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Prolegomena to a future phenomenology of morals

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Abstract

Moral phenomenology is (roughly) the study of those features of occurrent mental states with moral significance which are accessible through direct introspection, whether or not such states possess phenomenal character – a what-it-is-likeness. In this paper, as the title indicates, we introduce and make prefatory remarks about moral phenomenology and its significance for ethics. After providing a brief taxonomy of types of moral experience, we proceed to consider questions about the commonality within and distinctiveness of such experiences, with an eye on some of the main philosophical issues in ethics and how moral phenomenology might be brought to bear on them. In discussing such matters, we consider some of the doubts about moral phenomenology and its value to ethics that are brought up by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Michael Gill in their contributions to this issue.

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Notes

  1. One notable exception is Maurice Mandelbaum’s 1955, The Phenomenology of Moral Experience.

  2. See Kriegel (2007) for a helpful discussion of issues of scope and method in phenomenology.

  3. “Feel” talk is often used in connection with emotions too, although perhaps such talk is quasi-metaphorical. And there is also the yet more extended, yet more quasi-metaphorical, use of ‘feel’ with “that” – clauses, as in “I feel that George Bush is performing badly”.

  4. Siewert (2007) uses the term ‘phenomenology’ primarily to refer to the method of introspection, thus leaving open the proper subject matter of phenomenology. Also, we note the following. It may well be that certain aspects of one’s mental life, despite being directly present in experience, are not introspectively manifest. For instance, we ourselves argue in Horgan and Timmons (2008) that it is not introspectively manifest whether or not consciously accessible experiences of moral obligation carry ontologically objective purport.

  5. Cases involving intuitive moral judgments are to be contrasted with the putative cases of ‘ethical comportment’ that the Dreyfus brothers discuss in their 1990 paper, in which one allegedly responds spontaneously as a matter of reflex – experiences that they claim do not involve having or making a moral judgment (not even a spontaneous judgment that generates spontaneous, unhesitating, behavior). We ourselves are dubious about their claim that the cases they have in mind do not involve as a constituent a moral judgment.

  6. For simplicity, we set aside particularist views (that embrace reasons holism), which are opposed to both monism and pluralism as here understood. But see our brief discussion of atomism versus holism about moral reasons in the section of this article headed “Issues”.

  7. These examples are found on pp. 64–5 of his 1955 book.

  8. The ‘in this way’ is important since, obviously, facts about desires and preferences can be part of the morally relevant features of the circumstances that one confronts.

  9. Mandelbaum is not entirely clear about what is distinctive of moral experiences. But in one place (1955: 30), he says that what distinguishes moral choices from non-moral choices (both of which involve a felt demand), is that the latter are experienced as independent of preference and thus as objective.

  10. The features we discussed were: (1) felt independence (Mandelbaum’s feature), (2) types of reasons for moral judgments that seem distinctively moral, (3) felt importance of certain considerations, and (4) reactive attitudes that people typically display in response to experiences of obligation and value.

  11. So, as we understand this challenge about leeway, it is not concerned with the fact that for any type of action that is morally fitting in some circumstance (e.g., repaying a debt), there is often leeway with respect to the specific manner in which one may discharge the debt – by giving cash, writing a check, etc.

  12. Horgan and Timmons (2008).

  13. Sinnott-Armstrong also raises questions about obligatory omissions when he notes that “what is fitting morally is often negative: not to cheat, not to lie, not to kill, and so on. When I have a moral obligation not to reveal your secret, is every other act fitting? Does my omission of revealing your secret fit every situation I face?” Again, we do not address these questions here.

  14. This seems to be implied when Sinnott-Armstrong says of demands on action that “to call them demands is not to describe how they feel. It is not to do phenomenology”. (2007a).

  15. This is the first horn of the dilemma Sinnott-Armstrong poses for moral phenomenology. See his paper in this volume.

  16. Gill (2007).

  17. Mikhail (2000), Hauser (2006).

  18. See Mandelbaum (1955: 71–93). Mandelbaum did not cast his objections to Ross’s theory in terms of atomism versus holism about moral reasons; this terminology is of relatively recent vintage.

  19. See for example Nichols (2004), and Sinnott-Armstrong (2007b).

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Correspondence to Terry Horgan or Mark Timmons.

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Horgan, T., Timmons, M. Prolegomena to a future phenomenology of morals. Phenom Cogn Sci 7, 115–131 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-007-9067-x

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