The Moral Universe

Abstract

Abstract The Moral Universe develops a metaethical theory that is both realist and nonnaturalist. Employing a distinctive methodology, the book constructs a view designed to capture the idea that moral standards regarding what to do and how to be are not only objectively authoritative, but essentially so. Rather than arising from personal schemes or collective ideals, morality flows from the nature of things. One of the principal aims of the book is to show how this view accommodates and explains a wide range of data concerning the metaphysical and normative dimensions of morality. The discussion is wide-ranging: the authors assemble a set of theses about the character of moral reasons, requirements, values, and fittingness, maintaining that all are constrained by a set of fixed points governing our interpersonal relations. The book falls into four Parts. The first, Foundations, lays out its methodology and offers detailed characterizations of moral realism and nonnaturalism. The second, Metaphysics, investigates ontological questions about moral reality, contending that there is such a thing and that it is objective. The third Part, Normativity, explores the authority of moral considerations, developing a view according to which there are strong moral reasons. Finally, the fourth Part, Moral Essence, builds to a sustained defense of nonnaturalism, by extending and deepening the treatment of the objective authority of morality offered in the previous two Parts.