Human Action And Moral Realism

2011

This dissertation defends realist views in ethics against arguments advanced by ethical constructivists. Realists think that ethical truth obtains independently of any preferred perspective. That is, it is at bottom independent of whatever beliefs, desires, or other forms of commitment we have. Constructivists, in contrast, deny this. But this could mean different things, and there is currently no consensus on what constructivism involves exactly or how we ought to understand this dispute. Consequently, it has been difficult to evaluate the merits of constructivist arguments. This work attempts to remedy these deficiencies by developing a framework for both interpreting and evaluating the nature and scope of the constructivist's challenge. In the first two chapters, I address some of the larger interpretative disputes. In Chapter 1, I argue that there are two main ways of understanding constructivism. Each of these corresponds to the rejection of a particular commitment of realism. In Chapter 2, however, I argue that neither of these should be understood as representing a freestanding view in metaethics. Rather, each takes aim at a narrower target: viz., the realist's conception of ethical objectivity. The first type of constructivist challenge rejects realist claims about the nature of ethical objectivity; the second type accepts these but rejects claims about it scope. In the final three chapters, I evaluate these two versions of the challenge. In Chapter 3, I argue that if the constructivist rejects all stance-independent ethical truth, she commits herself to absurd results within ethical theory. This prompts me to consider more modest constructivist theses, ones that allow for some stanceindependent ethical truths but that also significantly restrict the scope that such truths play within an ethical theory. In Chapters 4 and 5, however, I argue that the best arguments for this more modest constructivism also fail because the ethical considerations they appeal to-i.e., moral rationalism and autonomy-can be equally accommodated by a robust moral realism.

The realist belief in robustly attitude-independent evaluative truths – more specifically, moral truths – is challenged by Sharon Street’s essay “A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value”. We know the content of human normative beliefs and attitudes has been profoundly influenced by a Darwinian natural selection process that favors adaptivity. But if simple adaptivity can explain the content of our evaluative beliefs, any connection they might have with abstract moral truth would seem to be purely coincidental. She continues the skeptical attack in “Objectivity and Truth: You’d Better Rethink It”, concentrating on the intuitionist realism of Ronald Dworkin. The latter sees the issue fundamentally as a holistic choice between moral objectivity and the genocide-countenancing consequences of abandoning objective standards. Street counters that, because of realism’s skeptical difficulties, Dworkin’s Choice (as I call it) actually works in favor of her Euthyphronic antirealism. I will argue that she misrepresents the realist’s skeptical challenge, and that clarifying the character of that challenge renders the case for normative realism much more appealing. Indeed, I claim that Street fails to exclude the genuine possibility of a rational basis for moral truth.

Philosophy Compass, 2007

This article explains for a general philosophical audience the central issues and strategies in the contemporary moral realism debate. It critically surveys the contribution of some recent scholarship, representing expressivist and pragmatist nondescriptivism (Mark Timmons, Hilary Putnam), subjectivist and nonsubjectivist naturalism (Michael Smith, Paul Bloomfield, Philippa Foot), nonnaturalism (Russ Shafer-Landau, T. M. Scanlon) and error theory (Richard Joyce). Four different faces of 'moral realism' are distinguished: semantic, ontological, metaphysical and normative. The debate is presented as taking shape under dialectical pressure from the demands of (i) capturing the moral appearances; and (ii) reconciling morality with our understanding of the mind and world.

Philosophical Studies, 2005

I will try to show that there exists an initiatory theological-philosophical tradition, the acknowledgement of which entails a set of considerations that I believe can shed light on

Australasian Philosophical Review, 2024

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.

2004

Principia, 2019

In this paper I will analyze John McDowell's broad account of practical rationality and moral reasons, which he displays mainly in his articles "Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?" (1978) and "Might There Be External Reasons?" (1995). My main aim is to argue that from a philosophical perspective, no less than from an empirical one, McDowell's account of practical rationality is not a realistic one. From a philosophical point of view, I will argue that his intellectualist account is not convincing; and if we consider his virtue-ethical ideal of practical rationality in light of the model of human cognition, we also realize that moral behavior is not immune to cognitive biases and does not always flow from robust traits of character like virtues. At the same time, this puts at stake his strong thesis of moral autonomy-the idea that with the 'onset of reason' moral beings are no longer determined by 'first nature' features.