The Ethics of Wilfrid Sellars

Wilfrid Sellarss ethical theory was rich and deeply innovative. On Sellarss view, moral judgments express a special kind of shared intention. Thus, we should see Sellars as an early advocate of an expressivism of plans and intentions, and an early theorist of collective intentionality. He supplemented this theory with a sophisticated logic of intentions, a robust theory of the categorical validity of normative expressions, a subtle way of reconciling the cognitive and motivating aspects of moral judgment, and much moreall within a strict nominalism that preserves Sellarss commitment to naturalism. The Ethics of Wilfrid Sellars offers the first systematic treatment of this sadly-neglected aspect of Sellarss work, and demonstrates that his ethical theoryjust like his more widely-discussed epistemologyhas much to contribute to current debates.