Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint

Assuming that there is moral progress, and assuming that the abolition of slavery is an example of it, how does moral progress occur? Is it mainly driven by specific individuals who have gained new moral insights, or by changes in the socio‐economic and epistemic conditions in which agents morally judge the norms and practices of their society, and act upon these judgements? In this paper, I argue that moral progress is a complex process in which changes at the level of belief and changes at the level of institutions and social practices are deeply intertwined, and that changes in the socio‐economic and epistemic conditions of moral agency constitute the main motor of moral progress. I develop my view of moral progress by way of grappling with Michelle Moody‐Adams’ prominent philosophical account of it. My view is less intellectualistic and individualistic than hers, does not presuppose meta‐ethical moral realism, and blurs her distinction between moral progress in beliefs and moral progress in social practices. I point out the limits of humans to progress morally, which are partly grounded in our evolutionary history, and argue that moral progress is always of a ‘local’ nature.

In the proposed research, the moral discourse of the students’ linguistic personality, realized in their communicative behavior, was investigated. It is noted that the analysis of modern moral discourse is particularly relevant due to the fact that language retardation is strongly felt in the sphere of spiritual life. In the cognitive aspect, moral discourse is characterized by such concepts that fix certain values and carry meanings. The actual basis for writing the article was the author’s observations of the communicative behavior of students of the Ukrainian Humanitarian Institute in Bucha, Kyiv region. Therefore, the article states that the general cognitive base for users of moral discourse, in particular students, is the moral culture of the people who speak a certain language and embody their spiritual and historical experience in it, and upbringing in the family, at school, etc. The understanding of moral discourse in scientific research is carried out through the prism of the definition of Yu. Habermas, for whom moral discourse is the operation of statements that have a cognitive status and claim normative significance. Taking it as the most successful interpretation of the mentioned term, S. Romanchuk represents the moral and value norms implemented by student youth in various forms of communicative behavior. At the same time, she analyzes the cognitive character of students’ moral actions. The article emphasizes that moral discourse is specific in that the most important role in it is played by the subject’s self-communication. Thanks to his “inner language”, self-presentation of moral consciousness, understanding of one’s own behavior and experience, such phenomena as “voice of conscience”, “voice of the heart”, etc. are directly given. It is concluded that the cognitive aspect of the moral discourse is related to establishing the value of the values contained in the concepts of moral consciousness of the students and represented in their communicative behavior.

Common sense morality is in a better epistemic position than Egoism, for those who accept common sense morality can modestly vindicate it – they can defend it to their own satisfaction – whereas most Egoists cannot defend Egoism, even modestly. The key to this defence of morality is the importance of moral understanding. What are the implications of recognizing that the focus of moral epistemology should be moral understanding rather than moral knowledge? Moral philosophers already act as if they are aiming for moral understanding, but there are many unanswered questions about moral understanding that need to be addressed in the future.

The so-called “conciliatory” norm in epistemology and meta-ethics requires that an agent, upon encountering peer disagreement with her judgment, lower her confidence about that judgment. But whether agents actually abide by this norm is unclear. Although confidence is excessively researched in the empirical sciences, possible effects of disagreement on confidence have been understudied. Here, we target this lacuna, reporting a study that measured confidence about moral beliefs before and after exposure to moral discourse about a controversial issue. Our findings indicate that participants do not abide by the conciliatory norm. Neither do they conform to a rival “steadfast” norm that demands their confidence to remain the same. Instead, moral discourse seems to boost confidence. Interestingly, we also find a confidence boost for factual beliefs, and a correlation between the extremity of moral views and confidence. One possible explanation of our findings is that when engaging in moral discourse participants become more extreme in their opinions, which leads them to become more confident about them, or vice versa: they become more confident and in turn more extreme. Although our work provides initial evidence for the former mechanism, further research is needed for a better understanding of confidence and moral discourse.

Chapter 8 offers an evaluative theory of moral progress and moral regress that explains how rational moral change is possible. Moral progress, distinct from progress in well-being, is illustrated by key examples, like the abolition of chattel slavery and reduction of gender inequality. The possibility of a traditional global theory of moral progress is rejected in favor of non-ideal theory that explains how to reduce moral exclusivity and inequality based on what has already worked locally. Moral progress theory seeks to promote realizable ends by identifying positive feedback loops between the moral mind, social institutions, and knowledge. Facilitated by social integration, relevant knowledge reveals facts that are needed to apply moral norms or moral inconsistencies that result from their misapplication. In both respects rational moral change is achieved when morality scaffolds socially interactive reasoning to reveal morally relevant knowledge. Such knowledge tends to foster the social conditions that make moral knowledge possible.

In order to examine the ways in which men's perceptions of their social surroundings influence how they experience and negotiate sexual risk, we conducted a qualitative study with 36 men who lived in London or Birmingham, had five or more male partners in the previous year and believed themselves to be HIV negative. Men were recruited into two sub-samples (18 men each). The high proximity group personally knew someone with HIV and had a positive sexual partner in the year prior to interview. The low proximity group had never personally known anyone with HIV and had never had a sexual partner who they knew or believed to be HIV positive. Data was collected via semi-structured interviews. Men in the low proximity groups used moral discourses to articulate beliefs and social norms around the disclosure of HIV which may act as a deterrent to sexual partners disclosing. Although most expected positive sexual partners to disclose, they had difficulty in articulating how they would respond to disclosure and how they would manage any consequent sexual risk. For the men in the high proximity group, living around HIV constituted a part of everyday life. Disclosure and discussion of HIV did not violate their social norms. The majority did not expect positive sexual partners to disclose to them and knew how they would respond to such disclosure if it occurred. Men in this group did not use moral discourses but talked practically about better and worse ways of managing disclosure. Proximity to HIV is mediated by strong social norms and self-perpetuating moral discourses which effectively creates a social divide between men who perceive themselves to be in low proximity to HIV and their HIV positive contacts and sexual partners. Men with perceived low proximity to HIV are appropriate as a target group for HIV prevention.

Divine law theories of metaethics claim that moral rightness is grounded in God�s commands, wishes and so forth. Expressivist theories, by contrast, claim that to call something morally right is to express our own attitudes, not to report on God�s. Ostensibly, such views are incompatible. However, we shall argue that a rapprochement is possible and beneficial to both sides. Expressivists need to explain the difference between reporting and expressing an attitude, and to address the Frege-Geach problem. Divine law theorists need to get past the Euthyphro dilemma, and to avoid moral externalism. This paper shows how a combined theory helps us to achieve this.

ABSTRACTMoral abolitionists recommend that we get rid of moral discourse and moral judgement. At first glance this seems repugnant, but abolitionists think that we have overestimated the practical value of our moral framework and that eliminating it would be in our interests. I argue that abolitionism has a surprising amount going for it. Traditionally, abolitionism has been treated as an option available to moral error theorists. Error theorists say that moral discourse and judgement are committed to the existence of moral properties, and that no such properties exist. After error theory is established, abolitionism is one potential way to proceed. However, many error theorists suggest that we retain moral discourse as a sort of fiction. I evaluate some attractions of both fictionalism and abolitionism, arguing that abolitionism is a plausible position. No one doubts that error theorists can be abolitionists. However, what has gone largely undiscussed is that it is open to others to be abolitionists as well. I argue that moral realists of a metaphysically robust sort can and perhaps should be abolitionists. ‘Realist abolitionism’ makes for a surprisingly neat theoretical package, and I conclude that it represents an interesting new option in the theoretical landscape.

A prominent argument for moral realism notes that we are inclined to accept realism in science because scientific inquiry supports a robust set of critical practices—error, improvement, explanation, and the like. It then argues that because morality displays a comparable set of critical practices, a claim to moral realism is just as warranted as a claim to scientific realism. But the argument is only as strong as its central analogy—and here there is trouble. If the analogy between the critical practices of science and morality is loosely interpreted, the argument does not support moral realism—for paradigmatically constructivist discourses like fashion display the relevant critical practices just as well. So if the argument is to have force, the realist must say more about why the critical practices of morality are sufficiently like those of science to warrant realism. But this cannot be done—moral inquiry differs from scientific inquiry in too many important ways. So the analogy with the critical practices of science fails to vindicate moral realism. But there are further lessons: in looking closely at the critical practices of our moral discourse—and in comparing them to the critical practices of science and fashion—we gain insight into what is distinctive about morality objectivity and moral metaphysics.

This chapter examines the use of language in the plays of two emerging Nigerian female playwrights – Bosede Ademilua-Afolayan and Osita Ezenwanebe. Specifically, the chapter explores the patterns of language in the plays – Once Upon an Elephant (Ademilua-Afolayan) and Adaugo (Ezenwanebe) –by exploring the authors' portrayal of gender issues and cultural practices from a sociolinguistic perspective. This perspective seeks to investigate the impact of language on the portrayal of the social dynamics of gender relations in two different Nigerian cultures – the Yoruba and the Igbo – as portrayed in the two plays. Furthermore, the sociolinguistic approach extends the scope of the investigation to include the ethnography of communication (Saville-Troike), a methodological direction which explores the intrinsic properties of the cultural setting in the illumination of the thematic concerns of the two plays. As a veritable tool for the exhibition of African cultural norms and practices, Nigerian drama finds vivid expression in the differing portrayals of Nigerian cultural norms from the unique ethnic viewpoints of these two authors. The ethnographic perspective to the exploration of language in the dramaturgy of these two playwrights, thus, highlights their use of ways of speaking (idioms, proverbs, and wise sayings) in the vivid projection of cultural practices like rituals, kingship rites, taboos and norms of existence in contemporary society. Beyond this, this chapter seeks to explore the authors' preoccupation with feminine issues such as domestic violence, suppressive cultural practices, slavery and inordinate male domination, amid the varied representations of larger societal problems of leadership, corruption, political and socio-economic crisis. It is argued that in weaving the strands of their stories around the rich cultural ambience of their ethnic experiences, these female playwrights lend credence to the relevance of drama in the social configuration of human existence, and more importantly, the importance of the linguistic devices with which these ethnographic features are projected.

In recent years, discussions of Buddhist ethics have increasingly drawn upon the concepts and tools of modern ethical theory, not only to compare Buddhist perspectives with Western moral theories, but also to assess the meta-ethical implications of Buddhist texts and their philosophical context. Philosophers aiming to defend the Madhyamaka framework in particular - its ethics and soteriology along with its logic and epistemology - have recently attempted to explain its combination of moral commitment and philosophical scepticism by appealing to various forms of meta-ethical anti-realism. This paper argues that those attempts do not succeed, even in their own terms. Their emphasis on universal compassion, among other features of their approaches, is difficult to explain normatively so long as it is embedded within an anti-realist framework. Soteriological values - such as enlightenment and liberation - also seem to require a realist account of their normativity. Though many Buddhist philosophers disagree, there is at least one form of Buddhist philosophy, that of the Yogacara school, that can be interpreted as articulating a meta-ethical realism of the kind that the broader Mahayana tradition (if not other Buddhist traditions as well) seems to require. To a greater extent than stressing common anti-realist themes would allow, the paper argues that finding common ground, where Western moral realism and Buddhist moral realism can coalesce and jointly vindicate a repertoire of shared ethical concepts, may also facilitate the efforts of those engaged in comparative ethical theory.

This paper assesses some challenges posed by evolutionary debunking arguments in Joyce’s function and Street’s contingency versions to moral realism, understood as the metaethical theory according to which there are moral facts that are absolute, universal and context-independent. Some argue that Copp’s society centred realism is untenable given that it cannot support counterfactuals. Shafer-Landau and Huemer’s arguments are also subject to debunking because they cannot persuasively show that human morality is unaffected by evolutionary forces. In Huemer’s view, moral progress is proof of moral facts. It requires moral realism due to progress being context-dependent. From an evolutionary point of view, there are no previous standards and ideals concerning the direction of progress. Finally, a possible answer to the function version of the evolutionary debunking arguments is the possibility that the nature of human language (including moral language) is such that, in essence, it cannot be convincingly divided in language about facts and language about value.

This article examines Ki Hadjar Dewantara’s (KHD) contribution to early gender equality discourse in Indonesia through his writings in Madjallah Wasita magazines (1928–1935), produced in a socio-cultural context dominated by patriarchal norms and limited public awareness of women’s rights. In addition to analyzing KHD’s views on women, the study aims to assess the relevance of his thought for the development of gender reform within Islamic and educational thought in Indonesia and to situate it in dialogue with the Muhammadiyah Model for Gender Equality Reform in a Global Context. Employing a qualitative approach grounded in historical discourse analysis and informed by Muslim feminist theory, this research examines selected texts published in Madjallah Wasita as primary sources, supported by relevant secondary literature. This framework enables a contextual reading of gender, education, and moral discourse within early Indonesian reform movements. Findings indicate that KHD articulated three key ideas. First, he emphasized women’s role as mothers as a moral foundation of society, framing motherhood as a source of dignity rather than subordination. Second, he strongly advocated higher education for women as a prerequisite for national progress. Third, he affirmed women’s right to participate in the public sphere, including access to decent work, while maintaining ethical and social norms. These ideas resonate with the Muhammadiyah model, particularly in conceptualizing gender equality as compatible with religious values, educational reform, and social responsibility. The study concludes that KHD advanced a progressive and context-sensitive vision of gender relations that both preceded and complemented later Islamic reform movements, including Muhammadiyah’s transnational approach to faith-based gender equality. It recommends integrating KHD’s gender-inclusive educational philosophy into national education policies, teacher training, and gender-responsive curricula to strengthen contemporary reforms on gender equality and religious authority.

Gatsby: <i>The Cultural History of the Great American Novel</i> <i>Beyond</i> Gatsby: <i>How Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Writers of the 1920s Shaped American Culture</i> <i>So We Read On: How</i> The Great Gatsby <i>Came to Be and Why It Endures</i>

Different types of moral and nonmoral knowledge interact to shape both moral judgment and conduct.