The Underdetermination of Moral Theories

Marius Baumann (Universität Munchen)

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English

Cambridge University Press
27 March 2025

Western philosophy: Enlightenment; Ethics & moral philosophy; Religious ethics; Social issues & processes

In normative ethics, a small number of moral theories, such as Kantianism or consequentialism, take centre stage. Conventional wisdom has it that these individual theories posit very different ways of looking at the world. In this book Marius Baumann develops the idea that just as scientific theories can be underdetermined by data, so can moral theories be underdetermined by our considered judgments about particular cases. Baumann goes on to ask whether moral theories from different traditions might arrive at the same verdicts while remaining explanatorily incompatible. He applies this idea to recent projects in normative ethics, such as Derek Parfit's On What Matters and so-called consequentializing and deontologizing, and outlines its important implications for our understanding of the relationship between the main moral traditions as well as the moral realism debate. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

By: Marius Baumann (Universität Munchen)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
ISBN: 9781009492447
ISBN 10: 1009492446
Pages: 246
Publication Date: 27 March 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Marius Baumann is Academic Director of the Centre for Ethics and Philosophy in Practice at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. His articles have appeared in Synthese, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, and Ethical Theory and Moral Practice.

Reviews for The Underdetermination of Moral Theories

'Ethicists have recently discovered that the traditional ethical theories are in fact very flexible and so can agree on most things. Baumann uses tools from philosophy of science to provide the first systematic treatment of this discovery. His book is a well-researched, highly original, and rigorously argued exploration of an exciting new topic in normative ethics.' Jussi Suikkanen, University of Birmingham