Works by Nicholas L. Sturgeon
33 found
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| Nicholas L. Sturgeon [35] | Nicholas Lee Sturgeon [1] |
- The Moral Problem.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1999 -Philosophical Review 108 (1):94.Michael Smith’s moral problem is not about whether to betray one’s friends or one’s country. It is a metaethical problem about how to combine three tempting theses that look mutually inconsistent: moral cognitivism, appraiser internalism about moral judgments and motivation, and a “Humean” account of motivation. In Smith’s formulation, these become: 1. Moral judgements of the form, ‘It is right that I φ’ express a subject’s belief about an objective matter of fact, a fact about what it is right for (...) her to do. 2. [Necessarily] if someone judges that it is right that she φs, then, ceteris paribus, she is motivated to φ. 3. An agent is motivated to act in a certain way just in case she has an appropriate desire and a means-end belief, where belief and desire are, in Hume’s terms, distinct existences. As he notes, many metaethical positions can be classified by the way they seek to escape this apparent inconsistency: noncognitivists deny 1 to preserve 2 and 3, some ethical naturalists deny 2 to save 1 and 3, and some internalist cognitivists deny 3 and keep 1 and 2. Smith devotes a chapter to each of these responses and then defends his own view, which retains all three claims in a position advertised as not only consistent but realist, internalist, and, in a broad sense, naturalist. (shrink)
- Ethical Naturalism.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -2006 - In David Copp,The Oxford handbook of ethical theory. New York: Oxford University Press.Ethical naturalism holds that ethical facts about such matters as good and bad, right and wrong, are part of a purely natural world — the world studied by the sciences. It is supported by the apparent reasonableness of many moral explanations. It has been thought to face an epistemological challenge because of the existence of an “is-ought gap”; it also faces metaphysical objections from philosophers who hold that ethical facts would have to be supernatural or “nonnatural,” sometimes on the grounds (...) that ethical thought has a practical role that no thought about purely natural facts could have. Its defenders have argued resourcefully against these challenges. (shrink)
- Harman on moral explanations of natural facts.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1986 -Southern Journal of Philosophy 24 (S1):69-78.
- Moore on ethical naturalism.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -2003 -Ethics 113 (3):528-556.
- Moral Explanations Defended.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -2006 - In James Lawrence Dreier,Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 241--262.
- Doubts about the Supervenience of the Evaluative.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -2010 - In Russ Shafer-Landau,Oxford Studies in Metaethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 53-92.
- Moral Disagreement and Moral Relativism*: NICHOLAS L. STURGEON.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1994 -Social Philosophy and Policy 11 (1):80-115.In any society influenced by a plurality of cultures, there will be widespread, systematic differences about at least some important values, including moral values. Many of these differences look like deep disagreements, difficult to resolve objectively if that is possible at all. One common response to the suspicion that these disagreements are unsettleable has always been moral relativism. In the flurry of sympathetic treatments of this doctrine in the last two decades, attention has understandably focused on the simpler case in (...) which one fairly self-contained and culturally homogeneous society confronts, at least in thought, the values of another; but most have taken relativism to have implications within a single pluralistic society as well. I am not among the sympathizers. That is partly because I am more optimistic than many about how many moral disagreements can be settled, but I shall say little about that here. For, even on the assumption that many disputes are unsettleable, I continue to find relativism a theoretically puzzling reaction to the problem of moral disagreement, and a troubling one in practice, especially when the practice involves regular interaction among those who disagree. This essay attempts to explain why. (shrink)
- Nonmoral explanations.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1992 -Philosophical Perspectives 6:97-117.
- Just causes.Simon Blackburn &Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1991 -Philosophical Studies 61 (1-2):3-42.
- Critical Study. Allan Gibbard, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1995 -Noûs 29 (3):402-24.
- Contents and Causes: A Reply to Blackburn.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1991 -Philosophical Studies 61 (1/2):19 - 37.
- Gibbard on moral judgment and norms.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1985 -Ethics 96 (1):22-33.
- The British Moralists and the Internal 'Ought': 1640-1740.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1997 -Journal of Philosophy 94 (5):266.
- Normativity.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -2010 -Analysis 70 (4):744-753.(No abstract is available for this citation).
- Anderson on reason and value.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1996 -Ethics 106 (3):509-524.
- Altruism, solipsism, and the objectivity of reasons.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1974 -Philosophical Review 83 (3):374-402.No categories
- Nature and conscience in Butler's ethics.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1976 -Philosophical Review 85 (3):316-356.
- Moral Skepticism and Moral Naturalism in Hume's Treatise.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -2001 -Hume Studies 27 (1):3-83.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 27, Number 1, April 2001, pp. 3-83 Moral Skepticism and Moral Naturalism in Hume's Treatise NICHOLAS L. STURGEON Section I I believe that David Hume's well-known remarks on is and ought in his Treatise of Human Nature (T 469-70)1 have been widely misunderstood, and that in consequence so has their relation to his apparent ethical naturalism and to his skepticism about the role of reason in (...) morality. My aim in this paper is to display their connection with these larger issues in Hume's work by placing them in a more illuminating light. Readers may wonder whether there is anything left to say about the passage containing these remarks; they may also share Barry Stroud's suspicion that the vast literature focused on this one paragraph has "given it an importance and point out of all proportion to its actual role in the text of the Treatise."2 But I have some new things to say. I agree, moreover, that many recent discussions, in projecting twentieth-century assumptions onto Hume's text, have accorded this passage the wrong sort of importance: that is part of what I want to correct. But getting clear about what Hume is saying here is, I shall argue, a way of moving familiar and obviously central questions about his views on morality into an unfamiliar but revealing focus. Hume's is-ought thesis is commonly, and I believe correctly, seen as an application of his more general skepticism about the capacity of reason to discover "moral distinctions." But that general skepticism is usually taken, in turn, to conflict with those many passages in which Hume Nicholas L. Sturgeon is Professor of Philosophy, Sage School of Philosophy, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-3201, USA. e-mail:[email protected] 4 Nicholas L. Sturgeon appears to say, in a reductive and naturalistic vein, that ascriptions of moral virtue and vice simply state certain empirical facts, facts about our own sentiments. My central thesis, however, is that Hume's view that there is a logical gap between is and ought is not merely consistent with his reductive naturalism, but actually depends on it. It is precisely because moral ascriptions state the facts that they do about our sentiments that no ought can be derived from an is and, a bit more generally, that reason is unable to discover moral distinctions. Hume's skepticism about reason in ethics depends, I shall argue, on his reductive ethical naturalism. This is not the usual understanding of Hume's views, and it will require careful explanation and defense. I shall proceed in several stages. My first step, in Section II, will be to argue that Hume's naturalism is at least consistent with his skepticism about reason, and in particular with his remarks about is and ought. I shall show this by focusing on a difficulty often taken to epitomize the conflict between these two strains in his thought: namely, that the paragraph containing these remarks (T 469-70: henceforth, the is-ought paragraph) and the one immediately preceding it (which I shall call the matter -of-fact paragraph (T 468-9)) appear, on their most natural readings, flatly to contradict one another.3 On the most common reading of the is-ought paragraph, it assumes the existence of two classes of statements, «-statements and oM^hr-statements, and declares that no member of the latter class can be derived entirely from members of the former. In the preceding paragraph, however, Hume appears in the guise of an ethical naturalist and subjectivist, and, if we take him at his word, simply equates a moral judgment with one asserting what he himself calls a "matter of fact," albeit a psychological fact about oneself: So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it. (T 469) But, one supposes, if a moral assessment of an action or character is equivalent in meaning to a description of one's sentiments, then it can be derived from that description, and there... (shrink)
- Metaphysics and Epistemology.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1992 - In Lawrence C. Becker & Charlotte B. Becker,The Encyclopedia of Ethics. New York: Garland Publishing.
- Hume's Metaethics: Is Hume a Moral Noncognitivist?Nicholas L. Sturgeon -2008 - In Elizabeth Schmidt Radcliffe,A Companion to Hume. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
- (2 other versions)Evil and Explanation.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1995 -Canadian Journal of Philosophy 25 (sup1):155-185.
- Brandt's moral empiricism.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1982 -Philosophical Review 91 (3):389-422.
- Mill's Hedonism.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -2010 -Boston University Law Review 90:1705-29.
- Hume's Metaethics: Is Hume a Moral Noncognitivist?Nicholas L. Sturgeon -2008 - In Elizabeth Schmidt Radcliffe,A Companion to Hume. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 513–528.This chapter contains section titled: Morality Not a Matter of Fact? No Ought from an Is Morality an Object of Feeling A Problem Morality an Active Principle Conclusion References.
- Thomson against Moral ExplanationsMoral Relativism and Moral Objectivity.Nicholas L. Sturgeon,Gilbert Harman &Judith Jarvis Thomson -1998 -Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 58 (1):199.
- Edwin Arthur Burtt 1892-1989.Nicholas L. Sturgeon &Stuart M. Brown -1991 -Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 64 (5):62 - 64.No categories
- Max Black 1909-1988.Nicholas L. Sturgeon &Stuart M. Brown -1991 -Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 64 (5):61 - 62.
- Naturalism in Ethics.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1996 - In Edward Craig,Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Genealogy to Iqbal. New York: Routledge.Export citation
Bookmark - Norman Malcolm 1911-1990.Nicholas L. Sturgeon &Stuart M. Brown -1991 -Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 64 (5):70 -.
- Publisher's Announcement.Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1991 -Philosophical Studies 61 (1/2):2.
- Letters to the Editor.Naomi Zack &Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1991 -Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 64 (7):35 - 36.No categories
- Book Review. Schiffer on Meaning and Value. [REVIEW]Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1990 -Journal of Philosophy 87 (11):615-16.
- Book Review. Virtues and Vices and Moral Relativism. Philippa Foot. [REVIEW]Nicholas L. Sturgeon -1984 -Journal of Philosophy 81 (6):326-33.
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David Bourget (Western Ontario)
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Area Editors:
David Bourget
Gwen Bradford
Berit Brogaard
Margaret Cameron
David Chalmers
James Chase
Rafael De Clercq
Ezio Di Nucci
Esa Diaz-Leon
Barry Hallen
Hans Halvorson
Jonathan Ichikawa
Monte Johnson
Michelle Kosch
Øystein Linnebo
Paul Livingston
Brandon Look
Manolo Martínez
Matthew McGrath
Michiru Nagatsu
Susana Nuccetelli
Giuseppe Primiero
Jack Alan Reynolds
Darrell P. Rowbottom
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