The Explanatory Ambitions of Moral Principles

Abstract

Moral properties are explained by other properties. And moral principles tell us about moral properties. How are these two ideas related? In particular, is the truth of a given moral principle part of what explains why a given action has a given moral property? I argue “No.” If moral principles are merely concerned with the extension of moral properties across all possible worlds, then they cannot be partial explainers of facts about the instantiation of those properties, since in general necessitation does not suffice for explanation. And if moral principles are themselves about what explains the moral properties under their purview, then by their own lights they are not needed in order to explain those moral properties’ instantiation—unless, that is, the principles exhibit an objectionable form of metaphysical circularity. So moral principles cannot explain why individual actions have moral properties. Nor, I also argue, can they explain why certain other factors explain why those actions have the moral properties that they do, or in some other way govern or mediate such first‐order explanations of particular moral facts. When it comes to the explanation of an individual action's specific moral features, moral principles are explanatorily idle.

Normative explanation unchained

“…And what might their explanations look like, in case they have any? (Some relevant discussions of the explanatory role of moral principles include Dancy, 2004, Chapter 3;Rosen, 2017;Enoch, 2019;Berker, 2019;Fogal & Risberg, 2020;and Baker, 2021. On enablers in explanation, see, e.g., Dancy, 2004, pp.…”

On What (In General) Grounds What

“…My claim is that metaethicists make statements of moral laws, and those statements correspond to generics. (For more on moral laws and grounding, see Berker (2019) and Rosen (2017aRosen ( , 2017b. )…”

The Mackiean Supervenience Challenge

“…The problem is rather that the explanans will ultimately have to involve a brute metaphysically necessary and fully explanatory relation between discontinuous 29 Cf. Berker (2018). 30 Berker (2018) calls the two models BPrinciples as Partial Grounds^and BPrinciples as Meta-Grounds,r espectively.…”

“…Berker (2018). 30 Berker (2018) calls the two models BPrinciples as Partial Grounds^and BPrinciples as Meta-Grounds,r espectively. 31 An analogy: Consider how lame it would be to posit psycho-physical laws to solve the hard problem of consciousness.…”