Conceptual Ethics and the Methodology of Normative Inquiry

Abstract

This chapter explores two central questions in the conceptual ethics of normative inquiry. The first is whether to orient one’s normative inquiry around folk normative concepts (like KNOWLEDGE or IMMORAL) or around theoretical normative concepts (like ADEQUATE EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION or PRO TANTO PRACTICAL REASON). The second is whether to orient one’s normative inquiry around concepts whose normative authority is especially accessible to us (such as OUGHT ALL THINGS CONSIDERED), or around concepts whose extension is especially accessible to us (such as BETRAYAL). The chapter aims to make vivid and plausible a range of possible answers to these questions, and important forms of argument that can be used to favor certain answers over others.

Gradient Legal Personhood for AI Systems—Painting Continental Legal Shapes Made to Fit Analytical Molds

“…Historically, philosophy “has been used to break down the authority of outworn tradition, to bend authoritatively imposed rules that admitted of no change to new uses which changed profoundly their practical effect, to bring new elements into the law from without and make new bodies of law from these new materials, to organize and systematize existing legal materials and to fortify established rules and institutions when periods of growth were succeeded by periods of stability and of merely formal reconstruction” ( Pound, 1922 ). A method for such innovation has also already been proposed in relation to AI 8 , namely, conceptual engineering ( Chalmers, 2020 ; McPherson and Plunkett, 2020 ). It holds that clarifying the content of core concepts should be the first step of any debate to avoid arguing about different things, but also to recover conceptual possibilities by figuring out what our concepts actually stand for and, more importantly, what they ought to stand for.…”

On pluralism and conceptual engineering: introduction and overview

“…The need for such a conversation appears even more urgent if we consider that conceptual engineering is often associated with the idea of conceptual ethics. As Alexis Burgess and David Plunkett characterise it, conceptual ethics deals with "normative and evaluative issues about thought and talk" Plunkett 2013, p. 1095; see also Burgess and Plunkett 2020;McPherson and Plunkett 2020;Cappelen and Plunkett 2020). It is an inquiry into what makes something a good concept, which concepts are good or bad, which concepts we should use and which ones we should refrain from using.…”

Ardent realism without referential normativity

“…The insufficiency can also be illustrated by a metaethical example. David Enoch and I independently used Alternative-style cases to object to philosophers like T. M. Scanlon who claim both to be realists and that their realism somehow avoids any metaphysical commitments (Enoch 2011, McPherson 2011. To simplify greatly, we considered a pair of linguistic communities who used normative concepts with what Eklund would call the same normative role, but different extensions.…”