Implications for Current Metaethics

Abstract

I bring to bear what has been said about primary recognition and basic moral certainty to current metaethics. I show how it gives us reason to resist three popular notions in metaethical debate—(i) that we are basically amoral creatures (I argue that primary recognition means we are necessarily morally concerned); (ii) that modern morality has lost its grounding (both G. E. M. Anscombe and Alasdair MacIntyre argue that modern morality is not properly grounded because it lacks rational grounding I argue all morality is arationally grounded); and (iii) the notion that moral norms are completely culture relative (some are but some are universal, and the universal set limits to what can count as local moral certainties).