The “Just Too Different” Objection to Normative Naturalism

Abstract

AbstractConsider normative properties and facts, such as facts consisting in something's being what you ought to do, or the property of being morally wrong. Normative naturalism is the view that normative properties and facts such as these exist, and that they are natural properties and facts. Some suspect, however, that normativity is incompatible with a wholly naturalistic worldview: that the normative couldn't be natural because it's somehow “just too different” from the natural. I critically examine recent forms of this “just too different” objection to normative naturalism, with a view to making the debate accessible to a general philosophical audience.