Thick Evaluation

Thick Evaluation

Author: Simon Kirchin

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 0198803435

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The descriptions 'good' and 'bad' are examples of thin concepts, as opposed to 'kind' or 'cruel' which are thick concepts. Simon Kirchin provides one of the first full-length studies of the crucial distinction between 'thin' and 'thick' concepts, which is fundamental to many debates in ethics, aesthetics and epistemology


Truth and Norms

Truth and Norms

Author: Filippo Ferrari

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2021-11-15

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 9781793622679

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Truth and Norms develops a novel pluralistic view of the normative role that truth exerts on judgements. This view, labeled normative alethic pluralism, provides the best explanation of the variable normative significance that disagreement exhibits in different areas of discourse and is fully compatible with a minimalist conception of truth.


Giving Reasons

Giving Reasons

Author: David R. Morrow

Publisher: Hackett Publishing

Published: 2017-09-01

Total Pages: 98

ISBN-13: 162466623X

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Giving Reasons prepares students to think independently, evaluate information, and reason clearly across disciplines. Accessible to students and effective for instructors, it provides plain-English exercises, helpful appendices, and a variety of online supplements.


The Normative and the Natural

The Normative and the Natural

Author: Michael P. Wolf

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-08-31

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 3319336878

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Drawing on a rich pragmatist tradition, this book offers an account of the different kinds of ‘oughts’, or varieties of normativity, that we are subject to contends that there is no conflict between normativity and the world as science describes it. The authors argue that normative claims aim to evaluate, to urge us to do or not do something, and to tell us how a state of affairs ought to be. These claims articulate forms of action-guidance that are different in kind from descriptive claims, with a wholly distinct practical and expressive character. This account suggests that there are no normative facts, and so nothing that needs any troublesome shoehorning into a scientific account of the world. This work explains that nevertheless, normative claims are constrained by the world, and answerable to reason and argumentation, in a way that makes them truth-apt and objective.


Thick Concepts

Thick Concepts

Author: Simon Kirchin

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2013-04-25

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0191652504

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What is the difference between judging someone to be good and judging them to be kind? Both judgements are typically positive, but the latter seems to offer more description of the person: we get a more specific sense of what they are like. Very general evaluative concepts (such as good, bad, right and wrong) are referred to as thin concepts, whilst more specific ones (including brave, rude, gracious, wicked, sympathetic, and mean) are termed thick concepts. In this volume, an international team of experts addresses the questions that this distinction opens up. How do the descriptive and evaluative functions or elements of thick concepts combine with each other? Are these functions or elements separable in the first place? Is there a sharp division between thin and thick concepts? Can we mark interesting further distinctions between how thick ethical concepts work and how other thick concepts work, such as those found in aesthetics and epistemology? How, if at all, are thick concepts related to reasons and action? These questions, and others, touch on some of the deepest philosophical issues about the evaluative and normative. They force us to think hard about the place of the evaluative in a (seemingly) nonevaluative world, and raise fascinating issues about how language works.


The Normative and the Evaluative

The Normative and the Evaluative

Author: Richard Rowland

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-02-07

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0192570226

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Many have been attracted to the idea that for something to be good there just have to be reasons to favour it. This view has come to be known as the buck-passing account of value. According to this account, for pleasure to be good there need to be reasons for us to desire and pursue it. Likewise for liberty and equality to be values there have to be reasons for us to promote and preserve them. Extensive discussion has focussed on some of the problems that the buck-passing account faces, such as the 'wrong kind of reason' problem. Less attention, however, has been paid as to why we should accept the buck-passing account or what the theoretical pay-offs and other implications of accepting it are. The Normative and the Evaluative provides the first comprehensive motivation and defence of the buck-passing account of value. Richard Rowland argues that the buck-passing account explains several important features of the relationship between reasons and value, as well as the relationship between the different varieties of value, in a way that its competitors do not. He shows that alternatives to the buck-passing account are inconsistent with important views in normative ethics, uninformative, and at odds with the way in which we should see practical and epistemic normativity as related. In addition, he extends the buck-passing account to provide an account of moral properties as well as all other normative and deontic properties and concepts, such as fittingness and 'ought', in terms of reasons.


Ethical Intuitionism

Ethical Intuitionism

Author: M. Huemer

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2007-12-14

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 023059705X

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A defence of ethical intuitionism where (i) there are objective moral truths; (ii) we know these through an immediate, intellectual awareness, or 'intuition'; and (iii) knowing them gives us reasons to act independent of our desires. The author rebuts the major objections to this theory and shows the difficulties in alternative theories of ethics.


From Normativity to Responsibility

From Normativity to Responsibility

Author: Joseph Raz

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-12-08

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0199693811

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What are our duties or rights? How should we act? What are we responsible for? Joseph Raz examines the philosophical issues underlying these everyday questions. He explores the nature of normativity--the reasoning behind certain beliefs and emotions about how we should behave--and offers a novel account of responsibility.


Normativity and the Problem of Representation

Normativity and the Problem of Representation

Author: Matthew S. Bedke

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-06-04

Total Pages: 572

ISBN-13: 1000672832

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This book tackles questions which revolve around the representational purport (or lack thereof) of evaluative and normative claims. Claims about what we ought to do, what is best, what is justified, or simply what counts as a good reason for action—in other words, evaluative or normative claims—are familiar. But when we pause to ask what these claims mean and what we are doing when we use them, puzzles arise. Are there facts of the matter about what ought to be done, much like there are facts of the matter about mathematics or the natural world? If so, "ought claims" are probably trying to represent the "ought facts". Alternatively, perhaps there are no evaluative facts, in which case evaluative claims are either trying to represent facts which do not exist, or evaluative claims are not in the representation business to begin with. The latter option is intriguing, and it is the subject of much recent work in expressivism, pragmatism, and semantic relativism. But if ought claims are not representing anything as factual, why do we think such claims are true or false, and what are we doing when we disagree with one another about them? This book sheds light on this important area of philosophy. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy.


The Evaluation Society

The Evaluation Society

Author: Peter Dahler-Larsen

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2011-11-09

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 0804778124

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Evaluation—whether called by this name, quality assurance, audit, accreditation, or others—is an important social activity. Any organization that "lives in public" must now evaluate its activities, be evaluated by others, or evaluate others. What are the origins of this wave of evaluation? And, what worthwhile results emerge from it? The Evaluation Society argues that if we want to understand many of the norms, values, and expectations that we, sometimes unknowingly, bring to evaluation, we should explore how evaluation is demanded, formatted, and shaped by two great principles of social order: organization and society. With this understanding, we can more conscientiously participate in evaluation processes; better position ourselves to understand many of the mysteries, tensions, and paradoxes in evaluation; and use evaluation in a more informed way. After exploring the sociology and organization of evaluation in this landmark work, author Peter Dahler-Larsen concludes by discussing issues that are critical for the future of evaluation—as a discipline and a societal norm.