Companions in Guilt

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Companionship in Guilt

   • Hallvard Lillehammer

   Pages 1-18

3. Value, Normativity and the Mind

   • Hallvard Lillehammer

   Pages 19-40

4. The Normativity of Practical Reason

   • Hallvard Lillehammer

   Pages 41-64

5. Fact, Value and Truth

   • Hallvard Lillehammer

   Pages 65-88

6. Values and Secondary Qualities

   • Hallvard Lillehammer

   Pages 89-110

7. Ethics, Science and the Absolute Conception

   • Hallvard Lillehammer

   Pages 111-132

8. Ethical Objectivity and Rule Following

   • Hallvard Lillehammer

   Pages 133-153

9. Objectivity, Realism and Inescapability

   • Hallvard Lillehammer

   Pages 154-174

10. Back Matter

    Pages 175-220

    PDF

This is a systematic study of 'companions in guilt' arguments in moral philosophy. Lillehammer distinguishes between two distinct forms of these, which he calls 'arguments by entailment' and 'arguments by analogy' respectively. For each strategy, Lillehammer examines three of its most prominent manifestations in contemporary ethical thought.

• ethics
• moral philosophy
• morality
• philosophy

'Moral philosophers often engage in local skirmishes without awareness of the more generic strategies that they and their opponents are employing, without knowing that down the corridor colleagues from another field of philosophy are engaged in the same pattern of argument. Lillehammer draws attention to one such repeating pattern in theoretical ethics - the companions in guilt stratagem - and in this he has done metaethicists of all stripes a lasting service. Nobody, now, has an excuse for deploying such an argument without deliberating carefully about its structure and its merits. Lillehammer brings clarity to a complex and often messy debate; his thinking is well-informed, appropriately patient, and genuinely original.' - Richard Joyce, Professor of Philosophy, Australian National University

'I think all meta-ethicists should read this book.' - Andrew Fisher, The Philosophical Quarterly

'...lucid, focused, and insightful...He has made a difficult job look easy.' - Terence Cuneo, Mind

• Cambridge University, UK

  Hallvard Lillehammer

HALLVARD LILLEHAMMER is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Philosophy at Cambridge University, UK, and a Fellow of King's College. He is co-editor of Real Metaphysics (2003) and Ramsey's Legacy (2005).

Policies and ethics