Michael Ridge
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 3866045 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Michael Ridge |
| PRENOMES | Michael |
| SOBRENOME | Ridge |
| ASSINATURA | RIDGE M |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Institute for Fiscal Studies |
| VERIFICADO | Não |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 25 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 95 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 24 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1995 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2021 |
| ÍNDICE H | 4 |
Games and the Good Life
It is widely agreed that play and games contribute to the good life. One might naturally wonder how games in particular so contribute? Granted, games can be very good, what exactly is so good about them when they are good? Although a natural starting point, this question is perhaps naive. Games come in all shapes and sizes, and different games are often good in very different ways. Chess, Bridge, Bingo, Chutes and Ladders, Football, Spin the Bott…
Individuating games
Games, which philosophers commonly invoke as models for diverse phenomena, are plausibly understood in terms of rules and goals, but this gives rise to two puzzles. The first concerns the identity of a single game over time. Intuitively one and the same game can undergo a change in rules, as when the rules of chess were modified so that a pawn could be moved two squares forward on its first move. Yet if games are individuated in terms of their co…
I Might Be Fundamentally Mistaken
Quasi-realism aspires to preserve the intelligibility of the realist-sounding moral judgments of ordinary people. These judgments include ones of the form, “I believe that p, but I might be mistaken,” where p is some moral content. The orthodox quasi-realist strategy (famously developed by Simon Blackburn) is to understand these in terms of the agent’s worrying that some improving change would lead one to abandon the relevant moral belief. Howeve…
Naïve Practical Reasoning and the Second-Person Standpoint
Having It Both Ways
A recent trend in metaethics has been to reject the apparent choice between pure cognitivism and pure noncognitivism by adopting views that seek to combine the strengths of each side while avoiding the standard problems for each. Some such views claim that moral judgments are complexes of belief-like and desire-like components. Other such views claim that normative language serves both to ascribe properties and to express desire-like attitudes. T…
Impassioned Belief
Michael Ridge presents an original expressivist theory of normative judgments which offers distinctive treatments of key problems in metaethics, semantics, and practical reasoning. He argues that normative judgments are hybrid states partly constituted by ordinary beliefs and partly constituted by desire-like states
Revolutionary Expressivism
While the meta‐ethical error theory has been of philosophical interest for some time now, only recently a debate has emerged about the question what is to be done if the error theory turns out to be true. This paper argues for a novel answer to this question, namely revolutionary expressivism: if the error theory is true, we should become expressivists. Additionally, the paper explores certain important but largely ignored methodological issues t…
Preempting Principles
Moral particularism, as recently defended, charges that traditional moral theorizing unduly privileges moral principles. Moral generalism defends a prominent place for moral principles. Because moral principles are often asked to play multiple roles, moral particularism aims at multiple targets. We distinguish two leading roles for moral principles, the role of standard and the role of guide. We critically survey some of the leading arguments bot…
Ecumenical Expressivism
Michael Smith ‘s thesis is about evaluative judgments, but he could just as easily be talking about normative judgments— judgments about reasons for action and judgments about what one ought to do. Indeed, on T. M. Scanlon ‘s intriguing ‘buck-passing ‘ account of evaluative judgment, evaluative judgment just is normative judgment in disguise. In what sense are normative judgments Janus-faced, though? In some respects, they seem like ordinary beli…
Ethics without Principles
Book Review| January 01 2007 Ethics without Principles Jonathan Dancy, Ethics without Principles. Oxford: Clarendon, 2004. x + 229 pp. Michael Ridge; Michael Ridge Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Sean McKeever Sean McKeever Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2007) 116 (1): 124–128. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-2006-027 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter…
Constitutive Generalism
According to one dimension of the generalist tradition, moral principles are built into the very meaning of moral predicates. They are analytic truths, and thus anyone who is in fact competent with a given moral concept is (perhaps implicitly) committed to the associated principle that spells out the object to which the concept applies. On this view, certain moral principles are constitutive of moral thought and judgment; this view is called ‘con…
From Moral Knowledge to Default Principles
This chapter argues that the bare possibility of moral knowledge in particular cases is already enough to ensure the availability of a certain sort of ‘hedged’ moral principle called a ‘default principle’. Default principles are consistent with holism about reasons because they claim that a given action has a given moral property only if no further feature of the situation explains why it does not. One obvious worry about this proposal is that de…
Holism about Reasons
Particularists often try to draw support for their view from the alleged context sensitivity of reasons, and more specifically holism. According to holism about reasons, a consideration that is a reason in one context may not be similarly a reason in another context because of differences in the presence or absence of defeating and enabling conditions. This chapter distinguishes several versions of the argument from holism, and shows that despite…
Generalism as a Regulative Ideal
This chapter argues that there are reasons to try to codify the moral landscape, and that these reasons are recognizably moral. A proper understanding of the nature of historical moral progress bolsters this argument. The task of codifying morality is best understood as a collective one. Like many collective tasks, it is most efficiently pursued with a suitable division of labor. The chapter defends some of the traditional notions of moral theory…
Moral Vision
Particularism is commonly associated with a moral epistemology that takes perception as a model. This chapter argues that in so far as moral judgments are made by ‘just looking’, this does nothing to support particularism. A close examination of the role of rules and principles in chess helps make this point. Although metaphors of vision are commonplace in discussions of chess (the master ‘just sees’ that the position is weak), this rightly does …
Many Moral Particularisms
This chapter identifies moral particularism as a family of theses all of which involve some sort of negative assessment of moral principles. Family members are distinguished by the different negative attitudes taken and by different conceptions of what a moral principle is. It argues that a proper evaluation of the arguments for moral particularism must be sensitive to these distinctions.
Default Reasons
Because of its extremely ecumenical view of what considerations might count as reasons, particularism threatens to ‘flatten the moral landscape’ by making it seem that there is no deep difference between, for example pain and shoelace color. After all, particularists have claimed, either could provide a reason provided a suitable moral context. To avoid this result, particularists can try to draw a distinction between default and non-default reas…
Beyond Default Principles
This chapter argues against the hedged principles laid out in Chapter 6. It contends that the best explanation of the possibility of practical wisdom entails that morality can be codified. It gives three main arguments. The first argument contends that generalism as a regulative ideal better preserves a broad scope for practical wisdom than its particularist rivals. In pressing this argument, it is shown how generalism is better situated to accom…
Principled Guidance
Morality is a practical matter that concerns choice and action, and a sound moral outlook should be capable of motivating someone to act virtuously. Hence, it is reasonable to expect that moral principles might play an important role in guiding action. This final chapter addresses this concern, and explains how moral principles can and should play an important role in guiding action. Moral principles can help us avoid the all too human failings o…
Introducing Variable-Rate Rule-Utilitarianism
The basic idea of rule‐utilitarianism is that right action should be defined in terms of what would be required by rules which would maximize either actual or expected utility if those rules gained general acceptance, or perhaps general compliance. Rule‐utilitarians face a dilemma. They must characterize ‘general acceptance’ either as 100% acceptance, or as something less. On the first horn of the dilemma, rule‐utilitarianism is vulnerable to the…
Principled Ethics
Moral philosophy has long treated principles as indispensable for understanding its subject matter. However, the underlying assumption that this is the best approach has received almost no defence, and has been attacked by particularists who argue that the traditional link between morality and principles is little more than an unwarranted prejudice. This book meets this particularist challenge head on and defends a distinctive view called ‘genera…
What Does Holism Have to Do With Moral Particularism
Moral particularists are united in their opposition to the codification of morality, and their work poses an important challenge to traditional ways of thinking about moral philosophy. Defenders of moral particularism have, with near unanimity, sought support from a doctrine they call ‘holism in the theory of reasons.’ We argue that this is all a mistake. There are two ways in which holism in the theory of reasons can be understood, but neither p…
Saving Scanlon
How to Avoid Being Driven to Consequentialism
Demand for Local Public Spending
The British Social Attitudes Survey (BSAS) is a UK-wide survey that provides a rich source of information on individuals attitudes to a variety of topics including locally provided service. In this paper we seek to model answers to questions on attitudes to local authority spending which invite the expression of a private demand for local public spending. A convincing picture has emerged of locally provided public goods as imperfectly congested p…
Impassioned Belief
Michael Ridge presents an original expressivist theory of normative judgments which offers distinctive treatments of key problems in metaethics, semantics, and practical reasoning. He argues that normative judgments are hybrid states partly constituted by ordinary beliefs and partly constituted by desire-like states
Principled Ethics
Moral philosophy has long treated principles as indispensable for understanding its subject matter. However, the underlying assumption that this is the best approach has received almost no defence, and has been attacked by particularists who argue that the traditional link between morality and principles is little more than an unwarranted prejudice. This book meets this particularist challenge head on and defends a distinctive view called ‘genera…
Saving Scanlon
What Does Holism Have to Do With Moral Particularism
Moral particularists are united in their opposition to the codification of morality, and their work poses an important challenge to traditional ways of thinking about moral philosophy. Defenders of moral particularism have, with near unanimity, sought support from a doctrine they call ‘holism in the theory of reasons.’ We argue that this is all a mistake. There are two ways in which holism in the theory of reasons can be understood, but neither p…
Introducing Variable-Rate Rule-Utilitarianism
The basic idea of rule‐utilitarianism is that right action should be defined in terms of what would be required by rules which would maximize either actual or expected utility if those rules gained general acceptance, or perhaps general compliance. Rule‐utilitarians face a dilemma. They must characterize ‘general acceptance’ either as 100% acceptance, or as something less. On the first horn of the dilemma, rule‐utilitarianism is vulnerable to the…
Demand for Local Public Spending
The British Social Attitudes Survey (BSAS) is a UK-wide survey that provides a rich source of information on individuals attitudes to a variety of topics including locally provided service. In this paper we seek to model answers to questions on attitudes to local authority spending which invite the expression of a private demand for local public spending. A convincing picture has emerged of locally provided public goods as imperfectly congested p…
Individuating games
Games, which philosophers commonly invoke as models for diverse phenomena, are plausibly understood in terms of rules and goals, but this gives rise to two puzzles. The first concerns the identity of a single game over time. Intuitively one and the same game can undergo a change in rules, as when the rules of chess were modified so that a pawn could be moved two squares forward on its first move. Yet if games are individuated in terms of their co…
Having It Both Ways
A recent trend in metaethics has been to reject the apparent choice between pure cognitivism and pure noncognitivism by adopting views that seek to combine the strengths of each side while avoiding the standard problems for each. Some such views claim that moral judgments are complexes of belief-like and desire-like components. Other such views claim that normative language serves both to ascribe properties and to express desire-like attitudes. T…
Revolutionary Expressivism
While the meta‐ethical error theory has been of philosophical interest for some time now, only recently a debate has emerged about the question what is to be done if the error theory turns out to be true. This paper argues for a novel answer to this question, namely revolutionary expressivism: if the error theory is true, we should become expressivists. Additionally, the paper explores certain important but largely ignored methodological issues t…
Preempting Principles
Moral particularism, as recently defended, charges that traditional moral theorizing unduly privileges moral principles. Moral generalism defends a prominent place for moral principles. Because moral principles are often asked to play multiple roles, moral particularism aims at multiple targets. We distinguish two leading roles for moral principles, the role of standard and the role of guide. We critically survey some of the leading arguments bot…
How to Avoid Being Driven to Consequentialism
Demand for Local Public Spending
The British Social Attitudes Survey (BSAS) is a UK-wide survey that provides a rich source of information on individuals attitudes to a variety of topics including locally provided service. In this paper we seek to model answers to questions on attitudes to local authority spending which invite the expression of a private demand for local public spending. A convincing picture has emerged of locally provided public goods as imperfectly congested p…
How to Avoid Being Driven to Consequentialism
Saving Scanlon
What Does Holism Have to Do With Moral Particularism
Moral particularists are united in their opposition to the codification of morality, and their work poses an important challenge to traditional ways of thinking about moral philosophy. Defenders of moral particularism have, with near unanimity, sought support from a doctrine they call ‘holism in the theory of reasons.’ We argue that this is all a mistake. There are two ways in which holism in the theory of reasons can be understood, but neither p…
Constitutive Generalism
According to one dimension of the generalist tradition, moral principles are built into the very meaning of moral predicates. They are analytic truths, and thus anyone who is in fact competent with a given moral concept is (perhaps implicitly) committed to the associated principle that spells out the object to which the concept applies. On this view, certain moral principles are constitutive of moral thought and judgment; this view is called ‘con…
From Moral Knowledge to Default Principles
This chapter argues that the bare possibility of moral knowledge in particular cases is already enough to ensure the availability of a certain sort of ‘hedged’ moral principle called a ‘default principle’. Default principles are consistent with holism about reasons because they claim that a given action has a given moral property only if no further feature of the situation explains why it does not. One obvious worry about this proposal is that de…
Holism about Reasons
Particularists often try to draw support for their view from the alleged context sensitivity of reasons, and more specifically holism. According to holism about reasons, a consideration that is a reason in one context may not be similarly a reason in another context because of differences in the presence or absence of defeating and enabling conditions. This chapter distinguishes several versions of the argument from holism, and shows that despite…
Generalism as a Regulative Ideal
This chapter argues that there are reasons to try to codify the moral landscape, and that these reasons are recognizably moral. A proper understanding of the nature of historical moral progress bolsters this argument. The task of codifying morality is best understood as a collective one. Like many collective tasks, it is most efficiently pursued with a suitable division of labor. The chapter defends some of the traditional notions of moral theory…
Moral Vision
Particularism is commonly associated with a moral epistemology that takes perception as a model. This chapter argues that in so far as moral judgments are made by ‘just looking’, this does nothing to support particularism. A close examination of the role of rules and principles in chess helps make this point. Although metaphors of vision are commonplace in discussions of chess (the master ‘just sees’ that the position is weak), this rightly does …
Many Moral Particularisms
This chapter identifies moral particularism as a family of theses all of which involve some sort of negative assessment of moral principles. Family members are distinguished by the different negative attitudes taken and by different conceptions of what a moral principle is. It argues that a proper evaluation of the arguments for moral particularism must be sensitive to these distinctions.
Default Reasons
Because of its extremely ecumenical view of what considerations might count as reasons, particularism threatens to ‘flatten the moral landscape’ by making it seem that there is no deep difference between, for example pain and shoelace color. After all, particularists have claimed, either could provide a reason provided a suitable moral context. To avoid this result, particularists can try to draw a distinction between default and non-default reas…
Beyond Default Principles
This chapter argues against the hedged principles laid out in Chapter 6. It contends that the best explanation of the possibility of practical wisdom entails that morality can be codified. It gives three main arguments. The first argument contends that generalism as a regulative ideal better preserves a broad scope for practical wisdom than its particularist rivals. In pressing this argument, it is shown how generalism is better situated to accom…
Principled Guidance
Morality is a practical matter that concerns choice and action, and a sound moral outlook should be capable of motivating someone to act virtuously. Hence, it is reasonable to expect that moral principles might play an important role in guiding action. This final chapter addresses this concern, and explains how moral principles can and should play an important role in guiding action. Moral principles can help us avoid the all too human failings o…
Introducing Variable-Rate Rule-Utilitarianism
The basic idea of rule‐utilitarianism is that right action should be defined in terms of what would be required by rules which would maximize either actual or expected utility if those rules gained general acceptance, or perhaps general compliance. Rule‐utilitarians face a dilemma. They must characterize ‘general acceptance’ either as 100% acceptance, or as something less. On the first horn of the dilemma, rule‐utilitarianism is vulnerable to the…
Principled Ethics
Moral philosophy has long treated principles as indispensable for understanding its subject matter. However, the underlying assumption that this is the best approach has received almost no defence, and has been attacked by particularists who argue that the traditional link between morality and principles is little more than an unwarranted prejudice. This book meets this particularist challenge head on and defends a distinctive view called ‘genera…
Ecumenical Expressivism
Michael Smith ‘s thesis is about evaluative judgments, but he could just as easily be talking about normative judgments— judgments about reasons for action and judgments about what one ought to do. Indeed, on T. M. Scanlon ‘s intriguing ‘buck-passing ‘ account of evaluative judgment, evaluative judgment just is normative judgment in disguise. In what sense are normative judgments Janus-faced, though? In some respects, they seem like ordinary beli…
Ethics without Principles
Book Review| January 01 2007 Ethics without Principles Jonathan Dancy, Ethics without Principles. Oxford: Clarendon, 2004. x + 229 pp. Michael Ridge; Michael Ridge Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Sean McKeever Sean McKeever Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2007) 116 (1): 124–128. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-2006-027 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter…
Preempting Principles
Moral particularism, as recently defended, charges that traditional moral theorizing unduly privileges moral principles. Moral generalism defends a prominent place for moral principles. Because moral principles are often asked to play multiple roles, moral particularism aims at multiple targets. We distinguish two leading roles for moral principles, the role of standard and the role of guide. We critically survey some of the leading arguments bot…
Revolutionary Expressivism
While the meta‐ethical error theory has been of philosophical interest for some time now, only recently a debate has emerged about the question what is to be done if the error theory turns out to be true. This paper argues for a novel answer to this question, namely revolutionary expressivism: if the error theory is true, we should become expressivists. Additionally, the paper explores certain important but largely ignored methodological issues t…
Naïve Practical Reasoning and the Second-Person Standpoint
Having It Both Ways
A recent trend in metaethics has been to reject the apparent choice between pure cognitivism and pure noncognitivism by adopting views that seek to combine the strengths of each side while avoiding the standard problems for each. Some such views claim that moral judgments are complexes of belief-like and desire-like components. Other such views claim that normative language serves both to ascribe properties and to express desire-like attitudes. T…
Impassioned Belief
Michael Ridge presents an original expressivist theory of normative judgments which offers distinctive treatments of key problems in metaethics, semantics, and practical reasoning. He argues that normative judgments are hybrid states partly constituted by ordinary beliefs and partly constituted by desire-like states
I Might Be Fundamentally Mistaken
Quasi-realism aspires to preserve the intelligibility of the realist-sounding moral judgments of ordinary people. These judgments include ones of the form, “I believe that p, but I might be mistaken,” where p is some moral content. The orthodox quasi-realist strategy (famously developed by Simon Blackburn) is to understand these in terms of the agent’s worrying that some improving change would lead one to abandon the relevant moral belief. Howeve…
Games and the Good Life
It is widely agreed that play and games contribute to the good life. One might naturally wonder how games in particular so contribute? Granted, games can be very good, what exactly is so good about them when they are good? Although a natural starting point, this question is perhaps naive. Games come in all shapes and sizes, and different games are often good in very different ways. Chess, Bridge, Bingo, Chutes and Ladders, Football, Spin the Bott…
Individuating games
Games, which philosophers commonly invoke as models for diverse phenomena, are plausibly understood in terms of rules and goals, but this gives rise to two puzzles. The first concerns the identity of a single game over time. Intuitively one and the same game can undergo a change in rules, as when the rules of chess were modified so that a pawn could be moved two squares forward on its first move. Yet if games are individuated in terms of their co…
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