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The World is Not Enough*.

Authors :
Howard, Nathan Robert
Laskowski, N. G.
Source :
Nous; Mar2021, Vol. 55 Issue 1, p86-101, 16p
Publication Year :
2021

Abstract

Throughout his career, Derek Parfit made the bold suggestion, at various times under the heading of the "Normativity Objection," that anyone in possession of normative concepts is in a position to know, on the basis of their competence with such concepts alone, that reductive realism in ethics is not even possible. Despite the prominent role that the Normativity Objection plays in Parfit's non‐reductive account of the nature of normativity, when the objection hasn't been ignored, it's been criticized and even derided. We argue that the exclusively negative attention that the objection has received has been a mistake. On our reading, Parfit's Normativity Objection poses a serious threat to reductivism, as it exposes the uneasy relationship between our a priori knowledge of a range of distinctly normative truths and the package of semantic commitments that reductivists have typically embraced since the Kripkean revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
00294624
Volume :
55
Issue :
1
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Nous
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
148631615
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12293