Jinglin Zhou
LMU Munich
In this paper, I explore how to make moral progress through conceptual improvements. Concepts play a vital role in how we make moral judgments and decisions. When we categorize creatures or things in the world using different concepts, it can have a significant impact on our moral progress. For example, during the Nazi regime, Jews were portrayed as disease-carrying rats, resulting in the Holocaust. On the other hand, categorising more creatures as moral agents or patients have enormously expanded the circle of our moral concern.
Philosophers have become increasingly interested in the relationship between concepts and moral progress. Michele Moody-Adams contends that moral progress involves deepening our grasp of existing moral concepts, whereas Philip Kitcher believes that improving concepts can foster the sympathy and understanding essential for moral progress. Meanwhile, Allen Buchanan argues that the development of the concept of justice propels the modern human rights movement. However, I argue in this paper that these views only provide partial and unsystematic accounts of the role of concepts in moral progress.
To address their shortcomings, I firstly clarify the notion of concepts in the psychological sense and how they function in our cognition, particularly in moral judgments. Based on real-life examples, I argue that we can distinguish two ways in which concepts improve our moral judgments and lead to moral progress. First, newly created concepts can objectify otherwise indistinguishable experiences into recognisable objects for moral reasoning, inspection, discourse, and criticism. Second, categorising a piece of experience by an alternative acquired concept may improve people’s moral standpoint. To make moral progress, I argue, we should develop new concepts to objectify experiences with ethical significance and learn to apply acquired concepts appropriately.
Chair: Ugur Yilmazel
Time: September 6th, 18:50-19:20
Location: SR 1.005
SOPhiA 2026 