Moral and Conventional Norms - or how to read and reconstruct Adam Smiths Moral Philosophy
Foredragsholder: Professor Christel Fricke, Senter for studier av rasjonell, språklig og moralsk handling. Se sammendrag på engelsk.
Møtet ledes av professor Jan Terje Faarlund (bilde), formann i den historisk-filosofiske klasse. Åpent møte. Ingen påmelding.
Abstrac
In this paper, I sketch – relying on the method of a thought experiment – an interactive process of conflict solution and moral learning which brings about agreements on social and moral norms as well as the motivation to act in accordance with them. The norms emerging from this process are justified in virtue of certain features of the process itself.
This sketch is inspired by what Adam Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, says about human morality. The process as I reconstruct it bears important similarities with the process of convention building as it has been described by David Lewis. Against this background, I explore in which way social norms can be both conventional and provided with the normative authority characteristic of moral norms nevertheless.
