Moral Reality. A Defence of Moral Realism Strandberg, Caj 2004 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Strandberg, C. (2004). Moral Reality. A Defence of Moral Realism. Department of Philosophy, Lund University. Total number of authors: 1 General rights Unless other specific re-use rights are stated the following general rights apply: Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal Read more about Creative commons licenses: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. LUND UNIVERSITY PO Box 117 221 00 Lund +46 46-222 00 00 Moral Reality A Defence of Moral Realism Caj Strandberg Department of Philosophy Lund University 2004 © Caj Strandberg ISBN 91-628-6257-X Printed by Media-Tryck, Lund University 2004 Contents Acknowledgements i Chapter 1. Realism in Meta-ethics 1. Introduction 1 2. Locating Moral Realism 2 3. Moral Realism in Terms of Irreducibility—A Defence 3 The minimal conception Moral realism in terms of mind independence Moral realism in terms of literal construal Moral realism in terms of irreducibility 4. Moral Realism and Its Opponents 18 Cognitivism contra non-cognitivism Success-theory contra error-theory Realism contra reductionism Realism and naturalism 5. Some Arguments against Non-cognitivism and Error-theory 30 6. Outline of the Argument 34 7. Concluding Remarks 37 Chapter 2. Analytic Reductionism and the Open Question Argument 1. Introduction 39 2. Analytic Reductionism 39 3. An Amended Version of the Open Question Argument 40 4. Defence of the First Part of the Argument 46 5. Defence of the Second Part of the Argument 54 6. Concluding Remarks 59 Chapter 3. Synthetic Reductionism and the Two Questions 1. Introduction 60 2. Natural Kind Terms 61 3. Synthetic Reductionism 64 4. The First Question 71 5. The Second Question 77 6. Concluding Remarks 80 Chapter 4. Realism and the Realist Formula 1. Introduction 82 2. The Realist Formula 83 3. Reusing Synthetic Reductionism 87 4. Concluding Remarks 90 Chapter 5. Explaining Moral Disagreement 1. Introduction 91 2. The Argument from Moral Disagreement 92 3. Types of Moral Disagreement 94 4. Moral Disagreement and Error 95 5. Widespread Moral Disagreement 98 6. Persistent Moral Disagreement and the Phenomenon of Normative Divergence 101 7. The First Reductionist Explanation of Persistent Moral Disagreement 105 Analytic reductionism Synthetic reductionism 8. The Second Reductionist Explanation of Persistent Moral Disagreement 114 9. A Note on Relativism 117 10. A Realist Account of Normative Divergence 121 11. A Realist Explanation of Persistent Moral Disagreement 124 12. Explaining the Persistence of Persistent Moral Disagreement 131 13. Concluding Remarks 132 Appendix. Persistent Moral Disagreement and Unknowable Moral Facts 133 Chapter 6. Explaining Moral Reason 1. Introduction 136 2. The Moral Reason Principle 138 3. Reductionism on the Moral Reason Principle 141 4. Realism on the Moral Reason Principle 143 5. ‘Why Should I Do What Is Right?’ 144 6. Three Objections 155 7. Analogous Normative Questions 158 8. Other Normative Questions 164 9. A Note on Rationalism and Realism 165 10. Concluding Remarks 168 Chapter 7. Explaining Moral Motivation 1. Introduction 169 2. Internalism and Externalism 170 3. The Internalist Argument 173 4. Internalist Considerations 177 5. The Amoralist and Her Critics 183 6. Advanced Amoralists 186 7. Externalist Explanations of Internalist Considerations 192 8. Smith’s Fetishist Argument 201 9. Reductionism, Realism and Moral Motivation 212 Analytic reductionism Synthetic reductionism Realism 10. Concluding Remarks 218 Chapter 8. Moral Dependence 1. Introduction 220 2. The Importance of Moral Dependence 221 3. General Dependence 226 4. Realist Dependence 229 5. The Realist Formula and Supervenience 239 6. Strong or Weak Supervenience? 240 7. Blackburn: Strong or Weak Supervenience—a Dilemma 242 8. Kim: Strong or Weak Supervenience—another Dilemma 249 9. Mackie’s Arguments from Queerness 254 10. Concluding Remarks 265 Chapter 9. Moral Explanations 1. Introduction 266 2. An Outline of Harman’s Argument 267 3. The Causal Criterion 268 4. The Best Explanation Criterion 272 5. A Dilemma for Harman’s Argument 281 6. The Pragmatic Criterion 284 7. Three Conceptions of the Causal Powers of Moral Properties 288 8. Concluding Remarks 296 References 299 Acknowledgements I have received a tremendous amount of help from a large number of people in writing this thesis. At one point, I toyed with the idea of inserting footnotes in the text where I would express my gratitude for each comment I have benefited from. But it turned out to be impossible—there would simply be too many of them. Although this put some doubt in my mind about my own contribution to the text, it made me also realise that philosophy may not be such a lonely enterprise after all. So I would like to take the opportunity to thank my ‘co-writers’ here instead. The person to whom I owe most gratitude is my supervisor Ingmar Persson. Ingmar was the one who suggested to me that moral realism is best understood as the view that moral properties are irreducible, an idea that finally got me start writing and which has provided the shape to this thesis. As a supervisor, Ingmar has been very considerate and generous with his time and wide-ranging philosophical knowledge. His constructive and though-providing comments during the writing process helped me improve the text significantly. He has also—which perhaps is most admirable—been surprisingly patient with my slow-wittedness and frequent confusion. Another person to whom I am very grateful is Wlodek Rabinowicz. Wlodek’s passionate interest in philosophy and his astonishing insight into numerous philosophical fields is a source of inspiration to me and other people at the philosophy department in Lund. He has generously provided suggestive and detailed comments on my drafts, which helped to greatly improve the text. I have also benefited a great deal from extensive written commentaries on individual chapters by Åsa Andersson, Sven Nyholm and Folke Tersman. The participants of the Higher Seminar in Practical Philosophy in Lund have provided me with innumerable helpful comments on the various drafts I have presented there; I am particularly grateful to David Alm, Åsa Andersson, David Bengtsson, Johan Brännmark, Dan Egonsson, Jeanette Emt, Ylva von Gerber, Lena Halldenius, Victoria Höög, Magnus Jiborn, Mats Johansson, Andreas Lind, Sven Nyholm, Jonas Olson, Erik Persson, Björn Petersson, Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen and Daniel Svensson for useful suggestions. Parts of the text have been presented at i Filosofidagarna (‘Philosophy Days’—national conference on philosophy) in Gothenburg, Stockholm and Linköping, and at the Higher Seminar in Practical Philosophy at Uppsala University. On these occasions, I have particularly benefited from valuable comments by Gunnar Björnsson, Jonas Olsson, Jan Österberg and Folke Tersman. During a stay as Recognised Student at the University of Oxford, I had interesting discussions about the open question argument with James Griffin. I am also grateful to Jonathan Dancy and Michael Smith for inspiring discussions about moral motivation and other meta-ethical issues. But life is not merely philosophy—not even at a philosophy department. Together with Jonas Josefsson I have had the privilege of organising two conferences in philosophy. Although the conferences demanded more work than I first realised, they also provided a welcome contrast to tricky meta-ethical problems. I would like to thank Jonas, Wlodek, Lena Gunnarsson, Johannes Persson and Ann Tobin for making the work with the conferences so pleasant. I have received generous financial support from Anders Karitz’ stiftelse, Birgit och Gad Rausings stiftelse för humanistisk forskning, Crafoordska stiftelsen, Dagmar Perssons fond, Humanistiska fakulteten vid Lunds universitet, Knut och Alice Wallenbergs stiftelse, Kungliga vetenskapssamfundet i Lund, Stiftelsen Erik och Gurli Hultengrens fond för filosofi, Stiftelsen fil. dr. Uno Otterstedts fond, STINT (The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education). I am deeply grateful to all these institutions for making my work possible. I would also like to thank Dennis Brice who undertook to check my English in the final manuscript at short notice. Last, but not least, I would like to thank all my wonderful friends. Although I have tried not to trouble them with my philosophical problems, they have meant more to my work than they can imagine. I am especially grateful to Jonas Rendahl for having solved the difficulties with my computer so readily. I dedicate this book to my parents, Annabella and Leif Strandberg, who have always encouraged and supported me. C. S. ii Chapter 1 Realism in Meta-ethics 1. Introduction One significant human activity is to pass estimations of various sorts. We appraise actions, persons and other objects from a number of perspectives, such as law, morality, prudence and rationality. The estimations that play the most important role for our relations to other people are presumably the moral ones. We say things like ‘It’s right to help people in need’, ‘I think it’s wrong of Amanda to betray her husband’, ‘She’s a typically good person’ or ‘She showed how bad she is when she said all those terrible things about him’. Admittedly, many moral sentences are not as plain as these, but they can be taken to imply such sentences.