Humean Moral Pluralism

Michael B. Gill offers an original account of Humean moral pluralism. Moral pluralism is the view that there are different ultimate moral reasons for action, that those different reasons can sometimes come into conflict with each other, and that there exist no invariable ordering principles that tell us how to resolve such conflicts. If moral pluralism is true, we will at times have to act on moral decisions for which we can give no fully principled justification. Humeanism is the view that our moral judgments are based on our sentiments, that reason alone could not have given rise to our moral judgments, and that there are no mind-independent moral properties for our moral judgments to track. In this book, Gill shows that the combination of these two views produces a more accurate account of our moral experiences than the monistic, rationalist, and non-naturalist alternatives. He elucidates the historical origins of the Humean pluralist position in the works of David Hume, Adam Smith, and their eighteenth century contemporaries, and explains how recent work in moral psychology has advanced this position. And he argues for the position's superiority to the non-naturalist pluralism of W. D. Ross and the monism of Kantianism and consequentialism. The pluralist account of the content of morality has been traditionally perceived as belonging with non-naturalist intuitionism. The Humean sentimentalist account of morality has been traditionally perceived as not belonging with any view of morality's content at all. Humean Moral Pluralism explodes both those perceptions. It shows that pluralism and Humeanism belong together, and that they make a philosophically powerful couple.

Michael B. Gill offers an original account of Humean moral pluralism. Moral pluralism is the view that there are different ultimate moral reasons for action, that those different reasons can sometimes come into conflict with each other, and that there exist no invariable ordering principles that tell us how to resolve such conflicts. If moral pluralism is true, we will at times have to act on moral decisions for which we can give no fully principled justification. Humeanism is the view that our moral judgments are based on our sentiments, that reason alone could not have given rise to our moral judgments, and that there are no mind-independent moral properties for our moral judgments to track. In this book, Gill shows that the combination of these two views produces a more accurate account of our moral experiences than the monistic, rationalist, and non-naturalist alternatives. He elucidates the historical origins of the Humean pluralist position in the works of David Hume, Adam Smith, and their eighteenth century contemporaries, and explains how recent work in moral psychology has advanced this position. And he argues for the position's superiority to the non-naturalist pluralism of W. D. Ross and the monism of Kantianism and consequentialism. The pluralist account of the content of morality has been traditionally perceived as belonging with non-naturalist intuitionism. The Humean sentimentalist account of morality has been traditionally perceived as not belonging with any view of morality's content at all. Humean Moral Pluralism explodes both those perceptions. It shows that pluralism and Humeanism belong together, and that they make a philosophically powerful couple.

This book not only provides an introduction to the main traditions in ethical thought (Aristotle and virtue ethics, Mill and utilitarianism, and Kant and deontology), but also offers a conceptual framework (ethical pluralism) for understanding the relationship among these various theories.

This book aims to clarify the debate between moral relativists and moral absolutists by showing what is right and what is wrong about each of these positions, by revealing how the phenomenon of moral diversity is connected with moral relativism, and by arguing for the importance of relationships between persons as key to reaching a satisfactory understanding of the issues involved in the debate.

In this thought-provoking study, Jack Russell Weinstein suggests the foundations of liberalism can be found in the writings of Adam Smith (1723-1790), a pioneer of modern economic theory and a major figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. While offering an interpretive methodology for approaching Smith's two major works, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments "and "The Wealth of Nations," Weinstein argues against the libertarian interpretation of Smith, emphasizing his philosophies of education and rationality. Weinstein also demonstrates that Smith should be recognized for a prescient theory of pluralism that prefigures current theories of cultural diversity.

When he nished writing, he raised his eyes and looked at me. From that day I have thought about Doktor Pannwitz many times and in many ways. I have asked myself how he really functioned as a man; how he lled his time, outside of the Polymerization and the Indo- Germanic conscience; above all when I was once more a free man, I wanted to meet him again, not from a spirit of revenge, but merely from a personal curiosity about the human soul. Because that look was not one between two men; and if I had known how completely to explain the nature of that look, which came as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two beings who live in different worlds, I would also have explained the essence of the great insanity of the third Germany. PRIMO LEVI [If this is a man, pp. 111–112, in, If this is a man and The truce, trans. S. Woolf, Abacus, London, 1987] If all propositions, even the contingent ones, are resolved into identical propositions, are they not all necessary? My answer is: certainly not. For even if it is certain that what is more perfect is what will exist, the less perfect is nevertheless still possible. In propositions of fact, existence is involved. LEIBNIZ [Samtlic ̈ he schriften und briefe vol VI pt 4 Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1449A VI 4] We live in a rule-constrained world.

David B. Wong proposes that there can be a plurality of true moralities, moralities that exist across different traditions and cultures, all of which address facets of the same problem: how we are to live well together. Wong examines a wide array of positions and texts within the Western canon as well as in Chinese philosophy, and draws on philosophy, psychology, evolutionary theory, history, and literature, to make a case for the importance of pluralism in moral life, and to establish the virtues of acceptance and accommodation. Wong's point is that there is no single value or principle or ordering of values and principles that offers a uniquely true path for human living, but variations according to different contexts that carry within them a common core of human values. We should thus be modest about our own morality, learn from other approaches, and accommodate different practices in our pluralistic society.

This original and ambitious book aims to change how we think about good lives. The perennial debates about good lives—the disagreements caused by conflicts between scientific, religious, moral, historical, aesthetic, and subjective modes of reflection—typically end in an impasse. This leaves the underlying problems of the meaning of life, the possibility of free action, the place of morality in good lives, the art of life, and human self-understanding as intractable as they have ever been.The way out of this impasse, argues Kekes, is to abandon the assumption shared by the contending parties that the solutions of these problems can be rational only if they apply universally to all lives in all contexts. He believes that solutions may vary with lives and contexts and still be rational. Kekes defends a pluralistic alternative to absolutism and relativism that will, he holds, take philosophy in a new and more productive direction.