Philosophy is littered with realisms and skepticisms. Meta-ethics is no different. Moral skepticisms abound and there are many moral realisms. It's a risk of excess to add one more to the pile, but hopefully the risk is worth it. This essay charts a middle course that could just as easily be called Quasi-realism, a more glass half-full name. That is, if Simon Blackburn hadn't Continue Reading …
The Inescapable Imperative
Moral reasons are strong. That's what you'd expect, at least. They're weighty but not dull, alive but not hedonistic. It's strange then that the term used time and again to describe the ultimate importance of moral reasoning is "objective," a word so bloodless and clinical. Still, there's something there that attempts to articulate the bottom-line concern. It's understandable, Continue Reading …
Rawls’s Second Principle: Compromise or Clusterf*#$?
Rawls's principle 2a, to remind you, is (quoting from wikipedia here): Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that (Rawls, 1971, p.302; revised edition, p. 47): (a) they are to be of the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society, consistent with the just savings principle (the difference principle). This has appeal to modern liberals Continue Reading …