Abstract
In a way reminiscent of Hume's approach in the Treatise, a reviving moral sentimentalism can use the notion of empathy to ground both its normative account of moral obligation and its metaethical account of moral language. A virtuous person is empathically caring about others and expresses such feeling/motivation in her actions. But the judgment that something is right or good is also based in empathy, and the sentimentalist can espouse a form of moral realism by making use of a Kripkean reference-fixer theory of the role of feelings of approval and disapproval in moral judgment.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Blackburn, S., Circles, Finks, Smells and Biconditionals, Philosophical Perspectives 7: Language and Logic (1993), pp. 259–279.
Hoffman, M., Empathy and Moral Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Hume, D., in L.A. Selby-Bigge (ed.), A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888. [check this]
Kripke, S., Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972.
Slote, M., Sentimentalist Virtue and Moral Judgement: Outline of a Project, Metaphilosophy 34(1/2) (2003), pp. 131–143.
Wiggins, D., A Sensible Subjectivism? in Needs, Values, Truth 2nd Ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Publishers, 1987, pp. 185–211.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Slote, M. Moral Sentimentalism. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 7, 3–14 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:ETTA.0000019982.56628.c3
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:ETTA.0000019982.56628.c3