Moral Realism Research Articles

An Evolutionary Sceptical Challenge to Scientific Realism

Evolutionary scepticism holds that the evolutionary account of the origins of the human cognitive apparatus has sceptical implications for at least some of our beliefs. A common target of evolutionary scepticism is moral realism. Scientific realism, on the other hand, is much less frequently targeted, though the idea that evolutionary theory should make us distrustful of science is by no means absent from the literature. This line of thought has received unduly little attention. I propose to remedy this by advancing what I will call an evolutionary sceptical challenge to scientific realism. I argue that, given standard evolutionary theory, our possession of sound innate metaphysical intuitions would have taken an epistemically problematic ‘lucky accident’. This, as I will show, entails that scientific realism is a self-undermining position. I discuss objections to my argument’s two premises, including ones that appeal to the success of the sciences and to the possibility that sound innate metaphysical intuitions evolved as an evolutionary ‘by-product’. I then draw out an advantage of my argument over a similar one recently put forward by Graber and Golemon (Sophia, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-018-0695-0). I finish by submitting that scientific realism, given the soundness of my argument, is faced with a new ‘Darwinian Dilemma’, and briefly address the significance of this for the debate between realists and anti-realists in the philosophy of science.

On the Properties of Quietism and Robustness

This paper will appear under the rubric of “Quietism” in the OXFORD HANDBOOK OF MORAL REALISM, yet the term “quietism” is rejected by nearly every moral philosopher to whose work it is applied. In the first half of this paper, after a terse introductory section, I expand on why the term “quietism” is so objectionable. In lieu of that term, the phrase “moral realism as a moral doctrine” is the best designation for the moral-realist theory which I have expounded in some of my previous writings. (Other designations that are acceptable alternatives to “quietism” – and to the equally pejorative phrase “relaxed realism” – are “non-inflationary moral realism” and “minimalist moral realism.”) As is argued in the first half of the paper, quietism is a chimerical property insofar as it is predicated of moral realism as a moral doctrine. Thereafter, the focus shifts to the property of robustness. Supposedly what separates moral realism as a moral doctrine from some other varieties of non-naturalistic moral realism is that the latter are robust. Such is the contention of numerous opponents of moral realism as a moral doctrine. However, when the property of robustness is invoked to distinguish between moral realism as a moral doctrine and other non-naturalistic varieties of moral realism – rather than to advert to something which they have in common – it turns out to be illusive. As is argued in the second half of this paper, every dimension of objectivity ascribed to morality by robust non-naturalistic realists is also ascribed to morality by proponents of moral realism as a moral doctrine. Hence, philosophers err both when they affirm that moral realism as a moral doctrine is a species of quietism and when they deny that moral realism as a moral doctrine is robust.

“Who’s Been Fooling Who?” Reflections on Truth and Deception in Politics and Their Implications for Public Administration

This article examines the role of truth and deception in social and political life and its implications for public administration. Because deception is a necessary part of social and political life, the pursuit of absolute truths poses significant dangers to political practices. However, without some commitment to truth in social and political life, the resulting nihilism also endangers political practices. Public administrators, in seeking truth, therefore, should pursue a middle path between moral virtue and moral realism that preserves the practice of politics, a middle path such as is offered in the writings of the Founders of the Constitution.

Beyond Typologies: At the Boundaries of Realist and Ecclesial Ethics

Beyond Typologies: At the Boundaries of Realist and Ecclesial Ethics

Grown from within: Building a Chinese School of International Relations

Over the years, this author has been involved in the ‘Chinese school of International Relations (IR)’ debate. In this article I try to reflect on these discussions or debates from which some insights can be retrieved to inform future research and further growth of a Chinese School of IR. Should a Chinese school be set as the goal? If so, how should this be pursued? This debate and the relevant efforts have proved to be a promising movement in the Chinese IR community, demonstrating that a Chinese school of IR is inevitable and it actually is evolving. A theory is a generalization or cluster of generalizations. This article argues that from the ‘Tsinghua approach’, a ‘moral realism’ has sprung up. Qin Yaqin’s theorizing is centered around relationality and has been productive. A theory of symbiosis in the world community is being developed by a group of Shanghai-based scholars, and a ‘symbiosis school’ has grown up. Overall, four distinct theories of Chinese origins, i.e., relational theory, moral realism, tianxia theory and gongsheng/symbiotic theory, have appeared. Thus, IR theory-building in China in the first two decades of the 21st century has rendered the question ‘why there is no IR theory in China’ obsolete.

Virtue and Vice in Our Relationships with Robots: Is There an Asymmetry and How Might it be Explained?

In previous work, drawing on virtue ethics, I have argued that we may demonstrate morally significant vices in our treatment of robots. Even if an agent’s “cruel” treatment of a robot has no implications for their future behaviour towards people or animals, I believe that it may reveal something about their character, which in turn gives us reason to criticise their actions. Viciousness towards robots is real viciousness. However, I don’t have the same intuition about virtuous behaviour. That is to say, I see no reason to think that “kind” treatment of a robot reflects well on an agent’s character nor do I have any inclination to praise it. At first sight, at least, this is puzzling: if we should morally evaluate some of our relationships with robots why not all of them? In this paper, I argue that these conflicting intuitions may be reconciled by drawing on further claims about the nature of virtue and vice and the moral significance of self-deception. Neglecting the moral reality of the targets of our actions is little barrier to vice and may sometimes be characteristic of it. However, virtue requires an exercise of practical wisdom that may be vitiated by failure to attend to the distinction between representation and reality. Thus, while enjoying representations of unethical behaviour is unethical, acting out fantasies of good behaviour with robots is, at best morally neutral. Only in the rare circumstance where someone might be forgiven for mistaking a robot for a real animal or person may spontaneous responses to robots be virtuous.

Blackburn’s Supervenience Argument Against Moral Realism: Revisited

AbstractBlackburn argues against naturalistic moral realism. He argues that there is no conceptual entailment from satisfying a naturalistic predicate to satisfying a moral predicate. But the moral is conceptually supervenient on the natural. However, this conjunction of conceptual supervenience with lack of conceptual entailment is something the non-realist can explain, but the realist cannot. I argue first that Blackburn’s best formulation of his challenge is his first one. Subsequently he reformulates it as a demand for a ‘ban on mixed worlds’. Critics have directed their arguments against this formulation but they are ineffective against Blackburn’s first formulation. My second thesis is, even so formulated the realist can meet the challenge. The bare conceptual supervenience of the moral on the natural can be given a realist explanation by understanding names of moral properties as descriptive names of natural properties.

Paradigmatic foundation and moral axioms of ihsan ethics in Islamic economics and business

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the root cause of growing gap in Islamic moral ideals and practices by examining paradigmatic foundation and moral axioms of Islamic business ethics. It compares and contrasts Tawhidi and secular paradigms in terms of their moral axioms and ethical mandates.Design/methodology/approachThe paper first presents the paradigmatic foundation of Islamic ethics, namely, ihsan ethics. Second, it compares Tawhidi paradigm of Islam with secular paradigm in respect to their ontological, axiological, anthropological and teleological differences. Third, it links to Islamic moral axioms to the relevant paradigmatic pillars. Fourth, it defines “ihsan ethics” based on Tawhidi paradigm and moral axioms. Finally, it sheds some light on the gap between moral ideals and realities through the theory of ihsan ethics.FindingsThe paper attempts to provide strong conceptual and theoretical tools to understand ethical problems in the Muslim societies. The paper makes a strong case that Muslim minds shall be de-secularized to perceive the reality, truth and telos within Tawhidi worldview. As Muslims reach the level of ihsan by perceiving transcendental reality, they are likely to practice what they preach.Originality/valueThe paper proposes “ihsan ethics” based on Tawhidi worldview and Islamic moral axioms.

Findes der moralsk realisme i den Hebraiske Bibel?

The problem of moral realism does not seem to play a major role in the Hebrew Bible. However, some texts like Genesis 18 and others do show that this problem was a pressing one for at least some Old Testament writers, and that it was coped with through arguing with God. Taking Genesis 18 as an exemplary case, this article displays the conditions for the possibility of moral realism in the Hebrew Bible as well as some threads of its unfolding.

Moral and ethical realism and unbounded organization

Moral and ethical realism and unbounded organization

Moral Realism and the Argument from Skepticism

Abstract A long-standing family of worries about moral realism focuses on its implications for moral epistemology. The underlying concern is that if moral truths have the nature that realists believe, it is hard to see how we could know what they are. This objection may be called the “argument from skepticism” against moral realism. Realists have primarily responded to this argument by presenting accounts of how we could acquire knowledge of moral truths that are consistent with realist assumptions about their nature. Less time has been spent, however, on the question of why it would be a problem for moral realism if it leads to skepticism in the first place, and on the related question of which skeptical conclusions it would be problematic for realists to simply accept. This paper considers several answers to these questions, thereby distinguishing a number of versions of the argument from skepticism, and discusses their prospects.

Moral Realism and the Problem of Moral Aliens

In this paper, I discuss a new problem for moral realism, the problem of moral aliens. In the first section, I introduce this problem. Moral aliens are people who radically disagree with us concerning moral matters. Moral aliens are neither obviously incoherent nor do they seem to lack rational support from their own perspective. On the one hand, moral realists claim that we should stick to our guns when we encounter moral aliens. On the other hand, moral realists, in contrast to anti-realists, seem to be committed to an epistemic symmetry between us and our moral aliens that forces us into rational suspension of our moral beliefs. Unless one disputes the very possibility of moral aliens, this poses a severe challenge to the moral realist. In the second section, I will address this problem. It will turn out that, on closer scrutiny, we cannot make any sense of the idea that moral aliens should be taken as our epistemic peers. Consequently, there is no way to argue that encountering moral aliens gives us any reason to revise our moral beliefs. If my argument is correct, the possibility of encountering moral aliens poses no real threat to moral realism.

Characterizing Moral Realism

The challenge faced with the proliferation of various kinds of cognitivism is the difficulty of providing a straightforward characterization of moral realism and antirealism. In light of this tension, I identified a problem in Sayre-McCord's way of specifying the criteria of moral realism. Furthermore, I provided a framework that characterized the moral realism beyond the features of cognitivism. Finally, I argue that any successful characterization of moral realism must capture its ontology robustly in order to separate it from other realist-like positions that espouse the idea of truth-value and objectivity.

DOES VICTIMLESS DAMAGE EXIST?

This article aims to explore the concept of victimless damage. This refers to paradoxical cases where a perpetrator and a moral wrong can be easily identified, but where somehow the role of the victim as such can be questioned. In order to explore this concept, I will first offer a typology of cases that could be labelled under this umbrella concept—namely, (1) cases of deceased victims, (2) biotechnological or no-identity cases, and (3) the ones related to lack of awareness due to epistemic injustice. Then, after highlighting the common traits and discussing some fuzzy cases, I will flesh out the main arguments for and against of the existence of and need for this concept, on the basis of both moral objectivism and subjectivism. In my view, delving into these arguments could shed some light on the metaethical debate on the sine qua non conditions of moral damage and its relation to moral wrongness. Finally, I will conclude by advocating for the need to introduce a gradational concept of moral damage and the second-person perspective into moral philosophy in order to take into account potential cases of victimless damage, but without having to accept the premises of moral realism.

Psychological readiness of children to study at school and prerequisites for tolerance

The article presents the psychological growths of the transition from preschool to primary school age. Their value for the formation of psychological readiness for educational activity and the premises of tolerance is disclosed. A detailed analysis is given of how the loss of children's spontaneity during the crisis of 7 years leads to the formation of a "facade" of the personality and a new type of tolerance. The phenomenon of "bitter candy", revealed by A. N. Leontiev, is considered in the aspect of awareness of social norms as a criterion for assessing one's behavior, forming ethical instances and changing the grounds for self-acceptance. The article analyzes the correlation of a new type of relationship between a preschooler during the seven-year crisis period with adults, peers, and self-reliance with the main components of educational activity. The role of decentration in the formation of the prerequisites for educational activity and tolerance is disclosed. The problem under study is correlated with the results of research by Jean Piaget of moral realism and moral relativism. The legitimacy of the conclusion of N.V. Nizhegorodtseva that preschool age is a sensitive period in the formation of tolerance is theoretically justified.

От традиционной этики ближнего к этике благоговения перед жизнью: незавершенный шаг (А. Швейцер, Г. Йонас, С. Доннелли)

This is a preface to the translation of one of Albert Schweitzer’s major works, Philosophy and Animal Welfare Movement (Philosophie und Tierschutzbewegung), included in the modern “canon” of Schweitzer’s texts on the reverence for life. We analyzed the development of the ethical thought from the traditional ethics of attitude towards fellow beings through the principle of reverence for life to the modern ethics of life, as outlined in Schweitzer’s works and those of his followers. Our main tasks were to comprehend modern versions of human­ism, the ethics of responsibility and the ethics of life itself, as well as to confirm the relevance of Schweitzer’s ideas through the concepts of life developed by his followers, using com­parative analysis as the main research method. As a result, we showed the continuity and relevance of Schweitzer’s ideas in the new moral realities of the 21st century. The traditional ethics of attitude towards fellow beings is naturally expanded, recognizing living creatures and life in general as the objects of a moral, humane attitude. In addition to the principle of reverence for life, examples of a new ethics are H. Jonas’s ethics of responsibility and onto­logical axiology, as well as S. Donnelley’s ethics of the living, which, in particular, rises the issue of the animals’ individuality. The man’s need to use animals for his own purposes and choose between different life forms, as well as his ability to destroy life itself remains a ma­jor moral problem of the new ethics. Albert Schweitzer paid particular attention to this in his works, one of which was translated by the authors of the article into Russian.

To the question of legal nihilism

Political, economic and moral realities of Russia and other post-Soviet States, the end of the last century have resulted in the minds of the population of gloomy moods, called the lawyers "legal nihilism." The author analyses existing approaches in science to the study of the phenomenon. According to the author, the politico-legal nihilism cannot be considered as the root cause of all the ills in society. Such phenomenon is only a symptom, the external expression of complex social problems, but not its essence. Politico-legal nihilism is a specific form of opposition to the current Government population inevitably growing in deep crises, erosion of moral and ideological foundations of society. From a historical point of view any nihilism has a thousand-year psychological and ontological, social roots, and because before the end of the land cannot be eradicated. The real challenge of power can only be his mild, for further reduction of the moods of the population nihilistic way out of economic crisis, growth of the well-being of the people, the consolidation of the spiritually-moral and political the stability of society.

Глобальный суверенитет и моральная деградация войны

The ongoing current transformation of war is different from the transformations of the past not only in scope, but also in its meaning and profoundness. This transformation is comparable only to the profound transformation, which wastaking place at the dawn of Modernity and led to the emergence of the sovereign states. The contemporary transformation is triggered by the tectonic shift in the forms of political sovereignty, the emergence of the global sovereignauthority. The most important change, related to this transformation is the change in the moral content and meaning of war. The author of this article provides ethical description and evaluation of this change. This goal is accomplished through the normative characteristic of motives, means, goals and meanings of war. The ethical analysis of the major characteristics of war makes it possible to claim that the ongoing moral degradation of war is taking place. Thisdegradation derives not only from the predominantly unreasonable motives of the contemporary war, the lack of proper honor and courage, but also from the very impossibility of victory in the proper sense of the term in the new war. Warbecomes absolute and permanent. We need some new conceptual tools to grasp the new moral reality of war, since the dominant just war theory is hardly of any use in this regard.

Continuing Trends in Popular Holocaust Fiction: Heather Morris and the Corporealization of Women’s Suffering

This article explores the problematic representation of female sufferers in works of fiction relating to the Holocaust. Specifically, I contend that modern fiction fails to engage with the moral and emotional complexity of wartime sexual compromise and instead replaces a cognitive understanding of history with a bodily connection to women’s wartime pain. I do so by focusing on Heather Morris’s two Holocaust-themed texts: The Tattooist of Auschwitz (2018) and Cilka’s Journey (2019). Morris, the article contends, cannot connect to the psychological or moral reality of Cilka’s wartime abuse and so instead focuses on the corporealization of her suffering. Having established the existence of the trend in Morris’s fiction, the article then also addresses Morris’s associated need to morally contextualise Cilka’s actions. In order to maintain her connection with Cilka’s body, I assert, Morris must frame Cilka’s actions using the incompatible morality of the post-war present day. To provide the character with depth would block Morris’s engagement with Cilka’s body as a post-memorial nonwitness. This is profoundly problematic as, rather than informing our understanding of the Holocaust past, Morris merely perpetuates a view of the event that is objectifying, de-humanising and frequently misogynistic.

Does Moral Disagreement Pose a Semantic Challenge to Moral Realism?

Many philosophers have argued that moral disagreement raises metaphysical and/or epistemological challenges for moral realism. In this paper, I consider whether widespread moral disagreement raises a different sort of challenge by threatening the semantic commitments of moral realism. In particular, I suggest that the character of many moral disagreements gives us reason to suspect that not all competent moral speakers pick out the same properties as one another when they use moral terms. If this is so, both sides of a moral dispute may speak truly, and the standard realist diagnosis of such disputes—that at most one party can be correct—is mistaken. My argumentative strategy is to first isolate some features of linguistic exchanges that provide evidence of a lack of co-reference, and then argue that many moral disputes have these features. I conclude by suggesting that there are plausible accounts of moral disputes that do not require co-reference.