The Ethics of Wilfrid Sellars

Within Sellars's ethical theory lie answers to a number of pressing questions. In resolving questions, and combining Sellars's work with the latest work, this book presents a strikingly original and comprehensive theory that has much to contribute to contemporary debates in ethics and metaethics.

Wilfrid Sellars's ethical theory was rich and deeply innovative. On Sellars's view, moral judgments express a special kind of shared intention. Thus, we should see Sellars as an early advocate of an expressivism of plans and intentions, and an early theorist of collective intentionality. He supplemented this theory with a sophisticated logic of intentions, a robust theory of the categorical validity of normative expressions, a subtle way of reconciling the cognitive and motivating aspects of moral judgment, and much more-all within a strict nominalism that preserves Sellars's commitment to naturalism. The Ethics of Wilfrid Sellars offers the first systematic treatment of this sadly-neglected aspect of Sellars's work, and demonstrates that his ethical theory-just like his more widely-discussed epistemology-has much to contribute to current debates.

Autorentext

Jeremy Randel Koons is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. He has published widely in epistemology, metaethics, philosophy of religion, and other areas. His most recent book, The Normative and the Natural (co-authored with Michael P. Wolf) appeared in 2016.

Klappentext

Wilfrid Sellars's ethical theory was rich and deeply innovative. On Sellars's view, moral judgments express a special kind of shared intention. Thus, we should see Sellars as an early advocate of an expressivism of plans and intentions, and an early theorist of collective intentionality. He supplemented this theory with a sophisticated logic of intentions, a robust theory of the categorical validity of normative expressions, a subtle way of reconciling the cognitive and motivating aspects of moral judgment, and much more-all within a strict nominalism that preserves Sellars's commitment to naturalism. The Ethics of Wilfrid Sellars offers the first systematic treatment of this sadly-neglected aspect of Sellars's work, and demonstrates that his ethical theory-just like his more widely-discussed epistemology-has much to contribute to current debates.

Inhalt

Introduction: Situating Sellars's Ethical Theory in the Contemporary Landscape

Chapter 1: Sellars's Synoptic Vision

Chapter 2: A New Naturalism

Chapter 3: Moral Judgments as Shared Intentions

Chapter 4: What Are Sellarsian We-Intentions?

Chapter 5: Practical Reasoning and the Logic of Intentions

Chapter 6: Material Practical Inference

Chapter 7: Cooperative Rationality and We-Intentions

Chapter 8: Defeasible Rules and the Particularist Challenge

Chapter 9: Rules, Pattern-Governed Behavior, and Collective Attitudes

Chapter 10: Moral Motivation 1Against the Humean Account

Chapter 11: Moral Motivation 2Sellars's Kantian Account

Chapter 12: Against Moral Foundationalism

Chapter 13: Categorical Validity and the Necessity of Community

Chapter 14: Sellars's Mistaken Formalism

Chapter 15: Sellars's Ethical Naturalism