A Humean Approach to the Boundaries of Morality. Issue 1 (March 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Collier, Mark
• Is Part Of: Journal of Scottish philosophy. Volume 18:Issue 1(2020)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 16
• Publication Date: 2020-03
• Subjects: Hume -- sentimentalism -- moral disagreement -- moral domain -- disgust; Philosophy, Scottish -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 192
• DOI: 10.3366/jsp.2020.0252
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1479-6651

Abstract

Abstract : Hume maintains that the boundaries of morality are widely drawn in everyday life. We routinely blame characters for traits that we find disgusting, on this account, as well as those which we perceive as being harmful. Contemporary moral psychology provides further evidence that human beings have a natural tendency to moralize traits that produce feelings of repugnance. But recent work also demonstrates a significant amount of individual variation in our sensitivities to disgust. We have sufficient reason to bracket this emotion, therefore, when adopting the general point of view: if we allow idiosyncratic affective responses to shape our fully considered moral judgments, we could no longer reasonably expect spectators with different sensitivities to agree with us.