Two Accounts of Moral Objectivity: from Attitude-Independence to Standpoint-Invariance
How should we understand the notion of moral objectivity? Metaethical positions that vindicate moralitys objective appearance are often associated with moral realism. On a realist construal, moral objectivity is understood in terms of mind-, stance-, or attitude-independence. But realism is not the...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Springer Science + Business Media B. V
[2017]
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| In: |
Ethical theory and moral practice
Year: 2017, Volume: 20, Issue: 4, Pages: 763-780 |
| IxTheo Classification: | NCA Ethics VA Philosophy VB Hermeneutics; Philosophy |
| Further subjects: | B
Moral Realism
B Folk objectivism B Ideally coherent eccentrics B Objectivity B Humean constructivism B Moral relativism B Moral metaphysics |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | How should we understand the notion of moral objectivity? Metaethical positions that vindicate moralitys objective appearance are often associated with moral realism. On a realist construal, moral objectivity is understood in terms of mind-, stance-, or attitude-independence. But realism is not the only game in town for moral objectivists. On an antirealist construal, moralitys 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 Streets version of Humean 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. |
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| ISSN: | 1572-8447 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s10677-017-9796-z |