RT Article
T1 How to Overcome Strawson’s Point: Defending a Value-Oriented Foundation for Contractualism
JF Ethical theory and moral practice
VO 16
IS 1
SP 9
OP 20
A1 Paletta, Douglas
LA English
PB Springer Science + Business Media B. V
YR 2013
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1785697048
AB In The Second Person Standpoint, Darwall charges that all value-oriented foundations for ethics make a category mistake. Calling it Strawson’s point, he argues these foundations explain moral authority, which concerns whether someone has standing to hold another accountable, in terms of a value, which essentially concerns what makes the world go best. However, whether it would be good for me to blame you simply asks a different question than whether I have standing to blame you. I defend a valueoriented foundation for contractualism by identifying one way to overcome Strawson’s point. At bottom, Darwall’s objection relies on the assumption that all values are worldregarding. I argue that another class of values exists: second-personal values. Grounding morality in one of these values does not make the category mistake at the heart of Strawson’s point. In particular, I argue that grounding morality on one secondpersonal value, the ideal of acting justifiably towards others, better captures traditional contractualist ideals than Darwall’s formal foundation.
K1 Values
K1 Authority
K1 Ethics
K1 Strawson’s point
K1 Darwall
K1 Contractualism
DO 10.1007/s10677-011-9328-1