Against moral unconditionalism
Loading...
Meeting name
Sponsors
Date
Journal Title
Format
Thesis
Subject
Abstract
One of the most important normative questions is whether an agent ought to prioritize morality (by "ought" I mean the unqualified "ought," not qualified oughts like "morally ought," "prudentially ought," etc.). To put it differently, if an agent encounters a state of affairs where she can either follow morality or do something else, but not both, then which option should the agent choose? It is common for philosophers to side with morality, and to think that all agents ought to follow morality even if doing so prevents the agent from doing something else. This view is known as moral unconditionalism. The purpose of this dissertation is to question moral unconditionalism. Although many philosophers take moral unconditionalism for granted, I do not. In this dissertation, I criticize three arguments for moral unconditionalism. The arguments are given by philosophers that are notable representatives of three major ethical theories (utilitarianism, divine command theory, and libertarianism, respectively). By criticizing their arguments for moral unconditionalism, I hope to show that moral unconditionalism is neither as justified nor as obvious as many people think it is, and that people ought to try to argue for moral unconditionalism instead of taking it for granted.
Table of Contents
DOI
PubMed ID
Degree
PhD