Normative Social Ontology
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25365/jso-2025-9812Keywords:
analytic ontology, methodologyAbstract
This is a paper about the role of value in projects in social ontology. In it, I do three things: first, I argue that much like work in mainstream metaphysics, values play a central role in projects in social ontology. And much like work in mainstream metaphysics, we are not in a position to justify that role (Dasgupta 2018). Second, I argue that this illuminates much of what goes on in methodological debates between realists and deflationists in social ontology. Third, I argue that this also illuminates a source of the radical pluralism that we see in some literatures in social ontology, like the ontology of gender. These are the more specific tasks of this essay, but on a more general level, my aim is to map problems of value in social ontology on a continuum with those that affect projects in the more "mainstream" metaphysics literature. All of us have value problems, and there's as much to be learned from what we share in common as there is to be learned from what we don't.
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