The Grammar of Obligation: An Investigation of the Views of Four British Moralists

This thesis is about the logic of moral language; in particular, the grammar of the term 'ought'. My argument owes much to the work of Wittgenstein, and in the introductory chapter I discuss certain of his ideas which are relevant to the thesis as a whole (e.g., the notion of a language-game and the associated idea of a grammatical remark). In the chapters which follow, I look at the views of four British moral philosophers: Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Richard Price, and Henry Sidgwick. Although two of these philosophers give naturalistic accounts of obligation and two give intuitionistic accounts; I argue that in all four cases the view in question is marred by confusion over the logic of moral terms (i.e. a misunderstanding of the nature of our moral language-games).

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Philosophy

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• MacNeil, Kevin M.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Winch, Peter

• Philosophy

Identifier

(UMI)AAI9236528

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/72597