Commonsense morality and contact with value

Lovett, Adam ORCID: 0000-0001-8728-5624 and Riedener, Stefan (2024) Commonsense morality and contact with value. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 109 (1). pp. 410-430. ISSN 0031-8205

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Abstract

There seem to be many kinds of moral duties. We should keep our promises; we should pay our debts of gratitude; we should compensate those we've wronged; we should avoid doing or intending harm; we should help those in need. These constitute, some worry, an unconnected heap of duties: the realm of commonsense morality is a disorganized mess. In this paper, we outline a strategy for unifying commonsense moral duties. We argue that they can be understood in terms of contact with value. You are in contact with a value when you are manifest in it or when it is manifest in you. You have reason to get in contact with the good and avoid contact with evil. And when you're in contact with a value, the weight of the reasons it grounds are amplified for you. These ideas, we argue, can bring order to the chaos of commonsense morality.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/19331592
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Authors
Divisions:	Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General)
Date Deposited:	15 Feb 2024 16:45
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2024 04:03
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/122036

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