Phenomenology of the Aftermath: Ethical Theory and the Intelligibility of Moral Experience (original) (raw)
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Evaluative Experiences: The Epistemological Significance of Moral Phenomenology
Recently, a number of phenomenological approaches to experiential justification emerged according to which an experience's justificatory force is grounded in the experience's distinctive phenomenology. The basic idea is that certain experiences exhibit a presentive phenomenology and that they are a source of immediate justification precisely by virtue of their presentive phenomenology. Such phenomenological approaches usually focus on perceptual experiences and mathematical intuitions. In this paper, I aim at a phenomenological approach to ethical experiences. I shall show that we need to make a distinction between evaluative experiences directed at concrete cases and ethical intuitions directed at general principles. The focus will be on evaluative experiences. I argue that evaluative experiences constitute a sui generis type of experience that gain their justificatory force by virtue of their presentive evaluative phenomenology. In section 1, I introduce and motivate the phenomenological idea that certain experiences exhibit a justification-conferring phenomenology. In section 4, I apply this idea to morally evaluative experiences. In section 5, I suggest that certain epistemic intuitions should be considered epistemically evaluative experiences and I outline a strong parallelism between ethics and epistemology.
This paper critically discusses Charles Taylor’s ethical views in his little known paper “Ethics and Ontology” (2003) by confronting it with the moral phenomenology of Maurice Mandelbaum, as laid out in his (largely neglected) The Phenomenology of Moral Experience (1955). The aim of the paper is to explore the significance of Taylor’s views for the dispute between naturalists, non-naturalists, and quietists in contemporary metaethics. It is divided in six sections. In the first section, I examine Taylor’s critique of naturalism. I continue to discuss his moral phenomenology in more detail in the second and third sections, arguing that Taylor’s move from phenomenology to ontology is problematic. In the fourth section, I evaluate Taylor’s strategy by comparing it with Mandelbaum’s understanding of moral phenomenology, while also extending this comparison to the issue of how to locate the source of moral experience in the fifth section. Based on these discussions, I finally conclude in the sixth section that Taylor’s hermeneutical position, although ontologically incomplete and underdemonstrated, draws attention to a question to which current moral theory does not adequately respond.
Is Moral Theory Harmful in Practice?—Relocating Anti-theory in Contemporary Ethics
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2009
In this paper I discuss the viability of the claim that at least some forms of moral theory are harmful for sound moral thought and practice. This claim was put forward by e.g. Elisabeth Anscombe (1981(1958)) and by Annette Baier, Peter Winch, D.Z Phillips and Bernard Williams in the 1970’s–1980’s. To this day aspects of it have found resonance in both post-Wittgensteinian and virtue ethical quarters. The criticism has on one hand contributed to a substantial change and broadening of the scope of analytic moral philosophy. On the other hand it is, at least in its most strongly anti-theoretical formulations, now broadly considered outdated and—to the extent that it is still defended—insensitive to the changes that have occurred within the field in the last 20–30 years. The task of this paper is to relocate the anti-theoretical critique into the field of analytic ethics today.
The Argument from Moral Experience
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2007
It is often said that our moral experience, broadly construed to include our ways of thinking and talking about morality, has a certain objective-seeming character to it, and that this supports a presumption in favor of objectivist theories (according to which morality is a realm of facts or truths) and against anti-objectivist theories like Mackie's error theory (according to which it is not). In this paper, I argue that our experience of morality does not support objectivist moral theories in this way. I begin by arguing that our moral experience does not have the uniformly objective-seeming character it is typically claimed to have. I go on to argue that even if moral experience were to presuppose or display morality as a realm of fact, we would still need a reason for taking that to support theories according to which it is such a realm. I consider what I take to be the four most promising ways of attempting to supply such a reason: (A) inference to the best explanation, (B) epistemic conservatism, (C) the Principle of Credulity, and (D) the method of wide reflective equilibrium. In each case, I argue, the strategy in question does not support a presumption in favor of objectivist moral theories.
As a Matter of Fact: Empirical Perspectives on Ethics
Oxford Handbooks Online, 2007
. Introduction Regarding the assessment of Darwall and colleagues, we couldn't agree more: Far too many moral philosophers have been content to invent the psychology or anthropology on which their theories depend, advancing or disputing empirical 05-Jackson-Chap-05.qxd 17/5/05 5:19 PM Page 114 empirical perspectives on ethics claims with little concern for empirical evidence. We also believe-and we expect Darwall, Gibbard, and Railton would agree-that this empirical complacency has impeded progress in ethical theory and discouraged investigators in the biological, behavioural, and social sciences from undertaking philosophically informed research on ethical issues. We realize that some moral philosophers have taken there to be good reasons for shunning empirical inquiry. For much of the twentieth century, many working in analytic ethics-variously inspired by Hume's (: ) pithy injunction against inferring ought from is and the seductive mysteries of Moore's (, esp. -) 'Open Question Argument'-maintained that descriptive considerations of the sort adduced in the natural and social sciences cannot constrain ethical reflection without vitiating its prescriptive or normative character (e.g. Stevenson : -; R. M. Hare : -). The plausibility of such claims is both debated and debatable, but it is clear that they have helped engender suspicion regarding 'naturalism' in ethics, which we understand, broadly, as the view that ethical theorizing should be an (in part) a posteriori inquiry richly informed by relevant empirical considerations.¹ Relatedly, this anti-naturalist suspicion enables disciplinary xenophobia in philosophical ethics, a reluctance to engage research beyond the philosophical literature. The methodology we advocate here-a resolutely naturalistic approach to ethical theory squarely engaging the relevant biological, behavioural, and social sciences-flouts both of these anxieties. Perhaps those lacking our equanimity suspect that approaches of the sort we endorse fail to heed Stevenson's (: ) advice that 'Ethics must not be psychology', and thereby lapse into a noxious 'scientism' or 'eliminativism'. Notoriously, Quine (: ) advocated eliminativism in his rendering of naturalized epistemology, urging philosophical 'surrender of the epistemological burden to psychology'. Quine was sharply rebuked for slighting the normative character of epistemology (e.g. Kim ; Stich a), but we are not suggesting, in a rambunctiously Quinean spirit, 'surrender of the ethical burden to psychology'. And so far as we know, neither is anyone else. Ethics must not-indeed cannot-be psychology, but it does not follow that ethics should ignore psychology. The most obvious, and most compelling, motivation for our perspective is simply this: It is not possible to step far into the ethics literature without stubbing one's toe on empirical claims. The thought that moral philosophy can proceed unencumbered by facts seems to us an unlikely one: There are just too many places where answers to important ethical questions require-and have very often presupposed-answers to empirical questions. A small but growing number of philosophers, ourselves included, have become convinced that answers to these empirical questions should be informed by systematic ¹ Compare Railton's (: -) 'methodological naturalism'. 05-Jackson-Chap-05.qxd 17/5/05 5:19 PM Page 115 ⁶ This follows quite a standard theme in philosophical writings on virtue and character. For example, Blum (: -) understands compassion as a trait of character typified by an altruistic attitude of 'strength and duration', which should be 'stable and consistent' in prompting beneficent action (cf. Brandt : ; Dent : ; McDowell : -; Larmore : ).
How experience confronts ethics
Bioethics, 2009
Analytic moral philosophy's strong divide between empirical and normative restricts facts to providing information for the application of norms and does not allow them to confront or challenge norms. So any genuine attempt to incorporate experience and empirical research into bioethics -to give the empirical more than the status of mere 'descriptive ethics' -must make a sharp break with the kind of analytic moral philosophy that has dominated contemporary bioethics. Examples from bioethics and science are used to illustrate the problems with the method of application that philosophically prevails in both domains and with the conception of rationality that underlies this method. Cues from how these problems can be handled in science then introduce summaries of richer, more productive naturalist and constructivist accounts of reason and normative knowledge. Liberated by a naturalist approach to ethics and an enlarged conception of rationality, empirical work can be recognized not just as essential to bioethics but also as contributing to normative knowledge. 2
Whence the Demand for Ethical Theory? (in: APQ)
American Philosophical Quarterly, 2021
Where does the impetus towards ethical theory come from? What drives humans to make values explicit, consistent, and discursively justifiable? This paper situates the demand for ethical theory in human life by identifying the practical needs that give rise to it. Such a practical derivation puts the demand in its place: while finding a home for it in the public decision-making of modern societies, it also imposes limitations on the demand by presenting it as scalable and context-sensitive. This differentiates strong forms of the demand calling for theory from weaker forms calling for less, and contexts where it has a place from contexts where it is out of place. In light of this, subjecting personal deliberation to the demand turns out to involve a trade-off.