In Defence of Moral Realism

Abstract

AbstractMoral realism as here conceived has two tenets, one semantic thesis to the effect that when we pass moral judgements, we make truth-claims of an irreducible kind, and one ontological thesis to the effect that there are objective normative facts (truths) out there, sui generis, to be discovered. Some moral propositions are true. I have defended moral realism elsewhere (in my book Moral Realism) and recently Russ Shafer-Landau has also published a book with the same title. The main difference between my argument here, and in my earlier book, is that I now defend normative realism - I earlier focused rather on intrinsic value. The difference is perhaps more verbal than real, since I did hold then, and still hold, that there is only one problem to be pondered in ethics. I now find it more natural to speak of it as the normative problem, however. My main disagreement with Schafer-Landau concerns how we should answer Mackie’s argument from queerness, in its part concerning supervenience, but we also disagree on matters to do with moral epistemology. I have not tried to relate my new argument in detail either to my own previous view or to Shafer-Landau’s more recent argument; my argument here stands on its own feet. And the question I ponder is why we should believe in moral realism.KeywordsMoral JudgementMoral BeliefMoral PropertyMoral RealismMoral FactThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.