Society-Centered Moral Theory

Abstract

Abstract We have seen that any paradigmatic moral proposition entails, nontrivially, that some relevant moral standard has a specific authoritative status. Under what conditions would a standard have that status? I speak of this status as that of being “justified.” What is the nature of this status? According to the attitudinal theory, a moral code either is, or is a “model” for, a social moral code. Call this the “model principle.” Given this principle, I will suggest, it is natural to evaluate moral codes on the basis of how well they would serve as the social moral code in a given society. A moral code is justified, for a given society, if it is the code that would serve best as its social moral code.