The naturalistic accounts of moral normativity and their implications for applied ethics

The general aim of the project that would be conducted at the Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature of the University of Oslo is to evaluate some recent naturalistic accounts of normativity of morality and their implications for applied ethics, especiall y global justice. The first group of questions I am going to consider is closely related to the fundamental philosophical problem 'why be moral?' as well as to the relation of morality and rationality. In this part of the project I would like to discuss w hether agents acting morally do so because of their psychological preferences or they respond rather to some objectively valid reasons. The second main group of problems concerns the relation between our moral judgments and motivations for action. In this part I would like to discuss some phenomena of failure to act in accordance with moral judgments and some recent findings on this subject in experimental ethics. I am going to connect these two bunches of problems with some important philosophical issues in global justice - boundaries of morally justified allegiances, theories of equality, property, distributive justice etc. The fundamental research hypotheses of the project claim, firstly, that metaethical discussions have profound implications for appl ied ethics, and secondly, that analytical tools of modern applied ethics can be useful for policy makers, both on the national and international level. The project will have at least two tangible results: articles suitable for international peer review ph ilosophical journals, and an anthology of important texts about global justice for a Polish publisher.