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Project

Ethics With or Without Ontology: The Taylor-Putnam Debate.

Is the attribution of value compatible with the physical, biological, and psychological explanations of the empirical sciences? The philosophical reflection on this question is often divided into two approaches: "naturalistic" doctrines that take empirical science as our best guide to understanding reality and "hermeneutical" views, which argue that the empirical sciences do not provide human beings with their primary and most significant access to the world. This project explores a novel form of ethics in between hermeneutical and naturalistic approaches by confronting Charles Taylor's moral philosophy with the pragmatist ethics of Hilary Putnam. On the one hand, their shared concern is that crucial features of human life – especially moral ones – precisely disappear by adopting a scientific stance. On the other hand, Taylor and Putnam are of different minds on the question of how to defend the autonomy of morality with regard to empirical science. The Taylor-Putnam debate starts from the observation that most people are reluctant to embrace naturalism fully and yet remain highly skeptical of all things that do not fit the naturalist model. Reflecting on this debate, this project develops a position that does not assume that the autonomy of morality must be defended from within a naturalistic framework. Instead, it seeks to show that the most fundamental problems of ethics and ontology arise in the border regions between hermeneutical and naturalistic approaches.
Date:1 Oct 2017 →  30 Sep 2020
Keywords:ETHICS
Disciplines:Theory and methodology of philosophy, Philosophy, Other philosophy, ethics and religious studies not elsewhere classified