Moral Generalizations and Moral Explanatory Pluralism

Acta Analytica:1-20 (2024)
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Abstract

I argue that moral principles, construed as moral generalizations, can be genuinely explanatory. Specifically, I present and respond to a challenge according to which moral generalizations are explanatorily redundant. In response, I present and defend an explanatory dimension of moral generalizations that is based on the idea of unification. I do so in the context of motivating a realist-friendly moral explanatory pluralism (i.e., the view that there can be many, equally legitimate, explanations of moral facts). Finally, I appeal to the same theoretical resources to tackle an objection from explanatory circularity.

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Citations of this work

Varieties of Normative Explanation.Pekka Väyrynen - forthcoming - In David Copp & Connie Rosati (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Metaethics. Oxford University Press.

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References found in this work

New work for a theory of universals.David K. Lewis - 1983 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (4):343-377.
Thinking about mechanisms.Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden & Carl F. Craver - 2000 - Philosophy of Science 67 (1):1-25.
Humean Supervenience Debugged.David Lewis - 1994 - Mind 103 (412):473--490.
“How to Be a Moral Realist.Richard Boyd - 1988 - In Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (ed.), Essays on moral realism. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. pp. 181-228.
Metaphysically explanatory unification.David Mark Kovacs - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (6):1659-1683.

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