Skip to main content

Rightness = Right-Maker: Reduction or Reductio? Cover

.blurhash-client-img { display: none !important; }

Rightness = Right-Maker: Reduction or Reductio?

Volume 7 (2015): Issue 41 (November 2015)

By: Joseph Long

Open Access

|Dec 2018

Abstract

I have recently argued that if the causal theory of reference is true, then, on pain of absurdity, no normative ethical theory is true. In this journal, Michael Byron has objected to my reductio by appealing to Frank Jackson’s moral reductionism. The present essay defends my reductio while also casting doubt upon Jackson’s moral reductionism.

References

Baker, Lynne Rudder. 2007. The Metaphysics of Everyday Life: An Essay in Practical Realism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511487545
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Boyd, Richard. 1988. How to Be a Moral Realist. In Essays on Moral Realism, edited by Geoffrey Sayre-McCord. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Brink, David. 1989. Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511624612
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Broome, John. 2004. Reasons. In Reason and Value: Themes in the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz, edited by R. Jay Wallace, Philip Pettit, Samuel Scheffler, and Michael Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Byron, Michael. 2014. Right-making, Reference, and Reduction. Disputatio 39: 139-45.10.2478/disp-2014-0010
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Dancy, Jonathan. 2000. Practical Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Dancy, Jonathan. 2004. Ethics without Principles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/0199270023.001.0001
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Darwall, Stephen. 1983. Impartial Reason. Cornell: Cornell University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Jackson, Frank. 1998. From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defense of Conceptual Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Joyce, Richard. 2006. The Evolution of Morality. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/2880.001.0001
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Kripke, Saul. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Long, Joseph. 2012. Right-making and Reference. American Philosophical Quarterly 49: 277-80.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Mackie, J. L. 1977. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. New York: Penguin.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
McNaughton, David and Rawling, Piers. 2003. Descriptivism, Normativity, and the Metaphysics of Reasons. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume: 24-45.10.1111/1467-8349.00101
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Parfit, Derek. 1997. Reasons and Motivation. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume: 99-130.10.1111/1467-8349.00021
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Putnam, Hilary. 1975. The Meaning of Meaning. In Mind, Language, and Reality: Philosophical Papers, vol. 2. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511625251
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Raz, Joseph. 1975. Practical Reason and Norms. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Shafer-Landau, Russ. 2003. Moral Realism: A Defense. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/0199259755.001.0001
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Sober, Elliott. 1982. Why Logically Equivalent Predicates May Pick out Different Properties. American Philosophical Quarterly 19: 183-9.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Tschopp, Emanuel et al. 2015. A Specimen-level Phylogenetic Analysis and Taxonomic Revision of Diplodocidae (Dinosauria, Sauropoda). PeerJ, https://peerj.com/articles/857/10.7717/peerj.857
Search in Google Scholar Back to article

Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2015-0010 | Journal eISSN: 2182-2875 | Journal ISSN: 0873-626X

Journal RSS Feed

Language: English, Portuguese

Page range: 193 - 206

Submitted on: Apr 15, 2015

|

Accepted on: Aug 8, 2015

|

Published on: Dec 31, 2018

Published by: University of Lisbon

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Publication frequency: 4 issues per year

Keywords:

Causal theory of reference,

right-making properties,

moral reductionism,

justifying reasons

Related subjects:

Selected philosophical movements,

Analytical philosophy

© 2018 Joseph Long, published by University of Lisbon
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Volume 7 (2015): Issue 41 (November 2015)

Previous article