The Space of Reasons 2008-04-17

McDowell's Theory of Virtue and the Multivocality Objection

One objection to McDowell’s account of virtue is that it seems to give rise to a multivocal account moral aspirations. This multivocality is viewed as problematic since it makes it unclear what the appropriate target of our moral aspirations should be. Intuitively, one should strive to be like the ideal agent. This seems to be, in part, constitutive of what it means to be the ideal. If this is right, then it would seem that the thing to do would be to emulate the ideal (i.e., virtuous) agent. For McDowell, this means not only acting as the virtuous agent acts, but also employing the same methodology for arriving at one’s moral judgements—namely, moral perception. However, since I know that I am not the ideal, and that I am therefore unable to arrive at what I ought to do via moral ...

read more    1 hit

more posts from The Space of Reasons