Moral anti-realism

Arguments from disagreement against non-skeptical moral realism begin by noticing (or supposing) widespread, fundamental moral disagreement among a certain group of people (e.g., the folk, moral philosophers, idealized agents). Then, some skeptical or anti-realist-friendly conclusion is drawn. I argue that arguments from disagreement share a structure that makes them vulnerable to a single, powerful objection: they self-undermine. For each formulation of the argument from disagreement, at least one of its premises casts doubt either on itself or on one of the other premises. On reflection, this should not be surprising. Proponents of these arguments seek to derive a very strong metaphysical or epistemological conclusion about morality (e.g., that there are no moral facts, that none of our moral beliefs are epistemically justified). They must therefore employ very strong metaphysical or epistemological premises. But, given the pervasiveness of disagreement in philosophy—especially about metaphysics and epistemology—very strong premises are almost certain to be the subject of widespread, intractable disagreement. And this is precisely the sort of disagreement that proponents of these arguments think undermine moral claims. If so, then these arguments undermine their own premises. If the argument presented in this paper is sound, it provides realists a single, unified strategy for responding to arguments from disagreement. It also provides a challenge for any future arguments from disagreement that philosophers might advance.

Subjectivists claim that the absence of a theological or metaphysical grounding to moral judgements renders them all as simply statements about our subjective wants and preferences. Leslie Allan argues that the subjectivists’ case rests on a misunderstanding of the nature of moral objectivity. He presents the view that subjectivists mistakenly counterpoise the ideal of moral objectivity with the expression of individual preferences. Being objective in moral deliberation, Allan argues, should be regarded instead as the antithesis of parochial and biased reasoning. This account of moral objectivity, he concludes, makes sense of a long-standing universalist tradition in moral philosophy.

“Are there objective moral values which can unite human beings and bring them peace and happiness?” People seem to assume there are indeed such values when they recoil against genocide, rape, child abuse, slavery and human trafficking, senseless destruction of the environment, involuntary “medical” testing, corruption, and terrorism. This recoil is generally perceived to be not merely some learned or innate moral sentiment, but an indicator that some actions are truly wrong — wrong not merely because of the emotional responses they arouse; wrong not merely on the basis of a consensual agreement between people or societies; but truly wrong, meaning in violation of some standard for human action that is applicable to and (at least in principle) accessible to all human persons. Even if there is great difficulty specifying norms about wrong human actions, and even if the norms have needed revision, there is a common conviction that certain moral norms exist. This fundamental conviction that there is some sort of standard against which human actions can be evaluated, and that it is accessible and applicable to all, is the essence of the view that there is a universal ethic.

Foot argues that there are certain things that all human beings - perhaps all rational agents - need.  This gives a sense in which certain values and disvalues can be called 'objective'.  I suggest that, with certain relatively minor adjustments, her argument can be made cogent but that it cannot be used to show that there are objective answers to questions about what one should do when values conflict.  If Foot's own virtue ethics, utilitarianism, Kantian ethics or any other first-order moral system were to be established as objectively valid, this would require some completely different form of argumentation. 


Almost sixty years ago Philippa Foot published an article that began: To many people it seems that the most notable advance in moral philosophy during the past fifty years or so has been the refutation of naturalism; and they are a little shocked that at this late date such an issue should be reopened. It is easy to understand their attitude: given certain apparently unquestionable assumptions, it would be about as sensible to try to reintroduce naturalism as to try to square the circle. Those who see it like this have satisfied themselves that they know in advance that any naturalistic theory must have a catch in it somewhere, and are put out at having to waste more time exposing an old fallacy. This paper is an attempt to persuade them to look critically at the premises on which their arguments are based. 1 The paper in question was one of a number written by Foot around the time that were highly successful in reopening the issue of naturalism in ethics. Nowadays no one can just take it for granted that naturalism has been refuted, that there is a sharp distinction (or indeed any clear distinction) between fact and value or that it is impossible to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'. This is not to say that the naturalists have been completely victorious, of course; only that naturalism is today a live option. I shall argue that Foot's paper contains an important insight and an equally important mistake; and that the insight and the mistake are linked. I believe that the thinking behind it has influenced the subsequent course of moral philosophy to a quite remarkable extent and that this has been in some ways beneficial and in some ways harmful – not surprisingly, if I am right in seeing it as containing both truth and error. I do not want to exaggerate the influence of this one paper 2 but I do not know of any other that so neatly encapsulates the coupled insight and mistake. The anti-naturalism that Foot is attacking she characterises as follows: It would not be an exaggeration to say that the whole of moral philosophy, as it is now widely taught, rests on a contrast between statements of fact and evaluations, which runs something like this: The truth or falsity of statements of fact is shewn by means of evidence; and what counts as evidence is laid down in the meaning of the expressions occurring in the statement of fact … It follows that no two people can make the same statement and count completely different things as evidence; in the end one at least of them could be convicted of linguistic ignorance. It also follows that if a man is given good evidence for a factual conclusion he cannot just refuse to accept the conclusion on the ground that in his scheme of things this evidence is not evidence at all. 3 But, on the view she is criticising, [w]ith evaluations, however, it is different. An evaluation is not connected logically with the factual statements on which it is based. One man may say that a thing is good because of some fact about it, and another may refuse to take that fact as any evidence, for nothing is laid down in the meaning of 'good' which connects it with one piece of 'evidence' rather than another. It follows that a moral eccentric could argue to moral conclusions from quite idiosyncratic premises; he could say, for instance, that a man was a good man because he clasped and unclasped his hands and never turned NNE after

Ahlâkın evrimsel kökeninin ahlâkî bilgi ve ahlâkî realizmi zayıflattığına ilişkin argümanlar ve bu argümanlara verilen yanıtlar, son on yıl içinde felsefecilerden büyük ilgi görmüşlerdir. Bu makale, öncelikle insanda ahlâkın evrimsel kökenine ilişkin sosyobiyoloji ve evrimsel psikoloji alanlarındaki bilimsel çalışmaları sunmaktadır. İkinci olarak, Sharon Street ve Richard Joyce’un 2006 yılında bu bilimsel çalışmalara dayanarak ortaya koydukları, ahlâkın evrimsel kökeninin ahlâkî bilgi ve ahlâkî realizmi zayıflattığı argümanlarını açıklamaktadır. Son olarak ise Street ve Joyce’un argümanları, çeşitli eleştiriler ışığında değerlendirilmektedir.

We examine a hitherto unstudied debate, turning on the epistemology of value judgements, between Ashʿarīs and Baṣran Muʿtazilīs of the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. Al-Ghazālī and al-Rāzī countered Muʿtazilī ethical realism, here defended by al-Malāḥimī, by developing an emotive subjectivism underpinned by increasingly sophisticated psychological accounts of ethical motivation. Value judgements, they maintained, arise not from knowledge of some ethical attributes of acts themselves, but from subjective inclinations, which are often elusive because they can be unconscious or indirect. We also argue against the widespread notion that Ashʿarīs espoused an anti-rationalist ethics, and we show that they were not only ethical rationalists, but also the more innovative side in this debate.

Do the facts of evolution generate an epistemic challenge to moral realism? Some think so, and many “evolutionary debunking arguments” have been discussed in the recent literature. But they are all murky right where it counts most: exactly which epistemic principle is meant to take us from evolutionary considerations to the skeptical conclusion? Here, I will identify several distinct species of evolutionary debunking argument in the literature, each one of which relies on a distinct epistemic principle. Drawing on recent work in epistemology, I will show that most of these initially plausible principles are false, collapsing the arguments that rely on them. And we will see that each argument threatens only one popular view of moral psychology: a “Representationalist” view on which our moral judgments rely crucially on a mental intermediary—e.g. a sentiment, gut feeling, or affect-laden intuition—delivered by our evolved moral faculty. In the end, only one evolutionary debunking argument remains potent: an “Argument from Symmetry” that I will introduce to the literature. But we will see that it should worry only all naturalists, pressuring them into a trilemma: give up moral realism, accept a rationalism that is incongruous with naturalism, or give up naturalism. Non-naturalists are free and clear.

Almost sixty years ago Philippa Foot published an article that began: To many people it seems that the most notable advance in moral philosophy during the past fifty years or so has been the refutation of naturalism; and they are a little shocked that at this late date such an issue should be reopened. It is easy to understand their attitude: given certain apparently unquestionable assumptions, it would be about as sensible to try to reintroduce naturalism as to try to square the circle. Those who see it like this have satisfied themselves that they know in advance that any naturalistic theory must have a catch in it somewhere, and are put out at having to waste more time exposing an old fallacy. This paper is an attempt to persuade them to look critically at the premises on which their arguments are based. 1 The paper in question was one of a number written by Foot around the time that were highly successful in reopening the issue of naturalism in ethics. Nowadays no one can just take it for granted that naturalism has been refuted, that there is a sharp distinction (or indeed any clear distinction) between fact and value or that it is impossible to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'. This is not to say that the naturalists have been completely victorious, of course; only that naturalism is today a live option. I shall argue that Foot's paper contains an important insight and an equally important mistake; and that the insight and the mistake are linked. I believe that the thinking behind it has influenced the subsequent course of moral philosophy to a quite remarkable extent and that this has been in some ways beneficial and in some ways harmful – not surprisingly, if I am right in seeing it as containing both truth and error. I do not want to exaggerate the influence of this one paper 2 but I do not know of any other that so neatly encapsulates the coupled insight and mistake. The anti-naturalism that Foot is attacking she characterises as follows: It would not be an exaggeration to say that the whole of moral philosophy, as it is now widely taught, rests on a contrast between statements of fact and evaluations, which runs something like this: The truth or falsity of statements of fact is shewn by means of evidence; and what counts as evidence is laid down in the meaning of the expressions occurring in the statement of fact … It follows that no two people can make the same statement and count completely different things as evidence; in the end one at least of them could be convicted of linguistic ignorance. It also follows that if a man is given good evidence for a factual conclusion he cannot just refuse to accept the conclusion on the ground that in his scheme of things this evidence is not evidence at all. 3 But, on the view she is criticising, [w]ith evaluations, however, it is different. An evaluation is not connected logically with the factual statements on which it is based. One man may say that a thing is good because of some fact about it, and another may refuse to take that fact as any evidence, for nothing is laid down in the meaning of 'good' which connects it with one piece of 'evidence' rather than another. It follows that a moral eccentric could argue to moral conclusions from quite idiosyncratic premises; he could say, for instance, that a man was a good man because he clasped and unclasped his hands and never turned NNE after

NATURALIZM "Etyka jest pochodzenia naturalnego", "dobro i powinność są czymś naturalnym"tak mogłyby brzmieć najogólniejsze i zarazem najbardziej intuicyjne odpowiedzi osoby niewyszkolonej specjalnie filozoficznie na pytanie o to, czym może być naturalizm etyczny. W rzeczy samej, odpowiedzi te stanowią punkt wyjścia dociekań ściśle filozoficznych: teza bazowa naturalisty etycznego brzmi bowiem mniej więcej właśnie w ten sposób: "Naturalizm etyczny jest stanowiskiem mówiącym, że to, co etyczne, jest naturalne" 1 . Piszę «mniej więcej», bo jeśli naturalizmu nie traktujemy -jak to zwykle ma miejsce -jako terminu, który "nosi znaczenie wypisane na swoim czole" 2 , to zasadniczo każdy z elementów wchodzących w skład tej quasi-definicji wymaga odpowiedniego sprecyzowania czy krytyki, żeby w ogóle dało się tu mówić o definicji. Jak można się domyślać, obiektem szczególnej uwagi musi być to, co naturalne. W niniejszym rozdziale postaram się, po uprzednim wyróżnieniu najważniejszych płaszczyzn refleksji naturalistycznej, omówić metaetycznie istotne dystynkcje i płaszczyzny rozważań, które pomogą objaśnić akceptowalne pojęcie naturalizmu etycznego. Zanim przedsięwzięcie to zostanie zainaugurowane, warto jednak dokonać pewnego rozróżnienia. W literaturze poświęconej naturalizmowi w etyce spotkać można dwa różne określenia, które odsyłają do rozważanego zagadnienia: naturalizm etyczny i etyka naturalistyczna. Druga z tych nazw jest genetycznie pierwotna: w dyskursie metaetycznym zadomowiła się dzięki -tyleż wpływowej, co często krytykowanej -znanej pracy George'a E. Moore'a, Principia Ethica 3 . Drugi termin został wprowadzony do etyki głównie za sprawą recepcji dzieła Moore'a 4 . Moore pisał: 1 Moore, Principia Ethica, dz. cyt., rozdział II. 4 Określenie to pojawiło się w artykule C.L. Stevensona, poźniej -w najbardziej znanej książce Richarda Brandta, a także u E.M. Adamsa. Zob. C.L. Stevenson, Moore's Argument against Certain Forms of Ethical Naturalism, w: The Philosophy of G.E. Moore, ed. P. Schilpp, Evanston, Northwestern UP 1942, s. 71-90; R.B. Brandt, Etyka…, dz. cyt., (rozdz. VII); E.M. Adams, Ethical Naturalism and the Modern World-View, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press 1960, passim.

[This is for an author-meets-critics symposium on Thomas Scanlon's Being Realistic About Reasons, with replies from Scanlon, Canadian Journal of Philosophy.]

One of the key aims of Scanlon's Being Realistic about Reasons is to demystify knowledge of normative and mathematical truths. In this paper, I develop an epistemological challenge that Scanlon fails to explicitly address. I argue that Scanlon’s “metaphysical pluralism” can be understood as a response to that challenge. However, it affords an answer to the challenge only to the extent that it undermines the objectivity of normative and mathematical inquiry.

In this paper I explore the implications of moral vagueness (viz., the vagueness of moral predicates) for non-naturalist metaethical theories like those recently championed by Shafer-Landau, Parfit, and others. I characterise non-naturalism in terms of its commitment to 7 theses: Cognitivism, Correspondence, Atomism, Objectivism, Supervenience, Non-reductivism, and Rationalism. I start by offering a number of reasons for thinking that moral predicates are vague in the same way in which ‘red’, ‘tall’, and ‘heap’ are said to be. I then argue that the moral non-naturalist seeking to countenance moral vagueness faces a dilemma: are her putatively irreducible moral properties vague, or perfectly sharp? On either horn of the dilemma, serious problems arise for some of the central tenets of non-naturalism: vague properties seem to threaten Objectivism, Supervenience, and Non-reductivism; on the other hand, sharp properties raise problems for Supervenience and Rationalism. The difficulties on each horn of the dilemma are real, and while they may not be insuperable, they do, at the very least, drastically limit the things non-naturalists can consistently say about moral properties, facts, and reasons.

I argue that Jonas Olson’s argument from irreducible normativity is not a secure basis for an argument for error theory (section 1) and that a better basis is provided by the argument from supervenience, which has more bite against non-naturalist moral realism than Olson is willing to allow (section 2). I suggest there may be a view which can allow for the existence of irreducibly normative facts while remaining unaffected by the kinds of arguments that work against non-naturalist realism. This view is expressivism. Interestingly, James Dreier has recently suggested that expressivism may not escape these arguments. I very briefly outline (but do not pursue) possible response strategies for expressivists (section 3). I close by discussing Olson’s argument against expressivism. Olson suggests, somewhat surprisingly, that expressivism is a bad fit with a plausible evolutionary explanation of our moral thought. I argue that Olson’s argument does not succeed (section 4).

An increasing number of moral realists and anti-realists have recently attempted to support their views by appeal to science. Arguments of this kind (such as evolutionary debunking arguments or arguments from moral disagreement) are typically criticized on the object-level. In addition, however, one occasionally also comes across a more sweeping metatheoretical skepticism. Scientific contributions to the question of the existence of objective moral truths, it is claimed, are impossible in principle; most prominently, because (1) such arguments impermissibly derive normative from descriptive propositions, (2) such arguments beg the question against non-naturalist moral realism, (3) science cannot inform conceptual accounts of moral judgements, and (4) the conceptual is logically prior to the empirical. My main aim in this paper is to clarify and critically assess these four objections. Moreover, based on this assessment, I will formulate four general requirements that science-based arguments in favor of moral realism and anti-realism should meet. It will turn out that these arguments are limited in several ways, and that some existing arguments have been unsound. Yet it is still possible in principle for the empirical sciences to contribute to the moral realism/anti-realism debate.

Questo lavoro esamina il pensiero metaetico di John L. Mackie per l’importanza e l’ancora attualità che riveste in ambito etico il dibattito tra realismo e anti-realismo morale e l’indubbia importanza che la sua opera del 1977 "Ethics" ha rivestito in questo dibattito. Dovendo sintetizzare al massimo il dibattito tra realismo e anti-realismo morale potremmo dire che esso riguarda l’esistenza di valori o enti morali indipendentemente dal soggetto, di per sé esistenti (posizione realista), oppure il far ricadere la moralità in un qualcosa inerente la soggettività umana (posizione anti-realista). Per dirla con Mackie la questione riguarda l’esistenza o meno di valori morali oggettivi. Così si riporta al centro la questione ontologica nel dibattito morale, dopo un periodo in cui la riflessione metaetica si concentrò sulla semantica e sul linguaggio morale, credendo di poter ridurre i problemi filosofici a problemi di linguaggio, cosa per Mackie inaccettabile. Mackie sposta il piano dell’indagine da quello semantico a quello ontologico elaborando un pensiero metaetico molto originale diventato nel dibattito contemporaneo un punto di riferimento imprescindibile seppur, nella maggior parte dei casi, per essere fatto oggetto di polemica. Questo lavoro si concentra quindi  sulla prima parte dell’opera di Mackie, "Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong", nella quale l’autore si occupa di metaetica inaugurando il dibattito tra realismo e anti-realismo morale.

The author contends that classifying theories in the field of meta-ethics along a single dimension misses important nuances in each theory. With the increased sophistication and complexity of meta-ethical analyses in the modern era, the traditional cognitivist–non-cognitivist and realist–anti-realist categories no longer function adequately. The author categorizes the various meta-ethical theories along three dimensions. These dimensions focus on the linguistic analysis offered by each theory, its metaphysical commitments and its degree of normative tolerance.

Meta-ethics is the area of philosophy in which thinkers explore the language and nature of moral discourse and its relations to other non-moral areas of life. In this introduction to the discipline written explicitly for novices, Leslie Allan outlines the key questions and areas of analysis in contemporary meta-ethics. In clear, tabular format, he summarizes the core concepts integral to each of the major meta-ethical positions and the strengths of each view. To prompt further thinking and reading, Allan explains briefly the major objections to each theory and lists each view's best known advocates.

Le présent mémoire se propose de faire le point sur cette question : est-ce que le constructivisme moral, particulièrement celui que défend Sharon Street, peut se présenter comme une position métaéthique convaincante et apte à répondre aux enjeux que soulève la question du réalisme moral et de l’objectivité des faits normatifs? Dans un premier chapitre, il sera donc nécessaire de déterminer ce en quoi constitue justement cette question du réalisme moral. Après avoir identifié les principales « avenues » entre réalisme et anti-réalisme, nous nous pencherons sur les enjeux particuliers qu’elle soulève d’un point de vue métaphysique, par rapport aux désaccords moraux, aux regards de l’épistémologie ainsi que de la psychologie morale. Nous pourrons alors conclure le chapitre sur une analyse de la position générale du constructivisme sur l’axe réalisme et anti-réalisme. Ensuite, une fois que sera bien maîtrisé ce qu’implique cet enjeu du réalisme moral, nous nous pencherons dans un second chapitre sur le détail de la pensée de Sharon Street. Seront alors abordés les arguments anti-réalistes au fondement de sa position, les réponses qu’aura reçues son article de 2006 et son argument du dilemme darwinien ainsi que la conception générale des faits moraux que défend la philosophe dans son constructivisme humien. Le second chapitre s’achèvera alors sur une analyse des implications normatives que pourrait comporter son constructivisme. En conclusion, nous pourrons en venir à déterminer si le constructivisme moral répond aux conditions que nous avons établies au début de notre démarche. /// This thesis will focus on the following question: can moral constructivism, particularly the one defended by Sharon Street, be considered a convincing metaethical view, able to answer in a distinctive way to the most important problems raised by the question of moral realism and the objectivity of normative facts? Accordingly, the first chapter will be dedicated to the understanding of what implies the question of realism. After having identified the principal alternatives between realism and antirealism, we will explore the main problems that the question raises from four different perspectives: metaphysics, moral disagreement, epistemology and moral psychology. The chapter will then be concluded on an analysis of the general position of moral constructivism regarding the realism/antirealism axis. Once the implications of the moral realism question understood, we will move in a second chapter to the details of Sharon Street’s philosophy. Will be discussed the antirealist arguments at the foundation of her position, the answers given to her 2006 article and the Darwinian Dilemma argument and the general conception of normative facts she defends in her Humean constructivism. The chapter will end on an analysis of possible normative implications that her constructivism could have. In conclusion, we should be able to determine if moral constructivism meets the conditions we have established at the beginning of our work.

Mackie drew attention to the distinct semantic and metaphysical claims made by metaethical realists, arguing that although our evaluative discourse is cognitive and objective, there are no objective evaluative facts. This distinction, however, also opens up a reverse possibility: that our evaluative discourse is antirealist, yet objective values do exist. I suggest that this seemingly far-fetched possibility merits serious attention; realism seems committed to its intelligibility, and, despite appearances, it isn’t incoherent, ineffable, inherently implausible or impossible to defend. I argue that reflection on this possibility should lead us to revise our understanding of the debate between realists and antirealists. It is not only that the realist’s semantic claim is insufficient for realism to be true, as Mackie argued; it’s not even necessary. Robust metaethical realism is best understood as making a purely metaphysical claim. It is thus not enough for antirealists to show that our discourse is antirealist. They must directly attack the realist’s metaphysical claim.

It may seem that a naturalistic view of humankind renders ethics as a matter of taste. Science seems to dictate that there can be no objective standards for how we ought to behave. In fact, both of these positions misconstrue the nature of ethical reasoning and greatly impoverish our view of ourselves and of our social norms. In this talk, Leslie Allan invites you to consider how both objectivity and subjectivity are essential elements of moral discourse.

Several scholars familiar with Sextus Empiricus’s Pyrrhonism who have attentively read his Against the Ethicists have gotten the impression that something strange is going on in this book.  For, at variance with the ‘official’ Pyrrhonian attitude of universal suspension of judgment, a number of passages of AM XI seem to ascribe to the Pyrrhonist both a type of negative dogmatism and a form of realism, which together amount to what may be called ‘moderate ethical realism’. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether Sextus does embrace such a position in AM XI.

What metaethical position Kant is committed to remains a controversial issue. I discuss three recently published books in which Kant is viewed as an opponent to moral realism and located more or less in the constructivist camp. Although the motivations to classify Kant as a moral constructivist are partly understandable, I argue that constructivist interpretations of Kant's moral philosophy cause serious theoretical difficulties and, for that reason, should be refrained from.

In this paper, I will argue that moral naturalism is committed to a supervenience relation that faces a serious problem of metaphysical queerness, and that this problem has been under-appreciated by proponents of moral naturalism. I argue that a sufficiently robust moral realism renders any supposed supervenience relations between natural facts and moral facts unintelligible. If the moral naturalist tries to avoid this problem by arguing for a less robust standard for what counts as a genuinely objective and real moral fact, then this entails certain commitments the moral naturalist will want to avoid (and ought to avoid). (Please skip to page 15 if one is pressed for time and wants to get a basic sense of my line of argument)

This thesis proposes asymmetric legality as an alternative response to injustice to the expansion of jurisdictional competencies that renders 'subjects' of those it seeks to protect. Against those who posit universalism as firstly consistency in moral reasoning and secondly as a universal source of objective obligation it is argued that the second form of universalism does not derive from the first. In reconceptualising 'the universal' as the way in which meaning extends outwards in (subjective) moral judgment, the notion of obligation is also reconfigured as an (immanent) expression of our moral commitments and rejected as a source of authorization for action. (Although there is no particular fidelity in this work to sustaining the significance of the term 'obligation'.)

There are certain 'hard cases' of weakness of will that seem to occur, indeed to be common, but are very difficult to give a non-paradoxical account of.  It is just not clear how they are possible.  This paper is largely an attempt to get them in focus.  What conditions must such weak-willed actions satisfy?  In what sense must they be intentional, for example?  And must the weak-willed agent thinks his action objectively worse than some alternative action open to him?  And must that alternative action actually be open to him?  The paper concludes by considering the condition that a clear case of weakness of will must be in certain sense non-procrastinatory and this turns out to be particularly difficult to satisfy.  Other explanations, ones that do not postulate weakness of will (though they may involve paradoxes of their own), always seem to be available.

Fictionalism has recently returned as a standard response to ontologically problematic domains.  This article assesses moral fictionalism.  It argues (i) that a correct understanding of the dialectical situation in contemporary metaethics shows that fictionalism is only an interesting new alternative if it can provide a new account of normative content: what is it that I am thinking or saying when I think or say that I ought to do something; and (ii) that fictionalism, qua fictionalism, does not provide us with any new resources for providing such an account.

The paper argues that Parfit's Convergence Argument in On What Matters leads to a situation that is structurally analogous to one discussed in the philosophy of science: the underdetermination of theories by the evidence. This is bad news for Parfit's project to vindicate moral realism, since underdetermination traditionally figures in anti-realist arguments in the philosophy of science and we can construct a similar argument in ethics.

When one deliberates one has reasons both for and against doing something.  Could the reasons for OBJECTIVELY outweigh the reasons against, in the sense that someone who thought otherwise would simply be wrong?  (This is not the same question as that of whether any of the competing reasons could be objectively valid in itself.)  Three seemingly relevant kinds of ethical theory are examined: virtue ethics, utilitarianism and moral absolutism.  It is suggested that the proponents of these have all so far failed to show that they can give compelling objective reasons for acting on certain reasons rather than others.  We so far lack any conception of what sort of second-order considerations could adjudicate between competing reasons.  This is not so much an ‘error theory’ in J. L. Mackie’s sense as an admission of ignorance.

In this essay, I distinguish two different epistemological strategies an anti-realist might pursue in developing an "evolutionary debunking" of moral realism. Then I argue that a moral realist can resist both of these strategies by calling into question the epistemological presuppositions on which they rest. Nonetheless, I conclude that these arguments point to a legitimate source of dissatisfaction about many forms of moral realism. I conclude by discussing the way forward that these conclusions indicate.

In this paper we critically examine the following thesis:

Modal Security: If evidence, E, undermines (rather than rebuts) our belief that P, then E gives us reason to doubt that our belief is sensitive or safe (using the method that we actually used to determine whether P). (Clarke-Doane, 2015, 2016a, 2016b, forthcoming)

Modal Security is a proposed necessary condition for undermining defeat.  It has been increasingly discussed of late (Berry, forthcoming; Faraci, forthcoming; Korman and Locke, forthcoming; Jonas 2016; Schechter 2018; Tersman 2016; Warren and Waxman, forthcoming; Woods 2018, Klenk manuscript, Schafer 2017). It says that if evidence undermines (rather than rebuts) one’s belief, then one gets reason to doubt the belief's modal security.  The purpose of this paper is to critically examine Modal Security in detail. We will discuss what we take to be the strongest objections to the principle, and see what can be said in response. Whether the result is victory or defeat for Modal Security will be left for the reader to judge.

One of Mill’s primary targets, throughout his work, is intuitionism.  In this paper, I distinguish two strands of intuitionism, against which Mill offers separate arguments. The first strand, ‘a priorism’ makes an epistemic claim about how we come to know norms.  The second strand, ‘first principle pluralism’, makes a structural claim about how many fundamental norms there are.  In this paper, I suggest that one natural reading of Mill’s argument against first principle pluralism is incompatible with the naturalism that drives his argument against a priorism.  It must, therefore, be discarded.  Such a reading, however, covertly attributes Mill realist commitments about the normative.  These commitments are unnecessary.  To the extent that Mill’s argument against first principle pluralism is taken seriously, I suggest, it is an argument that points towards Mill as having an antirealist approach to the normative.

No Tratado da natureza humana, David Hume dedica uma longa seção à problemática sobre a possibilidade da existência do mundo externo intitulada “Do ceticismo quanto aos sentidos”. A seção traz idas e vindas do autor no que diz respeito à resposta para o problema. Inicialmente, Hume dá como certa a existência externa dos corpos, i.e., independente das percepções, e avisa que sua investigação se limitará, apenas, às causas que levam a crer nisso. Sua pretensão inicial não é cumprida e logo dá espaço a uma rede de complexos argumentos céticos, os quais colocam em dúvida as realidades independentes das percepções. No último parágrafo, porém, Hume parece retroceder em sua posição e parece tomar como certa a existência independente dos corpos, mais uma vez, tal como fez no começo da seção. O objetivo desse trabalho foi, pois, evidenciar que há dois pontos bem diferentes que caracterizam sua argumentação sobre esse assunto: I) A existência do mundo externo; II) a possibilidade de conhecê-lo. Ao primeiro, a resposta de Hume será positiva, ao segundo ponto, negativa. O ceticismo, portanto, sempre decorreria de qualquer tentativa em conhecer tais realidades independentes, pois, através da argumentação filosófica, da razão, sempre se esbarraria na impossibilidade de sua existência. Ao mesmo tempo, sua realidade ontológica parece se impor pela própria natureza e, com isso, desativa os argumentos céticos, os quais sempre demonstram a impossibilidade de conhecê-lo, i.e., acessá-lo pela razão. Assim, o que se tem sobre o mundo externo são, apenas, impressões geradas através da experiência para com o mesmo. Em vista dos fins supracitados, foram utilizados, além do Tratado, a Investigação sobre o entendimento humano e outros textos do filósofo escocês.

What considerations place genuine constraints on an adequate semantics for normative and evaluative expressions? Linguists recognize facts about ordinary uses of such expressions and competent speakers’ judgments about which uses are appropriate. The contemporary literature reflects the widespread assumption that linguists don’t rely upon an additional source of data—competent speakers’ judgments about possible disagreement with hypothetical speech communities. We have several good reasons to think that such judgments are not probative for semantic theorizing. Therefore, we should accord these judgments no probative value for the development of a semantics for our moral terms. Such judgments can no longer be presumed to put pressure on theories according to which our moral expressions share a semantics with ordinary, descriptive terms. Many rivals to pure, Descriptivist theories count among their advantages the ability to accommodate these judgments. If these judgments have no probative value, such theories lose an important source of support.

Some theologians claim that if God did not exist, there would be no grounding for our moral judgments. Our moral prescriptions, they argue, would be subject only to our changing whim and fancy. Leslie Allan challenges the presumption that moral objectivity consists in tapping into a realm of human-independent facts. He endeavours to show that moral judgments are expressions of human preferences taken from an impartial standpoint. This view, while explaining the nature of objectivity in ethics, leaves no room for a deity. Allan concludes by showing how this account of moral objectivity makes sense of a long-standing universalist tradition in moral philosophy and religious thinking.

Mackie’s claim that in general courage benefits its possessor seems inconsistent with his ‘error theory’ of value.  But how plausible is it in itself?  I suggest that his arguments for the claim fail in the same way as the arguments of those who more explicitly embrace ‘virtue ethics’ fail.  We do not know any way of objectively weighing risks against other considerations, of deciding whether something is ‘worth the risk’.  Since I have no PROOF that there could not be a way, I prefer to speak of ‘ignorance’ rather than ‘error’ here.

RESUMO Este artigo pretende sustentar a possibilidade de um cognitivismo moral pragmático a partir dos trabalhos de Wittgenstein. Mostramos que os juízos morais [e não proposições] são cognitivos na medida em que encontram na práxis do jogo de linguagem a sua objetividade. Sendo assim, por um lado, o debate metaético entre realistas e antirrealistas, especialmente McDowell e Blackburn, parece ser totalmente insuficiente ao não considerar em suas teorias os problemas dissolvidos pelo pragmatismo de James. Por outro, o núcleo que resiste em Wittgenstein, diferentemente do pragmatismo, é compreender que os conceitos somente significam no seu uso, renunciando a busca de uma experiência que permita cada vez mais uma aproximação à realidade. Por fim, evidenciamos o argumento de que Wittgenstein está subscrevendo a ética à forma de vida humana. ABSTRACT This paper aims at supporting the possibility of a pragmatic moral cognitivism based on the works of Wittgenstein. It evidences that moral judgments [not propositions] are cognitive as their objectivity lies in the praxis of the language-game. Therefore on the one hand the metaethical debate between realists and antirealists, especially McDowell and Blackburn, seems to be totally inadequate as its theories do not take into account the problems solved by the pragmatism of James. On the other hand unlike the pragmatism the core that resists in Wittgenstein lies in understanding that the concepts only mean in their use, renouncing the search for an experience that increasingly enables an approximation to reality. Lastly the argument that Wittgenstein is subscribing the ethics to the human form of life is evidenced.

Simon Blackburn has not shied away from the use of vivid imagery in developing, over a long and prolific career, a large-scale philosophical vision. Here one might think, for instance, of 'Practical Tortoise Raising' or 'Ramsey's Ladder' or 'Frege's Abyss'. Blackburn develops a 'quasi-realist' account of many of our philosophical and everyday commitments, both theoretical (e.g., modality and causation) and practical (e.g., moral judgement and normative reasons). Quasi-realism aims to provide a naturalistic treatment of its targeted phenomena while earning the right to deploy all of the 'trappings' of realism—i.e., while eschewing any idea that our normal thought and talk about such phenomena are pervasively in error. The quasi-realist project is that of explaining how (as Huw Price puts it here) 'the folk come to "talk the realist talk" without committing ourselves—us theorists, as it were—to "walking the metaphysical walk"' (p. 136). Quasi-realism, too, can speak of truth, facts, properties, belief, knowledge, and so on. The imagery in this collection also abounds, though, in capturing a different view of quasi-realism: No fewer than three of the contributors picture Blackburn as wanting to have his cake and eat it too (Louise Antony asking, in addition, 'Who doesn't? It's cake' [p. 19]).

If what is morally right or wrong were ultimately a function of our opinions, then
even such reprehensible actions as genocide and slavery would be morally right, had we approved of them. Many moral philosophers find this conclusion objectionably permissive, and to avoid it they posit a moral reality that exists independently of what anyone thinks. The notion of an independent moral reality has been subjected to meticulous metaphysical, epistemological and semantic criticism, but it is hardly ever examined from a moral point of view. In this essay I offer such a critique. I argue that the appeal to an independent moral reality as a ground for moral obligations constitutes a substantive moral mistake. However, I do not conclude from this that we must therefore embrace the opposite view that moral truths are ultimately dependent on our attitudes. Rather, I suggest that we reject both of these views and answer the classic meta-ethical question BIs what we morally ought to do ultimately a function of our actual attitudes, or determined independently of them?^ with Neither.

In this chapter, I will take a look at several moral realists, and show how their thought is highly compatible with Scheler's phenomenology in general. I will argue that there is good reason to see moral realism as a defensible phenomenological position, but disagree significantly with what such a realism entails. The overall strategy of the book has been to describe the phenomenology of moral experience in Scheler, and in using Scheler's phenomenology, we can argue against a class of value ontologies that preclude elements of Scheler's phenomenology of value. Roughly my strategy has always been: If ontology X doesn't allow us to understand how we could have the phenomenology of moral experience that we do manifestly have, then that is a defeating reason that counts against ontology X.

Leslie Allan defends his thesis that ethics is objective in the sense of requiring moral agents to offer impartial reasons for acting. Radical subjectivists have attacked this requirement for impartiality on a number of grounds. Some critics make the charge that Allan’s thesis is simply a version of subjectivism in disguise. He responds by showing how a broadly naturalist view of ethics accommodates objective moral constraints. Allan also counters cases in which impartiality is purportedly not morally required and considers the subjectivists’ response to the problem of demarcating moral from non-moral judgements.

Are there objective moral truths (things that are morally right or wrong independently of what anybody thinks about them)? To answer this question more and more scholars have recently begun to appeal to evidence from scientific disciplines such as psychology, neuroscience, biology, and anthropology. This book investigates this novel scientific approach in a comprehensive, empirically-focused, partly clarificatory, and partly metatheoretical way. It argues for two main theses. First, it is possible for the empirical sciences to contribute to the moral realism/anti-realism debate. And second, most appeals to science that have so far been proposed are insufficiently empirically substantiated.

The book’s main chapters address four prominent science-based arguments for or against the existence of objective moral truths: the presumptive argument, the argument from moral disagreement, the sentimentalist argument, and the evolutionary debunking argument. For each of these arguments Thomas Pölzler first identifies the sense in which its underlying empirical hypothesis would have to be true in order for the arguments to work. Then he shows that the available scientific evidence fails to support this hypothesis. Finally, he also makes suggestions as to how to test the hypothesis more validly in future scientific research.

Moral Reality and the Empirical Sciences is an important contribution to the moral realism/anti-realism debate that will appeal both to philosophers and scientists interested in moral psychology and metaethics.