Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T19:15:04.184Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Moral Value, Response-Dependence, and Rigid Designation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Brad Thompson*
Affiliation:
Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX 75275-0142 USA

Extract

It is part of our notion of moral properties (certain forms of relativism to the contrary) that they are in some sense independent of our moral beliefs. A murderer cannot make his action moral simply by believing that it is so. Slavery was immoral even if a large number of people once believed that it was permissible, and it would remain so in the future even if every person came to believe that it was morally acceptable. But views that take moral properties to be objective and thoroughly mind-independent constituents of reality face familiar metaphysical and epistemological obstacles.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright ©The Authors 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bayne, T. and A., Kolers. 2003. Toward a Pluralist Account of Personhood.’ Bioethics 17 221-42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, M. and L., Humberstone. 1980. ‘Two Notions of Necessity.Philosophical Studies 38 130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Izard, C. and B., Ackerman. 2000. ‘Motivational, Organizational, and Regulatory Functions of Discrete Emotions.’ In Handbook of Emotions, 2nd edition, Lewis, M. and Haviland-Jones, J. eds. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, M. 1989. ‘Dispositional Theories of Value.Proceedings ofthe Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 63 139-74.Google Scholar
Lazarus, R. 1991. Emotion and Adaptation. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. 1989. ‘Dispositional Theories of Value.Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 63 113-37.Google Scholar
Mackie, J. 1977. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. 1985. ‘Values and Secondary Qualities.’ In Morality and Objectivity: A Tribute to J.L. Mackie, Honderich, T. ed. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Millgram, E. 1999. ‘Moral Values and Secondary Qualities.American Philosophical Quarterly 36 253-55.Google Scholar
Peacocke, C. 1983. Sense and Content. Oxford: Oxford University.Press.Google Scholar
Pettit, P. 1989. ‘Terms, Things, and Response-Dependence.European Review of Philosophy 3 6172.Google Scholar
Railton, P. 1986a. ‘Facts and Values.Philosophical Topics 24 531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Railton, P. 1986b. ‘Moral Realism.Philosophical Review 95 163207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Railton, P. 1989. ‘Naturalism and Prescriptivity.Social Philosophy and Policy 7 151-74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Railton, P. 1996. ‘Red, Bitter, Good.European Review of Philosophy 3 6784.Google Scholar
Shoemaker, S. 1994. ‘Self-Knowledge and “Inner Sense.'Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54 249314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tucker, D. D., Derryberry and P., Luu. 2000. ‘Anatomy and Physiology of Human Emotion: Vertical Integration of Brain Stern, Limbic, and Cortical Systems.’ In The Cognitive Neurosdence of Emotion, Lane, R. Nadel, L. and Ahern, G. eds. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wedgwood, R. 1998. ‘The Essence of Response-Dependence.European Review of Philosophy 3 3760.Google Scholar
Wiggins, D. 1991. ‘A Sensible Subjectivism?’ In Needs, Values, Truth: Essays in the Philosophy of Value. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Wright, C. 1988. ‘Moral Values, Projection and Secondary Qualities.Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 62 126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar