I�Grounding and Normative Explanation

• Autores: Pekka Väyrynen
• Localización: Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, ISSN-e 1467-8349, Vol. 87, Nº. 1, 2013, págs. 155-178
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This paper concerns non-causal normative explanations such as �This act is wrong because/in virtue of__� (where the blank is often filled out in non-normative terms, such as �it causes pain�). The familiar intuition that normative facts aren't brute or ungrounded but anchored in non-normative facts seems to be in tension with the equally familiar idea that no normative fact can be fully explained in purely non-normative terms. I ask whether the tension could be resolved by treating the explanatory relation in normative explanations as the sort of �grounding� relation that receives extensive discussion in recent metaphysics. I argue that this would help only under controversial assumptions about the nature of normative facts, and perhaps not even then. I won't try to resolve the tension, but draw a distinction between two different sorts of normative explanations (one concerning �bearers�, the other concerning �sources� of normativity) which helps to identify constraints on a resolution. One distinctive constraint on normative explanations in particular might be that they should be able to play a role in normative justification.