Was Sellars an error theorist?

Peter Olen

Stephen P. Turner

pp. 2053-2075

in: Synthese 193 (7), 2016.

Abstract

Wilfrid Sellars described the moral syllogism that supports the inference “I ought to do x” from “Everyone ought to do x” as a “syntactical disguise” which embodies a “mistake.” He nevertheless regarded this form of reasoning as constitutive of the moral point of view. Durkheim was the source of much of this reasoning, and this context illuminates Sellars’ unusual philosophical reconstruction of the moral point of view in terms of the collective intentions of an ideal community of rational members for which the syllogism is empirically valid. The reconstruction also sheds light on the question of the status of common sense and normativity in Sellars’ naturalistic metaphysics.

Cited authors

Sellars Wilfrid