Title: Philosophy and Social Criticism
Headings: Moral Theory and Moral Criticism
Moral Theory and Moral Criticism
(Work in progress: Not to be quoted, but comments are welcome)
Moral philosophy
Moral theory and moral criticism
Theory and deliberation
Moral failure and how to avoid it
Public reasoning
Inquiry and responsibility

Content: Thus we have parallel notions of activism and deliberation: The ordinary moral person deliberates – reflects on how her norms, principles and values should be translated into moral action. The activist thinks about the best and most efficient ways to promote the cause she is committed to. But this description seems to me to be seriously misleading, since it represents the agent as either unable to revise and change her moral beliefs or presents value revision as in itself suspect. A familiar example may be used to illustrate this: Large activist groups fight against whaling. This fight is conducted on many different levels of value commitments. The most general and common ground is to fight whaling because many whale species are endangered. On that ground, if it is generally accepted that these species are in fact endangered, there exists a strong argu