Agent-focused Moral Realism Defended: Responses to my Critics
Yong Huang2024, Australasian Philosophical Review
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Abstract
Moral realism, as a metaethical theory, arises from philosophical reflections on one of the most fundamental issues, if not the most fundamental one, of normative ethics: objectivity of moral properties or facts. Until recently, normative ethical theories dominating modern Western philosophical discourse have been consequentialism and deontology, both of which are primarily concerned about moral properties of rightness and wrongness of actions. Understandably, thus, moral realism has been also action-focused, aiming to show the objectivity of these moral properties, and classical criticisms of moral realism have been, also understandably, largely directed to this action-focused moral realism. However, in the last a few decades, virtue ethics as a normative theory, which is primarily concerned with the goodness and badness of human persons, has experienced an impressive revival and become a powerful rival to deontology and consequentialism. Unfortunately, however, most of our metaethical discussions, including the debate between moral realism and anti-realism, are lagging behind, failing to reflect this fundamental shift of the scene in normative ethics. It is in this context, as a virtual ethicist in normative ethics, someone who thinks that virtue ethics is a more plausible normative theory, that I’m motivated to develop an agent-focused moral realism, reflecting on issues arising from virtue ethics, to argue for the objectivity of moral properties of goodness and badness of persons, heavily drawing on, indeed mostly explicating, the view of the neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi. As it is a novel approach, of course, I expect and indeed welcome criticisms from my fellow meta-ethicists who are commenting on my paper, to whom I’m most grateful and to whose comments I am most happy to make the following responses.
