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Francesco Orsi



I thought briefly that I had found a contemporary philosopher whose views on ethics and meta-ethics checked all four key boxes. An ally all down the line.

 The four, as regular readers of this blog may remember, are: cognitivism, intuitionism, consequentialism, pluralism. These represent the views that, respectively: some ethical judgments constitute knowledge; one important source for this knowledge consists of quasi-sensory non-inferential primary recognitions ("intuitions"); the right is logically dependent upon the good; and there exists an irreducible plurality of good.

 Francesco Orsi seemed to believe all of these propositions. Here's his website and a link to one relevant paper:

 https://sites.google.com/site/francescoorsi1/

 https://jhaponline.org/jhap/article/view/3

 What was better: Orsi is a young man. Born in 1980. A damned child! Has no memories of the age of disco!

 So I emailed him asking if I was right that he believed all of those things. His answer: three out of four. Batting .750. He is not a consequentialist. I think some right actions are right independently of whether any good is promoted by them, he said. 


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