Does Direct Moral Judgment Have a Phenomenal Essence?
Journal of Moral Philosophy 10 (1):52-69 (2013)
Authors |
Joshua Glasgow
Sonoma State University
|
Abstract |
Moral phenomenology has enjoyed a resurgence lately, and within the field, a trend has emerged: uniform rejection of the idea that the experience of making ‘direct’ moral judgments has any phenomenal essence, that is, any phenomenal property or properties that are always present and that distinguish these experiences from experiences of making non-direct- moral judgments. This article examines existing arguments for this anti-essentialism and finds them wanting. While acknowledging that phenomenological reflection is an unstable pursuit, it is maintained here that phenomenological essentialism about a certain domain of direct moral judgment, namely direct judgment of obligation and prohibition, is more credible than has been recognized. The positive proposal is to rehabilitate something close to Maurice Mandelbaum’s essentialism, specifically to maintain that direct moral judgment ’s phenomenal essence is arguably its felt categorical demand. The key to making this argument is to assume a ‘rich view’ of moral consciousness, the view that phenomenal features of moral judgment might be present even when they are not attended to. This assumption is controversial, but it is warranted by two considerations. First, though controversial, the rich view is intuitively plausible. Second, it reveals that the existing arguments against the kind of essentialism defended here appear to tacitly presuppose an equally controversial – and arguably less intuitive – rejection of the rich view
|
Keywords | Mandelbaum moral judgment Sinnott-Armstrong Horgan moral phenomenology Timmons rich view |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
DOI | 10.1163/174552412X628841 |
Options |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Download options
References found in this work BETA
Freedom and Resentment.Peter Strawson - 1962 - In Gary Watson (ed.), Proceedings of the British Academy, Volume 48: 1962. Oup Oxford. pp. 1-25.
Describing Inner Experience?: Proponent Meets Skeptic.Russell Hurlburt & Eric Schwitzgebel - 2007 - MIT Press.
Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives.Philippa Foot - 1972 - Philosophical Review 81 (3):305-316.
Errors and the Phenomology of Value.Simon Blackburn - 1985 - In Thomas L. Carson & Paul K. Moser (eds.), Morality and the Good Life. Oxford University Press. pp. 324--337.
Do You Have Constant Tactile Experience of Your Feet in Your Shoes? Or is Experience Limited to What's in Attention?Eric Schwitzgebel - 2007 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 14 (3):5-35.
View all 14 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Moral Experience: Its Existence, Describability, and Significance.Uriah Kriegel - forthcoming - In C. Erhard and T. Keiling (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Agency. London and New York: Routledge.
Similar books and articles
Prolegomena to a Future Phenomenology of Morals.Terry Horgan & Mark Timmons - 2008 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 7 (1):115-131.
A Defense of Descriptive Moral Content.Jeff Wisdom - 2009 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 47 (3):285-300.
Mandelbaum on Moral Phenomenology and Moral Realism.Terry Horgan & Mark Timmons - 2010 - In Ian Verstegen (ed.), Maurice Mandelbaum and American Critical Realism. Routledge. pp. 105.
Is Moral Phenomenology Unified?Walter Sinnott-Armstrong - 2008 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 7 (1):85-97.
Problems for Sinnott-Armstrong's Moral Contrastivism.Peter Baumann - 2008 - Philosophical Quarterly 58 (232):463–470.
Do Normative Standards Advance Our Understanding of Moral Judgment?David A. Pizarro & Eric Luis Uhlmann - 2005 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28 (4):558-559.
Moral Intuitionism Defeated?Nathan Ballantyne & Joshua C. Thurow - 2013 - American Philosophical Quarterly 50 (4):411-422.
A Social Model of Moral Dumbfounding: Implications for Studying Moral Reasoning and Moral Judgment.Andrew Sneddon - 2007 - Philosophical Psychology 20 (6):731 – 748.
Is the Emotional Dog Wagging its Rational Tail, or Chasing It?: Reason in Moral Judgment.Cordelia Fine - 2006 - Philosophical Explorations 9 (1):83 – 98.
Analytics
Added to PP index
2013-11-24
Total views
26 ( #338,883 of 2,272,578 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
3 ( #409,116 of 2,272,578 )
2013-11-24
Total views
26 ( #338,883 of 2,272,578 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
3 ( #409,116 of 2,272,578 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Downloads