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Moral Explanation
Author(s) -
Majors Brad
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
philosophy compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.973
H-Index - 25
ISSN - 1747-9991
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2006.00049.x
Subject(s) - counterfactual thinking , causation , epistemology , relevance (law) , argument (complex analysis) , naturalism , moral disengagement , explanatory model , moral psychology , moral responsibility , causality (physics) , psychology , moral reasoning , counterfactual conditional , philosophy , political science , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , quantum mechanics , law
This article surveys recent work on the problem of moral explanation and moral causation, including Harman's original challenge, together with responses to it, and the counterfactual test for explanatory relevance and its limitations. It advances as well a novel argument for the explanatory indispensability of moral properties, and contends that non‐naturalistic moral realists ought to remain open to the possibility that moral properties play a genuine causal‐explanatory role.