Journal of Moral Philosophy recent issues

Notes on Contributors

2007-10-29

Editorial

Freyenhagen, F. — 2007-10-29

Moral and Theological Realism: The Explanatory Argument

Shafer-Landau, R. — 2007-10-29

There are striking parallels, largely unexplored in the literature, between skeptical arguments against theism and against moral realism. After sketching four arguments meant to do this double duty, I restrict my attention to an explanatory argument that claims that we have most reason to deny the existence of moral facts (and so, by extrapolation, theistic ones), because such putative facts have no causal-explanatory power. I reject the proposed parity, and offer reasons to think that the potential vulnerabilities of moral realism on this front are quite different from those of the theist.

Anti-Reductionism and Supervenience

Ridge, M. — 2007-10-29

In this paper, I argue that anti-reductionist moral realism still has trouble explaining supervenience. My main target here will be Russ Shafer-Landau's attempt to explain the supervenience of the moral on the natural in terms of the constitution of moral property instantiations by natural property instantiations. First, though, I discuss a recent challenge to the very idea of using supervenience as a dialectical weapon posed by Nicholas Sturgeon. With a suitably formulated supervenience thesis in hand, I try to show how Shafer-Landau's proffered strategy to explain supervenience not only fails to explain supervenience, but that it also has a number of implausible consequences. The more general lesson is that strategies which may work well for explaining supervenience in the philosophy of mind and other areas cannot be assumed to carry over successfully to the metaethical context. We should therefore treat so-called `companions in guilt' arguments in this area of philosophy with considerable skepticism.

Does Rationality Consist in Responding Correctly to Reasons?

Broome, J. — 2007-10-29

Some philosophers think that rationality consists in responding correctly to reasons, or alternatively in responding correctly to beliefs about reasons. This paper considers various possible interpretations of `responding correctly to reasons' and of `responding correctly to beliefs about reasons', and concludes that rationality consists in neither, under any interpretation. It recognizes that, under some interpretations, rationality does entail responding correctly to beliefs about reasons. That is: necessarily, if you are rational you respond correctly to your beliefs about reasons.

Practical Reason, Value and Action

Hills, A. — 2007-10-29

How should we decide which theory of practical reason is correct? One possibility is to link each conception of practical reason with a theory of value, and to assess the first in combination with the second. Recently some philosophers have taken a different approach. They have tried to link theories of practical reason with theories of action instead. I try to show that it can be illuminating to think of practical reason in terms of the success conditions of action, but ultimately this is in addition to, rather than a substitute for, relating practical reason to value as well. I set out three different conceptions of action and corresponding success conditions, and explain how each is linked to a particular conception of practical reason and, in two cases, to a theory of value too. My goal is to describe these different accounts, rather than to defend any in particular, though I will suggest that some are more satisfactory than others.

Normativity and Practical Judgement

O'Neill, O. — 2007-10-29

Norms are apt for reasoning because they have propositional structure and content; they are practical because they aim to guide action, rather than to describe aspects of the world. These two features hold equally of norms construed sociologically as the norms of specific social groups, and of norms conceived abstractly as principles of action. On either view, norms are indeterminate while acts are particular and determinate. Consequently norms cannot fully specify which particular act is to be done. Are they then not genuinely action-guiding unless supplemented by practical judgment? Yet accounts of practical judgement are often thin, sometimes seeing it as blind, unreasoned `picking' of one rather than another enactment of a norm. However, on another view practical judgement carries the substantive task of seeking ways of acting that satisfy a plurality of norms, which can be both reasoned and practical.

Normativity and Reason

Pink, T. — 2007-10-29

Moral obligation is a demand of reason—a demanding kind of rational justification. How to understand this rational demand? Much recent philosophy, as in the work of Scanlon, takes obligatoriness to be a reason-giving feature of an action. But the paper argues that moral obligatoriness should instead be understood as a mode of justificatory support—as a distinctive justificatory force of demand. The paper argues that this second model of obligation, the Force model, was central to the natural law tradition in ethics, is truer to everyday intuition about obligation, and also changes our understanding of the problem of moral rationality. A new account is given of why it might be irrational to breach moral obligations. The Force model also sheds new light on moral responsibility, our responsibility for meeting moral obligations. Moral obligation is a standard of reason; but moral responsibility is shown to involve far more than ordinary rational appraisability, precisely because moral obligation involves a distinctive justificatory force of demand—one which specifically governs how we act.

Referees for Volume 4

2007-10-29

Notes on Contributors

2007-08-08

Editorial Foreword

Flikschuh, K., Timmermann, J. — 2007-08-08

Experts, Practitioners, and Practical Judgement

O'Neill, O. — 2007-08-08

In Theory and Practice Kant challenges the well-worn view that practitioners do not need to rely on theory. He acknowledges that experts with a deep knowledge of theory may fail as practitioners both in technical matters, and in matters of morality and justice. However, since action-guiding theories are intended to shape rather than to fit the world, practitioners have no point of reference other than the theories or principles that they seek to enact. If theories of duty appear to offer too little guidance for action, they should look for more rather than fewer principles, which will enable them to guide their practical judgement with greater, if still incomplete, specificity.

Simplicity and Authority: Reflections on Theory and Practice in Kant's Moral Philosophy

Timmermann, J. — 2007-08-08

What is the proper task of Kantian ethical theory? This paper seeks to answer this question with reference to Kant's reply to Christian Garve in Section I of his 1793 essay on Theory and Practice. Kant reasserts the distinctness and natural authority of our consciousness of the moral law. Every mature human being is a moral professional—even philosophers like Garve, if only they forget about their ill-conceived ethical systems and listen to the voice of pure practical reason. Normative theory, Kant argues, cannot be refuted with reference to alleged experience. It is the proper task of the moral philosopher to emphasize this fact. The paper also discusses Kant's attempts to clarify his moral psychology, philosophy of value and conception of the highest good in the course of replying to Garve's challenge.

Kant, Garve, and the Motives of Moral Action

Ludwig, B. — 2007-08-08

Kant's comments `against Garve' constitute his reaction to the latter's remarks on Cicero's De Officiis . Two related criticisms of Kant's against Garve are discussed in brief in this paper. A closer look is then taken at Garve's claim that `Kantian morality destroys all incentives that can move human beings to act at all'. I argue that Kant and Garve rely on two different models of human action for their analyses of moral motivation; these models differ in what each takes to be salient for the explanation of human action. I show that Samuel Clarke's analogy of physical explanation in the framework of Newtonianism (in his Discourse concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion ) usefully illuminates the difference between Kant and Garve in these respects.

Kant against Hobbes in Theory and Practice

Riley, P. — 2007-08-08

In the middle section of Theory and Practice, Kant speaks briefly `against Hobbes'; but for a fuller version of Kant's anti-Hobbesianism one must turn to the three Critiques, the Groundwork, and Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone. It is in those works that one learns that, for Kant, Hobbes's notion of `will' as fully determined `last appetite' destroys the freedom needed to take `ought' or moral necessity as the motives for self-determined action; that Hobbes' s version of the social contract is thus incoherent; that Hobbes is not even able to show how moral ideas (i.e. `ought') are conceivable through the `pressure' of `outward objects'. For Kant, in short, Hobbes has no adequate notions of will, freedom, moral necessity, ideation, or even obligatory contract, and therefore fails in his own stated aims.

Kant against Hobbes: Reasoning and Rhetoric

Slomp, G. — 2007-08-08

This paper aims to offer an analysis of `Against Hobbes', the title of the second section of Kant's essay On the Common Saying: That May be Correct in Theory but is of no Use in Practice. The paper suggests that we should take the title `Against Hobbes' seriously and that Kant meant to target Hobbes as the standard-bearer of the old regime and in particular Hobbes's claim that the Head of state cannot act unjustly against his citizens. It is argued that Kant's interpretation of Hobbes conforms to what can be regarded as the majority view in Hobbesian scholarship and that Kant poses a serious challenge to Hobbes, in so far as he removes the very foundations from Hobbes's argument on justice, namely, a specific notion of natural law. Finally the paper highlights Kant's lack of interest in engaging with possible Hobbesian counter-arguments.

Duty, Nature, Right: Kant's Response to Mendelssohn in Theory and Practice III

Flikschuh, K. — 2007-08-08

This paper offers an imminent interpretation of Kant's political teleology in the context of his response to Moses Mendelssohn in Theory and Practice III concerning prospects of humankind's moral progress. The paper assesses the nature of Kant's response against his mature political philosophy in the Doctrine of Right. In `Theory and Practice III' Kant's response to Mendelssohn remains incomplete: whilst insisting that individuals have a duty to contribute towards humankind's moral progress, Kant has no conclusive answer as to how individuals might act on that duty. `Theory and Practice III' lacks a clear conception of the distinctness of political morality from the domain of virtue; Kant's resort to teleological argumentation is indicative of his lack of an account of instituting Right. The latter can be found in the Doctrine of Right—yet Kant's earlier teleological arguments contribute crucially to the development of his mature morality of Right.

Time-Relative Interests and Abortion

Liao, S. M. — 2007-08-08

The concept of a time-relative interest is introduced by Jeff McMahan to solve certain puzzles about the badness of death. Some people (e.g. McMahan and David DeGrazia) believe that this concept can also be used to show that abortion is permissible. In this paper, I first argue that if the Time-Relative Interest Account permits abortion, then it would also permit infanticide. I next reject the suggestion that the Time-Relative Interest Account can at least explain the permissibility of early abortion, even if it cannot explain the permissibility of late abortion. Given this, early and late abortions have to be justified on other grounds.

How Devolution Upsets Distributive Justice

Segall, S. — 2007-08-08

Philippe Van Parijs suggests that in culturally divided societies health care systems (and perhaps other welfare services) should be divided along regional lines. He argues that since members of homogenous societies have relatively similar needs and tastes, it is easier for them to agree on a rather comprehensive distributive scheme. This proposed reform of health care, Van Parijs argues, would be consistent with distributive justice rather than undermine it. Against Van Parijs, the paper demonstrates that this policy of devolution upsets distributive justice. Devolution does so by shifting the pattern of distribution (across communities) from distribution according to need, to distribution of equal shares. The paper also argues that devolution is likely to weaken solidarity across the polity as a whole, which further undermines the attainment of distributive justice. The paper concludes that far from catering to culturally driven differences in medical preferences, distributive justice (in fact) permits disregard of such differences, and warrants enforcing a unitary pattern of consumption of medical goods (and other welfare services) across the citizenry, thus retaining a unified health care (and correspondingly, welfare) system.

Review Article: Aggregation and Non-Utilitarian Moral Theories

Hirose, I. — 2007-08-08

Book Review: Maureen Sie, Marc Slors and Bert van den Brink (eds.), Reasons of One's Own (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004), 210 pp. ISBN 0754640639 (hbk). Hardback/Paperback: {pound}45.00/

Shemmer, Y. — 2007-08-08

Book Review: John M. Doris, Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behaviour (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), x + 272 pp. ISBN 0521631165 (hbk). Hardback/ Paperback: {pound}48.00/{pound}16.99

Goldie, P. — 2007-08-08

Book Review: Christopher Gill (ed.), Virtue, Norms, and Objectivity: Issues in Ancient and Modern Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), ix + 326 pp. ISBN 0199264384 (hbk). Hardback/Paperback: {pound}40.00/

Clarke, T. — 2007-08-08

Book Review: S. van Hooft, Understanding Virtue Ethics (Chesham, Buckinghamshire: Acumen, 2006), 184 pp. ISBN 1844650456 (pbk). Hardback/Paperback: {pound}40.00/{pound}12.99

Turnbull, D. — 2007-08-08

Books Received

2007-08-08

Notes on Contributors

2007-02-15

Editorial

Brooks, T. — 2007-02-15

Moral Particularism: An Introduction

Kirchin, S. — 2007-02-15

Moral particularism is a contentious position at present and seems likely to be so for the foreseeable future. In this Introduction, I outline and detail its essential claim, which I take to be, roughly, that what can be a reason that helps to make one action right need not be a reason that always helps to make actions right. This claim challenges a central assumption on which most, if not all, normative ethical theories are supposedly based. We owe this way of characterizing moral particularism to Jonathan Dancy, around whose writings much of the present debate revolves.

Particularism and Default Valency

Kirchin, S. — 2007-02-15

In this paper, I concentrate on the notion of default valency, drawing on some of the distinctions made and thoughts given in my Introduction. I motivate why the notion is important for particularists to have up their sleeves by outlining a recent debate between particularists and generalists. I then move to the main aim of the piece which is to discuss how anyone, particularist and generalist alike, might seek to distinguish reason-generating features into different types. My main aim is not to argue for a specific way of dividing such features into types but to present various taxonomical options.

Particularism and Reasons: A Reply to Kirchin

Norman, R. — 2007-02-15

Valency switching can appear especially puzzling if we think of moral reasons as ‘pushes and pulls’—considerations whose job it is to get us to act or to stop us acting. Talk of ‘default valency’ doesn't remove the puzzle, it merely restates it. We need a different picture of reasons—perhaps as providing a map of the moral terrain which helps us to see which actions are appropriate to which situations, and who the appropriate agents are. The role of virtue concepts in particular is more complex and varied than that of providing ‘reasons for acting’. A more holistic picture of reasons can make valency switching less mysterious.

Ethics Without Reasons?

Crisp, R. — 2007-02-15

This paper is a discussion of Jonathan Dancy's book Ethics Without Principles (2004). Holism about reasons is distinguished into a weak version, which allows for invariant reasons, and a strong, which doesn't. Four problems with Dancy's arguments for strong holism are identified. (1) A plausible particularism based on it will be close to generalism. (2) Dancy rests his case on common-sense morality, without justifying it. (3) His examples are of non-ultimate reasons. (4) There are certain universal principles it is hard not to see as invariant, such as that the fact that some action causes of suffering to a non-rational being always counts against it. The main difficulty with weak holism is that justification can be seen as analogous to explanation, which will give us an atomistic and generalist conception of a normative reason.

Crisp's 'Ethics Without Reasons?': A Note on Invariance

Harcourt, E. — 2007-02-15

Crisp is right to detect a clash between Dancy's leading formulation of holism about reasons and the phenomenon of invariance. Replying to Crisp on behalf of the particularist, I suggest a better formulation of holism modelled on a standard treatment in the philosophy of language of context-sensitive expressions.

Turning on Default Reasons

McKeever, S., Ridge, M. — 2007-02-15

Particularism takes an extremely ecumenical view of what considerations might count as reasons and thereby threatens to ‘flatten the moral landscape’ by making it seem that there is no deep difference between, for example, pain, and shoelace color. After all, particularists have claimed, either could provide a reason provided a suitable moral context. To avoid this result, some particularists draw a distinction between default and non-default reasons. The present paper argues that all but the most deflationary ways of drawing this distinction are either implausible or else insufficient to help the particularist avoid flattening the moral landscape. The difficulty can be avoided, however, if we reject particularism's extremely ecumenical view of reasons.

Practical Reasoning and Normative Relevance: A Reply to McKeever and Ridge

Thomas, A. — 2007-02-15

A putative problem for the moral particularist is that he or she fails to capture the normative relevance of certain considerations that they carry on their face, or the intuitive irrelevance of other considerations. It is argued in response that mastery of certain topic-specific truisms about a subject matter is what it is for a reasonable interlocutor to be engaged in a moral discussion, but the relevance of these truisms has nothing to do with the particularist/generalist dispute. Given that practical reasoning is plausibly a form of abductive reasoning, and is therefore non-monotonic, any arbitrary addition of information can change the degree of support evidence offers for a conclusion. Given this arbitrariness, it is no objection to the particularist if he or she represents the ‘normative landscape as flat’ in a way that does not display the ‘obvious’ relevance of certain considerations. The normative landscape is flat and our best account of practical reasoning represents it precisely as such. Appealing to a distinction between practical reasoning and moral reasoning does not help to resurrect this pseudoproblem for particularism.

Defending the Right

Dancy, J. — 2007-02-15

In this paper I consider what might be my best response to various difficulties and challenges that emerged at a conference held at the University of Kent in December 2004, the contributions to which are given in the same volume. I comment on Crisp's distinction between ultimate and non-ultimate reasons, and reply to McKeever and Ridge on default reasons, and to Norman on the idea of a reason for action. I don't here consider what other particularists might want to say; I certainly don't think that my way of doing these things is the only possible one, but not surprisingly I am interested in seeing what resources it might have to defend itself.

The Structure of Empathy

Deonna, J. A. — 2007-02-15

If Sam empathizes with Maria, then it is true of Sam that (1) Sam is aware of Maria's emotion, and (2) Sam ‘feels in tune’ with Maria. On what I call thetransparency conception of how they interact when instantiated, I argue that these two conditions are collectively necessary and sufficient for empathy. I first clarify the ‘awareness’ and ‘feeling in tune’ conditions, and go on to examine different candidate models that explain the manner in which these two conditions might come to be concomitantly instantiated in a subject. I dismiss what I call theparallel and oscillation models for not satisfying the transparency condition, i.e. for failing to capture that, if Sam empathizes with Maria, then Sam's own emotional experience towards the object of Maria's emotion has to be mediated by Maria's own emotional experience. I conclude in favour the fusion model as the only model capable of satisfying the transparency condition, and I argue that the suggested proposal illuminates the difference between it and other ways in which we understand the emotions of others. Finally, I expand and clarify the conception of empathy as transparency through responses to obvious objections that the view raises.

Tracing Global Inequality in Eco-space: A Comment on Tim Hayward's Proposal

Ziegler, R. — 2007-02-15

Equality: The Recent History of an Idea

Wolff, J. — 2007-02-15

Book Review: Justice, Luck and Knowledge

Reidy, D. A. — 2007-02-15

Book Review: Democracy after Liberalism: Pragmatism and Deliberative Politics

Festenstein, M. — 2007-02-15

Notes on Contributors

2006-10-04

Editorial

Brooks, T. — 2006-10-04

Imprisonable Offenses

Lippke, R. L. — 2006-10-04

Imprisonment imposes very substantial losses and deprivations on people convicted of crimes. The question for which crimes imprisonment is an appropriate sanction is addressed employing both retributive and crime reduction approaches to the justification of legal punishment. Although there is not complete convergence between what the two approaches imply about its use, it is argued that both would reserve imprisonment for serious offenses, ones that inflict or threaten significant harms with moderate to high levels of culpability. Thus, neither approach supports the current use of imprisonment to sanction a range of lesser offenses.

State Denunciation of Crime

Bennett, C. — 2006-10-04

In this paper I am concerned with a problem for communicative theories of punishment. On such theories, punishment is justified at least in part as the authoritative censure or condemnation of crime. But is this compatible with a broadly liberal political outlook? For while liberalism is generally thought to take only a very limited interest in its citizens’ attitudes (seeing moral opinion as a matter of legitimate debate), the idea of state denunciation of crime seems precisely to be focused on the attitudes expressed in action. In this paper I analyse the elements of the communicative theory of punishment, assessing the extent to which they can be considered anti-liberal. I argue that, understood in a certain way, the communicative theory, though in some sense communitarian, is compatible with at least one central and attractive non-perfectionist strand in liberalism.

Corrective Justice and Reputation

Scarre, G. — 2006-10-04

Courts of criminal jurisdiction commonly allow for mitigating circumstances when determining the punishment of convicted wrongdoers. This paper looks at some of the moral issues raised by mitigation, and asks in particular whether the damage that arraignment or conviction does to the good name of a previously well-reputed person may ever reasonably be considered as a circumstance justifying the imposition of a penalty lighter than is standard for the offence. It is argued that making an allowance for the loss of good name is sometimes required by justice and that a number of principled and practical objections that have been raised against the practice are unconvincing.

'Who's Still Standing?' A Comment on Antony Duff's Preconditions of Criminal Liability

Matravers, M. — 2006-10-04

Antony Duff has argued that an important precondition of criminal liability is that the state has the moral standing to call the offender to account. Conditions of severe social injustice, if allowed or perpetuated by the state, can undermine this standing. Duff’s argument appeals to the ordinary idea that a person’s own behaviour can sometimes negate his standing to call others to account. It is argued that this is an important issue, but that the analogy with individual standing is problematic. Moreover, Duff’s account of standing needs to address two interconnected issues: first, when and in what way the state can lose its standing to call offenders to account, and second, over what range of offences.

The Fitting, the Deserving, and the Beautiful

Zaibert, L. — 2006-10-04

Punishment is punishment even if it is not (perceived by the punisher to be) deserved. But punishment which is not (perceived by the punisher to be) fitting is not punishment. This paper explores the differences between desert and fittingness, and argues that incorporating fittingness into thedefinition of punishment is not problematic, whereas incorporating desert in such definition is, in contrast, infamously problematic. The main difference between these two notions turns on the interesting differences between two types of normativity. Fittingness is exclusively concerned with aesthetic normativity, whereas desert is more directly concerned with moral normativity. When something is fitting, then it is, to an extent, intrinsically good, and, to an extent, it is also beautiful. The notion of fittingness has largely been ignored in discussions of punishment, yet it helps us better to understand the phenomenon of punishment, and in particular the thorny relationship between this phenomenon and desert.

Retribution and Organic Unities

Clark, M. — 2006-10-04

G.E. Moore argued that his principle of organic unities, according to which the value of a whole is to be distinguished from the value of the sum of its parts, is consistent with a retributivist view of punishment: both crime and punishment are intrinsic evils but the combination of the crime with the punishment of its perpetrator is less bad in itself than the crime unpunished. Moore’s principle excludes any form of retributivism that regards the punishment of a guilty person as an intrinsic good. Jonathan Dancy offers a different account of such unities on which, pace Moore, value does not necessarily stay the same from one context to another. This alternative account is defended, but still seems to create difficulties for various forms of retributivism.

How to Live, What to Do: A Critical Study of Allan Gibbard, Thinking How to Live

Lenman, J. — 2006-10-04

Book Review: Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill

Nicholson, P. — 2006-10-04

Book Review: Plato and Aristotle's Ethics

Evans, M. — 2006-10-04

Book Review: Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law

Rodogno, R. — 2006-10-04

Book Review: Making Babies: Is There a Right to Have Children?

Goering, S. — 2006-10-04

Books Received

2006-10-04

Referees for Volume 3

2006-10-04