Ethics and Nature (original) (raw)

Revue de métaphysique et de morale, 2006

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[PDF]The Argument of Ethical Naturalism

2014

Ethical naturalism, the theory claiming that natural facts and especially facts concerning human nature play a justificatory role in ethics, is not very popular amongst moral philosophers. Especially in countries where Kant's influence is large, the charge of naturalistic fallacy is often made against it. The aim of this paper is to show that this charge misses the point: every ethical theory is at a certain level based on pure facts, natural or not, and natural facts concerning human nature are particularly suited for this role. The arguments in favour of ethical naturalism rely on a concept of human nature that includes basic desires related to ends we ought to pursue, as Aristotle and the Scholastics already saw long ago.

The Argument of Ethical Naturalism

philosophie.ch

Ethical Naturalism, Non-naturalism, and In Between

2021

Metaethics has long explored the question of how ethical thought and discourse fit into reality as a whole. The question is particularly pressing for those theorists who accept that there are ethical facts (that is, facts that make ethical statements and judgments true). Among these broadly realist theorists, reductive naturalists claim that ethical facts are of essentially the same kind as the facts of paradigmatic natural sciences like contemporary physics and biology. On the other hand, extreme non-naturalists, like G.E. Moore, claim that ethical facts are entirely primitive sui generis facts, radically different in kind from all other facts whatsoever. It is argued that these are both extreme positions, and that there should be a range of intermediate positions in between these two extremes. In fact, many pre-modern philosophers – including most ancient and medieval thinkers – adopted such an intermediate position. But the kind of intermediate position is no longer a live option for us today, since it is conflicts with what we have learnt from contemporary natural science. Nonetheless, a range of intermediate positions are possible, and it is argued that these intermediate positions are prima facie promising and deserve careful consideration from contemporary metaethicists.

Ethical Naturalism and Human Nature

Philosophical writings, 1999

Why is Human Nature still an interesting topic? The answer, I think, lies in the fact that Human Nature is expected to serve both as an anchor of ontological explanation and as a compass for action orientation. In its double role, human nature provides ample room for intellectual manoeuvres, but little prospects for a pleasant philosophical journey.

Goodness and Nature A Defense of Ethical Naturalism and a Critique of its Opponents

This book entitled Goodness and Nature is concerned with the question of naturalism in ethics. Naturalism is the view that good and bad, right and wrong, are real matters of fact or knowledge that can in principle be determined by some reference to ‘nature’. This question is among the most important that any student of modern moral philosophy has to face. This book’s search for a solution to its difficulties, however, has required going outside the limits within which that question was originally posed. In fact, it is one of the principal messages of the book that it is these limits themselves that constitute most of the problem. The effort to think beyond the limits of modern moral philosophy has, in my case at any rate, proved to be also the effort to think back into an ancient tradition of philosophy which flourished for so many centuries beforehand, and which modern philosophers have largely rejected. For this reason this book is an unashamedly ancient book. It might even be called an essay in discarded ideas. There are, of course, differing views about how to approach the problems raised by modern moral philosophy. It is my conviction that a return to ancient ideas is the most helpful and the most fruitful, as will, I hope, become evident from the way my argument develops from the first to the final chapters. The ancient tradition that I am following provides, I contend, just the concepts and distinctions necessary to resolve the puzzles that have gathered themselves about the question of naturalism. These puzzles are genuine and philosophically instructive; that is why they need to be faced and answered squarely. To argue round them, or to dismiss them before getting to grips with them, is to run the risk of hindering philosophical understanding. Accordingly, the early chapters of this book are concerned with writings that appeared and provoked most controversy several decades ago. For this seeming anachronism I make no apology; it is in these writings that the puzzles find their most instructive, not to say classic, expression. A Supplement to this edition of Goodness and Nature is appended in a separate file. The Supplement that did not appear in the book when it was first published but its addition is meant to provide more of the background and evidence for the argument presented in chapter 5 of the book, the chapter entitled ‘Historical Origins’. That chapter can, to be sure, stand by itself in its place in Goodness and Nature independently of the Supplement. But since it makes claims, and presents a progression of thought, that are relatively controversial within the context of the debate about naturalism in ethics, it may excite an interest and a skepticism that some readers may wish to have more fully satisfied or answered. The Supplement is meant to supply that wish. The chapters and their contents cover the same ground as was covered in chapter 5 of Goodness and Nature but in greater detail, ranging over a fuller review of the important thinkers, and spelling out more of the relevant elements and implications. The Supplement can, therefore, stand by itself too, and need not just be read as an addition to Goodness and Nature (even though it contains several references to that book). In any event, interested readers should find on the Contents page of the Supplement enough information about what the Supplement contains to guide as well as, one hopes, to spark interest. The book with supplement is also available from my website aristotelophile.com and in print from Amazon.com

After Ethical Naturalism

Ethics in Progress, 2019

Modern ethics has to face the problem of how to accommodate the requirement for intersubjectively justified and accepted (valid) moral norms and values with the high-paced development of science and knowledge-based societies. This highly discussed opposition between what is morally eligible and what is scientifically correct may lead to stating that modern ethics is – rhetorically speaking – a dying figure. For it is impossible – after the Kantian-Copernican turn in epistemology and ethics – to defend the theological view that there exist certain universal and objective moral obligations. Yet, due to the rapid development of experimental sciences and the accomplishments of analytic philosophy, modern ethics are faced with the threat of either being reduced to a descriptive field of knowledge or becoming a shadow of its own past glory with no significance. Under these conditions, an attempt to defend ethics in its naturalistic form seems out of question. Still, the ethical naturalism may prove that – in the given state of social, scientific, and philosophical development – it is possible to successfully defend the view that ethical sentences express a certain type of proposition that may be proven true due to some objective natural features, independent of human opinions.

La Falacia naturalista y el argumento de la pregunta abierta

Universitas Philosophica, 2003

En el ámbito de la ética son bien conocidas las objeciones que G. E. Moore hace a la ética naturalista. En los últimos cincuenta años su influencia ha sido notable en el área. Moore basa su crítica en dos puntos centrales: 1. La simplicidad y el carácter no natural de la bondad. 2. El ingenioso argumento semántico de ‘la pregunta abierta’. Algunos críticos han asociado recientemente los argumentos mooreanos con la famosa ‘Ley de Hume’, la cual argumenta la imposibilidad de derivar conclusiones morales de premisas no morales, todo esto con el fin de demostrar el carácter ontológico autónomo de la ética. Este artículo tiene como objetivo exponer tales críticas a la ética naturalista, mostrando al mismo tiempo que ellas estan erradas desde sus cimientos, pues sus planteamientos confunden diferentes planos de investigación ética (podríamos decir que cometen ‘error categorial’), sustentándolo, además, en una equivocada interpretación de los propósitos naturalistas. Palabras clave: Moore, naturalismo ético, falacia naturalista, argumento de la pregunta abierta, Ley de Hume.

Ethics and Nature (original) (raw)

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