Sahlin, Nils-Eric and Brännmark, Johan (2008) How can we be moral when we are so irrational? [Preprint]

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Abstract

Normative ethics usually presupposes background accounts of human agency, and although different ethical theorists might have different pictures of human agency in mind, there is still something like a standard account that most of mainstream normative ethics can be understood to rest on. Ethical theorists tend to have Rational Man, or at least some close relative to him, in mind when constructing normative theories. It will be argued here that empirical findings raise doubts about the accuracy of this kind of account; human beings fall too far short of ideals of rationality for it to be meaningful to devise normative ideals within such a framework. Instead, it is suggested, normative ethics could be conducted more profitably if the idea of unifying all ethical concerns into one theoretical account is abandoned. This disunity of ethical theorizing would then match the disunited and heuristic-oriented nature of our agency.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Sahlin, Nils-Eric nils-eric.sahlin@med.lu.se Brännmark, Johan johan.brannmark@fil.lu.se
Keywords:	irrationality, human decision making, morality, normative ethics
Subjects:	General Issues > Decision Theory General Issues > Ethical Issues
Depositing User:	Professor Nils-Eric Sahlin
Date Deposited:	02 Feb 2012 09:48
Last Modified:	02 Feb 2012 09:48
Item ID:	9006
Subjects:	General Issues > Decision Theory General Issues > Ethical Issues
Date:	2008
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/9006

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