Robust Moral Realism and the Supervenience Argument

Abstract

The paper examines the supervenience argument advanced by the robust moral realists in defense of moral realism. How defensible is the supervenience argument? The paper argues that answer to this question is not as straight forward as the proponents of the robust realism assumed. It argues that defending supervenience argument without paying proper attention to details about the main tenets of moral realism in relation to “is and ought” gap that exists between natural and non-natural properties is largely responsible for why moral realists assume that up till now, there is no demonstrative argument to show that their supervenience argument had been persuasively refuted. This paper does not intend to fill the traditional gap in favor of moral realism. Instead, it intends to challenge such assumption. The paper concludes that the supervenience argument is not as defensible as the proponents of the theory have claimed.