Abstract
Since Aristotle, ethical theory has been tied to what we call the Classical Deductivist Model. Classical deductivism consists of two tenets: (1) ethical truth is consistent and completely determinate, (2) all particular ethical truths are deducible from a set of exceptionless general principles. Ethical theorists as diverse as Aristotelian naturalists, ethical hedonists, utilitarians, Moorean intuitionists, Kantians, relativists and subjectivists share this common logical framework. The only exceptions are those, like emotivists and prescriptivists, who deny that ethical statements have any truth-values. Yet even these theorists have typically embraced tenets analogous to those of the Classical Deductivist Model. For example, the prescriptivist Hare insists that our moral prescriptions consist of a set of logically consistent, fully general principles.
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© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Koons, R.C., Seung, T.K. (1997). Defeasible Reasoning and Moral Dilemmas. In: Nute, D. (eds) Defeasible Deontic Logic. Synthese Library, vol 263. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8851-5_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8851-5_9
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