Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-5cf477f64f-rdph2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-02T00:38:57.480Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Marius Baumann
Affiliation:
Universität Munchen
HTML view is not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button.

Summary

The first Chapter is the Introduction. I start with a puzzle stemming from the fact that even though the Textbook View of moral theories conceives of the main traditions as both explanatorily and extensionally incompatible, many philosophers have recently argued that much more agreement is possible. I argue that this puzzle might be best explained by the fact that just as scientific theories can be underdetermined by the evidence, so can moral theories be underdetermined by their extension. This analogy to the philosophy of science has received little attention so far, and the book provides the first comprehensive analysis of it.I characterize the main idea in some more detail by distinguishing it from several others. The idea is neither that the moral is underdetermined by the non-moral, nor that moral theories leave our particular choices underdetermined, nor that theories are underdetermined because the evidence is somehow lacking. Finally, I give an outline of the structure of the book.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This content is Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/cclicenses/

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Introduction
  • Marius Baumann, Universität Munchen
  • Book: The Underdetermination of Moral Theories
  • Online publication: 14 March 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009492454.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Introduction
  • Marius Baumann, Universität Munchen
  • Book: The Underdetermination of Moral Theories
  • Online publication: 14 March 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009492454.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Marius Baumann, Universität Munchen
  • Book: The Underdetermination of Moral Theories
  • Online publication: 14 March 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009492454.002
Available formats
×