Abstract

Christel Fricke

Moral Norms:  Conventions or Universal Principles?

In this paper, I sketch an interactive process of conflict solution and moral learning which brings about agreements on social and moral norms as well as the motivation to act in accordance with them. The norms emerging from this process are justified in virtue of certain features of the process itself. This sketch is inspired by what Adam Smith, in his TMS, says about human morality. The process as I reconstruct it bears interesting similarities with the process of convention building as it has been described by David Lewis.  Against this background, I explore in which way social norms can be conventional and still universally valid.