Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T14:37:02.188Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why Moral Status Matters for Metaethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2019

CAROLINE T. ARRUDA
CAROLINE T. ARRUDA*
Affiliation:
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY, THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I show that an overlooked feature of our moral life—moral status—provides a route to vindicating naturalist moral realism in much the same way that the Humean theory of motivation and judgment internalism are used to undermine it. Moral status presents two explanatory burdens for metaethical views. First, a given view must provide an ecumenical explanation of moral status, which does not depend on the truth of its metaethical claims (say, that there are mind-independent facts about moral status). Second, its explanation must be consistent with persistent normative ethical disagreement about what constitutes moral status. I conclude that naturalist moral realism succeeds, while quasi-realism fails because it cannot meet the latter requirement. This argument has three results: we have a new route for metaethical vindication more generally and for naturalist moral realism in particular; quasi-realism's plausibility is undermined by an inability to explain disagreement, but not for the familiar reasons.

Keywords

moral statusmoral realismquasi-realism
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , Winter 2018 , pp. 471 - 490
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The writing of this paper was funded in part by the Provost's Career Development Grant at the University of Texas at El Paso. I presented an earlier version at the Normative Disagreement Workshop at the Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature, the University of Oslo. I thank the workshop participants, especially Carla Bagnoli, Gunnar Björnsson, John Eriksson, Christel Fricke, Teresa Marques, Knut Olav Skarsaune, and Caj Strandberg, as well as two anonymous referees for this journal, for their helpful comments.

References

Arruda, Caroline. (unpublished manuscript) ‘Agency, Personhood and the Metaethical Grounds of Moral Status’.Google Scholar
Arkonovich, Steven. (2011) ‘Advisors and Deliberation’. Journal of Ethics 15, 405–24.Google Scholar
Ayer, A. J. (1952) Language, Truth and Logic. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Bagnoli, Carla. (2018) ‘Kant in Metaethics: The Paradox of Moral Autonomy, Solved by Publicity’. In Altman, Matthew (ed.), The Palgrave Kant Handbook (London: Palgrave Macmillan), 355–79.Google Scholar
Bagnoli, Carla. (2014) ‘Starting Points: Kantian Constructivism Reassessed’. Ratio Juris 27, 311–29.Google Scholar
Bagnoli, Carla. (2013) ‘Constructivism about Practical Knowledge’. In Bagnoli, Carla (ed.), Constructivism in Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 153–82.Google Scholar
Barker, Stephen J. (2010) ‘Cognitive Expressivism, Faultless Disagreement, and Absolute but Non-Objective Truth’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 110, 183–99.Google Scholar
Blackburn, Simon. (2015) ‘Blessed Are the Peacemakers’. Philosophical Studies 172, 843–53.Google Scholar
Blackburn, Simon. (1998) Ruling Passions: A Theory of Practical Reasoning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Blackburn, Simon. (1993a) ‘How to be an Ethical Anti-Realist’. In Essays in Quasi-Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 162–81.Google Scholar
Blackburn, Simon. (1993b) ‘Moral Realism’. In Essays in Quasi-Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 111–29.Google Scholar
Blackburn, Simon. (1988) ‘Attitudes and Contents’. Ethics 98, 501–17.Google Scholar
Blackburn, Simon. (1984) Spreading the Word: Groundings in the Philosophy of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brandt, Richard. (1979) A Theory of the Good and the Right. New York: Prometheus Books.Google Scholar
Brandt, Richard. (1955) ‘The Definition of an “Ideal Observer” Theory in Ethics’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 15, 407–13.Google Scholar
Brink, David. (1989) Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Copp, David. (2011) ‘Animals, Fundamental Moral Standing, and Speciesism’. In Beauchamp, Tom L. and Frey, R. G. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics (New York: Oxford), 276–303.Google Scholar
Copp, David. (2008) ‘Darwinian Skepticism about Moral Realism’. Philosophical Issues 18, 186–206.Google Scholar
Copp, David. (2007) Morality in a Natural World: Selected Essays in Metaethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Copp, David. (2001) ‘Realist-Expressivism: A Neglected Option for Moral Realism’. Social Philosophy and Policy 18, 1–43.Google Scholar
Darwall, Stephen. (2006) The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
DeGrazia, David. (2008) ‘Moral Status as a Matter of Degree?’ Southern Journal of Philosophy 46, 181–98.Google Scholar
Delon, Nicolas. (2014) ‘Moral Status, Final Value, and Extrinsic Properties’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 114, 371–79.Google Scholar
Dreier, James. (2012) ‘Quasi-Realism and the Problem of Unexplained Coincidence’. Analytic Philosophy 53, 269–87.Google Scholar
Dreier, James. (2009) ‘Relativism (and Expressivism) and the Problem of Disagreement’. Philosophical Perspectives 23, 79–110.Google Scholar
Dreier, James. (2004) ‘Meta-Ethics and The Problem of Creeping Minimalism’ Philosophical Perspectives 18, 23–44.Google Scholar
Enoch, David. (2011) Taking Morality Seriously: A Defense of Robust Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Firth, Roderick. (1952) ‘Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 12, 317–45.Google Scholar
Gibbard, Allan. (2003) Thinking How to Live. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gibbard, Allan. (1990) Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Harcourt, Edward. (2005) ‘Quasi-Realism and Ethical Appearances’. Mind 114, 249–75.Google Scholar
Hare, R. M. (1952) The Language of Morals. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Harman, Elizabeth. (2003) ‘The Potentiality Problem’. Philosophical Studies 114, 173–98.Google Scholar
Horgan, Terry, and Timmons, Mark. (2006) ‘Cognitivist Expressivism’. In Horgan, Terry and Timmons, Mark (eds.) Metaethics after Moore (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 255–98.Google Scholar
Jaworska, Agnieszka. (2007) ‘Caring and Full Moral Standing’. Ethics 117, 460–97.Google Scholar
Jaworska, Agnieszka, and Tannenbaum, Julie. (2015) ‘Person-Rearing Relationships as a Key to Higher Moral Status’. Ethics 124, 242–71.Google Scholar
Kawall, Jason. (2006) ‘On the Moral Epistemology of Ideal Observer Theories’. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 9, 359–74.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine. (2009) Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine. (1996) The Sources of Normativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Liao, S. Matthew. (2010) ‘The Basis of Human Moral Status’. Journal of Moral Philosophy 7, 159–79.Google Scholar
Mackie, J. L. (1977) Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Martin, Adrienne M. (2006) ‘How to Argue for the Value of Humanity’. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87, 96–125.Google Scholar
McMahan, Jeff. (2005) ‘Our Fellow Creatures’. Journal of Ethics 9, 353–80.Google Scholar
O'Neill, Onora. (2003) ‘Constructivism vs. Contractualism’. Ratio 16, 319–31.Google Scholar
O'Neill, Onora. (1989) Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant's Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Railton, Peter. (2006) ‘Moral Factualism’. In Dreier, James (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory (Malden: Blackwell), 6–201.Google Scholar
Railton, Peter. (2005) ‘Précis of Facts, Values, and Norms’. Philosophical Studies 126, 429–32.Google Scholar
Railton, Peter. (2003a) ‘Moral Realism’. In Facts, Values, and Norms: Essays toward a Morality of Consequence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 3–42.Google Scholar
Railton, Peter. (2003b) ‘Facts and Values’. In Facts, Values, and Norms: Essays toward a Morality of Consequence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 43–68.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. (1999) A Theory of Justice. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. (1980) ‘Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory’. Journal of Philosophy 77, 512–72.Google Scholar
Regan, Tom. (2004) The Case for Animal Rights. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ridge, Michael. (2006) ‘Saving the Ethical Appearances’. Mind 115, 633–50.Google Scholar
Rosati, Connie. (1995) ‘Persons, Perspectives, and Full Information Accounts of the Good’. Ethics 105, 296–325.Google Scholar
Scanlon, T. M. (1998) What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schroeder, Mark. (2009) ‘Hybrid Expressivism: Virtues and Vices’. Ethics 119, 257–309.Google Scholar
Schroeder, Mark. (2008) Being For: Evaluating the Semantic Program of Expressivism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schroeter, Laura, and Schroeter, François. (2005) ‘Is Gibbard A Realist?’ Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 1, 1–19.Google Scholar
Sebo, Jeff. (2017) ‘Agency and Moral Status’. Journal of Moral Philosophy 14, 1–22.Google Scholar
Shafer-Landau, Russ. (2003) Moral Realism: A Defence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sidgwick, Henry. (1907) The Method of Ethics. Reprint of the 7th ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981.Google Scholar
Skarsaune, Knut Olav. (2011) ‘Darwin and Moral Realism: Survival of the Iffiest’. Philosophical Studies 152, 229–43.Google Scholar
Smith, Michael. (1995) ‘Internal Reasons’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55, 109–31.Google Scholar
Smith, Michael. (1994) The Moral Problem. Malden: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sobel, David. (1994) ‘Full Information Accounts of Well-Being’. Ethics 104, 784–810.Google Scholar
Street, Sharon. (2011) ‘Mind-Independence Without the Mystery: Why Quasi-Realists Can't Have it Both Ways’. In Shafer-Landau, Russ (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 6 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 1–32.Google Scholar
Street, Sharon. (2008) ‘Constructivism about Reasons’. In Shafer-Landau, Russ (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 207–45.Google Scholar
Street, Sharon. (2006) ‘A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value’. Philosophical Studies 127, 109–66.Google Scholar
Sturgeon, Nicholas. (2006) ‘Moral Explanations Defended’. In Dreier, James (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory (Malden: Blackwell), 241–62.Google Scholar
Sturgeon, Nicholas. (1988) ‘Moral Explanations’. In Sayre-McCord, Geoffrey (ed.), Essays On Moral Realism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), 229–55.Google Scholar
Tiberius, Valerie. (1997) ‘Full Information and Ideal Deliberation’. Journal of Value Inquiry 31, 329–38.Google Scholar
Warren, Mary Anne. (1997) Moral Status: Obligations to Persons and Other Living Things. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Wielenberg, Erik. (2010) ‘On the Evolutionary Debunking of Morality’. Ethics 120, 441–64.Google Scholar