Dietrich, Franz and List, Christian 
ORCID: 0000-0003-1627-800X
(2017)
What matters and how it matters: a choice-theoretic representation of moral theories.
Philosophical Review, 126 (4).
pp. 421-479.
ISSN 0031-8108
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Abstract
We present a new “reason-based” approach to the formal representation of moral theories, drawing on recent decision-theoretic work. We show that any moral theory within a very large class can be represented in terms of two parameters: (i) a specification of which properties of the objects of moral choice matter in any given context, and (ii) a specification of how these properties matter. Reasonbased representations provide a very general taxonomy of moral theories, as di↵erences among theories can be attributed to di↵erences in their two key parameters. We can thus formalize several distinctions, such as between consequentialist and non-consequentialist theories, between universalist and relativist theories, between agent-neutral and agent-relative theories, between monistic and pluralistic theories, between atomistic and holistic theories, and between theories with a teleological structure and those without. Reason-based representations also shed light on an important but under-appreciated phenomenon: the “underdetermination of moral theory by deontic content”
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://philreview.dukejournals.org/ |
| Additional Information: | © 2017 Cornell University |
| Divisions: | Government Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method CPNSS |
| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BD Speculative Philosophy |
| Date Deposited: | 03 May 2017 16:34 |
| Last Modified: | 26 Sep 2024 19:36 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/75232 |
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