The normative web: An argument for moral realism

Abstract

Antirealist views about morality claim that moral facts do not exist. An interesting question to raise about these views is whether they imply that other types of normative facts, such as epistemic facts, do not exist. This book develops the argument that they do. That is, it contends that moral and epistemic facts are sufficiently similar that, if moral facts do not exist, then epistemic facts also do not exist. But epistemic facts (facts that concern reasons for belief), it is argued, do exist. So, moral facts also exist. And if moral facts exist, then moral realism is true. This argument provides not simply a defence of a robustly realist view of ethics, but a positive argument for this position. In so doing, it engages with sophisticated sceptical positions in epistemology, such as error theories, expressivist views, and reductionist views of epistemic reasons. These positions, it is claimed, come at a high theoretical cost. It follows that realism about both epistemic and moral facts is a position that we should find highly attractive.