Acknowledgments i moral reasoning in a pluralistic world ii preface This page intentionally left blank preface iii Moral Reasoning in a Pluralistic World patricia marino McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago iv preface © McGill-Queen’s University Press 2015 isbn978-0-7735-4614-1(cloth) isbn978-0-7735-4615-8(paper) isbn978-0-7735-9756-3(epdf) isbn978-0-7735-9757-0(epub) Legal deposit third quarter 2015 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100%ancient forest free (100%post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free. This book was published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the CanadaBook Fund for our publishing activities. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Marino, Patricia, 1966–, author Moral reasoning in a pluralistic world / Patricia Marino. Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. isbn 978-0-7735-4614-1(bound). – isbn978-0-7735-4615-8(pbk.) isbn 978-0-7735-9756-3(epdf). – isbn978-0-7735-9757-0(epub) 1. Ethics. 2. Reasoning. 3. Pluralism. I. Title. bj1025.m37 2015 170 c2015-902833-7 c2015-902834-5 This book was typeset by True to Type in 10.5/13Sabon List of Tables and Figures v For Jonathan ii preface This page intentionally left blank preface vii Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 3 1 Basic Concepts 12 2 Value Pluralism, the Unity of Value, and the “Delimiting Argument” 34 3 Epistemological Arguments and Rich Coherence 60 4 Case Consistency 84 5 Pluralist Coherence 108 6 Conclusion 142 Notes 161 Bibliography 183 Index 193 ii preface This page intentionally left blank List of Tables and Figures ix Acknowledgments I have been thinking about the ideas in this book for a number of years, and I am grateful to the many people who contributed to their development. In graduate school I was fortunate to take a class on moral dilemmas with the late Ruth Marcus, and it was there I began to think about morality and conflict. Though I was working on dif- ferent topics at that time, my PhD supervisor Penelope Maddy has taught me so much about philosophical thinking and writing over the years that all of my work bears the imprint of her teaching. Lorraine Besser-Jones, Luke Brunning, Dave DeVidi, Emma Dewald, Mathieu Doucet, Doreen Fraser, Allan Gibbard, Alan Goldman, Patri- cia Greenspan, Nicole Hassoun, Tom Hurka, Chris Kaposy, and Tim Kenyon all contributed insightful comments on earlier versions of this work. Jonathan Dewald, Penelope Maddy, and Paul Thagard not only helped at many points along the way but also read the whole manuscript; their thoughts and suggestions greatly improved the final manuscript. I have presented parts of this work at the Western Canadian Philo- sophical Association Meeting in 2006, the Canadian Philosophical Annual Meetings in 2007and 2010, the American Philosophical Asso- ciation Central Division Meetings in 2007and 2008, the North Amer- ican Society for Social Philosophy conference in 2009, the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Meeting in 2009, the American Philosophical Association Pacific Division Meeting in 2010, the Departments of Philosophy at Wilfrid Laurier University, Ryerson University, University of Toronto, University of Guelph, Southern Illi- nois University, and University of Waterloo, and the Joint Centre for Bioethics in Toronto. Discussion with audiences there improved this