Open-textured moral concepts

Abstract

In this article, I apply the notion of open texture to the moral domain. I argue that moral concepts can exhibit open texture, and that recognising this can yield several explanatory advantages. To begin, I describe the notion of open texture, a type of indeterminacy some of our concepts seem to exhibit. I mention Friedrich Waismann’s original discussion of the notion, but particularly draw upon a recent exposition by Fenner Tanswell. Second, I provide some examples of ways certain moral concepts could be open-textured and suggest that some of our concepts that seem to have undergone change may have exhibited open texture in the past. These include the concepts of “murder”, “racism” and “stealing”. Next, I examine the implications for moral theory more generally, suggesting that the approach is very ecumenical; a wide range of normative theories and meta-ethical views are compatible with open-textured moral concepts. Finally, I consider the theoretical advantages of understanding some of our moral concepts as open-textured. Specifically, I argue that this view provides a new way of understanding faultless disagreements, a more plausible moral epistemology, and can be helpful for accommodating intuitions about moral verdicts from different cultures.