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Moral Indeterminacy, Normative Powers and Convention
Author(s) -
Dougherty Tom
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
ratio
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.475
H-Index - 29
eISSN - 1467-9329
pISSN - 0034-0006
DOI - 10.1111/rati.12139
Subject(s) - indeterminacy (philosophy) , normative , convention , mechanism (biology) , anguish , epistemology , indeterminate , philosophy , law and economics , psychology , social psychology , political science , economics , law , mathematics , pure mathematics
Moral indeterminacy can be problematic: prospectively it can give rise to deliberative anguish, and retrospectively, it can leave us in a limbo as to what attitudes it is appropriate to form with respect to past actions with indeterminate moral status. These problems give us reason to resolve ethical indeterminacy. One mechanism for doing so involves the use of our normative powers to place obligations on ourselves and to waive our claims against others. This mechanism could operate through an explicit agreement, but could also operate through implicit endorsement of a social convention. However, there are important limits on when the mechanism can eliminate moral indeterminacy.