Morton White’s Moral Pragmatism

Abstract

This essay examines the Quine-White debate concerning the empirical status of moral judgments. Quine’s later acceptance of the theory-ladenness of observation shows that he has no reason to reject the possibility of moral observation sentences or to resist White´s empirical, holistic rendering of moral theory. It is further argued that feelings of moral obligation cannot ground moral beliefs in the way suggested by White, but that some moral claims can be empirically tested and rejected through having the relevant links to sensory stimulation. In this way the methodological analogy White holds between ethics and science can be maintained as can his overall empirical conception of ethical pragmatism.