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Rodríguez Ortiz, A. M. (2021). Objectivity of moral judgments. A review from linguistic pragmatism. Revista Guillermo De Ockham, 18(1), 19–31. https://doi.org/10.21500/22563202.4261 (Original work published June 19, 2020)
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Abstract

The analysis of moral judgments has been a subject of debate in philosophy throughout history, but it was retaken with greater emphasis in the 20th century with the approaches of Moore in his Principia Ethica and of Wittgenstein in his Lecture on Ethics. Perhaps this last author has been the most influential in the theories that support the impos-sibility of comparing moral statements with the statements of science, since they do not support a truthful analysis, which leads some theorists to assume erroneously that moral judgments are relative and impregnated with emotional subjectivity. By making an analysis of this position, it can be seen that these approaches have led subsequent theorists to take similar terms that are not similar. In part of the literature, these concepts are evidenced as objective and abso-lute synonyms; as well as relative and subjective, thereby incurring a confusion of conceptual order, which not only applies to the analysis of judgments, but goes beyond and oscillates between the ontological and epistemological at the time of talking about morality. This article aims to highlight conceptual problems in order to support that, contrary to what Wittgenstein outlined in his Lecture on Ethics, it is possible to achieve the objectivity of moral judgments without actually affirming their absoluteness.

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References

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