The logical respectability of moral Judgements

Abstract

This paper aims to show that moral judgements do not need to be objective in order to be logically respectable. First, absence of ‘objectivity’ does not preclude us from putting moral judgements through standard logical hoops. Second, although derived moral judgements have a descriptive direction of fit, it does not follow that fundamental moral judgements are ‘objectively true’. Third, as to ‘moral facts’, if there were such things, we ought to be able to give a sense to wishing that the moral facts were other than they are, but this we cannot do; fourth, while in science the supposition that we are getting nearer to the truth is the best explanation of increasing predictive success, yet in morals no plausible analogue to predictive success is forthcoming which the supposition of moral progress can best explain; fifth, no adequate account is in prospect of how ‘moral knowledge’ can be caused; sixth, the social character of morality adequately explains its externality; and seventh, without invoking objectivity the impersonal form of moral judgements can be justified on the analogy of Kant's account of aesthetic judgements. Their impersonal form is essential to both the logic and rhetoric of moral discourse and communication.