Theory-indexed moral contextualism

Abstract

Metaethical theories that are trying to account for moral disagreement face important challenges. On the one hand, if the semantic treatment of moral terms assigns a meaning too specifically related to a contextual parameter (like culture, religion, etc.) we might be ruling out the substantiality of moral disagreements, since disagreeing parties can be both correct under their own terms. On the other hand, if our treatment of moral terms ignores their relation to a contextual parameter, we might be unable to explain the nature of the very disagreement, as we ignored how parties ended up believing different things. This M.A thesis explores the theoretical room for one particular contextualist account of the meaning of moral terms: Theory-Indexed Moral Contextualism; in such a way that is able to model the substantiality of moral disagreements in a way both compatible with non-exclusionary disagreements and with standard externalist semantics.