Moral Philosophy and argumentative bounds: literature as a transformative medium of moral consciousness

Abstract

Recently, two discussions have been gaining prominence in moral philosophy. On the one hand, the view of morality and moral philosophy presents in traditional approaches since modernity – such as theories of moral duty – has been in doubt since Anscombe's (1958) diagnosis that it does not fulfill its purposes. On the other hand, with the developments of the studies in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, part of the literature of this field took the concept of "moral consciousness" and associated questions as a central topic. In this paper, such approaches are related through considerations about the limits of the argumentative scope and the search for non-argumentative means of proceeding in moral philosophy, offering literature as a medium to do so.