I'm not sure how much we really disagree here. Your comments about physics suggest that you're thinking about "primitives" in a different sense from what I'm trying to get at.
I have pretty deflationary instincts here, and try to stress in the paper that I take my view to be compatible with reasons fundamentalism, for example (in contrast to those who think there are really deep questions about priority to answer here).
My goals are more pragmatic. Moral philosophers use various concepts in their theorizing, and may differ in which they *treat* as fundamental, or determinative of substantive (vs merely verbal) disagreement. (If you disagree in your application of a fundamental concept, then you have a substantive disagreement. If you disagree in applying merely derivative concepts, the disagreement may be merely verbal.) Different concepts are more or less illuminating, or more or less likely to lead them astray. I argue that fittingness is the best concept for moral philosophers to *treat as fundamental* when expressing their theories and disagreements with one another. Why?
Well, in short, the two main alternatives have simple flaws.
Value primitivism leads philosophers like Toby Ord to think that "Global Consequentialism" is importantly distinct from (and superior to) Act Consequentialism. As I argue in the paper, it isn't.
Reasons fundamentalism invites the "wrong kind of reasons problem". Way too much ink has been spilled on this pseudo-problem.
Fittingness avoids both these problems, and doesn't introduce any new ones. So the Fittingness framework is better.
Maybe the true normative primitive is evolutionary fitness — or more precisely, the set of moral desires evolution gifted us because it expected them to maximize our evolutionary fitness.
I'm not sure how much we really disagree here. Your comments about physics suggest that you're thinking about "primitives" in a different sense from what I'm trying to get at.
I have pretty deflationary instincts here, and try to stress in the paper that I take my view to be compatible with reasons fundamentalism, for example (in contrast to those who think there are really deep questions about priority to answer here).
My goals are more pragmatic. Moral philosophers use various concepts in their theorizing, and may differ in which they *treat* as fundamental, or determinative of substantive (vs merely verbal) disagreement. (If you disagree in your application of a fundamental concept, then you have a substantive disagreement. If you disagree in applying merely derivative concepts, the disagreement may be merely verbal.) Different concepts are more or less illuminating, or more or less likely to lead them astray. I argue that fittingness is the best concept for moral philosophers to *treat as fundamental* when expressing their theories and disagreements with one another. Why?
Well, in short, the two main alternatives have simple flaws.
Value primitivism leads philosophers like Toby Ord to think that "Global Consequentialism" is importantly distinct from (and superior to) Act Consequentialism. As I argue in the paper, it isn't.
Reasons fundamentalism invites the "wrong kind of reasons problem". Way too much ink has been spilled on this pseudo-problem.
Fittingness avoids both these problems, and doesn't introduce any new ones. So the Fittingness framework is better.
Do you disagree with that?
Well, I disagree with both of you lmao
#reasonsfundamentalismgang
Maybe the true normative primitive is evolutionary fitness — or more precisely, the set of moral desires evolution gifted us because it expected them to maximize our evolutionary fitness.