Edward Harcourt (philosopher)

Last updated
Edward Harcourt
Education University of Oxford (PhD)
Awards Fellow of Keble College
Era 21st-century philosophy
Region Western philosophy
School Analytic
Institutions University of Oxford, Royal Institute of Philosophy
Main interests
moral philosophy, practical ethics, Wittgenstein

Edward Harcourt is a British philosopher and Professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford. He has been a Fellow of Keble College, Oxford (since 2005), Mind Association Research Fellow, visiting research fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and Wittgenstein Professor at the University of Innsbruck. [1] Harcourt is the academic director of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. [2] [3] He is known for his works on moral philosophy and thick concepts. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [ excessive citations ]

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Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Consequentialism</span> Ethical theory based on consequences

In moral philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgement about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right act is one that will produce a good outcome. Consequentialism, along with eudaimonism, falls under the broader category of teleological ethics, a group of views which claim that the moral value of any act consists in its tendency to produce things of intrinsic value. Consequentialists hold in general that an act is right if and only if the act will produce, will probably produce, or is intended to produce, a greater balance of good over evil than any available alternative. Different consequentialist theories differ in how they define moral goods, with chief candidates including pleasure, the absence of pain, the satisfaction of one's preferences, and broader notions of the "general good".

Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied ethics, and metaethics.

In metaphilosophy and ethics, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, ground, and meaning of moral judgment, ethical belief, or values. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics and applied ethics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morality</span> Differentiation between right and wrong

Morality is the categorization of intentions, decisions and actions into those that are proper, or right, and those that are improper, or wrong. Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that is understood to be universal. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness", "appropriateness" or "rightness".

Moral realism is the position that ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world, some of which may be true to the extent that they report those features accurately. This makes moral realism a non-nihilist form of ethical cognitivism with an ontological orientation, standing in opposition to all forms of moral anti-realism and moral skepticism, including ethical subjectivism, error theory, and non-cognitivism. Moral realism's two main subdivisions are ethical naturalism and ethical non-naturalism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">R. M. Hare</span> British moral philosopher (1919–2002)

Richard Mervyn Hare, usually cited as R. M. Hare, was a British moral philosopher who held the post of White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford from 1966 until 1983. He subsequently taught for a number of years at the University of Florida. His meta-ethical theories were influential during the second half of the twentieth century.

In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, rather than based on the consequences of the action. It is sometimes described as duty-, obligation-, or rule-based ethics. Deontological ethics is commonly contrasted to consequentialism, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and pragmatic ethics. In this terminology, action is more important than the consequences.

Moral nihilism is the meta-ethical view that nothing is morally right or morally wrong and that morality does not exist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philippa Foot</span> English philosopher (1920–2010)

Philippa Ruth Foot was an English philosopher and one of the founders of contemporary virtue ethics. Her work was inspired by Aristotelian ethics. Along with Judith Jarvis Thomson, she is credited with inventing the trolley problem. She was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society.

John Edmund Hare is a British classicist, philosopher, ethicist, and currently the Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University.

Evolutionary ethics is a field of inquiry that explores how evolutionary theory might bear on our understanding of ethics or morality. The range of issues investigated by evolutionary ethics is quite broad. Supporters of evolutionary ethics have argued that it has important implications in the fields of descriptive ethics, normative ethics, and metaethics.

Moral particularism is a theory in normative ethics that runs counter to the idea that moral actions can be determined by applying universal moral principles. It states that there is no set of moral principles that can be applied to every situation, making it an idea appealing to the causal nature of morally challenging situations. Moral judgements are said to be determined by factors of relevance with the consideration of a particular context. A moral particularist, for example, would argue that homicide cannot be judged to be morally wrong until all the morally relevant facts are known. While this stands in stark contrast to other prominent moral theories, such as deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics, it finds its way into jurisprudence, with the idea of justifiable homicide, for instance. In this case, the morally relevant facts are based on context rather than principle. Critics would argue that even in this case, the principle still informs morally right action.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geoffrey Sayre-McCord</span> American philosopher

Geoffrey Sayre-McCord is an American philosopher who works in moral theory, ethics, meta-ethics, the history of ethics and epistemology. He teaches at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is also the director of the Philosophy, Politics and Economics Society.

Robert L. Holmes is a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Rochester, and an expert on issues of peace and nonviolence. Holmes specializes in ethics, and in social and political philosophy. He has written numerous articles and several books on those topics, and has been invited to address national and international conferences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pragmatic ethics</span> Theory of normative philosophical ethics and meta-ethics

Pragmatic ethics is a theory of normative philosophical ethics and meta-ethics. Ethical pragmatists such as John Dewey believe that some societies have progressed morally in much the way they have attained progress in science. Scientists can pursue inquiry into the truth of a hypothesis and accept the hypothesis, in the sense that they act as though the hypothesis were true; nonetheless, they think that future generations can advance science, and thus future generations can refine or replace their accepted hypotheses. Similarly, ethical pragmatists think that norms, principles, and moral criteria are likely to be improved as a result of inquiry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Crary</span> American philosopher

Alice Crary is an American philosopher who currently holds the positions of University Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Faculty, The New School for Social Research in New York City and Visiting Fellow at Regent's Park College, University of Oxford, U.K..

Constantine Sandis is a Greek and British philosopher and entrepreneur. Having worked on philosophy of action, moral psychology, David Hume, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, in 2013 he became Professor of Philosophy at Oxford Brookes University. He is currently Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire and a Founding Director of author services firm Lex Academic.

Alan Harris Goldman is an American philosopher and William R. Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the College of William & Mary. He is known for his works on philosophy and popular culture, literature, morality, love, and beauty.

Moral progress refers to improvement in concepts such as moral beliefs and practices experienced on a societal scale. Michele Moody-Adams noted that "moral progress in belief involves deepening our grasp of existing moral concepts, while moral progress in practices involves realizing deepened moral understandings in behavior or social institutions".

Julia Markovits is an American philosopher and associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University. Previously she taught in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2009-2014). Markovits is known for her works on moral philosophy.

References

  1. "Wittgenstein's Ethical Enterprise and Related Matters – 3:AM Magazine".
  2. "Our new Academic Director". Royal Institute of Philosophy.
  3. "About". Royal Institute of Philosophy.
  4. Pickford, Henry. "Comments on Edward Harcourt's "The Theory of Approval and Disapproval"". Ethics Congress, CU Boulder.
  5. Kuusela, Oskari (2021). "Defending Diamond Against Harcourt: Wittgensteinian Moral Philosophy and the Subject Matter of Ethics". Cora Diamond on Ethics. Springer International Publishing: 81–102. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-59219-6_5.
  6. Byrne, Eleanor Alexandra (1 September 2020). "Striking the balance with epistemic injustice in healthcare: the case of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis". Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. 23 (3): 371–379. doi:10.1007/s11019-020-09945-4. ISSN   1572-8633.
  7. Cannon, N. D. (1 August 2020). "Irreducibly Thick Evaluation is not Thinly Evaluative". Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. 23 (3): 651–666. doi:10.1007/s10677-020-10108-w. ISSN   1572-8447.
  8. "Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality: A Critical Guide". NDPR.
  9. "Morality and the Emotions". NDPR.