Facts, values, and normative supervenience

Abstract

Modern ethics contains two, antagonistic strands of thought concerning the relationship of facts and values. On the one hand, a cornerstone of modern ethics, and moral philosophy more generally, has been the separation of facts and values. In its broadest form, the thesis would be that moral values cannot be reduced to facts. On the other hand, contemporary moral philosophers continue to believe that facts determine values in various ways. The fact/value distinction, or bifurcation, emerges historically in connection with the now wide-spread rejection of ethical naturalism, while such determinative relations generate forms of naturalistic reductionism which obscure’ the traditional contrast. The present paper analyzes, and resolves, this apparent inconsistency.