The armchair and the trolley: an argument for experimental ethics.
Ethical theory often starts with our intuitions about particular cases and tries to uncover the principles that are implicit in them; work on the 'trolley problem' is a paradigmatic example of this approach. But ethicists are no longer the only ones chasing trolleys. In recent years, psychologists a...
| Publicado en: | Philosophical Studies Vol. 162; no. 2; pp. 421 - 446 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Jan2013
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=84579269&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 84579269 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00318116 4L8 jtl: Philosophical Studies issn: 00318116 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jan2013 vid: 162 iid: 2 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 84579269 10.1007/s11098-011-9775-5 ppf: 421 ppct: 25 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 238KB tig: atl: The armchair and the trolley: an argument for experimental ethics. aug: au: Kahane, Guy affil: Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Littlegate House, St Ebbe's St Oxford OX1 1PT UK su: Intuition Theory of knowledge Paradigm (Linguistics) Presupposition (Logic) Psychology & philosophy Reliability (Personality trait) Justification (Ethics) Justification (Theory of knowledge) Ethics sug: subj: Intuition Theory of knowledge Paradigm (Linguistics) Presupposition (Logic) Psychology & philosophy Reliability (Personality trait) Justification (Ethics) Justification (Theory of knowledge) Ethics keyword: Armchair knowledge Empirical psychology Ethical theory Experimental ethics Moral epistemology Moral intuitions Moral principles The trolley problem ab: Ethical theory often starts with our intuitions about particular cases and tries to uncover the principles that are implicit in them; work on the 'trolley problem' is a paradigmatic example of this approach. But ethicists are no longer the only ones chasing trolleys. In recent years, psychologists and neuroscientists have also turned to study our moral intuitions and what underlies them. The relation between these two inquiries, which investigate similar examples and intuitions, and sometimes produce parallel results, is puzzling. Does it matter to ethics whether its armchair conclusions match the psychologists' findings? I argue that reflection on this question exposes psychological presuppositions implicit in armchair ethical theorising. When these presuppositions are made explicit, it becomes clear that empirical evidence can (and should) play a positive role in ethical theorising. Unlike recent assaults on the armchair, the argument I develop is not driven by a naturalist agenda, or meant to cast doubt on the reliability of our moral intuitions; on the contrary, it is even compatible with non-naturalism, and takes the reliability of intuition as its premise. The argument is rather that if our moral intuitions are reliable, then psychological evidence should play a surprisingly significant role in the justification of moral principles. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Philosophical Studies is a copyright of Springer, 2013. All Rights Reserved. item: Philosophical Studies holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2013 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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