Abstracts
The following papers have been accepted for presentation at AAP 2013. If you've just submitted an abstract, it may take a few days to appear.
| Name: Professor Peter Shiu-Hwa Tsu |
| Institution: Taipei Medical University |
| Title: Shapelessness and Conceptual Incompetence: A Limited Defense of Moral Particularism |
| Abstract: On some interpretation, moral particularism is construed as a doctrine committed to a shapeless thesis: the moral are shapeless with the natural. In more detail, what the shapeless thesis amounts to is this: the actions a moral concept can be correctly applied to have no natural commonality (or shape) amongst them. In favor of the shapeless thesis is a family resemblance view of moral concepts. Against the shapeless thesis, Jackson, Smith and Pettit (2000) contend that the family resemblance view does not provide adequate support. Moreover, they contend that the shapeless thesis will lead to an absurd consequence that no one can ever be competent with moral concepts. Two sorts of replies on behalf of moral particularists have been made respectively by Garfield and Dancy. I will argue that neither of them is successful. Instead, I will defend moral particularism by pressing a McDowellian response-dependent objection against Jackson et al. Although this will not prove moral particularism to be right, it will, at the very least, undercut the force of Jackson et al.’s attack on it. At the end of this paper, I will strengthen my defense of moral particularism by arguing that Jackson et al.’s attempt to undermine the support lent to the shapeless thesis by the family resemblance view is not successful. |
| Keywords: moral particularism, shapeless, Frank Jackson, Michael Smith, Philip Pettit |
