Abstract
Stephen Darwall has developed an account of moral obligations as grounded in “second-personal reasons,” which was developed in conversation with early modern “theological voluntarists” who were divine command theorists. For Darwall, morality does not require accountability to God; humans as autonomous moral agents are the source of moral obligations. In this paper, I try to show that Darwall is vulnerable to some objections made against divine command theories. There are responses Darwall could make that have parallels to those given by divine command theorists. However, those responses require moral realism, while Darwall’s project is often seen as being inspired by metaethical constructivism. Finally, I suggest that Darwall’s view could be further strengthened by the addition of God to the story.
Highlights
Humans as autonomous moral agents are the source of moral obligations
The account is inspired by themes in Fichte and Kant, but it is developed in conversation with early modern “theological voluntarists,” such as Pufendorf and Locke, who defended a divine command account of moral obligations
Like these early modern thinkers, Darwall wants to hold that moral obligations are grounded in the demands of persons, that moral obligations are linked to being accountable for such demands, and that persons can be held blameworthy when these obligations are not fulfilled
Summary
Darwall has made an impressive case for the role of what he calls “second-personal reasons” as the basis of morality. The argument begins with a defense of a “juridical” view of moral obligations. Doing wrong simpliciter is conceptually linked to a demand that one would be blameworthy for not recognizing, but the demand is not one that must be made by anyone: “no moral obligation period, and so no bipolar obligations or moral claim right, can exist unless non-discretionary demands exist that do not depend on being made by anyone with the individual authority to make them.”. Doing wrong simpliciter is conceptually linked to a demand that one would be blameworthy for not recognizing, but the demand is not one that must be made by anyone: “no moral obligation period, and so no bipolar obligations or moral claim right, can exist unless non-discretionary demands exist that do not depend on being made by anyone with the individual authority to make them.”6 These “non-discretionary demands” are made by everyone and no one, one might say. Darwall is quite explicit that “the moral community as I understand it is not any actual community composed of actual human beings,” but rather is a “regulative ideal that we employ to make sense of our ethical thought and practice.” I shall try to argue that the fictional character of the moral community poses problems for Darwall if he is understood as a constructivist
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