TY - JOUR
T1 - Moral contextualism and moral relativism
AU - Brogaard, Berit
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2012 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2008/7
Y1 - 2008/7
N2 - Moral relativism provides a compelling explanation of linguistic data involving ordinary moral expressions like 'right' and 'wrong'. But it is a very radical view. Because relativism relativizes sentence truth to contexts of assessment it forces us to revise standard linguistic theory. If, however, no competing theory explains all of the evidence, perhaps it is time for a paradigm shift. However, I argue that a version of moral contextualism can account for the same data as relativism without relativizing sentence truth to contexts of assessment. This version of moral contextualism is thus preferable to relativism on methodological grounds.
AB - Moral relativism provides a compelling explanation of linguistic data involving ordinary moral expressions like 'right' and 'wrong'. But it is a very radical view. Because relativism relativizes sentence truth to contexts of assessment it forces us to revise standard linguistic theory. If, however, no competing theory explains all of the evidence, perhaps it is time for a paradigm shift. However, I argue that a version of moral contextualism can account for the same data as relativism without relativizing sentence truth to contexts of assessment. This version of moral contextualism is thus preferable to relativism on methodological grounds.
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U2 - 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2007.543.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2007.543.x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:58549104733
VL - 58
SP - 385
EP - 409
JO - Philosophical Quarterly
JF - Philosophical Quarterly
SN - 0031-8094
IS - 232
ER -