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Annas, J. and Barnes, J. (1985) The Modes of Scepticism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, esp. 151–71. (Contains excerpts of the Pyrrhonist sceptical arguments and useful commentary.) |
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Ayer, A.J. (1936) ‘Critique of Ethics and Theology’, in Language, Truth and Logic, London: Gollancz; 2nd edn, 1946; 2nd edn repr. in G.
Sayre-McCord (ed.) Essays on Moral Realism, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988, ch. 1. (Probably the most accessible introduction to noncognitivism in ethics.) |
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Brink, D.O. (1989) Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, esp. chaps 2, 5, 6. (A difficult but comprehensive treatment of moral realism, containing a detailed response to error theory.) |
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Butchvarov, P. (1989) Skepticism in Ethics, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. (A systematic defence of partial moral scepticism.) |
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DePaul, M.R. (1993) Balance and Refinement: Beyond Coherentism in Moral Inquiry, London: Routledge. (A sophisticated discussion of the method of reflective equilibrium, and a defence of a nonsceptical, related method for moral inquiry.) |
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Dworkin, R. (1996) ‘Objectivity and Truth: You’d Better Believe It’, Philosophy and Public Affairs
25 (2): 87–139. (A sustained and moderately accessible attack on various versions of moral scepticism.) |
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Geach, P. (1972) ‘Assertion’, in Logic Matters, Oxford: Blackwell. (A difficult but influential criticism of noncognitivism.) |
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Hare, R.M. (1952) The Language of Morals, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (The original, and most influential, presentation of universal prescriptivism.) |
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Hare, R.M. (1993) ‘Objective Prescriptions’, in A.P.
Griffiths (ed.) Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–17. (A moderately accessible attempt to reconcile the prescriptivity and objectivity of moral judgments.) |
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Harman, G. (1977) The Nature of Morality, New York: Oxford University Press. (An accessible introduction to ethics, containing an influential ‘explanatory’ criticism of moral knowledge.) |
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Hume, D. (1739/40) A Treatise of Human Nature, ed.
L.A.
Selby-Bigge, revised by P.H.
Nidditch, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2nd edn, 1978, esp. 455–76. (A classic source of sceptical arguments, both in general and with regard to ethics.) |
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Mackie, J.L. (1977) Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, Harmondsworth: Penguin, esp. 1–49. (The original, and most influential, source of error theory in ethics.) |
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McDowell, J. (1985) ‘Values and Secondary Qualities’, in T.
Honderich (ed.) Morality and Objectivity, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 110–129; repr. in G.
Sayre-McCord (ed.) Essays on Moral Realism, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988, ch. 8. (A difficult but important criticism of Mackie’s error theory.) |
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Moore, G.E. (1903) Principia Ethica, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, esp. ch. 5. (An influential presentation of intuitionism about value, including partial moral scepticism about obligation.) |
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Nagel, T. (1980) ‘The Limits of Objectivity’, in S.M.
McMurrin (ed.) The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 77–139. (A difficult but influential piece, critical of Mackie.) |
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Ross, W.D. (1930) The Right and the Good, Oxford: Oxford University Press, esp. ch. 2. (A classic exposition of pluralist intuitionism about obligation, combined with partial moral scepticism.) |
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Sayre-McCord, G. (1988) ‘Moral Theory and Explanatory Impotence’, in Midwest Studies in Philosophy
12: 433–458; repr. in G.
Sayre-McCord (ed.) Essays on Moral Realism, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988, ch. 11. (An accessible argument for the indispensability of evaluative facts.) |
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Sinnott-Armstrong, W. and Timmons, M. (1996) Moral Knowledge? New Essays in Moral Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (A collection of moderately difficult but important essays on moral knowledge and moral scepticism, with a useful annotated bibliography.) |
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Stevenson, C.L. (1944) Ethics and Language, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (An early but sophisticated version of noncognitivism.) |
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Sturgeon, N. (1984) ‘Moral Explanations’, in D.
Copp and D.
Zimmerman (eds) Morality, Reason and Truth: New Essays on the Foundations of Ethics, Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld, 49–78; repr. in G.
Sayre-McCord (ed.) Essays on Moral Realism, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988, ch. 10. (A moderately accessible criticism of Harman’s explanatory critique of moral realism.) |
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Timmons, M. (1990) ‘Spindel Conference 1990: Moral Epistemology’, Southern Journal of Philosophy, suplementary vol. 29. (A wide-ranging collections of essays on moral knowledge and moral scepticism, with an extensive bibliography, post-1971.) |
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Toulmin, S.E. (1970) Reason in Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, esp. part III. (The original, and most accessible, presentation of the ‘good reasons’ approach in ethics.) |
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Wright, C. (1996) ‘Truth in Ethics’, in B.
Hooker (ed.) Truth in Ethics, Oxford: Blackwell, 1–18. (A moderately accessible introduction to a minimalist conception of truth in ethics.) |