Human nature, history, and the limits of critique

European Journal of Philosophy 32 (1):3-16 (2024)
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Abstract

This essay defends a form of ethical naturalism in which ethical knowledge is explained by human nature. Human nature, here, is not the essence of the species but its natural history as socially and historically determined. The argument does not lead to social relativism, but it does place limits on the scope of ethical critique. As society becomes “total”, critique can only be immanent; to this extent, Adorno and the Frankfurt School are right.

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10.1111/ejop.12850

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Kieran Setiya
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Citations of this work

Theodor W. Adorno.L. Zuidevaart - forthcoming - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Theodor W. Adorno.Lambert Zuidervaart - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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References found in this work

A Treatise of Human Nature.David Hume & A. D. Lindsay - 1958 - Philosophical Quarterly 8 (33):379-380.
Modern Moral Philosophy.G. E. M. Anscombe - 1958 - Philosophy 33 (124):1 - 19.
To Be F Is To Be G.Cian Dorr - 2016 - Philosophical Perspectives 30 (1):39-134.
“How to Be a Moral Realist.Richard Boyd - 1988 - In Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Essays on moral realism. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. pp. 181-228.

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