Moral Realism Without Values: An Essay on Reasons for Action

Dissertation, University of Notre Dame (2004)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This essay defends a realist account of normative reasons for action that can disclaim the need for a realist account of moral value. The account of reasons for action aims to undermine the widely held thought that such reasons must be constituted by, or at least derived from, some of the psychological states of the agent whose reasons they are. On the view defended here, there can be correct moral judgments that capture the reasons there are for acting in certain ways; and the reasons themselves are just some of the morally relevant facts of the situation about which the judgment is made. Establishing such an account relies essentially, I argue, on an appeal to substantive ethical theory, to a theory that allows for the attribution of truth to the practical judgments in question. The account can in fact be equally well supported by ethical theories as otherwise diverse as those of Aristotle and Kant. The resulting account of reasons for action is a version of moral realism, but one that is not committed to defending a realist account of the nature of moral value.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 100,061

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Moral Realism without Values.Noell Birondo - 2006 - Journal of Philosophical Research 31:81-102.
Reasons and value – in defence of the buck-passing account.Jussi Suikkanen - 2005 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 7 (5):513 - 535.
An Adam Smithian account of moral reasons.Nir Ben-Moshe - 2020 - European Journal of Philosophy 28 (4):1073-1087.
Kantian Reasons for Reasons.Noell Birondo - 2007 - Ratio 20 (3):264-277.
Moral Hedging and Responding to Reasons.Amelia Hicks - 2019 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 100 (3):765-789.
Affective Deliberation: Toward a Humean Account of Practical Reasons.Stephanie Beardman - 2000 - Dissertation, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey - New Brunswick
Reasons and the Good.Roger Crisp - 2006 - Oxford, GB: Clarendon Press.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-02-05

Downloads
0

6 months
0

Historical graph of downloads

Sorry, there are not enough data points to plot this chart.
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Noell Birondo
University of Texas at El Paso

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references