Moral (and Ethical) Realism

Living ethics in a more-than-human world, 2017

The issue of ethics is gaining increasing attention in both academic and public debates. For instance, ethics is at the core of the discussions of multiple crises the world is facing; academics are more and more concerned of ethics and politics of doing research; and consumers, citizens and business people encounter complex ethical dilemmas in their everyday life. In this situation, there is a pressing need to develop novel forms of ethics that capture these phenomena and to provide alternative ethical foundations for co-existing in our world. The purpose of this seminar is to enable and foster the multidisciplinary debate on the issue of ethics as a research topic and as a mode of living in the world, both as academics and as citizens. Living in the world not only refers to human co-existence, but also involves living with various forms of non-human entities – e.g. animals, plants, things, matter, houses, soil, water, air – and in various places and spaces from homes to cities, forests and beyond. Ethical everyday life with these human and non-human relations might require that we call into question the things and beliefs that we take for granted right now.

Steady engagement, over the last decade or so, with the classical pragmatists has led Philip Kitcher to develop a position he calls “ethical pragmatic naturalism.” Ethical pragmatic naturalism has three legs: an anlytic history, and metaethical stance, and a normative position. The first two of these extend and expand pragmatist, especially Deweyan, insights in novel and illuminating, if not entirely unproblematic, ways. In particular, we are offered a plausible, naturalistic account of how our species moved from its pre-ethical state to where it is today, as well as a metaethical account that takes progress, rather than truth, to be primary. The normative position, developed on the basis of the analytic history and metaethical stance, attempts to combine a refined version of Adam Smith’s theory of “social mirroring” with Deweyan moral experimentalism. I contend that Kitcher’s focus here falls too heavily on the cognitive dimensions of the ethical project, overemphasizing efforts of rule-formation, the alleged construction of an internalized “impartial spectator,” and an experimentalism construed primarily, if not exclusively, in terms of thought experiments. Consequently, Kitcher’s position hews far more closely to the traditional picture he is ciritcal of than it does to the revolutionary Dewey he claims as inspiration. I suggest that Kitcher’s position would be strengthened by a more robust construal of experimentalism, grounded in Deweyan habit, that puts greater emphasis on reconstruction of environing conditions as a crucial part of our toolkit for progressive change.

is a philosopher, writer and tutor with a first degree in the field of the Social Sciences (History, Economics, Politics and Sociology) and a PhD in the field of Philosophy, Ethics and Politics. Peter works in the tradition of Rational Freedom, a tradition which sees freedom as a common endeavour in which the freedom of each individual is conceived to be co-existent with the freedom of all. In elaborating this concept, Peter has written extensively on a number of the key thinkers in this 'rational' tradition (Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Dante, Spinoza, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Habermas). Peter is currently engaged in an ambitious interdisciplinary research project entitled Being and Place. The central theme of this research concerns the connection of place and identity through the creation of forms of life which enable human and planetary flourishing in unison. Peter tutors across the humanities and social sciences, from A level to postgraduate research. Peter particularly welcomes interest from those not engaged in formal education, but who wish to pursue a course of studies out of intellectual curiosity. Peter is committed to bringing philosophy back to its Socratic roots in ethos, in the way of life of people. In this conception, philosophy as self-knowledge is something that human beings do as a condition of living the examined life. As we think, so shall we live. Living up to this philosophical commitment, Peter offers tutoring services both to those in and out of formal education.

Ethics, 2017

Draft for CSNM workshop on Philippa Foot, Oslo, September 2014] ‚It is my opinion that the Summa Theologica is one of the best sources we have for moral philosophy, and moreover that St. Thomas's ethical writings are as useful to the atheist as to the Catholic or other Christian believer.‛--Philippa Foot. 1

Expanding Horizons in Bioethics

2005

Ethics, Policy & Environment, 2011