Abstract
It is a platitude that morality is normative, but a substantive and interesting question whether morality is normative in a robust and important way; and although it is often assumed that morality is indeed robustly normative, that view is by no means uncontroversial, and a compelling argument for it is conspicuously lacking. In this paper, I provide such an argument. I argue, based on plausible claims about the relationship between moral wrongs and moral criticizability, and the relationship between criticizability and normative reasons, that moral facts necessarily confer normative reasons upon moral agents.
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Notes
For the purposes of this paper, I assume the truth of moral cognitivism. That is, I assume that moral predicates denote properties, thus that typical sentences in which they occur express propositions, and that moral judgments are beliefs.
Parfit (2011).
Joyce (2001), p. 208.
Although PMN is not Joyce’s precise formulation, his is equivalent to PMN.
See Vogelstein (2011) for the argument that there is no compelling reason to believe that moral reasons are reasons for action. It is argued there that moral reasons are in fact reasons for having sentiments of a certain sort.
See, e.g., Strawson (1960) and Wallace (1994). More specifically, on this view to morally blame another person A for ϕ-ing is to feel resentment or indignation towards A for ϕ-ing. To morally blame oneself for ϕ-ing is to feel guilty for ϕ-ing. Furthermore, the same attitude/expression distinction discussed above with respect to criticism applies to moral blame—the attitude of moral blame is to be distinguished from the expression of blame, or the act of blaming.
Perhaps the non-reactive moralist even feels a deep sympathy, compassion, or pity towards moral wrongdoers, for being so lost in their ways.
Pereboom (2001), p. 150.
Slote (1990), pp. 377–8.
Ibid., p. 377.
Ibid., p. 378.
The idea here is that there are degrees of blamelessness (and this is plausible—it seems that one can be more or less morally responsible for one’s actions), and that a case of maximum blamelessness is the best prospect for a case in which one is not criticizable for one’s morally wrong action.
We need not commit to the claim that the criticizer always has an explicit or consciously recognized belief about the criticized person’s best reasons; the claim is simply that criticism involves feeling disrespect (or some suitably similar attitude) for the reason that someone has failed to comply with her best reasons, which may not involve explicit belief.
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Vogelstein, E. Moral normativity. Philos Stud 165, 1083–1095 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-0010-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-0010-9