Facts, Values, and Norms : Essays toward a Morality of Consequence

by Railton, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780511059087
• ISBN10: 0511059086
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2003-03-17
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In our everyday lives we struggle with the notions of why we do what we do and the need to assign values to our actions. Somehow, it seems possible through experience and life to gain knowledge and understanding of such matters. Yet once we start delving deeper into the concepts that underwrite these domains of thought and actions, we face a philosophical disappointment. In contrast to the world of facts, values and morality seem insecure, uncomfortably situated, easily influenced by illusion or ideology. How can we apply this same objectivity and accuracy to the spheres of value and morality? In the essays included in this collection, Peter Railton shows how a fairly sober, naturalistically informed view of the world might nonetheless incorporate objective values and moral knowledge. This book will be of interest to professionals and students working in philosophy and ethics.

Table of Contents

Realism about Value and Morality

Moral realism

Facts and values

Noncognitivism about rationality

Aesthetic value, moral value, and the ambitions of naturalism

Red, bitter, good

Normative Moral Theory

Alienation, consequentialism, and the demands of morality

Locke, stock, and peril

How thinking about character and utilitarianism might lead to rethinking the character of utilitarianism

Pluralism, dilemma, and the expression of moral conflict

The Authority of Ethics and Values - The Problem of Normativity

On the hypothetical and non-hypothetical in reasoning about thought and action

Normative force and normative freedom

Morality, ideology, and reflection; or, the duck sits yet

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