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Rights and Needs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

Sheldon Wein
Sheldon Wein
Affiliation:
Westminster Institute, London
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Extract

Willard thinks we should be puzzled and perplexed about the relevance of morality in deciding what to do. His puzzlement stems from not being able to see any connection between facts and values. In particular, he holds that moral rights (if there are any) cannot be based on needs because needs are not really facts and, even if they were, there seems no way to bridge the fact/value gap between needs (construed as facts) and moral rights.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , Spring 1987 , pp. 55 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1987

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References

1 See, for example, Kim, J., “Concepts of Supervenience” in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 15 (1984–1985)Google Scholar.

2 Note that it is still a fact about someone who does not want comfort that if she is to have a comfortable summer she needs air conditioning.

3 Willard notes that there is often disagreement about what things people are thought to need. But, no one doubts that homo sapiens need oxygen to survive and, if someone were to doubt this, we know how to test the claim.

4 If anyone is to be an axe murderer she needs an axe. But, obviously, no moral rights follow from this or countless related needs.

5 Ethics III, Proposition VI. I thank S. A. M. Burns for drawing this to my attention.

6 Putnam, H., Reason, Truth, and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Richmond Campbell coined the phrase “fact/value holism”. See D. Butler, “Putnam's Internal Realism” and “Character Traits and Morality”, papers presented to the Canadian Philosophical Association meetings in 1985 and 1986, and Campbell's commentary on Butler.

7 I think there is a fact/value gap and I don't think that moral rights can be grounded on needs. So, I agree with Willard's conclusions. My complaints are confined to his arguments.