Abstract
Thick concepts have been central in metaethical debates over the last few decades, for instance in the controversy between cognitivism and non-cognitisivism or in the fact/value distinction. They are characterised as world guided, action guiding and community shared. In this paper, thick concepts are used to analyse case law on blasphemy from the European Court of Human Rights. When conducting this analysis, the test of civility proposed by Habermas and Rawls will also be applied. Public reason obligates the use of reasons accessible to all, that is to say not with a particular/thick meaning, in the public sphere.
Highlights
Thick concepts have been central in metaethical debates over the last few decades, for instance in the controversy between cognitivism and non-cognitisivism or in the fact/value distinction
This paper looks to present a version of the thick concepts that could be suitably applied in the rights balance on free speech issues, which is sometimes viewed as especially vague and indeterminate
‘World guidedness’ and the degree of empirical content differences are consequences, or even causes, of the deeper difference between thin and thick concepts; the former stemming from abstract ethical ideas and the latter reflecting the distinctive character of particular social goods, such as: ‘coward’, ‘lie’ ‘betrayal’, ‘brutality’, ‘honour’ and ‘gratitude’ (Scanlon, 2003, 276-277)
Summary
‘World guidedness’ and the degree of empirical content differences are consequences, or even causes, of the deeper difference between thin and thick concepts; the former stemming from abstract ethical ideas and the latter reflecting the distinctive character of particular social goods, such as: ‘coward’, ‘lie’ ‘betrayal’, ‘brutality’, ‘honour’ and ‘gratitude’ (Scanlon, 2003, 276-277). The term ‘world-guided’ suggests that what distinguishes thick concepts is a kind of objectivity, that judgements using these concepts can express knowledge because (in virtue of their thickness) they make claims about the world –claims that are made true by ( their proper use “guided by”) what the world is like (Scanlon, 2003, 276). Cognitivist claimed for their examples that the interconnection between evaluation and description was beyond non-cognitivism capturing. Non-cognitivism had to see the description as essentially independent of the evaluation in way that made it always accessible for the outsider (Scanlon, 2003, 276)
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