Why Naturalism?
My goal in this paper is to explain what ethical naturalism is, to locate the pivotal issue between naturalists and non-naturalists, and to motivate taking naturalism seriously. I do not aim to establish the truth of naturalism nor to answer the various familiar objections to it. But I do aim to mot...
Published in: | Ethical theory and moral practice |
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Main Author: | |
Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Springer Science + Business Media B. V
2003
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In: |
Ethical theory and moral practice
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Further subjects: | B
Non-naturalism
B A priori B moral properties B Empirical B causal properties B Naturalism |
Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
Summary: | My goal in this paper is to explain what ethical naturalism is, to locate the pivotal issue between naturalists and non-naturalists, and to motivate taking naturalism seriously. I do not aim to establish the truth of naturalism nor to answer the various familiar objections to it. But I do aim to motivate naturalism sufficiently that the attempt to deal with the objections will seem worthwhile. I propose that naturalism is best understood as the view that the moral properties are natural in the sense that they are empirical. I pursue certain issues in the understanding of the empirical. The crux of the matter is whether any synthetic proposition about the instantiation of a moral property is strongly a priori in that it does not admit of empirical evidence against it. I propose an argument from epistemic defeaters that, I believe, undermines the plausibility of a priorism in ethics and supports the plausibility of naturalism. |
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ISSN: | 1572-8447 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1023/A:1024420725408 |