The Metaphysics of Moral Explanations

Abstract

Abstract This chapter defends the view that general moral principles play an ineliminable role in moral explanations. More specifically, it argues that this view best makes sense of some intuitive data points, including the supervenience of the moral upon the natural. The chapter considers two alternative accounts of the nature and structure of moral principles: (i) “the nomic view,” on which moral principles are laws of metaphysics of the same broad kind as the laws that (plausibly) figure in metaphysical explanations more generally; and (ii) “moral platonism,” on which moral principles are facts about kind-applying (as opposed to particular-applying) moral properties. Along the way, the chapter criticizes the competing view that moral principles are not explanatory in the way just suggested. The chapter also considers a number of related issues, such as the distinction between metaphysical grounding and metaphysical analysis. It concludes by discussing the sense in which moral principles obtain of necessity.