Ideal Theory and ‘Ought Implies Can’

Berg, Amy

doi:10.1111/papq.12228

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Apart from that explicit pretension of universality, the very fact of Douglas committing to an ideal can be tied to absolutist pretensions. As Berg (2018) argues, theorizing in ethics faces a tension between having to pursue an ideal of action while, at the same time, being constrained enough so that it can inform actual moral deliberations. Berg solves the tension by understanding those aims as being served by two different kinds of normative theorizing: ideal and non-ideal theory.…”

Section: Weber's Fence the Need For A Criterion And The New Ideal For...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Value Sovereignty

Silva

2022

Culturas Científicas

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The following paper argues that issues in paradigmatic proposals for solving the new demarcation problem stem from absolutist assumptions about judgments of value legitimacy. Both the problem of uninformativeness (Larroulet Philippi 2020; Fernandez-Pinto 2014, 2015) and the problem of ambiguous judgments of cases (Hicks 2014; Intemann 2017) are explained by an absolutist pretension contained in one of the main aims of these proposals: providing criteria for differentiating legitimate from illegitimate uses of values, without qualification. After presenting the problems and showing how they stem from that common source, we will sketch a way forward, inspired mainly by Joseph Rouse’s Beyond Epistemic Sovereignty (1996), advancing routes that can allow philosophers of science to evade these pitfalls and engage with scientific practice in a more salutary manner.

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Section: Weber's Fence the Need For A Criterion And The New Ideal For...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Value Sovereignty

Silva

2022

Culturas Científicas

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“…That is, this paper answers the question: Morally speaking, what should one do when one experiences moral uncertainty? 1 Call this the Moral Uncertainty Question. I argue that we shouldn't answer the Moral Uncertainty Question by appealing to extant "subjectivist" or "objectivist" moral theories.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-ideal prescriptions for the morally uncertain

Hicks

2021

Philos Stud

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Morally speaking, what should one do when one is morally uncertain? Call this the Moral Uncertainty Question. In this paper, I argue that a non-ideal moral theory provides the best answer to the Moral Uncertainty Question. I begin by arguing for a strong ought-implies-can principle-morally ought implies agentially can-and use that principle to clarify the structure of a compelling non-ideal moral theory. I then describe the ways in which one's moral uncertainty affects one's moral prescriptions: moral uncertainty constrains the set of moral prescriptions one is subject to, and at the same time generates new non-ideal moral reasons for action. I end by surveying the problems that plague alternative answers to the Moral Uncertainty Question, and show that my preferred answer avoids most of those problems.

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“…See Berg, , for an excellent discussion of transitional and non‐transitional obligations. Transitional and non‐transitional obligations are two types of ‘norms of compensation’ or ‘secondary norms’; for a nice discussion of secondary norms in ethics and epistemology, see DiPaolo, (forthcoming).…”

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confidence: 99%

Moral Hedging and Responding to Reasons

Hicks¹

2019

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

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In this paper, I argue that the fetishism objection to moral hedging fails. The objection rests on a reasons‐responsiveness account of moral worth, according to which an action has moral worth only if the agent is responsive to moral reasons. However, by adopting a plausible theory of non‐ideal moral reasons, one can endorse a reasons‐responsiveness account of moral worth while maintaining that moral hedging is sometimes an appropriate response to moral uncertainty. Thus, the theory of moral worth upon which the fetishism objection relies does not, in fact, support that objection.

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Ideal Theory and ‘Ought Implies Can’

Cited by 6 publications

References 39 publications

Beyond Value Sovereignty

Beyond Value Sovereignty

Non-ideal prescriptions for the morally uncertain

Moral Hedging and Responding to Reasons

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