Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

How much indeterminacy is there in morality, and is it something the existence of which we should regret or welcome? The first step in answering this question is to acknowledge that indeterminacy comes not only in different degrees, but also in different forms. I distinguish between four forms of indeterminacy central to morality: vagueness, open-texture, comparison indeterminacy and indeterminacy in implementation. I argue that, contrary to the impression given by many moral philosophers, none of these four forms of indeterminacy is entailed by the others. It is, therefore, impossible to fully understand the phenomenon of moral indeterminacy by focusing on just one of them. With regard to each form of indeterminacy I then ask whether it constitutes a problem for moral theory and practice. In doing so, I focus on three prominent concerns widely associated with moral indeterminacy: about scepticism, fairness and action-guidance, respectively. I show that all of these concerns can be successfully dealt with. Moral indeterminacy should be considered a virtue rather than a vice for moral theory and practice.