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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
On Skepticism About Case-Specific Intuitions, James Mcbain
On Skepticism About Case-Specific Intuitions, James Mcbain
Faculty Submissions
Moral theorizing is often characterized as beginning from our intuitions about ethical cases. Yet, while many applaud, and even demand, this methodology, there are those who reject such a methodology on the grounds that we cannot treat people’s intuitions about ethical cases as evidence for or against moral theories. Recently, Shelly Kagan has argued that the reliance upon case-specific intuitions in moral theorizing is problematic. Specifically, he maintains that the practice of using intuitions about cases lacks justification and, hence, we ought to be skeptical about the evidential weight of moral intuitions. This leads Kagan to conclude that we ought …
Moral Callings And The Duty To Have Children: A Response To Jeff Mitchell, James Mcbain
Moral Callings And The Duty To Have Children: A Response To Jeff Mitchell, James Mcbain
Faculty Submissions
Jeff Mitchell argues that the good reason for having children is that parenthood is a “moral calling” and that one should heed the call out of a sense of duty and responsibility for the good of society. I argue such a “moral calling” account is mistaken, first, in that Mitchell problematically assumes the “basic intuition” is mistaken and, second, it fails to provide the epistemic conditions for the warranted belief that one would probably make a good parent (a central consideration of Mitchell’s). Thus, such a “moral calling” rationale for the having of children is not superior to rationales that …