From Epistemic to Moral Realism

The Oxford Handbook of Moral Realism,, 2023

This chapter discusses epistemic objections to non-naturalist moral realism. The goal of the chapter is to determine which objections are pressing and which objections can safely be dismissed. The chapter examines five families of objections: (i) one involving necessary conditions on knowledge, (ii) one involving the idea that the causal history of our moral beliefs reflects the significant impact of irrelevant influences, (iii) one relying on the idea that moral truths do not play a role in explaining our moral beliefs, (iv) one involving the claim that if moral realism is true then our moral beliefs are unlikely to be reliable, and (v) one involving the claim that moral realism is incompatible with there being a plausible explanation of our reliability about morality. The overall conclusion of the chapter is that the final objection is by far the most pressing.

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1991

Science, thanks to its link with observation, retains some title to a correspondence theory of truth; but a coherence theory is evidently the lot of ethics. --W. V. Quine

Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 2017

This paper concerns the epistemology of difficult moral cases where the difficulty is not traceable to ignorance about non-moral matters. The paper first argues for a principle concerning the epistemic status of moral beliefs about difficult moral cases. The basic idea behind the principle is that one’s belief about the moral status of a potential action in a difficult moral case is not justified unless one has some appreciation of what the relevant moral considerations are and how they bear on the moral status of the potential action. The paper then argues that this principle has important ramifications for moral epistemology and moral metaphysics. It puts pressure on some views of the justification of moral belief, such as ethical intuitionism and reliabilism. It puts pressure on some antirealist views of moral metaphysics, including simple versions of relativism. It also provides some direct positive support for broadly realist views of morality.

2004

Philosophical Studies

This paper responds to a recently popular objection to non-naturalist, robust moral realism. The objection is that moral realism is morally objectionable, because realists are committed to taking evidence about the distribution (or non-existence) of non-natural properties to be relevant to their first-order moral commitments. I argue that such objections fail. The moral realist is indeed committed to conditionals such as “If there are no non-natural properties, then no action is wrong.” But the realist is not committed using this conditional in a modus-ponens inference upon coming to believe its antecedent. Placing the discussion in a wider epistemological discussion – here, that of “junk-knowledge”, and of how background knowledge determines the relevance of purported evidence – shows that this objection does not exert a price from the realist.

The Philosophical Review, 1986

to provide an analysis of epistemology or ethics that permits us to see how the central evaluative functions of this domain could be carried out within existing (or prospective) empirical theories. Second, he attempts to show how traditional nonnaturalist accounts rely upon assumptions that are in some way incoherent, or that fit ill with existing science. And third, he presents to the skeptic a certain challenge, namely, to show how a skeptical account of our epistemic or moral practices could be as plausible, useful, or interesting as the account the naturalist offers, and how a skeptical reconstruction of such practices-should the skeptic, as often he does, attempt one-could succeed in preserving their distinctive place and function in human affairs. I will primarily be occupied This content downloaded from 132.174.255.116 on Wed, 05 Aug 2020 21:59:02 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms MORAL REALISM they revealed by reason or by some special mode of apprehension? (7) Bivalence-Does the principle of the excluded middle apply to moral judgments? (8) Determinateness-Given whatever procedures we have for assessing moral judgments, how much of morality is likely to be determinable? (9) Categoricity-Do all rational agents necessarily have some reason to obey moral imperatives? (10) Universality-Are moral imperatives applicable to all rational agents, even (should such exist) those who lack a reason to comply with them? (11) Assessment of existing moralities-Are present moral beliefs approximately true, or do prevailing moral intuitions in some other sense constitute privileged data? (12) Relativism-Does the truth or warrant of moraljudgments depend directly upon individually-or socially-adopted norms or practices? (13) Pluralism-Is there a uniquely good form of life or a uniquely right moral code, or could different forms of life or moral codes be appropriate in different circumstances? Here, then, are the approximate coordinates of my own view in this multidimensional conceptual space. I will argue for a form of moral realism which holds that moral judgments can bear truth values in a fundamentally non-epistemic sense of truth; that moral properties are objective, though relational; that moral properties supervene upon natural properties, and may be reducible to them; that moral inquiry is of a piece with empirical inquiry; that it cannot be known a priori whether bivalence holds for moral judgments or how determinately such judgments can be assessed; that there is reason to think we know a fair amount about morality, but also reason to think that current moralities are wrong in certain ways and could be wrong in quite general ways; that a rational agent may-fail to have a reason for obeying moral imperatives, although they may nonetheless be applicable to him; and that, while there are perfectly general criteria of moral assessment, nonetheless, by the nature of these criteria no one kind of life is likely to be appropriate for all individuals and no one set of norms appropriate for all societies and all times. The position thus described might well be called 'stark, raving moral realism', but for the sake of syntax, I will colorlessly call it 'moral realism'. This usage is not proprietary. Other positions, occupying more or less different coordinates, may have equal claim to either name.

2017

However, not all attitudes are so easily classifiable. In many cases we might find ourselves unable to tell whether someone's attitude is approvable or condemnable from the moral standpoint. Does this imply that, in such situations, our moral judgement is neither true nor false in a determinate way? The projectivist may handle this case by advising us to keep on doing what we often do, namely to argue about the undecidable moral judgement as if it would be either true or false, and not both. The principle of bivalence would still figure as part of the logic of moral discourse, although it would be justified as a regulative principle. 12 The above considerations show that ethical antirealism is not incompatible with the adoption of the principle of bivalence. The semantic definition of realism alleges that this principle is acceptable only by ethical realists. It seems, therefore, that the purely semantic approach to the debate over realism in ethics is wrong. In general, I would argue that the issue between ethical realists and their opponents is not whether some semantic or logical principle applies in moral discourse, but why it does so. In order to answer this question we need to take a closer look at the ontological and epistemological theses of the participants in the moral realism debate. 1.4 Ontology Whatever else it involves, realism is a claim about the reality of something. Ethical realism, at its minimum, is the claim that ethical qualities are real. The notion of 'reality' is part of the conceptual armour of ontological inquiry. Therefore, ethical realism is an ontological position. 12 Cf. Blackburn's discussion of the pragmatic considerations that may justify the adoption of the principle of bivalence in legal contexts-(1980): 23-27, (1984) sec. 6.4. The above paragraph provides a simple, intuitive way to understand realism in ethics. However, the very simplicity of the ontological definition might leave us unsatisfied, perhaps on the ground that it does not suffice to state that according to ethical realism ethical qualities are real: it should also be explained what it is for an ethical quality to be real. More accurately, we need an account of the reality of ethical qualities that would help us demarcate the doctrine of ethical realism from its rivals. A first way to clarify the claim that ethical qualities are real would be to present it as equivalent to the claim that these qualities exist. 13 The correspondent attack on the doctrine of ethical realism would be to argue that ethical qualities do not exist. 14 However, many contemporary antirealists do not dispute that, in a certain sense, ethical properties indeed exist. Therefore, the thesis that ethical properties or facts exist is not the distinguishing mark of the realist position. I shall support this claim by illustrating how prescriptivists and projectivists can argue for the existence of ethical properties without committing themselves to the ontological doctrine of ethical realism. Prescriptivists suggest that a moral property, like 'goodness' may be said to exist if it fulfils any of the following criteria: (i) we can meaningfully say of something that it is good; (ii) we can truly say of something that it is good; or (iii) 'goodness' can be referred to, i.e. it can take the subject-place in a true or false statement. 15 Prescriptivists accept (i) because they assert that judgements including ethical predicates are meaningful. They can also accept (ii) and (iii) because, as we saw earlier in this chapter, they can hold that the notion of truth is applicable in moral discourse. Therefore, prescriptivists can be happy to embrace the view that 13 Platts (1980a), Brink (1984), Dancy (1993) ch. 5. 14 Mackie (1977): 19. Note, however, that Mackie asserts that only objective values do not exist; cf. below sec. 2.2. 15 Hare (1985a): 41-43. The above considerations show that antirealists need not object to the claim that, in a certain sense, ethical properties exist. Therefore, the realist position in ethics has to involve something more than the claim that these properties exist. Dummett's account of realism seems to indicate what this 'more' could be. He claims that realism entails that the referents of statements in a given class exist independently of our knowledge of them. 19 This claim combines an ontological with an epistemological assertion. More precisely, it qualifies the ontological doctrine of the existence of certain things with an epistemological clause about the relation of those things to human knowledge. I call the latter clause 'epistemological' with some reservations, since it does not directly concern either the nature or the possibility of human knowledge. 20 However, I admit that it might be useful to think of this claim as epistemological for two reasons. From a systematic standpoint, the claim that certain objects exist independently of human knowledge reveals something of importance about the limits of human knowledge and, hence, about its nature. From a historical standpoint, the above claim is a product of the succession of ontology by epistemology in the throne of first philosophy. As we shall see in the next section the role of knowledge in a proper definition of realism was first underlined by one of the best epistemologists of all times. 1.5 Epistemology Declarations of independence from knowledge figure predominantly in the modern discussions of metaphysical realism. Kant was probably the first to define realism as the claim that the world 19 Dummett (1982): 230. 20 For an unreserved adoption of the label, as well as of the doctrine that it expresses, see Grayling (1992). exists independently of the cognitive aspects of human mind. 21 His approach has influenced the work of several philosophers who endorse realism in ethics. 22 It may be useful, therefore, to consider some of the elements of the Kantian theory that bear directly on the problem of the definition of realism in ethics. Kant asserts that we perceive objects as existing independently of our perception of them. He calls this position "empirical realism". 23 The question he set himself to answer is how we could justify this position. There are two ways to approach this issue. One is to adopt the doctrine of "transcendental realism" according to which space, time and the things that appear in them exist independently of our cognition. 24 The other is to adopt the doctrine of "transcendental idealism" according to which things appear necessarily in ways determined by the a priori categories of human mind. 25 Kant, of course, favours the latter of the above options. Transcendental idealism states that the objects of our perception are not things "in themselves" but things in their relation to "us and [to] our sensibility". 26 Kant calls things of the former type "noumena" and of the latter type "phenomena". 27 He asserts that 21 Kant (1781/87, henceforth KrV) A 439. 22 See, for instance, Nagel (1980), McDowell (1981b), Putnam (1987). In what follows I refer only to this school of ethical realism and, in particular, to the work of John McDowell and of his realist allies. See below, secs 3.4-3.6, for a discussion of the ontological doctrines of 'Cornell' realists, and Hatzimoysis (1993) for a critical account of their epistemological doctrines. 23 KrV A 369. 24 KrV A491/B519, A543/B571. 25 KrV A26/B42-A28/B44. 26 KrV A369. 27 KrV B307-309. the dependence of phenomena on our sensibility explains how human subjects may form representations of objects, that seem to correspond to real items in the world. According to Kant, the transcendental idealist's account of the objects of our perceptions explains and, in that sense, justifies the empirical realist's claim that we perceive phenomena as existing independently of us. 28 It might help our understanding of Kant's position if we consider it in the light of the distinction between ontological and phenomenological claims. Transcendental idealism is an ontological claim about how certain objects exist : it asserts that the objects of our experience exist only in relation to our cognitive apparatus. Empirical realism is a phenomenological claim about how we experience these objects: it states that we experience spatiotemporal objects as existing 'outside us', independently of our cognition. Contemporary ethical realists employ a revised version of the above Kantian distinction in claiming that we experience the world of natural and moral facts as existing independently of us. They argue also that this claim is best supported by the hypothesis that the realm of appearances is metaphysically dependent on human mind. However, they disagree with Kant on a crucial point: whereas Kant believed that the dependence of appearances on our conceptual apparatus entails some form of idealist ontology, most contemporary ethical realists contend that such a dependence deducts nothing from the reality of ethical properties or facts. I shall now reconstruct, in outline, the main argument offered in support of their contention. The distinction between reality and appearances can be drawn only from a human standpoint, by employing the tools offered by our language or 'conceptual scheme'. We can place an object on either side of this distinction only if we can talk or reflect about that object in a 28 An examination of Kant's arguments in support of this claim is, needless to say, beyond the scope of this introduction. I have discussed some of the methodological aspects of Kant's defence of transcendental idealism in (1991): 2-9. coherent, meaningful way. However noumena are, by definition, inaccessible by means of our conceptual apparatus. Hence, noumena cannot figure in either part of the reality-appearances distinction. Therefore, this ontological distinction concerns only the realm of phenomena or, in Kant's terms, the realm of things that exist dependently on us and our sensibility. Ethical qualities are dependent on the...

Journal of Philosophical Theological Research, 2020

Moral realism is the doctrine that some propositions asserting that some action is 'morally' good (obligatory, bad, or wrong) are true. This paper examines three different definitions of what it is for an action to be 'morally' good (with corresponding definitions for 'morally' obligatory, bad, or wrong) 1 which would make moral realism a clear and plausible view. The first defines 'morally good as 'overall important to do'; and the second defines it as 'overall important to do for universalizable reasons'. The paper argues that neither of these definitions is adequate; and it develops the view of Cuneo and Shafer-Landau that we need a definition which is partly in terms of paradigm examples of morally good actions, which they call 'moral fixed points'. Hence the third and final definition is that an action is morally good if it is 'overall important to do because this follows from a fundamental universalizable principle, belonging to a system of such principles which includes almost all the moral fixed points; when a suggested fundamental principle is one which would be shown to be very probably true by the exercise of reflective equilibrium over many centuries'.

1998