Thick concept
A dense thick term or concept ( German also: thicker ( ethical ) value-driven concept or fact ) indicates terms in which description and evaluation is closely linked and therefore contain both descriptive and normative aspects. Was introduced into the philosophical and epistemological discussion to reflect on tight terms of Bernard Williams. Typical examples of proof terms are cruel ',' coward ',' lie ',' brutality 'or' gratitude '. Are deferred terms against thin dense concepts such as ' good ' or bad ', but which contain a rating no descriptive component. Although dense concepts are discussed mainly with reference to the ethics, they find themselves equally in aesthetic and epistemic values.
His idea denser ethical concepts Williams has developed in dealing with the universal prescriptivism his academic teacher Richard Hare and stimulated by the anthropological method of thick description. The analysis denser terms since then has been in the context of a meta-ethical discussion of the strict separability of facts and values , as claimed by the logical empiricism or other positivist positions. Were involved in this discussion next to Williams about Philippa Foot, Iris Murdoch, John McDowell, John Mackie and Hilary Putnam.
Facts and value judgments
Density terms are discussed as a challenge for philosophical positions, award the facts and value judgments a fundamentally different status. Who holds about facts judgments objectively true or false value judgments and awards no truth- value, must be able to clearly distinguish between facts and value judgments. Density terms seem in contrast ' to imply. Entanglement of fact and value judgments in statements such as, Nero was a cruel ruler.
Präskriptivisten as Hare propose to address this problem by differentiating between descriptive and evaluative aspects of proof terms. Density terms are composed of a descriptive and a normative component that had to be separated in the philosophical analysis. For instance, could in the statement, Nero was a cruel ruler ' between a value-neutral description (about: Nero caused deep suffering to his subjects .'). , And a review ( something like, ' It was bad that Nero deep suffering subjects in his caused. ') are distinguished.
Against such a two-component theory is argued, among other things McDowell and Putnam, that they do not take seriously enough the entanglement of descriptive and evaluative aspects. So could the descriptive aspect of cruel ' not causing deep suffering ' be identified because not every causing deep suffering is cruel. How could such an operation without causing deep suffering to be cruel behavior can also be cruel without deep suffering cause. The separation of a descriptive and evaluative component therefore fail due to the fact that behavior 'll identify as cruel only with reference to value judgments.
Hilary Putnam draws from the entanglement of facts and values in terms dense broad metaphysical consequences. After Putnam shows fundamental entanglement of facts and values that convincing philosophical positions can not be limited to pure Faktenontologien. This concerns in particular physicalist positions in contemporary philosophy, according to which the descriptive vocabulary of physics is sufficient for a complete and fundamental description of reality.