Moral Realism Flashcards
analytic naturalism
moral terms can be defined in terms of natural properties, this is part of the meaning of those terms
closed question
a question whose answer is decided by the meanings of the concepts involved in the question, e.g. is good good?
cognitivism
moral judgements express beliefs or cognitive mental states that are truth-apt
ethical naturalism
holds that moral judgements are beliefs that are intended to be true or false (cognitivism) and that moral properties exist (realism) and are natural properties
ethical non-naturalism
holds that moral judgements are beliefs that are intended to be true or false (cognitivism) and that moral properties exist (realism) but are non-natural properties
moral anti-realism
objective moral properties and facts do not exist
moral realism
objective moral properties and facts do exist
naturalism
scientific entities and properties are all that exist (and the scientific method is the only way of gaining knowledge)
non-cognitivism
moral judgements express non-cognitive mental states, do not aim to describe reality, and are not capable of being true or false
normativity
reason-giving force
open question
a question whose answer cannot be decided by the meanings of the concepts involved in the question, e.g. is pleasure good?
supervenience
a relation of necessary covariance among properties
a set of properties A supervenes on a set of properties B just in case, necessarily, no objects can differ with respect to A unless they differ with respect to B as well (Sturgeon, 2006)
synthetic naturalism
moral values are metaphysically identical to natural properties, but there is no analytic equivalence, this is not part of the meaning of the terms
what is the realism / anti-realism debate about?
realism / anti-realism is about whether or not mind-independent, objective moral properties (e.g. ‘right’, ‘wrong’, ‘good’, ‘bad’) exist
realism states that there are objective moral values
what do objective moral properties give rise to?
moral properties give rise to moral facts, e.g. “murder is wrong”
a realist would say murder has the property of wrongness in the same way grass has the property of greenness
what do realists disagree over with regard to objective moral properties?
disagreement among realists as to what these objective moral properties actually are:
- ethical naturalists argue moral properties are natural properties
- ethical non-naturalists argue moral properties are non-natural properties
are ethical naturalism and ethical non-naturalism cognitivist theories?
both ethical naturalism & ethical non-naturalism are cognitivist theories: they agree that moral judgements express beliefs that are capable of being true or false
what kind of theories are ethical naturalism and ethical non-naturalism?
both ethical naturalism & ethical non-naturalism are cognitivist theories: they agree that moral judgements express beliefs that are capable of being true or false
what does naturalism aim to assimilate moral properties to, according to Van Roojen, 2015?
aims to assimilate moral properties to the properties studied by the natural sciences (van Roojen, 2015)
what is the ontological thesis of ethical naturalism?
ontological thesis: what there is in the world, e.g. there are only natural properties in the world
what is the quasilinguistic claim of ethical naturalism?
quasilinguistic claim: moral language is truth-apt, cognitivist (truth or falsehood)
what are the two ways that ethical terms express natural terms in ethical naturalism?
general naturalism: ‘good’ refers to X (X is a natural property) (term refers to property)
analytic naturalism: ‘good’ is synonymous with ‘X’ (X is a non-moral term) (connection between two terms)
how does general naturalism argue that ethical terms express natural terms?
general naturalism: ‘good’ refers to X (X is a natural property) (term refers to property)
how does analytic naturalism argue that ethical terms express natural terms?
analytic naturalism: ‘good’ is synonymous with ‘X’ (X is a non-moral term) (connection between two terms)
how does Sturgeon (2009) define ethical naturalism?
ethical naturalism holds that (a) ethical properties … are natural properties of the same general sort as properties investigated by the sciences, and (b) they are to be investigated in the same general way that we investigate those properties (Sturgeon, 2009)
what 3 (or 4) claims is ethical naturalism the conjunction of, according to Lutz & Lenman (2021)?
conjunction of three (sometimes four) claims (Lutz & Lenman, 2021):
- moral realism: there are objective, mind-independent moral facts
- metaphysical naturalism: moral facts are natural facts (most central doctrine)
- epistemic naturalism: we know moral claims are true in the same way that we know about claims in the natural sciences
- (analytic naturalism: our moral claims are synonymous with certain (highly complex) claims in the natural sciences)
give an example of a naturalist ethical theory.
utilitarianism is perhaps the most obvious example of naturalist ethical theory. It says that ‘good’ can be reduced to pleasure, and ‘bad’ can be reduced to pain
pain & pleasure are natural properties of the mind & so utilitarianism is a naturalist theory
what is the distinction between analytic and synthetic naturalism?
analytic naturalism: moral terms can be defined in terms of natural properties, this is part of the meaning of those terms
synthetic naturalism: moral values are metaphysically identical to natural properties, but there is no analytic equivalence, this is not part of the meaning of the terms
what are the two main arguments for ethical naturalism?
argument from normative supervenience
arguments from anti-scepticism
what is (normative) supervenience?
‘supervenience’ is the technical name for a relation of necessary covariance among properties. A set of properties A supervenes on a set of properties B just in case, necessarily, no objects can differ with respect to A unless they differ with respect to B as well (Sturgeon, 2006)
the normative supervenes on the natural; in all metaphysically possible worlds in which the natural facts are the same as they are in the actual world, the moral facts are the same as well
what is Jackson’s direct argument of supervenience for ethical naturalism?
direct argument (Jackson, 1998)
- supervenience: there are no two metaphysically possible worlds where the natural facts are the same but the moral facts are different
- any two worlds that are identical with respect to the moral facts are identical with respect to both moral principles and instantiations of moral properties
- so supervenience entails the related claim that no two metaphysically possible worlds have the same distribution of natural properties and a different distribution of moral properties
- intensionalism: if it is metaphysically necessary that something has property F if and only if it has property G, then F and G are the same property
- intensionalism and supervenience together entail naturalism
which scholar offered the direct argument of supervenience for ethical naturalism?
Jackson, 1998
how could non-naturalists reject the direct argument?
reject intensionalism
what is McPherson’s explanatory argument of supervenience for ethical naturalism?
according to the Explanatory Argument, supervenience is a striking phenomenon that must be explained
naturalists are well-positioned to explain supervenience: if moral facts are natural facts, then, trivially, there can be no difference in the moral facts without a difference in the natural facts
- for naturalists, the moral facts just are natural facts, so when we consider worlds that are naturally the same as the actual world, we will ipso facto be considering worlds that are morally the same as the actual world
more difficult for non-naturalists to explain supervenience
- an inability to explain supervenience counts strongly against a view
which scholar offered the explanatory argument of supervenience for ethical naturalism?
McPherson, 2011
how could non-naturalists reject the explanatory argument?
most obvious way to respond to the explanatory argument is to offer an explanation of supervenience that doesn’t trade on naturalist assumptions
- Shafer-Landau (2003) and Enoch (2011) have argued that supervenience can be explained by the fact that there are moral laws
what is the limitation to supervenience as a support for naturalism?
supervenience alone isn’t enough to claim naturalism because that’s not a dividing line between naturalist and non-naturalists
- fairly weak dependence relation
if add to supervenience that can fully explain moral facts with reference to natural facts then can have non-reductive naturalism
what are the arguments from anti-scepticism for ethical naturalism?
scientific methods are very powerful tools for coming to have knowledge of the world so, if moral facts are the kinds of facts that we can know about by scientific methods, then we have powerful tools for obtaining moral knowledge
non-naturalists, by contrast, say that we know about moral facts via non-empirical methods - intuition
- seems like a much less firm footing for our moral knowledge than the scientific method
why are arguments from anti-scepticism controversial?
controversial as intuitionist moral epistemology is popular
how do ethical non-naturalists think of non-natural properties?
think of non-natural properties as non-physical properties
these non-natural moral properties cannot be reduced to anything simpler
- they are basic
how does Moore attack ethical naturalism in Principia Ethica (1903)?
Moore’s Principia Ethica (1903) claimed to have refuted all forms of ethical naturalism, primarily by attacking what he took to be ethical naturalism’s epistemological & semantic implications
Moore uses the term naturalistic fallacy to describe the fallacy of equating goodness with some natural property (such as pleasure or pain)
- e.g. fallacy to conclude that drinking beer is good from the fact that drinking beer is pleasurable because they are two completely different kinds of properties - one moral, one natural
what is Hume’s is / ought gap?
Hume argues that moral ought statements are a completely different kind of thing to factual is statements
can’t logically derive ought statements like ‘you ought not to torture’ from statements about what is, such as ‘that is an act of torture’
- reason is that the former type of statement is non-cognitive while the latter is cognitive
Hume would say ‘is’ statements like “Smith murdered Jones” are capable of being true or false, whereas ‘ought’ statements like “Smith shouldn’t have done that” are expressions of emotion that are not capable of being true or false
how is Moore’s naturalistic fallacy argument related to Hume’s is / ought gap?
Moore’s argument that you can’t logically jump from natural to moral is similar to Hume’s is/ought gap
what is the distinction between an open question and a closed question?
a closed question is a question whose answer is decided by the meanings of the concepts involved in the question
- e.g. is good good?
an open question is a question whose answer cannot be decided in this way
- e.g. is pleasure good?
what is Moore’s Open Question Argument?
suppose that M (‘the good’) is analytically equivalent to N (‘pleasure’)
then the question: “X is pleasant, but is it good?” should not not be an open question (subject to doubt, not immediately obvious)
but it is an open question - so any analytic identity proposed between moral & natural terms cannot be right
so, if “good” meant the same as “pleasant”, the sentence “what is good is pleasant” would have to say the same thing, express the same thought, as the sentence “what is pleasant is pleasant” (Sturgeon, 2009)
it is an “open question” whether what is good is pleasant, in that we can at least understand what it would mean for someone to doubt it, but it is not in a similar way an open question whether what is pleasant is pleasant (Sturgeon, 2009)
what does Moore’s Open Question Argument generalise to?
argument generalizes: for any natural property N and any moral property M, “granted that x is N, is x M?” will be an open question. Therefore, no moral property M is identical to any natural property N
what is implication of Moore’s OQA?
moral properties cannot be fully reduced to natural properties because moral questions always remain open, suggesting a gap between descriptive and normative aspects
what is the water/H2O response to the OQA?
Moore failed to notice the possibility that they might denote the very same property even though they are not equivalent in meaning
doesn’t seem to follow that because “is pleasure good?” is an open question, pleasure & good cannot be the same thing
e.g. ‘water’ and ‘H2O’ refer to the same thing, but it is still an open question to ask “is water H2O?”
- the two things are the same thing - to be water is to be H2O BUT it wouldn’t pass Moore’s synonymy / substitution test
what is the implication of the water/H2O response to the OQA?
OQA cannot refute metaphysical naturalism - at most, the OQA gives us reason to be synthetic, rather than analytic, naturalists
Moore’s challenge to naturalism is based on a fallacious test
what is the ‘proves too much’ response to the OQA?
OQA seems to prove too much (Smith)
the practice of conceptual analysis aspires to provide real philosophical illumination; however, if all analytic truths have to be as obvious as “a bachelor is an unmarried male”, then all pieces of conceptual analysis must be either false or trivial
how can the reductive / non-reductive distinction help respond to Moore’s OQA?
one way of responding to Moore’s argument is by asserting that ethical naturalism is non-reductive in nature
by adopting a non-reductive stance, ethical naturalism can address Moore’s OQA by recognising that the open questions between naturalism & moral properties arise precisely because moral properties possess a distinct normative dimension that cannot be straightforwardly reduced to natural facts
why is the reductive / non-reductive distinction limited as a responses to Moore’s OQA?
reductive/non-reductive distinction alone may not fully resolve Moore’s OQA
the argument raises broader epistemological & metaphysical challenges regarding the relationship between natural & moral properties
while the non-reductive approach can offer some response to Moore’s objection, additional philosophical considerations and alternative perspectives, such as Cornell realism, may be needed to provide a more comprehensive analysis of the OQA
what is the normativity objection to naturalism that supports ethical non-naturalism?
morality has practical authority, it gives us reasons, sometimes very forceful reasons to act, even when we don’t (otherwise) want to
natural properties don’t have any (essential) reason-giving force
sidesteps questions about the cognitive significance of moral & descriptive terminology & appeals to considerations regarding the natures of natural & normative facts
- moral facts tell us what is good in the world & what we have reasons or obligations to do
- natural facts are facts about the innate physical structure of the universe and the causal principles that govern the interaction of matter
- these are obviously just two different kinds of fact
which scholar offers the normativity objection to naturalism?
Scanlon, 2014
how can a naturalist respond to the normativity objection?
two ways for a naturalist to respond to this objection:
- moral facts aren’t essentially normative; it may be the case that we typically have reasons to act morally, but reason-giving force is not part of the essence of moral facts
- moral facts are both natural & normative, in virtue of the fact that normativity itself is a natural phenomenon
- first, show that all normative concepts can be analyzed in terms of one, fundamental normative concept
- second, show that that fundamental normative concept picks out a natural property
what is the triviality objection to naturalism that supports ethical non-naturalism?
prem1: if moral naturalism is true, then it will be possible to make moral claims & natural claims and have those two claims be about the same fact
prem2: if the two claims are about the same fact, then those two claims must contain all the same information
prem3: a statement of equivalence between any two claims that contain the same information must be trivial
prem4: but moral claims that describe the relationships between moral facts and natural facts are not trivial at all - they are highly substantive
conc: therefore, ethical naturalism cannot be true
why does Moore support intuitionism?
Moore argued that moral properties are not natural properties; but he thought that the very same pattern of argument that he used against naturalism also showed that ethical properties could not be “metaphysical” (supernatural) properties either (Sturgeon, 2009)
he held that ethical properties are neither natural nor supernatural, and so have to fall in a category of their own & we would know them only by a form of intuition about which little could be said
intuitionism is a response to question: if moral properties are both non-natural & non-supernatural properties as Moore suggests, how do we know about them?
what is Moore’s intuitionism a response to?
response to question: if moral properties are both non-natural & non-supernatural properties as Moore suggests, how do we know about them?
how does Moore suggest we know about moral properties if they are both non-natural and non-supernatural?
Moore argues that, via the faculty of rational intuition, we can directly reflect on the truth of moral judgements such as “murder is wrong”. The truth / falsehood of such moral judgements is said to be self-evident
who are the Cornell Realists?
Boyd, Brink, Sturgeon & Railton
- all working / studying at Cornell at the time
what do Cornell Realists believe moral facts & moral properties are?
moral facts are the kinds of facts that can be investigated in a broadly scientific way
- driven by a commitment to mirroring scientific methodology in ethics as closely as possible
believe moral properties are highly complex natural properties, individuated by their casual profiles (homeostatic cluster properties (Boyd, 1988))
how do Cornell Realists believe we know things about morality?
argues that we can know things about morality using scientific methodology (observation)
why is the Cornell Realist scientific methodology approach to knowing about morality considered problematic?
scientific methods are all, ultimately, grounded in an epistemology of observation
obvious how we can have empirical knowledge of natural properties such as redness or roundness; they are directly observable
but goodness doesn’t seem to be directly observable, and that looks like an important disanalogy between moral properties & natural properties
what is the causal profile approach to knowing about morality used by Cornell realists?
use complex causal profiles / homeostatic cluster properties (Boyd, 1988) to know things about morality
- moral properties can be causally efficacious (Sturgeon)
not all natural properties are directly observable. Some kinds of natural properties are highly complex, and knowable only through the functional role they occupy (Lutz & Lenman, 2021)
- e.g. healthiness: complex natural property, there may be some characteristic visual signs of healthiness - rosy cheeks, a spring in one’s step - but these visual signs are neither necessary nor sufficient for healthiness, these are indications of healthiness because these are properties that are, typically, caused by health
Cornell realists hold that goodness is like healthiness in all of these ways
- goodness is a complex natural property that is not directly observable, but nonetheless has a robust causal profile
- because goodness is a natural property with a complex causal profile, the property of goodness can enter into explanatory relations. Thus, contra Harman, it is possible for goodness to explain our observations (Sturgeon, 1985)
why is the causal reference theory approach sensible?
- it continues their foundational commitment to treating moral properties as a kind of causally-individuated natural property
- it helps Cornell realists evade the OQA - by accepting a causal theory of reference, they thereby reject a description theory of reference
what is Railton’s idealised subjectivism approach to understanding morality as a Cornell realist?
start with a person’s subjective interests
cleanse & supplement these desires by asking what she would want were she to be fully informed, to understand the situation well, and to fully exercise her imagination (counterfactual - “objectified subjective interests”)
from here Railton proposes to get to moral norms, such as norms constituting a kind of definition of moral rightness
what is Twin Earth?
a planet pretty much like Earth except that the oceans, lakes, and streams are filled with a liquid whose outward, easily observable, properties are just like those of water and people call “water”, but whose underlying physical-chemical nature is not H2O, but some other molecular structure XYZ (Horgan & Timmons, 1990)
which scholars offered the moral twin earth objection to Cornell realism?
Putnam; Horgan & Timmons, 1990
what is the moral twin earth objection to Cornell realism?
Twin-English term ‘water’ is not translatable by our orthographically identical term
- on Earth, it means H2O, on Twin Earth XYW as those are the properties that play the causal / functional role of “water”
on Twin Earth there are people who praise and blame action and call actions right and wrong. But they do so differently from people on Earth (e.g. people on Earth are utilitarians, people on Twin Earth are Kantians)
so a different natural property is playing the role of “moral goodness” on Earth and Twin Earth, and if Cornell Realism is right (especially the causal theory of reference), “moral goodness” has a different meaning on Earth and Twin Earth
but clearly “moral goodness” doesn’t have a different meaning on Earth and Twin Earth, rather these people disagree about what is morally right and wrong
how can Cornell realists respond to the moral Twin Earth objection?
Cornell Realists can keep their naturalist theory & accept a different theory of reference (i.e. not causal)
but this would weaken analogy with natural properties & would make it hard to see how we could learn about moral properties or the natural properties they are (supposedly) identical to
