In Nature, psychologist Paul Bloom has published a short rejoinder to 'social intuitionist' claims that rational deliberation has no role in shaping our moral convictions. His chief argument is that evolved emotional responses cannot explain how our moral sympathies change. A taste below the fold:
We're very pleased to welcome Daniel Star as a contributor to PEA Soup. Daniel received his D.Phil. at Oxford and is currently an assistant professor of philosophy at Boston University, specializing in ethical theory, metaethics, epistemology, and the history of ethics. Glad to have you […] Read More
One objection to Humean views about motivation, and to the 'Standard Model' of intention on which intentions are complexes of desire and belief, is that these views don't allow agents to choose their reasons for doing some action. In Reasons Without Rationalism, Kieran Setiya presents […] Read More
Brian Leiter has posted a short essay developing a Nietzschean argument for moral scepticism on the web site of the National Humanities Center On the Human. There are also replies to Leiter’s Nietzschean argument by me and by Paul Katsafanas; there will soon be a […] Read More
Mark Timmons writes: "I am pleased to announce a call for abstracts for the Second Annual Arizona Workshop on Normative Ethical Theory that will be held in Tucson, Arizona on January 6-8, 2011. Abstracts are welcome in any area or on any topic in normative […] Read More
I'm reading Wedgwood's discussion of Normative Judgement Internalism (NJI), which has prompted me to think the following: Philosophers often refer to all-things-considered judgments about what one ought to do. But this concept is underanalyzed. I venture that almost no one who uses this term […] Read More
APRIL 22-24, 2010 Description Ethics and aesthetics share a long history and often a common fate, largely because they both involve subjective values that still lay claim to some measure of objectivity. Each field studies the relations among judgments, emotional states, representational states, art, rationality, […] Read More
We are pleased to announce that Elizabeth Brake has accepted our invitation to be a contributor at PEA Soup. Elizabeth Brake is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Calgary. Her areas of specialization include ethics, political philosophy, feminist philosophy, and philosophy and literature. […] Read More
Inspired a bit by Ralph's post critiquing Kant's view of unconditioned or fundamental goods, I've been investigating why Kant arrives at his (in my opinion) dissatisfying view that we have only indirect duties to non-human animals. Here's my tentative analysis and conclusion.