Presentationalism

Abstract

This chapter explores the view—“presentationalism”—that normative sentences and propositions are mind-independently true, but what they represent is not normative. There are no normative properties or facts. This view, whatever in the end its fate, combines attractive features of realism and antirealism. The view is curiously absent from prominent accounts of the theoretical options. The possibility of a view like this problematizes important arguments in the literature, for example certain arguments for non-naturalism, and shows that one must be careful to distinguish between normative facts and normative truths. Toward the end of the chapter, I consider whether the Moral Twin Earth arguments present problems for the view.