The Research Seminar Series in Philosophy invites you to a seminar with Karl Bergman (Barcelona and Uppsala) together with Nils Franzén (Umeå) will give a presentation on Ought Simpliciter.
Abstract: “Ought”, it is often said, comes in a variety of flavors. In addition to ethical prescriptions – the ought of morality – there is, among others, the prudential ought, i.e., what the norms of self-interest oblige us to do, and the legal ought, i.e., what Swedish law prescribes. The implications of this phenomenon are controversial. One especially pressing question is whether there is, in addition to such relativized oughts, an ought simpliciter – that is, an ought addressing what to do all things considered. In this talk, we offer a semantic diagnosis of relativized oughts, i.e., statements concerning what we legally, morally, prudentially, etc. ought to do. According to this diagnosis, these are effectively equivalent to attitude ascriptions (“According to Creon, Antigone ought to…”). We propose to treat these ascriptions in the semantic framework of Gibbardian expressivism. In doing so, we offer a defense of the view that there is an ought simpliciter in addition to relativized oughts of legality, prudence, etc., against linguistic and metaethical challenges.
