No excuses for moral realism

Sauer, Hanno

doi:10.1007/s11098-017-0882-9

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 68 publications

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“…The author of a recent article in a major journal writes: “[T]he array of traditional challenges to moral realism appears to be exhausted. Disagreement is now widely considered irrelevant” (Sauer, 2018: 575). Sauer does not elaborate on or support this claim, but if this is indeed the current balance of philosophical opinion, it is misplaced.…”

Section: The Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Right Argument from Moral Disagreement

Goldman

2022

Theoria

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The anti-realist's argument from moral disagreement has prematurely fallen out of favor. The argument has never been stated explicitly in correct form, and its proponents have not appealed to the best examples to support its premises. Realists have responded with a multitude of possible replies without applying them to the most convincing examples of irresolvable disagreements. The argument is a modus ponens from apparent fundamental disagreements to a disjunction of possible explanations, and then a disjunctive argument eliminating all but one alternative. The most convincing example from the point of view of the anti-realist is the disagreement between the collectivist and the individual rights advocate, which occurs on both the levels of principle and individual judgment. Realist explanations for such disagreements include ignorance of nonmoral facts, application of principles in diverse contexts, bias, faulty reasoning, incommensurability or ties, lack of empathy or imagination, inaccessibility of moral facts, or different meanings for moral terms. I argue that none of these realist explanations for the disagreement between the collectivist and the individualist works, leaving only the anti-realist explanation. Other realist moves, for example analogies with other areas of discourse, including disagreement among meta-ethicists, are also shown to fail.

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Section: The Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Right Argument from Moral Disagreement

Goldman

2022

Theoria

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The argument from agreement: How universal values undermine moral realism

Sauer

2019

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The most popular argument against moral realism is the argument from disagreement: if there are mind‐independent moral facts, then we would not expect to find as much moral disagreement as we in fact do; therefore, moral realism is false. In this paper, I develop the flipside of this argument. According to this argument from agreement, we would expect to find lots of moral disagreement if there were mind‐independent moral facts. But we do not, in fact, find much moral disagreement; therefore, moral realism is false. I defend the argument, explain the empirical evidence that supports it, and show what makes this challenge novel and powerful.

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No excuses for moral realism

Cited by 2 publications

References 68 publications

The Right Argument from Moral Disagreement

The Right Argument from Moral Disagreement

The argument from agreement: How universal values undermine moral realism

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