Moral Realism

Question 1

analytic naturalism

Answer 1

moral terms can be defined in terms of natural properties, this is part of the meaning of those terms

Question 2

closed question

Answer 2

a question whose answer is decided by the meanings of the concepts involved in the question, e.g. is good good?

Question 3

cognitivism

Answer 3

moral judgements express beliefs or cognitive mental states that are truth-apt

Question 4

ethical naturalism

Answer 4

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

Question 5

ethical non-naturalism

Answer 5

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

Question 6

moral anti-realism

Answer 6

objective moral properties and facts do not exist

Question 7

moral realism

Answer 7

objective moral properties and facts do exist

Question 8

naturalism

Answer 8

scientific entities and properties are all that exist (and the scientific method is the only way of gaining knowledge)

Question 9

non-cognitivism

Answer 9

moral judgements express non-cognitive mental states, do not aim to describe reality, and are not capable of being true or false

Question 10

normativity

Answer 10

reason-giving force

Question 11

open question

Answer 11

a question whose answer cannot be decided by the meanings of the concepts involved in the question, e.g. is pleasure good?

Question 12

supervenience

Answer 12

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)

Question 13

synthetic naturalism

Answer 13

moral values are metaphysically identical to natural properties, but there is no analytic equivalence, this is not part of the meaning of the terms

Question 14

what is the realism / anti-realism debate about?

Answer 14

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

Question 15

what do objective moral properties give rise to?

Answer 15

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

Question 16

what do realists disagree over with regard to objective moral properties?

Answer 16

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

Question 17

are ethical naturalism and ethical non-naturalism cognitivist theories?

Answer 17

both ethical naturalism & ethical non-naturalism are cognitivist theories: they agree that moral judgements express beliefs that are capable of being true or false

Question 18

what kind of theories are ethical naturalism and ethical non-naturalism?

Answer 18

both ethical naturalism & ethical non-naturalism are cognitivist theories: they agree that moral judgements express beliefs that are capable of being true or false

Question 19

what does naturalism aim to assimilate moral properties to, according to Van Roojen, 2015?

Answer 19

aims to assimilate moral properties to the properties studied by the natural sciences (van Roojen, 2015)

Question 20

what is the ontological thesis of ethical naturalism?

Answer 20

ontological thesis: what there is in the world, e.g. there are only natural properties in the world

Question 21

what is the quasilinguistic claim of ethical naturalism?

Answer 21

quasilinguistic claim: moral language is truth-apt, cognitivist (truth or falsehood)

Question 22

what are the two ways that ethical terms express natural terms in ethical naturalism?

Answer 22

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)

Question 23

how does general naturalism argue that ethical terms express natural terms?

Answer 23

general naturalism: ‘good’ refers to X (X is a natural property) (term refers to property)

Question 24

how does analytic naturalism argue that ethical terms express natural terms?

Answer 24

analytic naturalism: ‘good’ is synonymous with ‘X’ (X is a non-moral term) (connection between two terms)

Question 25

how does Sturgeon (2009) define ethical naturalism?

Answer 25

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)

Question 26

what 3 (or 4) claims is ethical naturalism the conjunction of, according to Lutz & Lenman (2021)?

Answer 26

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)

Question 27

give an example of a naturalist ethical theory.

Answer 27

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

Question 28

what is the distinction between analytic and synthetic naturalism?

Answer 28

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

Question 29

what are the two main arguments for ethical naturalism?

Answer 29

argument from normative supervenience

arguments from anti-scepticism

Question 30

what is (normative) supervenience?

Answer 30

‘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

Question 31

what is Jackson’s direct argument of supervenience for ethical naturalism?

Answer 31

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

Question 32

which scholar offered the direct argument of supervenience for ethical naturalism?

Answer 32

Jackson, 1998

Question 33

how could non-naturalists reject the direct argument?

Answer 33

reject intensionalism

Question 34

what is McPherson’s explanatory argument of supervenience for ethical naturalism?

Answer 34

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

Question 35

which scholar offered the explanatory argument of supervenience for ethical naturalism?

Answer 35

McPherson, 2011

Question 36

how could non-naturalists reject the explanatory argument?

Answer 36

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

Question 37

what is the limitation to supervenience as a support for naturalism?

Answer 37

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

Question 38

what are the arguments from anti-scepticism for ethical naturalism?

Answer 38

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

Question 39

why are arguments from anti-scepticism controversial?

Answer 39

controversial as intuitionist moral epistemology is popular

Question 40

how do ethical non-naturalists think of non-natural properties?

Answer 40

think of non-natural properties as non-physical properties

these non-natural moral properties cannot be reduced to anything simpler

• they are basic

Question 41

how does Moore attack ethical naturalism in Principia Ethica (1903)?

Answer 41

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

Question 42

what is Hume’s is / ought gap?

Answer 42

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

Question 43

how is Moore’s naturalistic fallacy argument related to Hume’s is / ought gap?

Answer 43

Moore’s argument that you can’t logically jump from natural to moral is similar to Hume’s is/ought gap

Question 44

what is the distinction between an open question and a closed question?

Answer 44

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?

Question 45

what is Moore’s Open Question Argument?

Answer 45

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)

Question 46

what does Moore’s Open Question Argument generalise to?

Answer 46

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

Question 47

what is implication of Moore’s OQA?

Answer 47

moral properties cannot be fully reduced to natural properties because moral questions always remain open, suggesting a gap between descriptive and normative aspects

Question 48

what is the water/H2O response to the OQA?

Answer 48

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

Question 49

what is the implication of the water/H2O response to the OQA?

Answer 49

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

Question 50

what is the ‘proves too much’ response to the OQA?

Answer 50

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

Question 51

how can the reductive / non-reductive distinction help respond to Moore’s OQA?

Answer 51

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

Question 52

why is the reductive / non-reductive distinction limited as a responses to Moore’s OQA?

Answer 52

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

Question 53

what is the normativity objection to naturalism that supports ethical non-naturalism?

Answer 53

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

Question 54

which scholar offers the normativity objection to naturalism?

Answer 54

Scanlon, 2014

Question 55

how can a naturalist respond to the normativity objection?

Answer 55

two ways for a naturalist to respond to this objection:

1. 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
2. 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

Question 56

what is the triviality objection to naturalism that supports ethical non-naturalism?

Answer 56

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

Question 57

why does Moore support intuitionism?

Answer 57

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?

Question 58

what is Moore’s intuitionism a response to?

Answer 58

response to question: if moral properties are both non-natural & non-supernatural properties as Moore suggests, how do we know about them?

Question 59

how does Moore suggest we know about moral properties if they are both non-natural and non-supernatural?

Answer 59

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

Question 60

who are the Cornell Realists?

Answer 60

Boyd, Brink, Sturgeon & Railton

• all working / studying at Cornell at the time

Question 61

what do Cornell Realists believe moral facts & moral properties are?

Answer 61

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))

Question 62

how do Cornell Realists believe we know things about morality?

Answer 62

argues that we can know things about morality using scientific methodology (observation)

Question 63

why is the Cornell Realist scientific methodology approach to knowing about morality considered problematic?

Answer 63

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

Question 64

what is the causal profile approach to knowing about morality used by Cornell realists?

Answer 64

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)

Question 65

why is the causal reference theory approach sensible?

Answer 65

1. it continues their foundational commitment to treating moral properties as a kind of causally-individuated natural property
2. it helps Cornell realists evade the OQA - by accepting a causal theory of reference, they thereby reject a description theory of reference

Question 65

what is Railton’s idealised subjectivism approach to understanding morality as a Cornell realist?

Answer 65

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

Question 65

what is Twin Earth?

Answer 65

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)

Question 66

which scholars offered the moral twin earth objection to Cornell realism?

Answer 66

Putnam; Horgan & Timmons, 1990

Question 67

what is the moral twin earth objection to Cornell realism?

Answer 67

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

Question 68

how can Cornell realists respond to the moral Twin Earth objection?

Answer 68

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