| Moral Beliefs and Moral Theory 2002 Edition Contributor(s): Forrester, M. G. (Author) |
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ISBN: 140200687X ISBN-13: 9781402006876 Publisher: Springer OUR PRICE: $161.49 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: June 2002 Annotation: This book defends moral cognitivism with a new approach. The author maintains that the truth of moral judgments is determined in fundamentally the same way as is the truth of non-moral judgments, i.e. by appeal to truth conditions which are incorporated in beliefs held in common by a wide variety of societies. She argues that if a moral theory can be developed which can account for widely held, well-established moral beliefs, this would provide a set of truth conditions for moral judgments. A theory designed to do this - and through which major moral disagreements can be resolved - is presented here, together with discussions of many actual and possible objections. The book is intended for professional philosophers and advanced students of philosophy. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Philosophy | Ethics & Moral Philosophy - Philosophy | Metaphysics - Philosophy | Reference |
| Dewey: 170 |
| LCCN: 2002075416 |
| Series: Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy |
| Physical Information: 0.75" H x 6.14" W x 9.21" (1.36 lbs) 293 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Some time ago I wrote a book (Moral Language, 1982) in which I argued that moral judgments are capable of being true ('truth-apt, ' to use a current phrase, or descriptive and having truth-value, to use a more traditional term), that the methods of discovering moral facts are fundamentally similar to those of discovering non-moral facts, and that moral judgments may be true. What I did not do at that time was to develop a moral theory which would demonstrate how the method of discovering moral truths would work and what the criteria of truth actually are. In a later work (Persons, Animals, and Fetuses, 1996) I did propose a moral theory as to what the criteria for moral truth are; however, I presented it primarily as an introduction to the discussion of several practical ethical issues and did not argue fully for that theory. It is high time that I did so, because without showing that such a theory can be developed my defense of moral realism is incomplete. It is all very well to say that we can discover what moral beliefs are true, but unless we can demonstrate just which beliefs are true, the thesis that we can discover this truth cannot be fully defended. For this reason the biggest (although not the only) challenge to showing that ethical objectivity is possible is the presence of moral disagreement - and the contention of many that such disagreement cannot be definitively resolved |