, Pragmatist Account of Ethical Objectivity
- Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 23, Number 2, June 2013
- pp. 169-200
- 10.1353/ken.2013.0005
- Article
- Additional Information
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This article offers a procedural, pragmatist account of objectivity in the domain of the good that is inspired by pragmatic and feminist critiques of objectivity in philosophy of science and epistemology. I begin by asking first what we want to capture—or ought to want to capture—with a notion of ethical objectivity and in answer to this question I identify four “points” to ethical objectivity: undergirding the possibility of mistakenness, making genuine disagreement possible, making sense of our appreciation of the ethical perspectives of others, and making possible a sense of ethical improvement or learning. I then lay out a process-based account of objectivity in ethics that makes good on the four points I have identified. Finally, I consider worries related to convergence, bias, and ontology and defend the procedural, pragmatist account in light of those potential objections.