Metaethics
Metaethics is concerned with the metaphysics, semantics and epistemology of moral value, normativity and practical reason; with moral realism, naturalism, nonnaturalism, expressivism, relativism, fictionalism; with truth and objectivity in ethics; and with the history of these topics
Staff:
James Lenman and Yonatan Shemmer both specialize in this field and have interests that range broadly across it. Shemmer is especially interested in issues about practical reason and the merits of a Humean, instrumentalist approach to these. He has also written on full information theories of well being. Lenman is primarily interested in exploring an expressivist approach to metaethics. In 2006-2007 he is on leave to pursue an AHRC-funded project on moral epistemology. He is President of the British Society for Ethical Theory.
The Constructivism Project is a one year project on constructivism in practical philosophy. The project will run during 2009 and will bring philosophers from around the world to Sheffield for a series of workshops and a conference.
Bob Hale has also written on expressivism, with particular focus on problems that arise for its handling of truth and inference.
Rob Hopkins is also interested in moral epistemology, in particular whether it is illicit to form moral beliefs on the basis of testimony, and, if so, why. He is also interested in issues to do with the objectivity of moral judgement, and in particular how it compares in this respect with judgements about other sorts of value.
Robert Stern is interested in questions to do with moral realism, and how these relate to issues in metaphysics. At the moment he is working on the question of whether moral realism is compatible with autonomy, or whether (as some Kantians argue) autonomy requires constructivism in ethics. Amongst ethical theorists, he is primarily interested in Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, MacIntyre and McDowell.
Christopher Hookway is particularly interested in modern American philosophy including ethics. He has recently published on Hilary Putnam’s metaethics. He is also interested in questions of normativity and virtue as they arise in epistemic contexts.
Jenny Saul is interested in various issues in metaethics, including feminist approaches to moral epistemology. David Owens’s and Christopher Bennett’s interests also extend to metaethics and its history. Stephen Laurence has written on moral realism and is director of a major project on "Culture and the Mind" that includes a three year subproject on "Norms and Moral Psychology". This project which will explore, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the nature of norms, the character of moral emotions, the role of sentiment in moral judgment, the role of reason in moral judgment, the origin of morals, and other fundamental issues in philosophical ethics. In addition, Stephen Stich, Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University is an Honourary Professor in the Department which he regularly visits. Together with various collaborators, Stich has recently undertaken empirical studies on moral judgement both within Western culture and cross-culturally, and has worked on theories that attempt to explain the biological and cultural influences on the evolution of morality. This has led to a series of papers exploring the implications of these findings for debates in moral philosophy.
MA Modules:
Current PhD Students:
Jonathan Smith
Moral Realism (Lenman/Shemmer)
Anna Wilkinson
Moral Naturalism (Bennett/Lenman)
Recent PhD Students:
Vince East
Saints & Heroes: Candidates for Ethical Exemplarity (2004) (Wenar/Saul)
Abolghasem Fanaei
Moral Epistemology (2003)(Joyce/Stern)
Simon Kirchin
The Metaphysics of Value (2000) (Bell/Joyce)