Terry Horgan

Copping Out on Moral Twin Earth

In Milk, Honey, and the Good Life on Moral Twin Earth, David Copp explores some ways in which a defender of synthetic moral naturalism might attempt to get around our Moral Twin Earth argument. 1 Copp nicely brings out the force of our argument, not only through his exposition of it, but through his attempt to defeat it, since his efforts, we think, only help to make manifest the deep difficulties the Moral Twin Earth argument poses for the synthetic moral naturalist. Our response to Copp will be in two stages. First we will make some general observations about our argument that help one appreciate its force, and then we will turn to the details of Copps proposals.

Nondescriptivist Cognitivism: Framework for a New Metaethic

Abstract We propose a metaethical view that combines the cognitivist idea that moral judgments are genuine beliefs and moral utterances express genuine assertions with the idea that such beliefs and utterances are nondescriptive in their overall content. This sort of view has not been recognized among the standard metaethical options because it is generally assumed that all genuine beliefs and assertions must have descriptive content. We challenge this assumption and thereby open up conceptual space for a new kind of metaethical view. In developing our brand of nondescriptivist cognitivism we do the following: (1) articulate a conception of belief (and assertion) that does not require the overall declarative content of beliefs (and assertions) to be descriptive content; (2) make a case for the independent plausibility of this conception of belief and assertion; and (3) argue that our view, formulated in a way that draws upon the proposed conception of belief, has significant comparative advantages over descriptivist forms of cognitivism.

Epistemic virtues and cognitive dispositions

I. The Discovery of Dispositions: Ancient Foundations Francisco Gonzalez Ludger Jansen Burkhard Meissner II. The Debate about Dispositions from the Beginning of Modern Science until the 20th Century Dennis Des Chene Michael-Thomas Liske Peter Machamer Ursula Renz Oliver Scholz III. Contemporary Theories Elke Brendel Gregor Damschen David Henderson / Terry Horgan Andreas Huttemann Jennifer McKitrick Stephen Mumford Robert Schnepf Markus Schrenk Karsten R. Stuber.