<p>Recent arguments have diversely proposed that moral obligations, among other phenomena, are primarily second-personal. The question of the primary personality of obligations is the question whether, <i>qua</i> deontic categories, obligations primarily concern the first-person, the second-person, or otherwise. Accounting for a phenomenon of interest as being second-personal sometimes aims at emphasizing its agent-relativity, or its enunciative character. This article shows that framing this feature as a matter of personality is methodologically erroneous, unnecessary to convey agent-relativity or the embedding into an enunciative context, and sometimes an artefact of the English language. First, I argue that the question of personality presupposes some enunciative context. Then, I clarify the enunciative meaning of personality claims, e.g. concerning obligations, and propose a detailed investigation of possible first-personal and third-personal understandings. It is shown that the parsimonious account of a primary <i>im</i>personality of moral obligations has not been refuted. Indeed, it is possible to account for moral obligations <i>qua</i> deontic categories without mobilizing any intrinsic, primary personality. Therefore, I propose that accounts emphasising agent-relativity or enunciative embeddedness should be formulated as such, because methodological caveats speak against the personality language. For instance, the question whether obligations imply an intrinsic link between the obligated agent and some beneficiary need not invoke any primary personality, which would logically presuppose some independent, enunciative frame. The argument does not rely on a specific understanding of the nature, if any, of deontic categories and focuses exclusively on personality.</p>

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Personality claims about moral obligations

  • Tithnara A. Sun

摘要

Recent arguments have diversely proposed that moral obligations, among other phenomena, are primarily second-personal. The question of the primary personality of obligations is the question whether, qua deontic categories, obligations primarily concern the first-person, the second-person, or otherwise. Accounting for a phenomenon of interest as being second-personal sometimes aims at emphasizing its agent-relativity, or its enunciative character. This article shows that framing this feature as a matter of personality is methodologically erroneous, unnecessary to convey agent-relativity or the embedding into an enunciative context, and sometimes an artefact of the English language. First, I argue that the question of personality presupposes some enunciative context. Then, I clarify the enunciative meaning of personality claims, e.g. concerning obligations, and propose a detailed investigation of possible first-personal and third-personal understandings. It is shown that the parsimonious account of a primary impersonality of moral obligations has not been refuted. Indeed, it is possible to account for moral obligations qua deontic categories without mobilizing any intrinsic, primary personality. Therefore, I propose that accounts emphasising agent-relativity or enunciative embeddedness should be formulated as such, because methodological caveats speak against the personality language. For instance, the question whether obligations imply an intrinsic link between the obligated agent and some beneficiary need not invoke any primary personality, which would logically presuppose some independent, enunciative frame. The argument does not rely on a specific understanding of the nature, if any, of deontic categories and focuses exclusively on personality.