Version Of Moral Realism Research Articles

A Frankfurter in Königsberg: Prolegomenon to any Future non-metaphysical Kant

AbstractIn this article I press four different objections on Forst’s theory of the ‘Right to Justification’. These are (i) that the principle of justification is not well-formulated; (ii) that ‘reasonableness and reciprocity’, as these notions are used by Rawls, are not apt to support a Kantian conception of morality; (iii) that the principle of justification, as Forst understands it, gives an inadequate account of what makes actions wrong; and (iv) that, in spite of his protestations to the contrary, Forst’s account veers towards a version of moral realism that isprima facieincompatible with Kantian constructivism. I then evaluate Forst’s theory in the light of a distinction made by Sharon Street between restricted and unrestricted constructivism. I show that Forst has reason to deny that it is either the one or the other, but he is not able to show that it is both or neither. I conclude that the arguments Forst advances in support of his constructivist theory of the right to justification entail that it is a metaphysical and comprehensive conception in the relevant, Rawlsian sense. Forst’s theory of the right to justification therefore fails to fulfil one of the main stated aims.

What can debunking do for us (sceptics and nihilists)?

AbstractDebunking arguments in metaethics are often presented as particularly challenging for non‐naturalistic versions of moral realism. The first aim of this paper is to explore and defend a response on behalf of non‐naturalism. The second aim of the paper is to argue that although non‐naturalism’s response is satisfactory, this does not mean that debunking arguments are metaethically uninteresting. They have a limited and indirect role to play in the exchange between non‐naturalists and moral error theorists. In the end, debunking arguments can do less for sceptics and nihilists than what is commonly thought, but not nothing.

The Hard Problem for Soft Moral Realism

Several leading moral philosophers have recently proposed a soft version of moral realism, according to which moral facts—though it is reasonable to postulate them—cannot metaphysically explain other facts (Dworkin 2011; Parfit 2011; Scanlon 2014). However, soft moral realism is faced with what I call the “Hard Problem,” namely, the problem of how this soft version of moral metaphysics could accommodate moral knowledge. This paper reconstructs and examines three approaches to solving the Hard Problem on behalf of the soft realist: the autonomy approach, the intuitionist approach, and the third-factor approach. I then argue that none of them is successful.

Realist ethical naturalism for ethical non-naturalists

It is common in metaethics today to draw a distinction between “naturalist” and “non-naturalist” versions of moral realism, where the former view maintains that moral properties are natural properties, while the latter view maintains that they are non-natural properties instead. The nature of the disagreement here can be understood in different ways, but the most common way is to understand it as a metaphysical disagreement. In particular, the disagreement here is about the reducibility of moral properties, where the “naturalists” maintain that moral properties are in some way reducible to the lower-level natural properties on which they supervene, while the “non-naturalists” maintain that moral properties are sui generis and robustly irreducible. In this paper I present a novel version of realist ethical naturalism—a view that I call Emergentist Ethical Naturalism—that reveals this common way of understanding the distinction between naturalism and non-naturalism to be flawed by combining a commitment to ethical naturalism with a commitment to the sui generis and robustly irreducible nature of moral properties that typically defines non-naturalism. Then, after presenting the theory and addressing a few worries that one might have about it, I show how it offers some novel, emergence-based responses to the various supervenience challenges that plague moral realism and thereby gives the ethical naturalist a robustly non-reductive option for dealing with these challenges.

Moral relativism is moral realism

I begin by describing my relation with Nicholas Sturgeon and his objections to things I have said about moral explanations. Then I turn to issues about moral relativism. One of these is whether a plausible version of moral relativism can be formulated as a claim about the logical form of certain moral judgments. I (now) agree that is not a good way to think of moral relativism. Instead, I think of moral relativism as a version of moral realism. I compare moral relativism with the relativity of motion and with the relativity of language. Moralities are real in a way that is similar to the way that languages are real. Next I discuss resemblances between nonhuman animal behavior and human behavior having to do with language or communication and with moral or proto-moral behavior. However, I am more interested in aspects of language and morality that are not found in nonhuman animals, aspects that appear to depend on a kind of recursive structure in human language and morality but not in animals. This leads me to argue that aspects of moral theory might benefit from a comparison with certain aspects of linguistic theory. Another comparison is between moralities and legal systems: I speculate that the content of legal and moral systems is influenced by legal and moral bargaining.

Ferrajoli’s Argument for Structural Entrenchment

This paper engages with Ferrajoli’s contribution to the philosophical debate on constitutional democracy and in particular his conception of ‘structural entrenchment’, or the basis upon which one can defend the normativity of the Constitution as ‘higher law’, which can trump or limit legislation, without infringing democratic principles. Ferrajoli’s own understanding of ‘structural entrenchment’ is compared to Rawls’s and Dworkin’s arguments in support of it. Ferrajoli’s position is neither grounded on a philosophy of history, as in Rawls, nor on a version of moral realism, as for Dworkin, but on a formal understanding of the nature of fundamental rights, and in a conception of democratic sovereignty as ‘joint ownership.’

Some Metaethical Desiderata and the Conceptual Resources of Theism

In this paper, I argue that theists are extremely well-situated with respect to developing metaethical accounts that qualify as ‘robust’ versions of moral realism. In the first part of the essay, a number of metaethical desiderata are identified. In the second part, theistic strategies for accommodating those desiderata are explained and defended. The upshot is that, contrary to the received philosophical wisdom, there are good theoretical reasons for theistic philosophers to seek to develop metaethical accounts that ground moral facts in facts about God.

Les Mains Sales Versus Le Sale Monde: A Metaethical Look at Dirty Hands

The phenomenon of “dirty hands” is typically framed as an issue for normative or applied ethical consideration—for example, in debates between consequentialism and nonconsequentialism, or in discussions of the morality of torture or political expediency. By contrast, this paper explores the metaethical dimensions of dirty-hands situations. First, empirically-informed arguments based on scenarios of moral dilemmas involving metaethical aspects of dirty hands are marshaled against the view that “ought implies can.” Second, a version of moral realism is conjoined with a version of value-pluralism that charitably accommodates and explains the central features of the phenomenology related to dirty hands. It is not simply that agents are or are not justified in getting their hands dirty (les mains sales); rather, in certain situations, it is the nature of the moral domain itself to be intractably messy (le sale monde), such that dirty hands are unavoidable. The paper concludes by considering some important normative and psychological implications of this view.

Why Supervenience is a Problem for Brink’s Version of Moral Realism

The aim of this paper is to show that David Brink's influential version of moral realism cannot give a convincing explanation of moral supervenience. Section two contains an outline and discussion of Brink's view of moral properties. Section three explicates Brink's notions of strong and weak supervenience. In sections four and five, Brink's explanation of moral supervenience is discussed. It is argued that his functionalist view of moral properties means that the explanation of moral supervenience that he explicitly offers is not satisfactory. A suggestion is also made about what the exact nature is of the explanatory challenge that Brink faces in relation to moral supervenience. Finally, it is argued that Brink cannot meet this challenge.

Moral realism and program explanation

Alexander Miller has recently considered an ingenious extension of Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit's account of ‘program explanation’ as a way of defending non-reductive naturalist versions of moral realism against Harman's explanatory criticism. Despite the ingenuity of this extension, Miller concludes that program explanation cannot help such moral realists in their attempt to defend moral properties. Specifically, he argues that such moral program explanations are dispensable from an epistemically unlimited point of view. I show that Miller's argument for this negative claim is inadequate, and that he has, in spite of himself, identified a promising defence of moral realism.

Moral Realism Without Values

In this paper I draw on some of the work of John McDowell in order to develop a account of normative reasons for action. On the view defended here, there can be correct moral judgments that capture the reasons there are for acting in certain ways; and the reasons themselves are just some of the morally relevant facts of the situation about which the judgment is made. Establishing this account relies crucially, I argue, on an appeal to substantive ethical theory, to a theory that allows for the attribution of truth to the judgments in question. The account defended here can in fact be equally well supported by ethical theories as otherwise diverse as those of Aristotle and Kant. The resulting account is a version of moral realism, but one that is not committed to defending a realist account of the nature of moral value.

Making Sense of Moral Realism

The article begins by surveying defences of moral realism and noting the revival of an ontology of ‘moral properties’. Such a position tends either to invite accusations of espousing metaphysically ‘queer’ properties, or to fall back on a weak (e.g. externalist) version of moral realism. Norman attempts to find a way through these difficulties by exploring the idea of ‘moral vision’, suggesting that this is best understood not as the intuiting of special moral properties but as a matter of ‘seeing patterns’ in our lives and experiences. Such an account of moral vision can explain how it can be both cognitive and action‐guiding.

From Moral Realism to Moral Relativism in One Easy Step

En años recientes, las defensas del realismo moral han adoptado lo que llamamos la “semántica moral de la nueva ola”, la cual analiza las formas semánticas de funcionar de los términos morales tales como “bueno” y “correcto” semejantes a las formas semánticas de funcionar de los términos para clases naturales en la ciencia, y se inspira también en temas funcionalistas de la filosofía de la mente. Este tipo de perspectiva semántica que encontramos en las perspectivas metaéticas de David Brink, Richard Boyd, Peter Railton y otros, es el cimiento semántico crucial de una clase naturalística de realismo moral que estos filósofos apoyan —una perspectiva que promete dar una forma fuerte de realismo moral. Nosotros sostenemos que la semántica moral de la nueva ola nos conduce, de una u otra forma, al relativismo moral —una perspectiva que no es compatible con el tipo de realismo moral que estos filósofos pretenden defender. Es así que nuestra discusión muestra que si la semántica moral de la nueva ola es la mejor esperanza para defender el realismo moral naturalístico, entonces este tipo de perspectiva es insostenible. Nuestro trabajo está dividido en 7 secciones además de una conclusión. En la sección 1, explicamos la motivación que hay detrás de la semántica moral de la nueva ola. En la sección 2, pasamos al trabajo de Brink y Boyd cuyas perspectivas combinadas producen una perspectiva metaética, según la cual los términos morales como “bueno” y “correcto” quieren referir rígidamente a las propiedades funcionales de segundo orden cuya esencia funcional la revela cualquier teoría moral que surge de la aplicación correcta de la metodología coherentista. La perspectiva Brink- Boyd toma como modelo al psicofuncionalismo de la filosofía de la mente para entender las propiedades morales. En la sección 3, diferenciamos las diferentes formas del relativismo, arguyendo que ciertas formas son culpables de chauvinismo, y luego, en la sección 4, sostenemos que el psicofuncionalismo de la filosofía de la mente es culpable de una forma chauvinista de relativismo conceptual. En la sección 5, mostramos entonces cómo la versión Brink-Boyd de la semántica moral de la nueva ola también es culpable de un relativismo conceptual chauvinista en la ética. En la sección 6, pasamos a la propuesta de Railton (inspirada por la versión de la teoría de identidad psicofísica defendida por D.M. Armstrong y David Lewis) de que hay que comprender los términos morales en tanto que refieren no-rígidamente a las propiedades naturales. En la sección 7, sostenemos que en una interpretación de la propuesta de Railton, su perspectiva es culpable de un relativismo conceptual chauvinista, y en una interpretación alternativa, su perspectiva es culpable de una indeterminación moral radical. Ambos modos, tanto la perspectiva de Railton como la perspectiva de Brink-Boyd, no ayudan en la defensa de una forma fuerte de realismo moral: irónicamente, la semántica moral de la nueva ola nos conduce a un relativismo moral. [Traducción: Claudia Chávez A.]