Moral realism

By Dancy, Jonathan

Moral realism is the view that there are facts of the matter about which actions are right and which wrong, and about which things are good and which ...

Moral realism

Moral realism is the view that there are facts of the matter about which actions are right and which wrong, and about which things are good and which ...

Intuitionism in ethics

By Frazier, Robert L.

To intuit something is to apprehend it directly, without recourse to reasoning processes such as deduction or induction. Intuitionism in ethics proposes that we have a capacity for ...

Moral epistemology

By Wedgwood, Ralph

Epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief. So moral epistemology is the study of what would be involved in knowing, or being justified in believing, moral ...

Moral fictionalism

By Nolan, Daniel

Moral fictionalism is the doctrine that the moral claims we accept should be treated as convenient fictions. One standard kind of moral fictionalism maintains that many of the ...

Nagel, Thomas (1937–)

Thomas Nagel offers a distinctive realist framework across metaphysics, theory of mind, epistemology, and moral theory that shows how fundamental philosophical problems in these areas result from our ...

Axiology

By Smith, Barry; Thomas, Alan

Axiology is the branch of practical philosophy which studies the nature of value. Axiologists study value in general rather than moral values in particular and frequently emphasize the ...

Moral motivation

By Wallace, R. Jay

Questions about the possibility and nature of moral motivation occupy a central place in the history of ethics. Philosophers disagree, however, about the role that motivational investigations should ...

Metaethics

By Finlay, Stephen

A tripartite distinction is often drawn in moral philosophy between (i) applied ethics, (ii) normative ethical theory, and (iii) metaethics. Applied ethics seeks answers to moral questions about ...

Nagel, Thomas (1937–)

By Sedivy, Sonia

The comprehensiveness of Thomas Nagel’s approach to philosophy sets him apart among late-twentieth-century analytic philosophers. Nagel develops a compelling analysis of the fundamental philosophical problems, showing how they ...

Open question argument

By McPherson, Tristram

The open question argument is the heart of G.E. Moore’s case against ethical naturalism. Ethical naturalism is the view that goodness, rightness, etc. are natural properties; roughly, the ...

Fact/value distinction

By Crisp, Roger

According to proponents of the fact/value distinction, no states of affairs in the world can be said to be values, and evaluative judgments are best understood not to ...

Constructivism in ethics

By O'Neill, Onora

There have been many forms of the idea that there are no distinctively ethical properties, and that ethical claims are composed or constructed out of other considerations. In ...

Moral scepticism

By Nelson, Mark T.

Scepticism in general is the view that we can have little or no knowledge; thus moral scepticism is the view that we can have little or no moral ...

Cambridge Platonism

By Beiser, Frederick

Cambridge Platonism was an intellectual movement broadly inspired by the Platonic tradition, centred in Cambridge from the 1630s to the 1680s. Its hallmark was a devotion to reason ...

Biology, philosophy of

By Lewens, Tim

Biologists sometimes look perplexed when they are told of the existence of a subject called ‘The Philosophy of Biology’. What, they ask, is there to philosophise about in ...

Examples in ethics

By Louden, Robert B.

Philosophers often employ examples to illustrate how their favoured principles are to be applied to concrete cases, and sometimes even to show that principles are of no help ...

Moral sentimentalism

By Gert, Joshua

‘Sentimentalism’ is a name for a wide class of views in value theory. Sentimentalist views are unified by their commitment to the idea that normative or evaluative properties ...

Virtue ethics

By Crisp, Roger

Virtue ethics has its origin in the ancient world, particularly in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. It has been revived following an article by G.E.M. Anscombe critical ...

Virtue ethics

Virtue ethics has its origin in the ancient world, particularly in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. It has been revived following an article by G. E. M. ...

Moral particularism

By Crisp, Roger

Moral particularism is a broad set of views which play down the role of general moral principles in moral philosophy and practice. Particularists stress the role of examples ...

Emotivism

By Smith, Michael

Emotivists held that moral judgments express and arouse emotions, not beliefs. Saying that an act is right or wrong was thus supposed to be rather like saying ‘Boo!’ ...

Ethics and psychology

By Doris, John M.; Stich, Stephen P.

Psychological research promises substantive contributions to philosophical ethics. Arguments purporting to show that empirical considerations are of sharply limited relevance to ethical reflection, such as those commonly associated ...

Deontic modals

By Chrisman, Matthew

Modality, as it is usually understood in contemporary philosophy, has to do with necessities and possibilities. Deontic modality is a kind of modality which has to do with ...

Life, meaning of

By Wolf, Susan

This is an obscure yet central topic in philosophy. Often associated with the question whether human beings are part of a larger or divine purpose, the question,‘What is ...