Reality and Morality

Reality and Morality
Author: Billy Dunaway
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2020-07-02
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0198858256

Reality and Morality develops and defends a framework for moral realism. It defends the idea that moral properties are metaphysically elite, or privileged parts of reality, and argues that realists can hold that this makes them highly eligible as the referents for our moral terms (an application of a thesis sometimes called reference magnetism). Billy Dunaway elaborates on these theses by introducing some natural claims about how we can know about morality, by having beliefs that are free from a kind of risk of error. This package of theses in metaphysics, meta-semantics, and epistemology is motivated with a view to explaining possible moral disagreements. Many writers have emphasized the scope of moral disagreement, and have given compelling examples of possible users of moral language who appear to be genuinely disagreeing, rather than talking past one another, with their use of moral language. What has gone unnoticed is that there are limits to these possible disagreements, and not all possible users of moral language are naturally interpreted as capable of genuine disagreement. The realist view developed in Reality and Morality can explain both the extent of, and the limits to, moral disagreement, and thereby has explanatory power that counts significantly in its favour.

Moral Reality

Moral Reality
Author: Paul Bloomfield
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2001-09-27
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780198031376

We typically assume that the standard for what is beautiful lies in the eye of the beholder. Yet this is not the case when we consider morality; what we deem morally good is not usually a matter of opinion. Such thoughts push us toward being realists about moral properties, but a cogent theory of moral realism has long been an elusive philosophical goal. Paul Bloomfield here offers a rigorous defense of moral realism, developing an ontology for morality that models the property of being morally good on the property of being physically healthy. The model is assembled systematically; it first presents the metaphysics of healthiness and goodness, then explains our epistemic access to properties such as these, adds a complementary analysis of the semantics and syntax of moral discourse, and finishes with a discussion of how we become motivated to act morally. Bloomfield closely attends to the traditional challenges facing moral realism, and the discussion nimbly ranges from modern medical theory to ancient theories of virtue, and from animal navigation to the nature of normativity. Maintaining a highly readable style throughout, Moral Reality yields one of the most compelling theories of moral realism to date and will appeal to philosophers working on issues in metaphysics or moral philosophy.

Explaining Morality

Explaining Morality
Author: Steve Ash
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2022-03-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000568377

Adopting a critical realist approach to morality, this book considers morality as an aspect of social reality, enquiring into the nature of moral agency and asking whether we can legitimately argue for a specific moral position and whether moral positions can be understood to apply universally. Drawing on the thought of Bhaskar, Collier and Sayer, it explores a series of ontological questions about morality, shedding light on the ways in which critical realism can be used to address them, ultimately responding to the question of whether critical realism and the moral theories that have been produced through its use can provide an explanation of morality as a feature of reality. Through a synthesis of realist thought, the author develops a comprehensive theoretical understanding of morality that can be tested for its explanatory power through subsequent practical research. As such, it will appeal to scholars of philosophy and social science with interests in critical realism, ontology and meta-ethics.

Reality and Morality

Reality and Morality
Author: Billy Dunaway
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2020-07-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191899089

Reality and Morality develops and defends a framework for moral realism. It defends the idea that moral properties are metaphysically elite, or privileged parts of reality, and argues that realists can hold that this makes them highly eligible as the referents for our moral terms (an application of a thesis sometimes called reference magnetism). Billy Dunaway elaborates on these theses by introducing some natural claims about how we can know about morality, by having beliefs that are free from a kind of risk of error. This package of theses in metaphysics, meta-semantics, and epistemology is motivated with a view to explaining possible moral disagreements. Many writers have emphasized the scope of moral disagreement, and have given compelling examples of possible users of moral language who appear to be genuinely disagreeing, rather than talking past one another, with their use of moral language. What has gone unnoticed is that there are limits to these possible disagreements, and not all possible users of moral language are naturally interpreted as capable of genuine disagreement. The realist view developed in Reality and Morality can explain both the extent of, and the limits to, moral disagreement, and thereby has explanatory power that counts significantly in its favour.

Morality and Mathematics

Morality and Mathematics
Author: Justin Clarke-Doane
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2020-03-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0192556800

To what extent are the subjects of our thoughts and talk real? This is the question of realism. In this book, Justin Clarke-Doane explores arguments for and against moral realism and mathematical realism, how they interact, and what they can tell us about areas of philosophical interest more generally. He argues that, contrary to widespread belief, our mathematical beliefs have no better claim to being self-evident or provable than our moral beliefs. Nor do our mathematical beliefs have better claim to being empirically justified than our moral beliefs. It is also incorrect that reflection on the genealogy of our moral beliefs establishes a lack of parity between the cases. In general, if one is a moral antirealist on the basis of epistemological considerations, then one ought to be a mathematical antirealist as well. And, yet, Clarke-Doane shows that moral realism and mathematical realism do not stand or fall together — and for a surprising reason. Moral questions, insofar as they are practical, are objective in a sense that mathematical questions are not, and the sense in which they are objective can only be explained by assuming practical anti-realism. One upshot of the discussion is that the concepts of realism and objectivity, which are widely identified, are actually in tension. Another is that the objective questions in the neighborhood of factual areas like logic, modality, grounding, and nature are practical questions too. Practical philosophy should, therefore, take center stage.

Moral Development and Reality

Moral Development and Reality
Author: John C. Gibbs
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2003-04-23
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780761923893

A supplementary textbook for a graduate or advanced undergraduate course dealing with moral psychology. It looks at implications of and problems with theories of moral development put forward by Lawrence Kohlberg and Martin L. Hoffman. Annotation (c) Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Taking Morality Seriously

Taking Morality Seriously
Author: David Enoch
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2011-07-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 019161856X

In Taking Morality Seriously: A Defense of Robust Realism David Enoch develops, argues for, and defends a strongly realist and objectivist view of ethics and normativity more broadly. This view—according to which there are perfectly objective, universal, moral and other normative truths that are not in any way reducible to other, natural truths—is familiar, but this book is the first in-detail development of the positive motivations for the view into reasonably precise arguments. And when the book turns defensive—defending Robust Realism against traditional objections—it mobilizes the original positive arguments for the view to help with fending off the objections. The main underlying motivation for Robust Realism developed in the book is that no other metaethical view can vindicate our taking morality seriously. The positive arguments developed here—the argument from the deliberative indispensability of normative truths, and the argument from the moral implications of metaethical objectivity (or its absence)—are thus arguments for Robust Realism that are sensitive to the underlying, pre-theoretical motivations for the view.

Moral Reality

Moral Reality
Author: Paul Bloomfield
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2001-09-27
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190285893

We typically assume that the standard for what is beautiful lies in the eye of the beholder. Yet this is not the case when we consider morality; what we deem morally good is not usually a matter of opinion. Such thoughts push us toward being realists about moral properties, but a cogent theory of moral realism has long been an elusive philosophical goal. Paul Bloomfield here offers a rigorous defense of moral realism, developing an ontology for morality that models the property of being morally good on the property of being physically healthy. The model is assembled systematically; it first presents the metaphysics of healthiness and goodness, then explains our epistemic access to properties such as these, adds a complementary analysis of the semantics and syntax of moral discourse, and finishes with a discussion of how we become motivated to act morally. Bloomfield closely attends to the traditional challenges facing moral realism, and the discussion nimbly ranges from modern medical theory to ancient theories of virtue, and from animal navigation to the nature of normativity. Maintaining a highly readable style throughout, Moral Reality yields one of the most compelling theories of moral realism to date and will appeal to philosophers working on issues in metaphysics or moral philosophy.