Two Accounts of Moral Objectivity: from Attitude-Independence to Standpoint-Invariance

Abstract

How should we understand the notion of moral objectivity? Metaethical positions that vindicate morality's objective appearance are often associated with moral realism. On a realist construal, moral objectivity is understood in terms of mind-, stance-, or attitudeindependence. But realism is not the only game in town for moral objectivists. On an antirealist construal, morality's objective features are understood in virtue of our attitudes. In this paper I aim to develop this antirealist construal of moral objectivity in further detail, and to make its metaphysical commitments explicit. I do so by building on Sharon Street's version of BHumean Constructivism^. Instead of the realist notion of attitude-independence, the antirealist account of moral objectivity that I articulate centres on the notion of standpoint-invariance. While constructivists have been criticized for compromising on the issue of moral objectivity, I make a preliminary case for the thesis that, armed with the notion of standpoint-invariance, constructivists have resources to vindicate an account of objectivity with just the right strength, given the commitments of ordinary moral thought and practice. In support of this thesis I highlight recent experimental findings about folk moral objectivism. Empirical observations about the nature of moral discourse have traditionally been taken to give prima facie support to moral realism. I argue, by contrast, that from what we can tell from our current experimental understanding, antirealists can capture the commitments of ordinary discourse at least as well as realists can.

Striking coincidences: How realists should reason about them

“…This is the view that Street takes: she maintains that realists are still committed to a coincidence that is 'incredible' (Street, 2006, p. 125), 'astonishing' (Street, 2008, p. 208), 'striking', or 'puzzling' (Street, 2016, 5 Berker (2014 argues for this claim. I defend a version of Humean constructivism in Hopster (2017), and argue against Berker's criticism in Section 7 of that article.…”

“…The first solution to the puzzle, which Street (, Section 6) herself endorses, is to argue that ‘normative truth just is a (rather complex) function of the normative judgments that causal forces led us to make’ (Street, , p. 307). More specifically, our own attitudes – which have been shaped by natural selection, our cultural history, the social environment and various other causal forces – are ultimately the truth‐makers of normative judgments (see Hopster, for further elaboration). Therefore, it is only to be expected that the set of judgments that causal forces have led us to make roughly coincides with the set of true normative judgments.…”

“…More specifically, our own attitudes -which have been shaped by natural selection, our cultural history, the social environment and various other causal forces -are ultimately the truth-makers of normative judgments (see Hopster, 2017 for further elaboration). Therefore, it is only to be expected that the set of judgments that causal forces have led us to make roughly coincides with the set of true normative judgments.…”

The meta-ethical significance of experiments about folk moral objectivism

“…Thirdly, in response to the criticism that experimenters often do not frame moral objectivism in the same way as meta-ethicistsparticularly, realiststend to do, it should be pointed out that there is, in fact, substantial variation in the way that meta-ethicists conceive of moral objectivity. To give just one example of this diversity, the aforementioned realist account of moral objectivity in terms of stance-independence has been challengedpartly on experimental groundsby an antirealist account which frames moral objectivity in terms of stance-invariance (Hopster, 2017). The fact that different meta-ethicists adhere to different accounts of moral objectivity should give some pause to critics who argue that experimentalists fail to capture a meta-ethically relevant phenomenon since they do not capture moral objectivity in the realist's sense.…”

“…Traditionally, the purported objectivism of moral discourse has been cited as the most obvious face-value commitment in support of realism. However, antirealist proposals justifying this purported objectivism have also been advanced (Hopster, 2017). Therefore, further argument is needed to get the presumptive argument in support of realism started.…”