Moral commitment without objectivity or illusion: Comments on Ruse and Woolcock
✍ Scribed by Bruce N. Waller
- Publisher
- Springer Netherlands
- Year
- 1996
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 584 KB
- Volume
- 11
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0169-3867
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Peter Woolcock, in "Ruse's Darwinian Meta-Ethics: A Critique", argues that the subjectivist (nonobjectivist) Darwinian metaethics proposed by Michael Ruse (in "Taking Darwin Seriously") cannot work, because the "illusion of objectivity" that Ruse claims is essential to morality breaks down when it is recognized as illusion, and there then remain no good reasons for acknowledging or following moral obligations. Woolcock, however, is mistaken in supposing that moral behaviour requires rational motivation. Ruse's Darwinian metaethical analysis shows why such objective support for morality is neither plausible nor necessary; and when that is recognized, it can also be seen that Ruse's proposed "illusion" of moral objectivity is superfluous.