Natural Goodness and ‘Second Nature’
Natural Goodness and ‘Second Nature’
John McDowell and David Wiggins
This chapter examines John McDowell's ‘re-enchanted’ naturalism; a position that builds on Foot's and seeks to answer the objection advanced in Chapter 5. After offering an exposition of McDowell's wider position, the chapter defends the legitimacy of a demand for an explanation of the reliability of human moral cognition against McDowell's quietism. It seeks to demonstrate both that an explanation is required, and that McDowell cannot provide one. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of David Wiggins' weaker conception of objectivity in ethics. It argues that Wiggins' position offers further confirmation of the central thesis of the book: that the explanatory gap is only evaded by positions which fail to do justice to our pre-philosophical commitments.
Keywords: aristotelianism, ethical naturalism, moral realism, Mcdowell, Wiggins, subjectivism
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
