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The normativity objection challenges normative naturalism by arguing that we have a distinctive cognitive experience when making normative judgements, finding ourselves in touch with some action-guiding authority issuing demands from outside, and that this cannot be explained naturalistically. An increasing number of naturalists have defended their position by adopting the coloring strategy, which aims to explain away the need for positing a special property and contends that the normative feel results from the intricate work of our mind which colors the world. In this paper, I critically review the extant strategies and consider what the most plausible form of the strategy would look like. I further argue that even the strategy in its most plausible form faces serious problems, that it lacks positive motivation, that it is self-defeating, and that it may well be unnecessary in the first place. As a result, the coloring strategy as a response to the normativity objection should be rejected, though it may have merits in intramural debates among naturalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the primary goals of Pettit's The Birth of Ethics is to offer a novel defense of a form of naturalistic realism in metaethics, drawing on a kind of "counterfactual genealogy" for ethical thought and talk, in a community he dubs "Erewhon". We argue that Pettit's argument faces a deep dilemma. The dilemma begins by noting the reasonable controversy about which metaethical view is true of our ethical thought and talk. We then ask: is the thought and talk in Pettit's Erewhon apt for the same reasonable controversy? If so, this raises doubts about Pettit's case for naturalistic realism about Erewhonian "ethical" thought and talk. If not, this disanalogy between Erewhonian "ethical" thought and talk and our ethical thought and talk renders it difficult to argue smoothly from Erewhonian premises to conclusions about our own ethical thought and talk. We then consider an alternative use that someone might make of Pettit's discussion of Erewhon: as part of a conceptual ethics argument that we should use "ethical" concepts that are relevantly similarly to the ones described in Erewhon. We conclude by reflecting on the broader methodological significance of the sort of dilemma that we have posed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Call 'radical moral theorizing' the project of developing a moral theory that not only tries to conform to our existing moral judgments, but also manifests various theoretical virtues: consistency, simplicity, explanatory depth, and so on. Many moral philosophers assume that radical moral theorizing does not require any particular metaethical commitments. In this paper, I argue against this assumption. The most natural justification for radical moral theorizing presupposes moral realism, broadly construed; in contrast, there may be no justification for radical moral theorizing if moral anti-realism is true. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supervenience in metaethics is the notion that there can be no moral difference between two acts, persons or events without some non-moral difference underlying it. If St. Francis is a good man, there could not be a man exactly like St. Francis in non-evaluative respects that is not good. The phenomenon was first systematically discussed by R. M. Hare (1952), who argued that realists about evaluative properties struggle to account for it. As is well established, Hare, and following him, Simon Blackburn, mistakenly took the relevant phenomenon to be weak rather than strong supervenience, and the explanations they offered for it are accordingly outdated. In this paper, I present a non-factualist account of strong supervenience of the evaluative and argue that it fares better than competing realist views in explaining the conceptual nature of the phenomenon, as well as in offering an account of the supervenience of the evaluative in general, rather than more narrowly the moral. While Hare and Blackburn were wrong about the specifics, they were right in that non-factualists can offer a plausible account of the supervenience of the evaluative, that in certain respects is superior to competing realist explanations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on reparative justice focuses for the most part on the grounds and limits of wrongdoers' duties to their victims. An interesting but relatively neglected question is that of what – if anything – victims owe to wrongdoers. In this paper, I argue that victims are under a duty to accept wrongdoers' apologies. I claim that to accept an apology is to form the belief that the wrongdoer's apologetic utterance or gesture has the requisite verdictive, commissive and expressive dimensions; to communicate as much to him; and to recognise that his apology changes one's normative status in relation to him, and to comport oneself accordingly. I then offer a Kantian argument for the duty to accept and qualify that argument in the light of some hard cases. I end the paper by addressing the objection that victims do not owe it to wrongdoers to engage in any form of reparative encounter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social interaction is laden with stereotypes. Throughout history negative stereotypes have been immensely harmful, leading to hatred, vilification, and direct harm such as discrimination, and they continue to be so in almost all societies. It is widely accepted that we ought not to view members of other groups negatively in stereotypical ways, and also ought not to apply negative stereotypes to members of our own group (or even to ourselves). However, is there any special moral obligation on the targets of such negative stereotypes to take care not to confirm them? May one even be blameworthy for not doing so? The very thought seems outrageous. Yet I will argue that it is plausible to think that, in fact, the victims, too, have pro tanto obligations to prevent stereotype confirmation (henceforth SC), in many central contexts. I am not aware of any sustained philosophical discussion making this claim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political realists have devoted much effort to clarifying the methodological specificity of realist theorising and defending its consistency as an approach to political reasoning. Yet the question of how to justify the realist approach has not received the same attention. In this article, I offer a prudential justification of political realism. To do so, I first characterise realism as anti-moralism. I then outline three possible arguments for the realist approach by availing myself of recent inquiries into the metatheoretical basis of realism: The metaethical, the ethical and the prudential arguments. I explain that the prudential argument offers the most solid basis for political realism because it relies on the least controversial premises. Still, I delve into the metaethical and ethical arguments for two reasons: The prudential argument takes advantage of the theses defended by the rival arguments and elaborating the other arguments shows the comparative strengths of the prudential argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate around epistemic partiality in friendship presents us with several tough philosophical puzzles. One of these has been articulated in two objections to the view that friendship can require epistemic partiality on the grounds it is incompatible with the nature of friendship. The first, owed to Crawford, argues that you should not treat your friends with epistemic partiality because your beliefs about your friends should be responsive to the facts about them, and epistemic partiality is incompatible with this demand. The second, owed to Mason, draws on a Murdochian account of love to argue that loving relationships—such as friendship—are 'epistemically rich states', which means that they are constituted by a drive towards ever greater and more intimate knowledge of our loved ones. In this paper, I shall argue that epistemic partiality may indeed limit what we know about our friends, but not in ways that diminish the quality of our love for them, and certainly not in ways that block us from being friends with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many political realists endorse some notion of political normativity. They think that there are certain normative claims about politics that do not depend on moral premises. The most prominent moralist objections to political normativity have been metaethical: specifically, that political normativity is not genuinely normative; and that it is incapable of justifying normative claims. In this article, I criticize the latter metaethical objection. I argue that the objection presupposes a notion of 'justification' that renders it something that is no longer necessarily valuable to realists. I then extend this argument to show that all metaethical objections to political normativity are unsuccessful. Furthermore, insofar as these metaethical objections purport to constrain the types of politics that realists endorse, realists should regard them as another expression of what Raymond Geuss calls 'dead politics'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mathematical knowledge and moral knowledge (or normative knowledge more generally) can seem intuitively puzzling in similar ways. For example, taking apparent human knowledge of either domain at face value can seem to require accepting that we benefited from some massive and mysterious coincidence. In the mathematical case, a pluralist partial response to access worries has been widely popular. In this paper, I will develop and address a worry, suggested by some works in the recent literature like (Clarke-Doane, 2020) , that connections between ought facts and action prevent us from giving a similarly pluralist response to moral access worries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I develop an argument against applying a causal theory of mental content to normative concepts. This argument—which I call the Intrapersonal Normative Twin Earth Argument—is inspired by Terry Horgan and Mark Timmons' Moral Twin Earth Argument. The focus of Horgan and Timmons' argument is showing that causal theories of mental content conflict with plausible claims about interpersonal normative disagreement. The Intrapersonal Normative Twin Earth Argument, by contrast, is focused on showing that such theories struggle to vindicate plausible claims concerning whether two of an agent's token normative thoughts have the same or distinct content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper explores connections between theories of morality and theories of properties. It argues that (1) moral realism is in tension with predicate, class and mereological nominalism; (2) moral non-naturalism is incompatible with standard versions of resemblance nominalism, immanent realism and trope theory; and (3) the standard semantic arguments for property realism do not support moral realism. I also raise doubts about trope-theoretic explanations of moral supervenience and argue against one version of the principle that we should accept theories that maintain neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the connection between two philosophical debates concerning the nature of properties. The first, metaethical debate is about whether normative properties are ordinary natural properties or some unique kind of non-natural properties. The second, metaphysical debate is about whether properties are sets of objects, transcendent or immanent universals, or sets of tropes. I argue that nominalism, transcendent realism and immanent realism are not neutral frameworks for the metaethical debate but instead lead to either metaethical naturalism or non-naturalism. We can therefore investigate the metaethical question on its own terms only within the framework of trope theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores David Enoch's argument for the existence of irreducibly normative truths in the context of the deliberative project. It presents a counterargument to Enoch's position, suggesting that the two desiderata for the deliberative project may be incompatible. However, the article encourages further investigation into the question of whether a need can justify belief in normative truths. It discusses the distinction between normative reasoning and practical reasoning, providing examples to illustrate the difference. The article also examines the role of normative concepts and truths in second-order practical reasoning and explores different approaches to understanding the deliberative project. It concludes by acknowledging the need for further exploration and deliberation on this topic. [Extracted from the article]

Phenomenal socialism says that what we actually, directly, literally perceive is only or primarily instances of high-level phenomenal properties; this paper argues for phenomenal socialism in the weaker, primarily version. Phenomenal socialism is the philosophy of perception that goes with recognitionalism, which is the metaethics that goes with epiphanies. The first part states the recognitionalist manifesto. The second part situates this manifesto relative to some more global concerns, about naturalism, perception, the metaphysics of value, and theory vs. anti-theory in ethics. The third part rehearses two familiar views about the possible contents of perceptual experience, Phenomenal Conservativism and Phenomenal Liberalism. It notes that the usual catalogue omits two other theoretical possibilities, Phenomenal Socialism and Phenomenal Nihilism, and it defends a watered-down form of Phenomenal Socialism from four main objections. The fourth part makes some connections with the epistemology of modality and with the role of the imagination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Noah McKay provides a novel argument for theism over naturalism. The argument is novel because it connects metaphysical issues to issues regarding moral epistemology. The connection concerns the power of theism and naturalism, respectively, to explain the human capacity to obtain correct beliefs about the domain of morality. The gist of McKay's argument is that theism provides a much more plausible account of this capacity than naturalism. The reason for this superiority, according to McKay, is that theism secures an intimate connection between human moral intuitions and truths within the domain of morality while naturalistic explanations sever the connection between human moral intuitions and truths within the domain of morality. A central contention of McKay's argument is that there are exactly two plausible and naturalistic explanations for the content of human moral intuitions—one appealing to evolutionary considerations, the other appealing to social conventions. I argue that this contention is incorrect. Some Buddhist traditions locate veridical moral intuitions in a kind of experience available to those who achieve freedom from ignorance and attachment. This explanation is naturalistic (as McKay understands that term) and no less plausible than the theistic explanation that McKay considers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the received view in metaethics, a Neo‐Humean theory of rationality entails that there cannot be any objective moral reasons, i.e. moral reasons that are independent of actual desires. In this paper, I argue that there is a version of this theory that is compatible with the existence of objective moral reasons. The key is to distinguish between (i) the process of rational deliberation that starts off in an agent's actual desires, and (ii) the rational principle that an agent employs in such a process. I maintain that it is the latter which explains why it is rational for an agent to have a certain desire, not the former. As a result, there might be two types of principles. The second type of principle leaves room for objective moral reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Michael Thompson's defence of neo‐Aristotelian naturalism in meta‐ethics, (i) '[t]he concept life‐form is a pure or a priori, perhaps a logical, concept', and (ii) '[t]he concept human, as we human beings have it, is an a priori concept' (p. 57). Here I show Thompson's argument for (ii) to be unsound, hoping thereby to shed light on the neglected subject of the a prioricity of concepts more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of KADER is the property of Kelam Arastirmalari Dergisi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

I argue that it's quite comprehensible to get upset about metaethical nihilism, to indulge what I call nihilistic despair. When we lose the objective moral or normative point of view, we lose the promise of luck-immune guidance and categorical importance, things many of us hope for. This is all quite Williams-friendly, but I reject his puzzling but suggestive remarks that nihilistic despair must be a self-pitying muddle. Finally, I argue that internalism about reasons is even more depressing than outright nihilism, in one way at least. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I hope to demonstrate the value of a close reading Williams's 'Internal and External Reasons', and to provide a theory of error regarding the substantial body of work which seeks to, in various ways, defang the essay. I do this by providing some historical context for the paper, and sketching where, historically, internalism and certain sorts of moral realism became separated. It will likely not surprise the reader when I suggest that the modern scientific worldview has an important place in the discussion of the notion of external reasons. As mind, motivation, and perception have become less opaque to us, certain avenues for explaining our reasons have come closer to relying on hypotheses which may turn out to be falsifiable, and have thus been abandoned. What may come as more of a surprise is my suggestion that modern egalitarianism is an important factor as well. I suggest that impersonal reason has been used as an (implausible, but perhaps well-intentioned) alternative to the practice of some inflicting their reasons on others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What makes ethical accounts natural law ethical is, I argue, commonly misrepresented in teaching within much of the philosophical academy. Yet those immersed in the field of natural law and ethics rarely give definitions/brief characterisations of what makes ethical accounts natural law ethical. I suggest theoretical reasons for the lack. I argue that bringing natural law into ethics is best understood as leading to theoretically unitary accounts, not simply collections of positions detachable from each other: an overlooked and significant point when defending natural law ethical accounts. My arguments throughout rely on the metaethical/normative ethical distinction, which is relatively little used in the natural law literature. I argue that the distinction helps clarify what is distinctive of natural law ethical accounts in general, especially to the secular contemporary philosophical academy, where appreciation of natural law ethical accounts is commonly appreciably lower than in philosophical contexts with a religious ethos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many philosophers in the field of meta-ethics believe that rational degrees of confidence in moral judgments should have a probabilistic structure, in the same way as do rational degrees of belief. The current paper examines this position, termed "moral Bayesianism," from an empirical point of view. To this end, we assessed the extent to which degrees of moral judgments obey the third axiom of the probability calculus, $${\rm{if\,P}}\left({{\rm{A}}\mathop \cap \nolimits {\rm{B}}} \right) = 0{\rm{\,then\,P}}\left({{\rm{A}}\mathop \cup \nolimits {\rm{B}}} \right) = {\rm{P}}\left({\rm{A}} \right) + {\rm{P}}\left({\rm{B}} \right)$$ if P A ∩ B = 0 then P A ∪ B = P A + P B , known as finite additivity, as compared to degrees of beliefs on the one hand and degrees of desires on the other. Results generally converged to show that degrees of moral judgment are more similar to degrees of belief than to degrees of desire in this respect. This supports the adoption of a Bayesian approach to the study of moral judgments. To further support moral Bayesianism, we also demonstrated its predictive power. Finally, we discuss the relevancy of our results to the meta-ethical debate between moral cognitivists and moral non-cognitivists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In metaethics, evolutionary debunking arguments combine empirical and epistemological premises to purportedly show that our moral judgments are unjustified. One objection to these arguments has been to distinguish between those judgments that evolutionary influence might undermine versus those that it does not. This response is powerful but not well understood. In this paper I flesh out the response by drawing upon a familiar distinction in the natural sciences, where it is common to distinguish folk judgments from theoretical judgments. I argue that this in turn illuminates the proper scope of the evolutionary debunking argument, but not in an obvious way: it is a very specific type of undermining argument that targets those theories where theoretical judgments are inferred merely from folk judgments. One upshot of this conclusion is that it reveals a verboten methodology in metaethics. The evolutionary debunking argument is therefore much less powerful than its proponents have supposed, but it nevertheless rules out what is perhaps a common way of attempting to justify moral judgments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research seeks to explain and clarify the ontology of ethics and the existence of moral attributes such as good and bad based on the fundamental views of Aakhund Khorasani. At first glance, the opinions of Khorasani Aakhund use a kind of essentialist moral reductionism, in such a way that moral attributes such as good and bad are reduced to the compatibility of the act with the power of reason, and of course, this compatibility is because the act has expediency and existence and good effects are compatible with the inherent beauty and ugliness of his consideration. With some reflections on the discussions of Aakhund Khorasani, it is possible to present an amendment to his first opinion and distinguish between the truth of the act and the performance of the act. In this case, to act, the element of intention must be added to the expediency and existence capacity and compatibility with the intellectual power. The implications of Aakhund's moral reductionism include 1) Posterior moral knowledge, 2) absolutism, 3) Lack of moral independence, and 4) Inference of must and value from being. In this research, first, the moral reductionism of Aakhund is explained and analyzed, and then its implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peter Königs's book, "Problems for Moral Debunkers: On the Logic and Limits of Empirically Informed Ethics," explores debunking arguments in moral philosophy. Königs examines the arguments put forth by utilitarians like Peter Singer and Joshua Greene, as well as moral anti-realists like Richard Joyce and Sharon Street. He concludes that these debunking arguments fail to achieve their intended goals. Königs also discusses the "backfiring problem," which suggests that these debunking arguments challenge the proponents' own moral or metaethical positions. While the book primarily focuses on problems for moral debunkers, it does not address the non-dialectical epistemological issues that debunking arguments raise. Additionally, Königs criticizes arguments that rely on higher-order evidence, claiming that they are sloppy and imprecise. However, this criticism does not warrant a general ban on higher-order evidence-based arguments in academic discourse. [Extracted from the article]

Proponents of an associative account of political obligation maintain that individuals bear certain moral duties simply in virtue of their membership in a particular political community. I defend this thesis by interpreting it as a metaethical claim that expresses or implicitly relies on a pragmatist account of the nature of normativity, justification, and knowledge. Such a defense has a number of virtues. First, it offers a compelling rationale for the strategy commonly employed to defend the associative thesis. Second, a pragmatist reading provides the resources necessary to rebut a number of objections advanced against the associative thesis, such as the criticism that associative theorists cannot distinguish actually having political obligations from merely believing or feeling that one has political obligations. Third, a pragmatist metaethics entails a particular model of practical reasoning, namely constructive interpretation, that helpfully illuminates our actual practice of attributing or contesting political obligations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that there is significant evidence for reconsidering the possibility that moral judgment constitutes a distinctive category of judgment. We begin by reviewing evidence and arguments from neuroscience and philosophy that seem to indicate that a diversity of brain processes result in verdicts that we ordinarily consider "moral judgments". We argue that if these findings are correct, this is plausible reason for doubting that all moral judgments necessarily share common features: if diverse brain processes give rise to what we refer to as "moral judgments", then we have reason to suspect that these judgments may have different features. After advancing this argument, we show that giving up the unity of moral judgment seems to effectively dissolve the internalism/externalism debate concerning motivation within the field of metaethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on the work of several exceptional scholars from the disciplines of philosophy, law, and history. My central aim is to introduce and explicate an idea closely related to (and derivative of) the concept of rights talk, a concept I call 'constitutional emotivism'. By drawing upon scholars including Mary Ann Glendon, Jamal Greene, A.J. Ayer, and Alasdair MacIntyre, I aim to gather the conceptual threads that I trace through their work which together form the idea of constitutional emotivism. In a sentence, constitutional emotivism is the conflation of moral disagreements with constitutional rights grievances. When this conflation occurs, rights conflicts that never needed to occur in the first place reinforce rights talk and its uncompromising nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for the value of distinguishing two projects concerning our normative and evaluative thought and talk, which we dub "metanormative inquiry" and "the conceptual ethics of normativity" respectively. The first half of the paper offers a substantive account of each project and of the relationship between them. Roughly, metanormative inquiry aims to understand actual normative and evaluative thought and talk, and what (if anything) it is distinctively about, while the conceptual ethics of normativity engages in normative or evaluative reflection on normative and evaluative thought and talk. We explore how certain theories of content determination complicate the distinction between these projects, but argue that both the distinction and its significance survive these complications. The second half of the paper argues that attention to the distinction between these projects can promote progress in both projects in three ways. First, it can transform our understanding and evaluation of views that are routinely classified as part of "metaethics". Second, it can help us to identify important theoretical options that otherwise tend to remain obscure. And, third, it can help us to avoid tempting but fallacious arguments which can easily arise if the projects are not distinguished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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I address a family of objections I label the So What? objection to robust non-naturalist realism (or, just non-naturalism). This objection concludes that non-naturalism fails to identify the moral properties in virtue of failing to explain why non-natural properties would have all the features we expect moral properties to have and can be extended to provide the conclusion that the non-naturalist is therefore immoral. I argue that So What? is question-begging because it disallows non-naturalists their central theoretical claim: there are ethical properties iff they are fundamental properties (and, in virtue of that, non-natural). I then diagnose the error anti-non-naturalists make explicitly: those who object to non-naturalism along the lines of So What? either fail to understand precisely what the theory claims or fail to understand non-naturalist motivations for going in for that theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops Mark D. Linville's brief description of "a sort of moral fine-tuning argument". I develop the argument in four ways: I unpack the argument and give it a clear formulation, I unpack the theistic explanation of why a somewhat reliable moral capacity is expected, I point to the significance of not seeking to explain a perfect moral capacity, and I put the argument up against the recent work on non-theistic moral epistemology by Derek Parfit, David Enoch, and Erik Wielenberg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thesis. Divine Command Theory (hereafter DCT) is a metaethical theory belonging to the category of moral realism of the non-cognitive type, whose popularity is growing. In this thesis, we show some of the reasons that have triggered the need to address the normativity of ethical concepts, because of which DCT receives its justification. Concept. Our argument begins with an analysis of a critical moment in contemporary ethical discourse, the question of normativity, relating Hume's law to the contemporary problem of solipsism, philosophical pluralism, and epistemic reductionism in moral philosophy. We show the strengths of the moral reasoning offered by Divine Command Theory and point out its weaknesses, which have to do with the fact that God is not a perfect system of moral axioms, but a being who acts morally and perfectly. Results and conclusion. Divine Command Theory is an important metaethical approach that offers a solid space for the establishment of different ethical frameworks with normativity weights, but on the other hand harbours question marks that should not be overlooked. These are questions of justice and love in terms of God's model of reasoning, since both aspects are paradoxical from a theological point of view and, moreover, run the risk of a self-referential fallacy on the part of the interpreter of God's commandments. The problematic aspects of this theory that we point out do not in any way undermine its validity, but rather anticipate an even deeper level of reflection on ethical realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metaethical expressivism faces the perennial objection that its commitment to non‐cognitivism about moral judgment renders the view revisionary of our ordinary moral thought. The standard response to this objection is to say that since the expressivist's theoretical commitments about the nature of moral judgment are independent of normative ethics, the view cannot be revisionary of normative ethics. This essay seeks to evaluate the standard response by exploring several senses of independence that expressivism might enjoy from normative ethics. I develop a taxonomy on which, at least by the expressivist's own lights, normative ethics is not dependent on non‐cognitivism about moral judgment in a way that might render that claim itself normative ethical. The argument will require us to formulate a theory of moral subject matter according to the expressivist, a matter of independent interest. Although this discussion will essentially vindicate the standard response to the perennial objection, it will also highlight a major limitation thereof. This is that even for the expressivist, the taxonomic independence of non‐cognitivism about moral judgment from normative ethics does not guarantee its moral independence from normative ethics; that is, showing that non‐cognitivism about moral judgment is not a moral claim is not itself to show that it is not a morally relevant claim. I conclude by arguing that the question of moral dependence, usually discussed under the heading of objectivity, is ultimately first‐order moral rather than taxonomic, and so can only be resolved on first‐order moral grounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Street formulated a Darwinian Dilemma for realist theories of value. Much criticism of her formulation of the dilemma targets the second horn, posed by the scientifically implausible assumption of a tracking relation between our attitudes and evaluative truth. This paper shows how a recent wave of metaethical realism, most prominently defended by Scanlon, succeeds without a tracking relation and thus avoids the Darwinian Dilemma in Street's formulation. However, Scanlon's approach, which builds on the concept of a reason relation and defends a metaphysically pluralist, domain‐specific conception of truth, runs into another version of the Darwinian Dilemma. The problem is not that Scanlon's realism assumes a tracking relation but that it assumes what I call reason monolithism – the idea that there is one possible expression of the faculty of reason and that this cognitive faculty could not be otherwise, which is scientifically implausible on similar grounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I start with a detailed but partial analysis of a case regarding grade inflation. The case is inspired by the discussion in Crumbley et al. (2010) and its elaboration in Roberts (2016). I supplement the case description by introducing certain facts that are not in the original discussion. The subsequent analysis is based on this enriched case description. I then raise a number of objections against my analysis. An important metaethical, methodological question emerges while responding to these objections. To what extent are characterizations of moral situations and their descriptions independent from moral commitments? Is there a neutral concept of moral relevance? I argue that we do not have a theory-neutral concept of moral relevance, and that case descriptions essentially presuppose moral commitments. From my moral perspective, as this perspective is reflected in the enriched case description I utilize, the original case description of grade inflation already involves utilizing the wrong moral perspective or theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Value pluralism is the metaphysical thesis that there is a plurality of values at the fundamental level of the evaluative domain. Value monism, on the other hand, is the claim that there is just one fundamental value. Pluralists, it is commonly argued, have an edge over monists when it comes to accounting for the conspicuous heterogeneity of the evaluative domain and the rationality of regretting well-justified decisions. Monists, in turn, seem to provide a far more plausible account of rational evaluative decision-making. I argue that the impression of a theoretical stalemate, which is suggested by the exchange of those arguments, is premature. An assessment of the sub-positions in both camps, in conjunction with an analysis of value fundamentality based on the notion of grounding, reveals that certain versions of pluralism and monism—which I call moderate positions—can counter the respective objections. Thus, moderate value pluralism and moderate value monism emerge as the strongest positions in both camps. I conclude that the further debate should center around those two positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to expressivists, normative language expresses desire‐like states of mind. According to noncognitivists, normative beliefs have a desire‐like functional role. What is the relation between these two doctrines? It is widely assumed that expressivism commits you to noncognitivism, and vice versa. This paper opposes that assumption. I advance a view that combines a noncognitivist psychology with a descriptivist semantics for normative language. While this might seem like an ungainly hybrid, I argue that it has important advantages over more familiar metaethical positions. The noncognitivist aspect of the theory captures all of the explanatory benefits standardly associated with expressivism. At the same time, the descriptivist element allows us to avoid the semantic headaches for expressivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aquinas's virtue‐based ethics is grounded in his metaphysics, and in particular in one part of his doctrine of the transcendentals, namely, the relation of being and goodness. This metaphysics supplies for his normative ethics the sort of metaethical foundation that some contemporary virtue‐centered ethics have been criticized for lacking, and it grounds an ethical naturalism of considerable philosophical sophistication. In addition, this grounding has a theological implication even more fundamental than its applications to ethics. That is because Aquinas takes God to be essentially and uniquely being itself. Consequently, on Aquinas's view, God is also essentially goodness itself. Aquinas's metaphysical grounding for his ethics is thus meant to be understood in connection with his more fundamental views regarding God's nature, and in particular his views of God's simplicity. This metaphysical grounding confers significant philosophical and theological advantages on his ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 20th century, two new disciplines emerged in the tradition of analytic philosophy: meta-ethics and political epistemology. Nevertheless, debates on such questions go back to the ancient Greeks and, in particular, to the debates between Plato and Protagoras. This article elucidates the controversy between Plato and the influential sophist Protagoras from the perspective of contemporary meta-ethics and political epistemology. It argues that the main motivation of Plato's philosophical endeavors is to overcome Protagoras's skeptical claims that no moral facts and no moral knowledge applicable to political issues exist. The paper defends the thesis that there exists a deep disagreement between Protagoras and Plato on the existence of moral facts and moral knowledge. A deep disagreement is a disagreement that cannot be resolved through the use of reasons and arguments. Applying the foundationalist approach Robert J. Fogelin proposes in his seminal paper "The Logic of Deep Disagreements", this article argues that the deep disagreement between Protagoras and Plato exists because their political thought is based on "underlying principles" that clash. While Plato's political philosophy rests on his religious and theological convictions, the political thought of Protagoras is based on his skepticism, relativism, and agnosticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a normative ethical theory, ethical egoism may seem compatible with the metaethical theory of moral realism. However, in this article, I will problematize such an assumption. The reason is that an important motivation for rejecting moral anti-realism by many moral realists—like Derek Parfit, Torbjörn Tännsjö, and Erik J. Wielenberg—is that such a view entails that not even cruel or horrendous acts are to be called wrong by any universal or objective standard. I suggest that this motivation also applies to the ethical theory of egoism, as it may imply that no one has any obligation to refrain from cruel or horrendous acts as long they are beneficial to the agent. On that basis, I will demonstrate that egoism is a problem for robust moral realists that also, to a large degree, is being overlooked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Again, Wielenberg's fascinating I argument from psychopathy i from moral psychology against Divine Command Theory (DCT) focuses on the pathology known as psychopathy - a perennial interest for those concerned with abnormal and moral psychology. Furthermore, if the argument does present a serious problem for DCT, then it does so for Wielenberg's own view, Robust Normative Realism (RNR), just as much as for DCT. In the penultimate chapter, Martin Jakobsen's "A Christological Critique of Divine Command Theory" revisits DCT by presenting a theological critique of Divine Command Theory. [Extracted from the article]

Leading expressivist proposals characterize the mental state expressed in the making of a normative judgment solely in terms of intrinsic, psychological dispositions. As a result, they fail to capture a subset of the normative judgments that agents can and do make; they miss the way that external factors can influence what the making of a normative judgment looks like. This problem can be seen most plainly in the context of systemic oppression. Intuitively, one can make a normative judgment that conflicts with the oppressive ideas one has previously been conditioned to endorse, but expressivism seems to deny that this is possible. The expressivist's inability to count these avowals made under oppression as genuine normative judgments makes expressivism deficient as a metaethical theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A joke is amusing if and only if it's fitting to be amused by it; an act is regrettable if and only if it's fitting to regret it. Many philosophers accept these biconditionals and hold that analogous ones obtain between a wide range of additional evaluative properties and the fittingness of corresponding responses. Call these the fit–value biconditionals. The biconditionals give us a systematic way of recognizing the role of fit in our ethical practices; they also serve as the bedrock of various metaethical projects, such as fitting-attitude analysis of value and the 'fittingness first' approach. Yet despite the importance of the biconditionals, there is very little discussion of their proper interpretation. This paper argues that any plausible interpretation of the fit–value biconditionals must disarm several kinds of apparent counterexample. For instance, that an achievement is pride-worthy doesn't imply it is fitting for me to take pride in it because the achievement might not be mine or that of anyone close to me; that a joke is amusing doesn't imply it is fitting for me to be amused by it for six straight months; and that a person is loveable doesn't imply it is fitting for me to love him romantically because that person might be my sibling. We consider possible responses to such counterexamples and develop what we consider the most promising interpretation of the biconditionals. The upshot is that certain widespread assumptions about fit and its relation to value and reasons should be reconsidered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on moral error theory, which claims that no moral claims are true, and all are therefore mistaken. Topics include the challenge presented by moral error theory, responses to this challenge, such as debunking arguments and insulationist approaches, and an argument that other metaethical theories also have troubling consequences for moral judgment.

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