Henry S. Richardson, "Articulating the Moral Community: Toward a Constructive Ethical Pragmatism" (Oxford UP, 2018)
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What is the central problem of moral innovation that Henry Richardson addresses?
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Hello, thanks for joining us for this episode of New Books in Philosophy. I'm Robert Talese. I'm Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. I co-host the program with Carrie Figder. Carrie is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. My guest today is Henry Richardson. Henry is professor of philosophy at Georgetown University. He specializes in moral, political, and legal philosophy. He has a new book titled Articulating the Moral Community Toward a Constructive Ethical Pragmatism. It's newly published with Oxford University Press. Now, even those among us who think that morality is rooted in timeless normative truths will nonetheless incline to acknowledge that the overall moral fabric that binds us to one another is subject to renovation and alteration and maybe even innovation of various kinds.
To take a simplistic and maybe limited example, the advent of the internet has occasioned the need to coin a host of new moral concepts that are attuned to all the new ways in which people are able to treat one another. Maybe it's easiest to think of uh the ways in which we're uh newly able uh to treat each other badly. Uh think about terms like trolling and doxing and poeing and these sorts of things. things. These are new concepts that have been introduced into the moral vernacular for the sake of identifying novel kinds of moral bad treatment or maybe even wrongdoing. That our moral vernacular expands in these ways, I think, is pretty obvious. But there's a distinct question concerning how these innovative concepts become authoritative.
That is, how new moral concepts come to be binding on us in that distinctive way that morality is binding. Now in his book, Articulating the Moral Community, Henry Richardson develops a fascinating and very detailed account of how new authoritative moral norms can be introduced. The book treats core topics in meta ethics, moral psychology, and the theory of practical reasoning. So as usual, there's a lot to talk about, but also as usual, let's begin with our guest. Hi Henry. Hi Bob, pleasure to be talking with you. Well it's very nice to talk to you too, and thank you for writing such a fabulous book.
My pleasure.
Before we get to talking about it though, we usually have uh guests start off by telling the audience a little bit about themselves.
Yeah. Oh well I thought I would it would tell you a little bit about um How in a way I came to philosophy early, but I didn't realize it. I thought I was headed in a different direction and good what happened with the with the change around. Uh I mean I I I had had the luck to be exposed to philosophy in high school, had a ethics class where primary texts were assigned from Plato, and I actually picked up a copy of Kant's groundwork for myself.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central problem of moral innovation that Henry Richardson addresses?
0:00–8:00
2
How does Richardson explain the “Thompson challenge” to universal moral norms?
8:00–16:57
3
What is the “specificatory theory of dyadic rights” and why is it crucial for new moral norms?
16:57–25:24
4
How does the three‑stage process (input, convergence, ratification) generate authoritative norms?
25:24–33:45
5
Why does Richardson argue that the moral community—not individuals—creates binding norms?
33:45–43:04
6
In what way does the theory remain compatible with moral realism and objectivity?
43:04–52:49
7
What role does “division of moral labor” play in Richardson’s future research agenda?
52:49–1:01:34
8
What are the key take‑aways for listeners interested in constructive ethical pragmatism?
1:01:34–1:10:19
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from New Books in Philosophy
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