Introduction

Abstract

Ethics is a speculative discipline. We lose sight of this because of our current practices and due to our deep involvement with the contemporary literature. Explorations in Ethics has a distinctive speculative bent, although much that is addressed in it will be familiar to all ethicists. Ethics today is largely analytic in approach and is historically informed. A prominent part of contemporary ethics methodology is its piecemeal approach, formulating and arguing for definite smaller defensible claims. Central to the current ethics discussion are what I describe as safe claims. The problem with prioritizing safe claims is that it ensures the exclusion of unsafe claims that might be more explanatorily powerful and fruitful. This means that, currently, we choose theoretical safety over progress. The principal reason to speculate in ethics is to move ethics toward its ultimate aim: a comprehensive and correct ethical theory. Putting explanatory but unsafe claims back at the center of ethical inquiry is the key to progress in ethics. The proposal for putting ethics back on its natural footing of greater speculation is to encourage ethicists to identify a contemporary methodological constraint they wish to suspend, then, once it is lifted, to speculate about matters of ethics.