Moral Relevance and Ceteris Paribus Principles

Bibliographic Data

ID8092337
AuthorsRobert L Frazier (corresponding author)
Year1995
Volume8
Issue2
Pages113-125
Publication date1995-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueRatio (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0034-0006 • E-ISSN: 1467-9329
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9329.1995.tb00074.x
OpenAlexW2082714790
LanguageEN
Citations received39

My goal in this paper is twofold: to provide an account of what makes properties morally relevant, and to indicate the role such properties have in our moral thinking. I suppose that a property is morally relevant just in case it must, ceteris paribus , determine the moral status (the rightness or wrongness) of actions having it. The main part of the paper concerns the conditions under which the ceteris paribus caveat is satisfied, that is, when other things are equal. I argue that the caveat is satisfied when, with respect to a proposed set of morally relevant properties, an act differs from its alternatives at most in the degree to which it has one of those properties. Since other things are seldom equal, it is natural to wonder why what is true when they are equal should be important when they are not. That is, why is moral relevance, as I characterize it, a useful moral notion? I suggest that it is only by recognizing the moral relevance of properties that we are able to engage in useful moral thinking about the future

Ceteris paribus · Epistemology · Moral disengagement · Political science · Relevance (law · Wonder · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Free Will and Agency · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Psychology · Law · Philosophy · Social Psychology

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