Moral realism

Abstract

Taken at face value, the claim that Nigel has a moral obligation tokeep his promise, like the claim that Nyx is a black cat, purports toreport a fact and is true if things are as the claim purports. Moralrealists are those who think that, in these respects, things should betaken at face value—moral claims do purport to report facts andare true if they get the facts right. Moreover, they hold, at leastsome moral claims actually are true. That much is the common and moreor less defining ground of moral realism (although some accounts ofmoral realism see it as involving additional commitments, say to theindependence of the moral facts from human thought and practice, or tothose facts being objective in some specified way).