{"id":4159,"date":"2003-03-06T15:44:15","date_gmt":"2003-03-06T15:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4159"},"modified":"2003-03-06T15:44:15","modified_gmt":"2003-03-06T15:44:15","slug":"what-is-moral-philosophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4159","title":{"rendered":"what is moral philosophy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Dante book<\/a> (in progress) is really an essay<\/p>\n

on the limitations of moral theory<\/b>. But what is that? I’m playing<\/p>\n

with the following definition: Moral theories are collections of descriptive<\/p>\n

terms, each of which has a known moral valence. For example, "unjust"<\/p>\n

is a descriptive term with moral significance. We might argue that anything<\/p>\n

that is "unjust" is wrong—at least all else being equal.<\/p>\n

In that case, the moral valence of the term "unjust" is negative;<\/p>\n

calling something "unjust" pushes us toward rejecting that action<\/p>\n

(or institution, or character). <\/p>\n

Knowing the moral valence of a descriptive term does not always tell<\/p>\n

us what to do, because a single act can be described in multiple ways.<\/p>\n

A given action may be "unjust" but also "loving."<\/p>\n

(For example, a parent might favor her own children over others.) In such<\/p>\n

cases, the negative moral valence of injustice is countered by the positive<\/p>\n

moral valence of love, and we have a difficult decision to make. In another<\/p>\n

kind of situation, an action may be "unjust" but also "necessary";<\/p>\n

and if something is necessary, then we may have to ignore moral considerations<\/p>\n

altogether. <\/p>\n

Few (if any) philosophers have ever believed that moral theories could<\/p>\n

be sufficient to determine action; we also need judgment to tell us which<\/p>\n

moral terms to apply in particular cases, and how to balance conflicting<\/p>\n

terms. Nevertheless, philosophers generally think it is useful to have<\/p>\n

a moral theory composed of terms with known moral valences. <\/p>\n

A moral theory can simply be a list of such terms (this was W.D. Ross’<\/p>\n

view); but preferably it is an organized structure. For example, a theorist<\/p>\n

may argue that some moral terms underlie and explain others, or trump<\/p>\n

others, or negate others. The more the full list can be organized and\/or<\/p>\n

shortened, the more the theory has achieved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Dante book (in progress) is really an essay on the limitations of moral theory. But what is that? I’m playing with the following definition: Moral theories are collections of descriptive terms, each of which has a known moral valence. For example, "unjust" is a descriptive term with moral significance. We might argue that anything […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}