Moral Realism

Moral realism is the metaethical view that there are moral facts and moral properties and that the existence of these facts and instantiation of these properties is essentially independent of any subjective stance. This view commits moral realists to three logically independent theses. Moral antirealists deny one or more of these theses.

First, moral realism is a form of cognitivism. Cognitivism is the view that moral judgments express beliefs that are capable of being true or false. Realists [Page 1431]see moral judgments as beliefs that are true or false depending on whether they accurately represent moral facts. In contrast, noncognitivists (expressivists) maintain that the function of moral discourse is either to express the affective states—such as the emotions or desires—of the speaker and to persuade others to share them (emotivism) or to prescribe universal rules of conduct (prescriptivism). Noncognitivists deny that there are moral facts against which the truth of moral judgments can be checked and that there are moral properties that determine the moral qualities of persons and actions. Moreover, since the noncognitive states that are expressed by moral judgments themselves have no truth-value, moral judgments are not capable of being true or false.

Second, realism is a success theory. Realists maintain not only that moral judgments are beliefs possessing truth-values but also that some of these beliefs are true in virtue of correctly reporting moral facts. Advocates of the so-called error-theories, such as J. L. Mackie, are cognitivists—they agree that moral judgments are beliefs possessing truth-values; however, they maintain that all moral beliefs are systematically and uniformly false. This is because they deny that there are moral facts or properties of the sort required to render our moral judgments true. Moral discourse, on this view, rests on a colossal error; it presumes the reality of certain facts and properties that simply do not exist.

Third, realism entails a form of objectivism. Objectivism here is the view that moral facts are essentially independent of any subjective stance and that moral properties such as goodness and rightness can be explained without any essential reference to what any (real or hypothetical) moral agent or agents approve of, desire, would assent to under certain conditions, and so on. Realists believe that moral judgments are true or false independent of what anybody thinks of them. Moral constructivists, in contrast, maintain that the moral domain is constructed out of the subjective stance of some (real or hypothetical) moral agent or agents, and, hence, the truth conditions of moral judgments do essentially depend on that subjective stance. Different normative and metaethical theories, each committed to a constructivist account of morality, hold opposing views about what the proper subjective stance is: Egoism claims that morality is constructed out of individual attitudes or preferences, contractarianism out of the principles endorsed by deliberators situated in special circumstances of choice, ideal observer theories out of the responses of a suitably characterized ideal observer, Kantianism out of the pronouncements of the rational will, relativism out of the conventions of social groups, and so forth. Realists and constructivists both endorse the reality of moral facts and properties; they disagree about whether these facts and properties are essentially independent of a subjective stance. Moral nihilists deny the existence of moral facts and properties altogether.

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