Should Philosophical Reflection on Ethics Do Without Moral Concepts?

Why We Should Do Without Concepts

Machery (2009) has proposed that the notion of ‘concept’ ought to be eliminated from the theoretical vocabulary of psychology. I raise three questions about his argument: (1) Is there a meaningful distinction between concepts and background knowledge? (2) Do we need to discard the hybrid view? (3) Are there really categories of things in the world that are the basis for concepts? Although I arg...

Sentimentalist Pluralism: Moral Psychology and Philosophical Ethics*

When making moral judgments, people are typically guided by a plurality of moral rules. These rules owe their existence to human emotions but are not simply equivalent to those emotions. And people’s moral judgments ought to be guided by a plurality of emotion-based rules. The view just stated combines three positions on moral judgment: [1] moral sentimentalism, which holds that sentiments play...

Ethics without a Net: a Case Study in How to Do Practical Ethics without Appeal to a Moral Theory

The traditional approach to practical ethics is to take one’s preferred moral theory, say hedonistic utilitarianism or a Kantian theory, and it to some controversial moral issue. Hence, the name “applied ethics”. The name itself suggests that all the important philosophical and ethical work has already been done at the theoretical and metatheoretical level and that practical ethics is just a tr...

Ethics in action. What should you do?

Indigenous Knowledge: A Moral Reflection on Current Legal Concepts of Intellectual Property

Indigenous knowledge of underdeveloped countries or of underdeveloped peoples within developed or developing nations is a sought after commodity in today’s marketplace. These commercialisation pressures will increase in the globalised climate of the new-world economic order. Since knowledge is intangible, legal protection of intangible knowledge is minimal. However, when the knowledge is expres...