ABSTRACT

Comparisons between morality and other ‘companion’ disciplines – such as mathematics, religion, or aesthetics – are commonly used in philosophy, often in the context of arguing for the objectivity of morality. This is known as the ‘companions in guilt’ strategy. It has been the subject of much debate in contemporary ethics and metaethics.

This volume, the first full length examination of companions in guilt arguments, comprises an introduction by the editors and a dozen new chapters by leading authors in the field. They examine the methodology of companions in guilt arguments and their use in responding to the moral error theory, as well as specific arguments that take mathematics, epistemic norms, or aesthetics as a ‘companion’, and the use of the companions in guilt strategy to vindicate claims to moral knowledge.

Companions in Guilt Arguments in Metaethics is essential reading for advanced students and researchers working in moral theory and metaethics, as well as those in epistemology and philosophy of mathematics concerned with the intersection of these subjects with ethics.

chapter |16 pages

Introduction

part I|2 pages

Methodology

chapter 1|2 pages

Companions in guilt

Entailment, analogy, and absorption

chapter 2|16 pages

Two kinds of companion in guilt

part II|2 pages

Normativity and the error theory

chapter 3|20 pages

Moral and epistemic normativity

The guilty and the innocent

chapter 4|13 pages

Metaethics out of speech acts?

Moral error theory and the possibility of speech

part III|2 pages

Alternative companions: mathematics and aesthetics

part IV|2 pages

Moral epistemology

chapter 10|14 pages

Ethics and perception

172Two kinds of quasi-realism 1

chapter 12|22 pages

Companions in love

Iris Murdoch on attunement in the condition of moral realism