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2007 The Author
Journal Compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Philosophy Compass 2/6 (2007): 850879, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2007.00102.x
Recent Faces of Moral Nonnaturalism
Terence Cuneo*
Calvin College
Despite having occupied a peripheral position in contemporary metaethics, moral
nonnaturalism has recently experienced a revival of sorts. But what is moral
nonnaturalism? And what is there to be said in favor of it? In this article, I address
these two questions. In the first place, I offer an account of what moral non-
naturalism is. According to the view I propose, nonnaturalism is better viewed
not as a position, but as a theoretical stance. And, second, I critically engage with
three recent arguments for moral nonnaturalism offered by Russ Shafer-Landau,
Kit Fine, and Jean Hampton, respectively.
Moral nonnaturalism was catapulted to philosophical fame by the force of
one argument. The argument is, of course, G. E. Moores Open Question
Argument, and its history is well-known to those familiar with ethical
theory in the 20th century.
In his argument, Moore asked us to consider
the property being good. He then asked whether it could be identical with
a naturalistic property one, as he put it, that pulls its explanatory weight
in the sciences broadly conceived. His conclusion was that it could not
be identical with any such property. For it certainly seems possible, Moore
claimed, that something could be good and not, say, fitness enhancing,
pleasurable, or desired by a given society. Between goodness and natural
properties there is, thought Moore, too much ontological distance.
Many philosophers viewed Moores position as extravagant. True
enough, expressivists found the conclusion of Moores argument irresistible:
Goodness is not a natural property. But what they found entirely resistible
was the further assumption that there is a property of goodness as Moore
described it. Naturalists, for their part, were driven underground for some
time by Moores argument. When they emerged, however, they were
armed with new insights from Kripke and Putnam. These new insights,
they claimed, help us see why Moores argument is deeply and irredeemably
flawed. Nonnaturalism went into a precipitous decline, its fame transformed
into notoriety.
Recently, however, moral nonnaturalism has begun to show signs of
new life.
While I wont speculate on the causes for this, recent proponents
of nonnaturalism have repeatedly made the point that their view has been
2007 The Author Philosophy Compass 2/6 (2007): 850879, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2007.00102.x
Journal Compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Recent Faces of Moral Nonnaturalism 851
unfairly characterized: Nonnaturalism is not, as its critics have often
charged, committed to extravagant claims about moral reality or our
cognitive capacities. But nonnaturalists havent settled for simply defending
their view against objections of various kinds. They have offered new
arguments for their position, pressing on perceived weak points of the
views of their naturalist rivals. The main aim of this essay is to engage
with several arguments recently offered in favor of nonnaturalism. More
specifically, its aim is twofold: First, I want to explore the issue of how we
should understand nonnaturalism, identifying those issues that divide
nonnaturalism from its rivals. Second, I wish to engage with three arguments
for nonnaturalism developed by Russ Shafer-Landau, Kit Fine, and Jean
Hampton, respectively.
It will probably come as no surprise that I regard
each argument to depend on some very controversial claims. So, although
I am sympathetic with nonnaturalism, I will not be arguing that these
arguments provide strong evidential support for the position. Rather, I
shall try to indicate where there is further work for nonnaturalists to do.
1. What Nonnaturalism is
Disagreement about how to understand philosophical terms such as
naturalism and nonnaturalism is to be expected. It is, after all, difficult
to locate any term that purports to designate a substantive philosophical
view whose meaning is not subject to disagreement. Still, the variety of
incompatible ways in which philosophers understand the term moral
nonnaturalism is striking. One cant help but wonder whether the term
is empty or more cynically if it is primarily a term of disapprobation
reserved for a range of positions that some philosophers find disagreeable.
In light of this lack of agreement, is there a way to understand the term
moral nonnaturalism that captures a substantive metaethical view that
philosophers in the lineage of Moore would recognize as their own?
Strictly speaking, I think that the answer to this question is no. While
this is not an answer for which I am going to offer an extended argument,
I do want to say something in favor of it. So, in this section I am going
to consider one of the few attempts in the literature to offer an informative
account of moral nonnaturalism, arguing that it is unsatisfactory. I am then
going to present the hypothesis that nonnaturalism is best understood not
as a theory or position, but rather as a certain type of metaethical stance.
1.1. copp on nonnaturalism
According to the standard definition, moral naturalism is the view that
there are things that display moral properties and that all such properties
are natural. Moral nonnaturalism, by contrast, is the position that there
are things that have moral properties, at least some of which are not
Clearly, if the standard definition is to be informative, we need
852 Recent Faces of Moral Nonnaturalism
2007 The Author Philosophy Compass 2/6 (2007): 850879, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2007.00102.x
Journal Compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
some understanding of what it is for a property to be natural. In his
article, Why Naturalism?, David Copp advances an epistemological
characterization of a natural property, one that has certain affinities with
what Moore says.
Roughly put, Copps suggestion is that natural properties
are ones that can be known empirically, while nonnatural properties cannot.
What, however, is it to know a property empirically? In Copps view,
the best way to unpack the notion of empirical knowledge is by appeal
to the concept of a strongly a priori proposition. A proposition is strongly a
priori, according to Copp, just in case (a) it is a priori and ( b) its warrant
cannot be defeated empirically, at least for an ideal thinker that is,
for someone who suffers from no psychological weaknesses . . . no com-
putational limitations and has a full conceptual repertoire (190). The
suggestion, then, is that natural properties are ones that can be represented,
but not in a strongly a priori fashion. Or more exactly, the claim is that:
A property N is natural if and only if (a) it is possible for N to be instantiated
and ( b) there are propositions about the instantiation of N that are both
synthetic and possibly true, and, (c) no such proposition is strongly a priori.
If this is correct, moral naturalism is the view that all moral properties are
natural in the sense just specified. According to this specification, there
are no synthetic, strongly a priori moral propositions that represent them.
Moral nonnaturalism, by contrast, is the position that there are at least
some nonnatural moral properties. If Copps view is correct, according to
nonnaturalists, there are synthetic, strongly a priori moral propositions that
represent these features.
Copps proposal, I think, succeeds in identifying an area about which
moral nonnaturalists and naturalists often disagree. But it also suffers from
a fairly substantial problem, which is this: It is difficult to see why
those thinkers who identify themselves as nonnaturalists must accept the
existence of strongly a priori, synthetic moral propositions. For suppose
we accept Copps characterization of the strongly a priori. Suppose,
further, that nonnaturalists are committed to there being synthetic a priori
moral propositions. And, suppose, finally, that Copp is correct to say that
deep and pervasive disagreement among epistemic peers about the truth
of a proposition counts as empirical evidence against it. Must nonnaturalists
claim that synthetic a priori moral propositions are immune to counter-
evidence of this sort?
I doubt it. As best I can tell, nonnaturalists neednt deny that substantial
moral disagreement among epistemic peers can defeat the warrant of an
a priori moral proposition. In fact, not only is it difficult to see why
nonnaturalists should deny that this is possible, there is also good reason
to believe that nonnaturalists have strong grounds to accept its possibility.
After all, when fashioning their views, nonnaturalists will want to avail
themselves of the most plausible views available regarding the a priori.
2007 The Author Philosophy Compass 2/6 (2007): 850879, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2007.00102.x
Journal Compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Recent Faces of Moral Nonnaturalism 853
The most sophisticated views regarding the a priori, however, such as
those defended by Laurence BonJour, Albert Casullo, and Alvin Plantinga,
are fallibilistic in character.
According to these views, propositions that
are a priori warranted neednt be warranted by empirical evidence; this
is, after all, what guarantees that their warrant is a priori. But the fact that
a proposition neednt gain its warrant from empirical evidence does not
imply that its warrant cannot be decreased or defeated by empirical evidence.
Accordingly, it follows that nonnaturalists can freely admit that the
warrant of some a priori moral propositions can be defeated by empirical
considerations, such as protracted moral disagreement.
The difference between moral naturalists and nonnaturalists, then, does
not appear to lie with the fact that nonnaturalists commit themselves to
there being strongly a priori, synthetic moral propositions, while naturalists
do not. Nor, I should add, does it seem to lie in the fact that nonnaturalists
commit themselves to there being synthetic a priori moral propositions
(regardless of whether they are strongly a priori), while naturalists do not.
For it seems as if one could be a naturalist in good standing, as Copp
appears to be, and maintain not that synthetic a priori knowledge is
impossible, but only that a priori methods should be, as much as possible,
avoided. (It is noteworthy that few philosophers appear to think that
Quine is not a naturalist because he takes a similar attitude toward
abstracta.) Now, admittedly, it would be overly hasty to leap from the
failure of Copps proposal to the conclusion that we have no adequate way
to distinguish moral naturalism from moral nonnaturalism. But, as Copp
himself argues, other attempts to mark the distinction do not inspire
For example, positions that identify the natural with the
physical, the spatio-temporal, the causally efficacious, the proper subject
of the sciences, or the like are all subject to telling objections. If Copp is
right about this and I think he is we have some reason to look for an
alternative way of understanding what is at issue between nonnaturalists
and naturalists (assuming, of course, that there is something at issue
between them).
In the remainder of this section, I want to offer a proposal for how to
distinguish moral nonnaturalism from naturalism. The proposal is
exploratory in character and takes its inspiration from recent work in the
philosophy of science by Bas van Fraasen.
1.2. nonnaturalism is a stance
In the face of repeated failed attempts to characterize both empiricism and
materialism, Bas van Fraasen has argued for the claim that empiricism and
materialism are not theories or bodies of propositions, but rather stances
of a certain kind.
In particular, van Fraasen maintains that empiricism
and materialism are stances comprised of a cluster of commitments, ideals,
propositional attitudes (including beliefs and intentions), tendencies to
854 Recent Faces of Moral Nonnaturalism
2007 The Author Philosophy Compass 2/6 (2007): 850879, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2007.00102.x
Journal Compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
weigh evidence of certain types, dispositions to emphasize (or deemphasize)
certain theoretical ideals, and so forth. The proposal that I wish to
champion is that moral nonnaturalism and naturalism are similar to
materialism and empiricism in this respect. They, too, are not theories
(although they may have theoretical elements), but stances of certain
types. But what characteristics would a stance have that would qualify it
as nonnaturalist (or naturalist) in character? As a step toward answering
this question, I suggest considering some methodological reflections about
metaethics that Mark Timmons offers at the outset of his book Morality
without Foundations.
Central to Timmonss discussion is the thesis that, when developing
positions in the foundations of ethics, philosophers find themselves
with a twofold task. On the one hand, there is what Timmons calls the
internal accommodation project. The aim of this project is to construct
a metaethical position that comports well with deeply embedded assumptions
of ordinary moral thought and practice. Among these assumptions are the
following: that ethical discourse is assertoric in appearance, that moral
judgments are intimately linked with appropriate motivation, that entities
of various kinds appear to display moral features of various sorts, that
some moral obligations appear to govern our behavior regardless of our
contingent desires or associations, that we know some moral claims, and
so forth. Granted, these assumptions may not be mutually consistent. If
so, the internal accommodation project endeavors to construct a moral
theory that, as best possible, comports well with our broadly commonsensical
conception of the moral domain.
On the other hand, there is what Timmons labels the external accom-
modation project. According to this project, a satisfactory ethical theory
must comport with the assumptions guiding, and the findings of, our best
science. At the very least, a plausible ethical theory should be consistent
with well-established scientific views, such as those in evolutionary
biology, neuroscience, and empirical psychology. In the ideal case, a plausible
ethical theory should also cohere with our best science, enjoying evidential
and explanatory support from it and perhaps even being subsumed under
a well-established scientific discipline. In this case, too, the accommodation
may be imperfect. If so, the external accommodation project aims to
construct a moral theory that, as best possible, comports with our best
A moment ago I raised the question of what it is about a given stance
that might qualify it as nonnaturalist (or naturalist) in character. The
proposal I wish to advance is that what unifies the nonnaturalist stance is
a tendency to privilege the significance of the internal accommodation
project while downgrading the importance of the external one. For
example, when one takes a close look at the work of theorists in the
nonnaturalist tradition, such as that of Thomas Reid, G. E. Moore, and
Russ Shafer-Landau, one finds certain tendencies of thought at work.
2007 The Author Philosophy Compass 2/6 (2007): 850879, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2007.00102.x
Journal Compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Recent Faces of Moral Nonnaturalism 855
These thinkers take our broadly commonsensical conception of the moral
domain very seriously. As a matter of methodological policy, none of
them seriously countenances the possibility that the assumptions embedded
in ordinary moral thought are massively mistaken. All of them, moreover,
count it as serious, even decisive evidence against a position if it fails to
comport with central elements of our commonsensical conception of
morality, such as the categorical nature of moral obligation. And while
none of these thinkers harbors a dismissive attitude toward the sciences or
would accept ethical positions they consider inconsistent with our best
science, neither do they expect that ethical inquiry should be similar to
scientific inquiry or gain significant evidential support from scientific
endeavors. All of them, then, accept that ethics is to some significant
degree a discipline autonomous from the sciences, with its own methods
of inquiry and standards of justification.
For self-styled moral naturalists, such as David Hume, Herbert Spencer,
and Frank Jackson, matters are much different. (It is testament to Moores
influence that it is difficult to find a contemporary of his who is in the
sense of the term used here a moral naturalist.) As a matter of methodo-
logical policy, these thinkers tend to emphasize the significance of the
external accommodation project while deemphasizing the importance of
the internal one. Of principal interest to all of these thinkers is what
Jackson calls the location problem, which is the task of locating ethical
values in the world as understood by the natural sciences.
while typically not dismissive of ordinary morality, naturalists do not grant
ordinary morality the privileged position that nonnaturalists do. In fact,
naturalists often display a willingness to reject deeply embedded common-
sensical moral assumptions, such as the categoricity of moral obligations,
if these assumptions fail to mesh comfortably with prominent views in,
say, empirical psychology. So, where nonnaturalists see discontinuity
between ethics and the sciences, naturalists see (or at least endeavor to
discover) unity and congruence. There is no robust sense, then, according
to the naturalists, in which ethical thought and inquiry are autonomous
from scientific inquiry; ethics, if it is legitimate, is also a species of empirical
inquiry and subject to empirical constraints, broadly construed.
Moral nonnaturalism and naturalism are, I am suggesting, not theories
proper, but stances of a certain kind ones that display rather different
approaches to the internal and external accommodation projects. In a
slogan, nonnaturalists champion the primacy of the internal, while
naturalists advocate the priority of the external.
While I dont expect
that this proposal should strike us as obviously correct, I do think that it
has its virtues.
Let me close this section by briefly indicating several of
First, if the proposal under consideration were true, it would offer not
only an alternate way of thinking about the metaethical domain, it would
also go some distance toward explaining why it has proven so difficult to
856 Recent Faces of Moral Nonnaturalism
2007 The Author Philosophy Compass 2/6 (2007): 850879, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2007.00102.x
Journal Compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
formulate an adequate characterization of nonnaturalism. The basic
problem, according to the stance approach, is that nonnaturalism is not a
theory at all. Attempts to cast it as a theory misrepresent the character of
the view. Moreover, these attempts tend to fix upon particular, and in
many cases, non-essential, elements of the nonnaturalist stance, while
disregarding others. If we think back to Copps proposal, for instance, it
attributes to nonnaturalists a particular view about moral knowledge. But
this view about knowledge or so Ive argued is not essential to
nonnaturalism. Copps proposal is probably best viewed as one that
highlights the fact that those who take up the nonnaturalist stance tend
to downplay the importance of empirical considerations when formulating
accounts of moral knowledge, while emphasizing the importance of a
priori ones.
Second, while the stance approach denies that nonnaturalism and
naturalism are theories proper, it can allow for the fact that one can reject
or disagree with nonnaturalism (or naturalism) disagreement in stance
being a common enough phenomenon. So, for example, if your stance
consists (in part) in having a policy of weighing certain pieces of evidence
in a certain way while discounting others, and embracing certain theoretical
ideals while remaining neutral with regard to others, I can disagree with
it. In fact, the stance approach may give us additional insight into why
the disagreement between nonnaturalists and naturalists is so deep, difficult
to characterize, and persistent. When what is at stake in a disagreement
is not simply the truth of a proposition, but the validity of something akin
to a Weltanschauung or a worldview, it would not be surprising that such
a disagreement would be multi-faceted, resist precise characterization, and
difficult to resolve.
Third, the stance approach has the virtue of identifying what unifies
nonnaturalist positions, while allowing for a reasonable amount of variety
among views that are recognizably nonnaturalist. Russ Shafer-Landau and
Graham Oddie, for example, both identify their views as nonnaturalist.
According to the stance approach, their self-descriptions seem accurate, as
the development of each of their views places more emphasis on the
internal accommodation project than on the external one. Still, Shafer-
Landau is skeptical of the claim that moral features are causally efficacious,
while Oddie is not. This disagreement, however, does not render Oddie
a naturalist, as it is Oddies commitment to the primacy of the internal
that leads him to accept that some moral features are causally efficacious.
(I assume it is possible for two philosophers to accept the primacy of the
internal and not weigh or evaluate evidence in the same fashion.) To
adopt (and adapt) a phrase from Simon Blackburn (168), for nonnaturalists,
it may not matter so much what one ends up saying, so much as how one
got to say it.
Fourth, as both van Fraasen and Michael Rea argue, central to the
broadly naturalist program in philosophy is a commitment to accepting
2007 The Author Philosophy Compass 2/6 (2007): 850879, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2007.00102.x
Journal Compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Recent Faces of Moral Nonnaturalism 857
the findings of empirical science, whatever they may be. But if this is
right, naturalists should be very careful about formulating positions that
are not, in principle, subject to empirical disconfirmation. More specifically,
according to van Fraasen and Rea, naturalism cannot be a metaphysical
or epistemological thesis, such as the claim that all that exists is located in
the spatio-temporal manifold or that all knowledge is empirically based.
For, at least in principle, these claims can come into conflict with what
our best science tells us about the world. By identifying both nonnaturalism
and naturalism as stances of a certain kind, however, we avert this problem.
At the core of the naturalist stance is the disposition to follow wherever
science leads. Nonnaturalists, by contrast, do not share this methodological
disposition, as they maintain that there are some areas about which
science, by its very nature, either will have little or not much illuminating
to say.
Let me add to this a final observation. According to the position I am
advocating, nonnaturalism and naturalism are not positions or theories but
stances. However, it is worth emphasizing that accepting the nonnaturalist
or naturalist stance can commit one to certain substantive claims. This is
for two reasons. First, a stance can include theoretical commitments that
are constitutive of the stance itself. For example, it is arguably constitutive
of the nonnaturalist stance that, if there are moral obligations, then some
are categorical. Second, accepting a stance can commit one to certain
claims that are not, strictly speaking, essential components of that stance.
For example, suppose that being a naturalist implies that one must do
ones best to square claims about the motivational force of moral judgments
with our best empirical psychology. And suppose that our best empirical
psychology is resolutely Humean. Then moral naturalists are committed
to a Humean theory of moral motivation. So, while not constitutive of
naturalism, a Humean theory of motivation may be something to which a
naturalist is committed to accepting at the present time, given his naturalism.
In what follows, I am going to assume that both nonnaturalists and
naturalists commit themselves to certain substantive claims about the
character of moral concepts and properties. (I wont try to decide the issue
of whether these claims are constitutive of these stances or merely that to
which, at the present time, those who accept these stances are committed.)
More exactly, I will assume that nonnaturalists believe that there are moral
concepts such as being wrong, being just, and being morally obligatory. These
concepts, according to nonnaturalists, are irreducibly normative inasmuch
as they are not identical in sense to those concepts employed in our
current physics, biology, psychology, or the like.
Naturalists, I will assume,
also maintain that there are moral concepts. But they remain noncommittal
as to whether they are irreducibly normative. And as for moral properties,
I assume that nonnaturalists maintain that there are things that have moral
properties. These properties, according to nonnaturalists, fall under moral
concepts. By contrast, I will assume that naturalism is not committed to
858 Recent Faces of Moral Nonnaturalism
2007 The Author Philosophy Compass 2/6 (2007): 850879, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2007.00102.x
Journal Compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
there being things with moral properties. Whether there are such things
with moral properties will, according to the naturalists, be something that
is revealed by engaging in the external accommodation project.
In the next section, I am going to consider several arguments for moral
nonnaturalism. In my judgment, the best way to interpret these arguments
is this: They are not arguments for nonnaturalism as such, but rather
arguments that attempt to establish claims to which nonnaturalists often
take themselves to be committed (such as the claim that there are synthetic
a priori moral propositions), given their nonnaturalism.
2. Three Arguments for Nonnaturalism
At the outset of our discussion, I said that nonnaturalism owed its earlier
popularity entirely to the force of the Open Question Argument. Those
sympathetic with nonnaturalism still appeal to modified versions of this
argument, maintaining that, however awkwardly Moore himself presented
it, the argument contains an important insight.
But, as I also indicated,
nonnaturalism has received fresh defenses in recent years that are not simply
attempts to rehabilitate Moores argument. In this section, I consider three
such arguments.
2.1. the first argument: shafer-landau
A theme to which I have already called attention is that, according to
nonnaturalism, ethics is an autonomous discipline that asks its own questions
and employs its own standards of explanation and justification. In his
essay Ethics as Philosophy: A Defense of Ethical Nonnaturalism, Russ
Shafer-Landau suggests that this may overstate the degree to which ethical
inquiry is autonomous from other disciplines. For when we look closely
at ethical inquiry, it appears to manifest, says Shafer-Landau, many of the
defining marks of philosophical inquiry. In fact, ethical and philosophical
inquiries are so similar, Shafer-Landau suggests, that ethics is plausibly
viewed as a species of philosophy. If we grant this, however, the following
line of argument in favor of moral nonnaturalism suggests itself:
1. Ethics is a species of enquiry; philosophy is its genus.
2. A species inherits the essential traits of its genus.
3. There are (among others) two essential traits of philosophy: the realistic
status of its truths, and its status as something other than a natural science.
4. Therefore nonnaturalistic ethical realism is true. (Shafer-Landau, Ethics
as Philosophy 215)
Call this the ethics-as-philosophy argument. As Shafer-Landau points
out, its crucial claims are found in its first and third premises.
In support of its first premise, Shafer-Landau notes that there are deep
similarities between how we pursue philosophical and ethical questions.
2007 The Author Philosophy Compass 2/6 (2007): 850879, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2007.00102.x
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Recent Faces of Moral Nonnaturalism 859
Suppose, for example, I want to inquire into whether there are universals.
If there is disagreement on the matter and I am thinking philosophically, I
will want to get clear on the use of my terms, consider any empirical
evidence relevant to the question, test certain claims for logical consistency,
and investigate which views regarding universals exemplify theoretical
virtues such as having explanatory power, being simple, preserving the
commonsensical appearances, unifying disparate phenomena, and so on.
Having done that, I will attempt to discover which view regarding universals
is the strongest overall.
Suppose, by contrast, I want to determine whether it is morally permissible
to eat animals. If there is disagreement on the matter, then in this case, too,
Ill want to make sure that the relevant terms are being used in sufficiently
precise and uniform ways, consider empirical evidence relevant to the
question, test particular views on this issue for their coherence, and
investigate which views best exemplify theoretical virtues such as having
explanatory power, being simple, preserving the commonsensical appearances,
and so on. Having done that, Ill attempt to discover which position is best
supported by the balance of reasons.
There are, of course, important differences between these cases: The first
is a case of theoretical reasoning, while the second is an instance of
practical reasoning. Even so, they have much in common, according to
Shafer-Landau, because in both cases, the methodology employed appears
broadly a priori. Both cases, for example, appeal not so much to sensory
experience or inductive generalizations to establish conclusions, but to
conceptually necessary principles such as the indiscernibility of identicals,
the categorical imperative, the principle of utility, or the like.
What Shafer-Landau says in favor of the arguments first premise also
supports its third premise. This premise, recall, says that two essential traits
characterize philosophy: the realistic status of its truths and its status as
something other than a natural science. The fact that both philosophical
and ethical inquiries are broadly a priori, Shafer-Landau contends, is
sufficient to distinguish them from scientific inquiry. Unlike the natural
sciences, ethics is such that:
Its fundamental principles are not inductive generalizations. It is not primarily
concerned with causal efficacy. Its central principles are not descriptive of
historical contingencies. The phenomena it does describe are supervenient as a
matter of conceptual requirement. It allows for a much greater degree of
indeterminacy and vagueness than is found in typical natural sciences. It has
only a very little concern for mathematical quantification and precision. Unlike
any of the recognized sciences, its truths are normative truths that direct and
guide, rather than (in the first instance) predict the course of future events or
explain what has already occurred. (Ethics as Philosophy 211)
And as for the additional claim that philosophical truths should be
understood realistically, Shafer-Landau points out that this appears to be an
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Journal Compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
assumption that most philosophers accept. Most philosophers, for example,
appear to assume that there is a fact of the matter as to whether there are
such things as universals or numbers. Were such things to exist, they would
not do so relative to individuals, communities, conventions, conceptual
schemes, fictional worlds, or the like. Moreover, most philosophers appear
to assume that when they say such things as Universals exist, they are
stating a fact. Of course, these assumptions might be mistaken. But going
antirealist about general philosophical issues is a radical move, and most
philosophers seem not at all inclined to believe that there is sufficient
reason to do so.
2.2. an objection to the first premise
A full defense of the ethics-as-philosophy argument would require a more
thorough discussion of its two controversial premises, as Shafer-Landau
candidly acknowledges. Still, there is some reason to believe that these
premises might not survive scrutiny, even when defended in more detail.
Consider the arguments first premise, which tells us that ethics is a
species of philosophy. Suppose we grant contrary to what some moral
naturalists seem to hold that ethical principles are employed not primarily
to predict or explain behavior, but to guide it. Still, even if we grant
this, there is reason to doubt that ethical inquiry is, by its very nature,
an a priori enterprise. In this respect, its instructive to consider the
divine command theory.
Advocates of this view agree that ethical
principles function (in the first instance) not to predict or explain behavior,
but to guide it. However, they also maintain that substantive ethical
principles cannot be discovered in an a priori fashion. Since ethical
principles are the content of Gods (contingently issued) commands, they
can be discovered only in an a posteriori fashion in particular, by becoming
aware of the content of a certain range of Gods speech acts at a given
Whatever its demerits, the divine command theory is, however, an
ethical theory. So also are naturalistic counterparts to the divine command
theory, such as Hobbess contractarian view. To be sure, were divine
command theorists or Hobbesians to deliberate about what to do on a
given occasion, their deliberation would not look like what philosophers
do when inquiring into the existence of universals. Rather than employing
a priori methods of conceptual analysis, they would instead attempt to
determine, by broadly empirical means, what the relevant authorities have
pronounced on the ethical matter at hand. But for all that, their inquiry
still seems to be ethical in character. If this is right, though, then there is
reason to be skeptical of the first premise of the ethics-as-philosophy
argument. It is doubtful that it is part of the nature of ethical inquiry that
it is philosophical in character, at least if we assume that such inquiry
proceeds (in the first instance) in an a priori fashion.
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2.3. an objection to the third premise
Suppose we assume, however, that ethical inquiry is a species of philosophical
inquiry in the sense under consideration. This leaves us to consider the
second controversial premise in the ethics as philosophy argument, which,
recall, tells us that philosophy has at least these two essential traits: Its truths
are realistically understood and its methods are not those employed in
natural science. Lets assume, for arguments sake, that philosophy isnt a
natural science. I think there is, nonetheless, reason to worry about
whether its truths should be realistically understood.
The worry I have is twofold. First, suppose we say that a philosophical
proposition is one whose truth is the sort of thing that philosophers are
concerned about and inquire into. Propositions that concern the existence
of universals and possible worlds are good examples of philosophical
propositions thus understood. And suppose we say that a proposition p is
true in a realist sense if and only if it is a fact that p where ps being a
fact is not something that holds by virtue of societal agreement, convention,
the existence of fictions, conceptual schemes, and so on. When the third
premise of the ethics as philosophy argument tells us that philosophical
truths should be realistically understood, presumably something like the
following is being claimed:
For any philosophical proposition P, if P is true, then P is true in a realist
This claim, however, is compatible with there being many philosophical
propositions that are false. For example, it may be that positive, existential
pronouncements that predicate universals of things such as this paper
exemplifies the universal of whiteness are all false. But if that is right, the
conclusion of the ethics as philosophy argument does not follow from its
premises. For it may be that ethical propositions ones that ascribe ethical
properties to things are also all false. At most, what follows from the
arguments three premises is:
(4) Therefore, if there are moral properties, then nonnaturalistic ethical realism
is true.
It appears, then, that the ethics as philosophy argument needs to take
another step, which is to argue against broadly nihilistic ethical views that
deny that there are any moral features. In my estimation, this argument can
be provided.
Rather than provide such an argument, however, let me
turn to the second concern I have about the arguments third premise,
which is that we have good reason to believe that some philosophical
propositions are true, but not in a realist sense.
Shafer-Landau notes that controversies rage in philosophy in much the
same way they do in ethics. They are deep, pervasive, and dont promise
an imminent resolution. And yet, Shafer-Landau argues, philosophers
typically dont find themselves attracted to the view that entities such as
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possible worlds and universals exist relative to individuals or societies (or,
for that matter, particular schools of philosophical thought). While this
may be true, there are many ways to be an antirealist about the truth of
philosophical propositions. And some of them, it seems to me, are rather
Consider, for example, the version of conceptual relativism that Hilary
Putnam has defended for the last twenty-five years or so.
Putnams view proves difficult to state accurately, the basic idea is this:
Pronouncements such as space-time worms exist are semantically
incomplete. To complete such a proposition, we need to index it to a
conceptual scheme. When we do so, it turns out that our original
statement says: space-time worms exist relative to conceptual scheme C
where a conceptual scheme is not a language, but a network of concepts
(the latter being whatever it is that composes the propositional content of
our assertions and beliefs).
Now, I think the unqualified version of
Putnams view, according to which all propositions are scheme relative, is
deeply problematic, for I dont think that all propositions or objects could
be scheme-relative.
But there are specific cases in which scheme-relativism
looks appealing.
Consider such philosophically indeterminate cases as the following.
Take the lamp in my office, the tip of my left index finger, and the Hagia
Sophia. Do they constitute an object? Is there an objective fact of the
matter as to whether this and countless other mereological sums constitute
objects? Well, its difficult to say how wed go about answering this
question in a principled fashion. Or consider a hunk of marble and the
statue out of which it is composed. Should we count the marble out of
which Michelangelos David is composed as an entity in its own right with
its own essential properties and conditions of persistence? Or should we
believe that the statue, as it were, swallows up the stuff out of which it is
composed? Again, its difficult to say. In particular, its difficult to see what
facts there are that would constrain us to recognize that the two are distinct
or, for that matter, identical. Or, consider, finally, an Aristotelian substance
ontology and a Whiteheadean process ontology. On the assumption that
we can describe the lamp in my office or Michelangelos David in terms
of each ontological scheme, is there any reason for thinking one correct,
but not the other? Again, no answer appears to present itself as obviously
correct. On the face of things, it seems as if we can equally well (though
perhaps not equally easily) describe reality in either of these ways; the
choice between them seems radically underdetermined.
Putnams suggestion is that cases such as these provide reason for believing
that only relative to certain purposes or conceptual schemes do certain
objects exist or count as things of a certain kind. Only relative to a
particular conceptual scheme, for example, is it the case that lumps of
marble are identical with statues. And only relative to a conceptual scheme
of a certain kind do certain configurations of living matter count as
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substances. In contrast to examples such as these there are, however,
philosophically determinate cases ones in which the reality of a given
kind is, as it were, forced upon us because members of it share properties
that are very important for our attempts to understand the world. Among
other things, these properties prove useful for taxonomy, prediction, and
the construction of powerful and elegant explanatory theories. Chemical
elements, chemical compounds, fundamental physical particles, basic types
of forces, and so on, fall into the determinate case category. We believe
such things as hydrogen, the cold virus, water, and the weak nuclear force
exist because (at least in part) of the explanatory roles they play. Nor are
these the only sorts of entities that seem amenable to a non-scheme relative
treatment. Artifacts such as hammers, for example, appear to have a foothold
in reality that mereological sums do not, because of the intentions of their
makers. We can, after all, identify the purpose for which a hammer is
It is not my purpose here to argue that a chastened version of Putnams
scheme-relativism is correct. It is, rather, to make the following points.
First, on the assumption that a broadly antirealist position such as Putnams
has its appeal, we cant assume that premise three of the ethics as philosophy
argument is true. That is, we cant assume that philosophical truths deserve
a realistic status; some may, but some may not. The issue is controversial.
Second, on the assumption that not all true philosophical propositions are
true in the realist sense, the advocate of the ethics of philosophy argument
has to develop a further argument, which is that moral features fall into
not the indeterminate, but the determinate case category. Finally, I want
to note that although many nonnaturalists are suspicious of the explanatory
work that naturalists think moral properties must do were they to exist, it
might be better on the whole were nonnaturalists to relax such suspicions.
For if naturalists are right and moral features play robust explanatory roles,
then this is precisely the sort of thing that would give us reason to believe
that moral truths should be understood in the realistic sense. Granted, the
explanatory roles neednt be those that naturalists themselves have identified;
perhaps there are unique normative explanatory roles that would place moral
features in the determinate case category.
From a nonnaturalists view,
then, one way to appropriate the naturalists project is this: The primary
value of moral explanations is not to show that moral features exist. Rather,
it is to establish their credentials as entities that deserve a realist treatment.
In summary, the ethics as philosophy argument is open to two concerns:
It is neither clear that ethical inquiry is a species of philosophical inquiry
nor that philosophical truths should be realistically construed.
2.4. the second argument: fine
When we teach children about the world, our language is sprinkled with
phrases that contain musts of various sorts.
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The two angles of a triangle must equal that of the third.
If you throw the stone in the air, then it must fall.
One must tell the truth when asked.
Are all of these musts of the same sort? The central thesis of Kit Fines
article The Varieties of Necessity is that they are not.
According to Fine,
there are three main forms of necessity the metaphysical, the natural, and
the normative. None of these is reducible to the others or to any other
form of necessity. The fact that normative necessity is an irreducible kind
of necessity, moreover, implies that moral nonnaturalism is true. Why so?
Fines thought isnt explicitly spelled out on this matter, but presumably it
runs something like this. Naturalism has no difficulties countenancing
so-called natural necessity the type of necessity that binds together the
relata of a causal relation. And it is not obviously incompatible with there
being metaphysical necessities that is, the sort of necessity according to
which anything red is red, or that nothing is both red and green all over,
or that I am a person, or that 2 is a number. But it is difficult to see how
a moral naturalist could countenance irreducible normative necessity. As
Jean Hampton puts the matter, such necessity would be entirely resistant
to empirical explanation; it would be ineffable (99).
If this is so, then,
according to naturalists, normative necessity must be reducible to either
natural or metaphysical necessity. But it isnt. So, nonnaturalism is true.
What exactly, however, is normative necessity, according to Fine? Here
is what Fine says:
The sense of necessity in which the radical pacifist wishes to maintain that it
is necessary that any war is wrong I propose to call normative. . . . It is in this sense
of necessity that the moral supervenes on the natural, and, indeed, such cases
provide the least contentious examples of normative necessity. Suppose that D
is a complete description of the world in naturalistic terms. Then we will be
inclined to make certain moral judgements about the world so described that
such-and-such a consequence was unfortunate or such-and-such an action is
wrong. But in so far as we are prepared to make such judgements, we will also
be prepared to say that it was no accident that they are true. In those particular
circumstances, the consequences had to be unfortunate, the action had to be
wrong. (267)
Fines idea is that natural properties of various sorts are intimately linked
with moral ones. For example, if the radical pacifist is correct, a natural
property such as being a case of warfare is intimately linked with the property
being wrong; something could not display the former without displaying the
latter. Fines proposal is that normative necessity is that type of necessity
that accounts for the intimate connection between ordinary natural features
and moral ones. It is not itself the supervenience relation, as that is a purely
modal relation. Rather, normative necessity is what accounts for the fact
that (assuming the radical pacifist is correct), necessarily, engaging in an act
of warfare is wrong.
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But why think that the modal glue that binds together ordinary natural
and moral features is not some other brand of necessity? Well, it would be
very odd to think that the necessity in question is natural necessity the
sort of necessity according to which, if one billiard ball hits another, then
the other must move. Among other things, this type of necessity would
appear to render the connection between natural and moral features too
loose. It is conceptually possible in the billiard ball case, after all, that the
second ball does not move when hit by the first. But, if radical pacifists are
correct, it is not genuinely conceptually possible that an act of warfare is
not wrong; one could not, say the pacificists, be fully competent with the
relevant concepts and still believe that engaging in war is morally permissible.
More interesting for present purposes, according to Fine, is the question
of whether the necessity in question might be metaphysical that is, the
sort of necessity according to which anything red is red or that 2 is a
Moore, suggests Fine, gave us strong reasons to believe that normative
necessity shouldnt be identified with that type of metaphysical necessity
that holds in virtue of the identity of concepts. Charitably understood,
Moores point can be put thus: Suppose one holds that it is conceptually
necessary that something is good if it promotes pleasure over pain. If this
is true, then presumably it must also be true that something is good in virtue
of its promoting pleasure over pain. In fact, it would appear that it is only
because something is good in virtue of its promoting pleasure over pain
that there is the relevant conceptual connection between these two things.
But, Fine asks, what is the in-virtue-of-which relationship that accounts
for the conceptual connection? The only answer seems to be that it is the
relationship of one thing consisting in it its being no more than some other;
this would seem to be the only sort of relationship capable of underwriting
the conceptual connection. But, says Fine, we have strong intuitions that
goodness does consist in something more than its promoting more pleasure
than pain. It seems possible, for example, that something is good, but is
not a case of somethings promoting more pleasure than pain, and vice
versa. Moreover, that this seems possible doesnt appear to be merely a case
of someones not having adequate command of the concepts in question.
Many philosophers would be willing to concede this. But might it be
the case that normative necessity is really identical with metaphysical
necessity more broadly construed that kind of necessity, as Fine puts it,
that holds in virtue of the identity or essence of things (254)? Fine
contends that this question should also be answered negatively. Consider,
for example, the following three, broadly naturalist, positions that attempt
to reduce normative to metaphysical necessity.
Advocates of the first type of naturalist position maintain that (a) the
necessary connection between natural and moral features is ordinary metaphy-
sical necessity; and ( b) this can be seen clearly were we to examine cases
such as the radical pacifists claim that engaging in warfare must be wrong.
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This position, says Fine, must be mistaken. There is, after all, nothing
in the identity of naturalistic or normative features that demands that they
be connected in the way they are. It is, for example, no part of what it is
to be in pain that it should be bad, and vice versa. In this sense, the relation
between natural and normative features is rather different from that of, say,
being water and being H
O. The identities in this case, it appears, require
that these two kinds of thing be identical.
Proponents of the second type of naturalist position claim, in contrast
to advocates of the first view, that normative features have a hidden
essence. This essence implies that they are connected to natural ones by
metaphysical necessity. Since the essence is hidden, however, we shouldnt
expect to ascertain it simply by contemplating natural or normative features;
the connection emerges only when we begin to theorize about the nature
of normativity itself.
To spell this out more fully, advocates of this second position typically
develop it in several stages. First, they offer a functional characterization of
a property such as being good, according to which something is good just
in case it fits the good-making role. Second, a candidate is offered for
satisfying the good-making role. So, for example, one might say that for a
property to fit the good-making role is for it to be valued under ideal
conditions. Of course the account can be made even more precise once
we discover what in fact would be valued under ideal conditions. It may
be, for example, that ideal valuers would value only pleasure, in which case
we could identify pleasure with goodness. To which, Fine adds, any proposal
to the effect that such-and-such property satisfies the good-making role
would be a posteriori since it is an a posteriori matter as to whether the
property, say, there being a balance of pleasure over pain, is what is valued under
ideal conditions.
This view, according to Fine, is subject to a dilemma. Consider, once
again, the good-making role. If we think, along with naturalists such as
Frank Jackson, David Lewis, Michael Smith, and others, that it is the
property of being valued under ideal conditions, then there are two
possibilities to consider.
The first possibility is that the ideal conditions
are ego-centric. In this case, being good is identical with being the property
that I would value under ideal conditions. The second possibility is that the
ideal conditions are not ego-centric. According to this position, being
good is identical with being the property that we would value under ideal
The first option, Fine maintains, isnt attractive. It would imply
that genuine moral disagreement is impossible, as any case in which an
agent talks about what is good would be simply a matter of talking about
him or herself, which appears to be false. The second option, however, is
also problematic. For it is incompatible with the non-empirical character
of moral judgment. It appears to imply that having access to the way the
world is would put us in a better position to know how things stand in
the moral domain. And that, Fine thinks, is not true.
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But why is it a problem that this view implies that moral judgment is
non-empirical? Consider, says Fine, a world-bound conditional, which is
a conditional of the form: It is normatively necessary that, if this is how
things were, then this would be (morally) good.
These conditionals,
suggests Fine, are non-empirical. By this he means that an ideal cognizer
who had the relevant concepts could know these conditionals in a non-
empirical fashion.
More precisely, she could know these conditionals on
the basis of inner experience experience that is not (and the subject
does not take to be a case of ) veridical perception just as well as she could
know them on the basis of any other type of experience. Even if I were a
brain in a vat, the claim is, I would have equally good reasons to believe
world-bound conditionals to be true as I would were I not. How, after all,
would empirical experience make any difference to whether I grasp the
truth of such a conditional? For one thing, it might inform me of the
circumstances in which the moral concepts are applied. But such experience
is irrelevant to assessing world-bound conditionals, since Fine understands
the relevant circumstances to be completely specified in the antecedent of
the conditional. For another, it may make it more vivid to me how the
concepts are to be applied in a given circumstance. Only by actually
witnessing torture, for example, may I learn to appreciate its horror. But
this, Fine contests, is also not relevant. After all, I could learn about the
horror of torture even if my experience of a putative torture session were
not veridical.
The problem with the version of naturalism we are considering, in
Fines view, is that it cannot make good sense of this. For, if naturalism is
to be believed, whether a world-bound conditional is true will in general
depend on how things are outside me. But, if moral knowledge is genuinely
non-empirical, then it is difficult to see why having a window on the
world (so to speak) or taking myself to have such a window would put
me in a better position to determine whether a given world-bound conditional
holds. The non-empirical character of moral knowledge implies that the
warrant an agent has for believing a world-bound conditional should not
be affected by whether that agent is empirically related to the world.
Now for the third type of naturalism that Fine considers what is
widely called Cornell realism: This view tells us that it is an a posteriori
metaphysical necessity that goodness is (or is constituted by) such-and-such
natural property, but it denies that any specific good-making role is part of
our understanding of the term good.
Whether the term good refers,
according to this position, is determined by its (or its use) bearing
appropriate causal (or similarly empirical) relations to the world. In this
way, moral terms function in a very similar fashion to natural kind terms.
Fine grants that this view avoids the dilemma posed to the second
version of naturalism since it does not employ the concept of a good-
making role. But, he contends, the view still faces epistemological
problems. The basic problem is this: Suppose reference to moral features
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obtains by virtue of our terms bearing appropriate causal (or broadly)
empirical relations to them. It is difficult to see, however, how mental
reference can be a function of our terms or concepts bearing broadly causal
relations to moral reality and its also being true that moral knowledge does
not require epistemic access to the world. While it is probably true that a
brain in a vat is at a great disadvantage if she wants to have well-founded
beliefs about natural kinds and their instances, she is, if Fine is right, at no
disadvantage (assuming she is an ideal brain in a vat) when it comes to
moral knowledge. If so, there is a marked difference between ordinary
empirical knowledge and moral knowledge, which Cornell realism does
not recognize.
2.5. objections
We saw earlier that broadly epistemological considerations, according to
Copp, distinguish moral naturalism from nonnaturalism: In contrast to
naturalist views, nonnaturalist positions tell us that moral judgments of
certain kinds are immune from empirical disconfirmation. Copp maintains
that this is a strike against nonnaturalism. For, if Copp is correct, moral
disagreement can function as an empirical defeater, at least in principle, for
any moral proposition. Interestingly, Fines position is almost exactly the
reverse of Copps. He holds that it is precisely nonnaturalisms ability to
make sense of the nonempirical character of moral judgment that recommends
it. Is Fine correct about this?
Lets see if we can make progress on this question by working with a
particular world-bound conditional and a particular proposal for what satisfies
the good-making role. Consider the conditional:
It is normatively necessary that, if this were an instance of warfare, it would
be morally better if it had not occurred.
And suppose we consider not a naturalist view of goodness, but a divine
desire account, according to which a things being good is a function of
Gods desiring or approving of it.
(I find a view such as this easier to work
with as I have some idea of what it would be to ascertain Gods desires but
little idea of how to ascertain an ideal valuers desires.) Fine objects that
if a view such as this were correct, it would yield counterintuitive
consequences. The counterintuitive consequence to which he draws
attention is that, in determining whether this conditional is true, having
actual experience of the world in this case, being apprised of Gods
desires and approvals would put us in a better position to tell whether it
is true.
I fail to see, however, why this is a counterintuitive consequence of the
divine desire view. Presumably, if the divine desire view were correct, this
is exactly the result that we would expect. One can look at the matter this
way: Some normatively necessary world-bound conditionals will strike any
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minimally decent (and idealized) moral agent as clearly true. In such cases,
a divine desire theorist or a naturalist neednt be committed to the claim
that ascertaining Gods desires puts us in a better position to see whether
these conditionals are true. (Of course it may confirm to us what already
seems clear. Or it may give us greater insight into why the conditional
holds. In such cases, the warrant of a moral judgment might be boosted.
But I judge that this is not what Fine has in mind when he talks of our
being put in a better position to determine the truth of a conditional.)
To take an analogy: Even if particular causal relations were a function of
Gods willings, it doesnt follow that ascertaining Gods willings (under that
description) would put us in a better position to ascertain whether a given
natural law holds. Suppose that, during the course of my life, I see that
stones fall to the earth when dropped from six feet from the surface of the
earth. Having witnessed many such events, I form the conviction that it is
naturally necessary that stones fall to the earth when dropped from six feet
from the surface of the earth. Were I to learn that God wills that stones
behave in this way, this would not, however, help me to determine
whether the natural necessity in question holds (at least absent skepticism
regarding induction). Experience is sufficient for that. In general, being
apprised of what accounts for the truth of a given conditional neednt put
us in a better position to determine whether it is true. If so, it is false that
divine desire theorists or naturalists are committed to the claim that, for
every world-bound conditional, having access to Gods desires or the
valuings of an ideal agent would put us in a better position to know that
that conditional holds.
In other cases, though, things may not be so clear. Even given a complete
description of the world, it may be that, given the complexity of the case,
it will be very difficult to know whether a given object is morally better
than another. In cases such as these, ascertaining Gods willings or the
valuings of an idealized agent may put us in a better position to determine
whether a given world-bound conditional is true. The world-bound
conditional stated above is perhaps such a case. Suppose we know all the
descriptive facts about the case of warfare in question: how many people
were injured or died, what was destroyed by the fighting, what was
preserved due to the fighting, and so on. But we may not know how to
weigh or evaluate all these natural facts. In such a case, having access to
Gods desires or approvals would help us to see why it is normatively
necessary that the occurrence of the war in question was morally worse
than its not having occurred (or vice versa).
I conclude that the second horn of the dilemma that Fine presses against
naturalist views is not decisive. The fact that, in some cases, appealing to
empirical considerations can help us ascertain the truth of a world-bound
conditional is not a strike against naturalism.
That is the first objection I wish to raise. Here is the second, which
concerns Fines understanding of the notion of normative necessity. Recall
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that, according to Fine, normative necessity is what accounts for the fact
that nonmoral features of certain kinds are intimately linked to moral
properties of certain types. It is the type of necessity that, as Fine puts it,
explains why the moral supervenes on the natural. Thus understood,
normative necessity is a relation that holds between the moral and the
nonmoral realm although let it be added that the relation itself is not said
to be normative; rather, one of its relata is claimed to be normative.
any rate, once we see that the term normative necessity is used to signify
a relation of this kind, it is natural to raise two questions. First, are naturalists
committed to the claim that the necessity in question is metaphysical
necessity? And are nonnaturalists committed to there being the type of
necessity that Fine terms normative necessity?
As best I can tell, the answer to both these questions is no. Begin with
the naturalists. Naturalists view the relationship between natural and moral
properties differently. Some believe that the relation is that of identity.
these views, it might be accurate to say that they imply that normative
necessity is merely a species of metaphysical necessity. I myself, however,
would be more comfortable describing their view as one according to
which normative necessity is simply the relation of identity: What accounts
for the covariation found between natural features of certain kinds and
moral ones, according to these views, is that these features are identical.
Some nonreductive naturalists, however, deny these claims about identity,
maintaining that the relation between the natural and the moral is looser
than this. Often it is said that natural properties constitute or are realized
in moral ones, but are not identical with them.
Of these views, I think
it would be inaccurate to say that they imply that normative necessity is a
species of metaphysical necessity. Rather, these thinkers maintain that what
Fine calls normative necessity is a common enough, although perhaps not
particularly well understood, asymmetric determination relation that is not
itself a purely modal relation. According to some, it is the relation that
holds between marble and statues, brain states and mental states, language
use and meaning, chemical processes and biological processes, and so on.
Granted, the claim that moral and natural features bear this relationship (or
some species thereof ) to one another may be false. The important point
for our purposes, however, is not whether such a view is true. Rather, it
is that one cannot dismiss these views on the ground that they are committed
to the claim that normative necessity is a species of metaphysical necessity.
They appear committed to no such thing.
Turn now to the nonnaturalists. In his Moral Realism: A Defence,
Shafer-Landau maintains that he, a nonnaturalist, believes that the relation
between the natural and the moral is as nonreductive naturalists say: It is
the fact that the moral is constituted by the nonmoral that accounts for the
strong supervenience of the moral on the nonmoral. Shafer-Landau denies,
however, that the resulting moral properties are natural (767).
Now, if
Shafer-Landau is right, then the issues that divide moral naturalists and
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nonnaturalists on this matter are fairly subtle; they concern the issue of
whether to tag certain properties as natural or nonnatural. However, if
Shafer-Landau has correctly characterized his view, then what we just said
about nonreductive naturalism also holds for nonnaturalism. Nonnaturalists
deny that the moral realm is identical with the natural one. They also deny
that normative necessity is a variety of metaphysical necessity. But they are
not thereby committed to there being a special type of determination
relation that holds exclusively between natural and normative features.
(Certainly the fact that one of the relata of such a relation is normative
does not license such a commitment.) What is distinctive about nonnaturalism,
according to this view, is not its commitment to a distinctive type of
determination relation that holds between natural and moral properties,
but its commitment to the nonnatural character of the moral properties
that are the relata of this relation.
To recapitulate: Fine contends that there is an irreducible type of necessity
that he calls normative necessity, the existence of which is incompatible with
moral naturalism. I have claimed, first, that naturalist views do not yield
the unattractive epistemological consequences that Fine claims and, second,
that it is not evident that either naturalists or nonnaturalists are committed
to there being normatively necessary relations as Fine understands them.
2.6. the third argument: hampton
I turn now to the final argument for nonnaturalism that I wish to consider,
namely, that offered by the late Jean Hampton in her book The Authority
of Reason.
Hampton concedes that it is difficult to identify any one feature
that distinguishes moral naturalists from nonnaturalists. Nonetheless,
Hampton suggests, a definitive feature of naturalist views about the world
is their rejection of irreducibly teleological or final cause explanations of
the behavior of things.
What does Hampton have in mind by a final cause explanation?
According to Hampton, a final cause explanation has three components.
First, it assumes that there is a certain place, state of affairs, or kind of
motion that is appropriate or fitting for an object. Second, it assumes that
the object whose movement or state is to be explained is in some way able
to respond to this compelling fittingness or rightness. (This response
neednt be conscious; for example, according to the medievals, nonconscious
objects such as planets were thought to be sensitive to the requirement that
their movement be circular.) Finally, a final-cause explanation assumes that
the objects state or movement can be explained by appealing to its
sensitivity to this compelling fittingness or rightness.
Naturalism, in Hamptons view, rules out appeal to explanations of this
kind. If this is true, however, a robustly realist account of the moral domain
must be nonnaturalist. Hamptons argument for this conclusion is swift:
Consider a case, she asks, in which we endeavor to explain why an agent
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acted in a morally appropriate way. Suppose, for example, an agent has
risked her life by climbing down a steep precipice to attend to an injured
child who had fallen. An explanation of her behavior assumes, first, that
there is an action that is fitting or correct in such a circumstance, namely,
climbing down the precipice to attend to the child. (Let me emphasize that
we neednt assume that an actions being fitting or correct implies that it
is obligatory.) Second, the agent in question can ascertain that the action
is fitting or appropriate in those circumstances. And, third, she can act for
the sake of doing what is fitting or appropriate. As Hampton puts it, if
naturalism were true, we could no more
posit a compelling rightness in the world for the sake of which she acted, any
more than we could think that there was a compelling rightness to iron filings
[sic.] being close to [a] magnet that explained why they were attracted to the
magnet. (113)
None of this, Hampton notes, is incompatible with naturalists employing
the language of reasons and our sensitivity to them. But discourse of this
sort would, at the end of the day, have to be paraphrased away by appeal
to (only) naturalistically unobjectionable terminology. For example, if we
could paraphrase all instances of for the sake of or goal locutions found
in final cause explanations entirely in terms of the terminology used in
efficient cause explanations, then naturalists could freely and, in good
conscience, appeal to teleological explanations. Somewhat more specifically,
if we could appeal to the (efficient) causal efficacy of a moral property to
explain why an agent acted as she did, then teleological-style explanations
would not pose a threat to moral naturalism.
2.7. objections
Hamptons argument, as I noted earlier, is swift; she offers no argument
for believing that teleological explanations cannot ultimately be reduced to
ordinary efficient-causal explanations. For example, Hampton offers no
argument for believing that putative teleological explanations of human
behavior cannot be replaced, without loss, by broadly Humean-style
explanations that appeal only to psychological states such as beliefs and
desires. The first question I want to raise, then, is whether her argument
fails by virtue of the fact that it does not take this further step.
My own view of the matter is that Hamptons argument is not successful,
but not because it leaves this gap unfilled or because we have a successful red-
uction of for the sake of locutions to ordinary efficient-causal locutions.
Rather, I want to suggest that, once we draw some distinctions, naturalists can be
much more comfortable with teleological explanations than Hampton believes.
Hamptons argument assumes that final cause or teleological explanations
form a unified kind. Recall that, according to Hampton, final cause
explanations are such that they posit (i) a certain state of affairs that is
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Recent Faces of Moral Nonnaturalism 873
fitting or appropriate for an object; (ii) that this fittingness or appropriateness
can be discerned by that object; and (iii) that objects act for the sake of
bringing about what is fitting or appropriate for them. If recent discussions
of teleology in the philosophy of biology are correct, however, we should
distinguish different types of teleological explanation call them robust
and non-robust teleological explanations, respectively. Robust explanations
incorporate Hamptons second and third conditions, according to which a
thing detects the goodness of a state of affairs and acts for the sake of
bringing it about. Non-robust explanations do not, adding other sorts of
Some philosophers believe that we can offer non-robust
teleological explanations of the non-intentional behavior of objects in the
natural world. For example, some philosophers believe that we can offer
non-robust teleological explanations of the behavior of bodily organs such
as the heart (the heart pumps for the sake of circulating blood). No one,
however, believes that we can offer adequate robust teleological explanations
of such behavior. A heart, for example, may pump for the sake of
circulating blood, and the circulation of blood may even be good for it.
But advocates of non-robust teleological explanations do not maintain that
its pumping blood is a function of its responding to this goodness; natural
selection responds not to goodness, but to survival.
Suppose, then, we place to the side non-robust teleological explanations,
which arguably fit within a broadly naturalistic worldview, and focus on
robust teleological explanations of intentional behavior. Should naturalists
be skeptical of this type of explanation?
Not obviously. For one thing, what makes robust teleological explanations
of non-intentional behavior seem so odd to us is (in part) the idea that
natural objects such as hearts can detect the goodness of a state of affairs.
But for naturalist and nonnaturalist realists, it is not odd to say that human
agents can grasp the goodness of a state of affairs; that is, in part, what
makes their views realist in character. If so, one of the most important
reasons we have for rejecting robust teleology in nature is simply not
present when it comes to intentional human behavior.
Second and here I follow G. F. Schuelers recent discussion of purposive
action it is plausible to believe that robust teleological explanations
are, in the sphere of intentional behavior, rather easily had.
Once again,
all parties to the naturalism/nonnaturalism debate who are realists agree
that there are states of affairs that are good or fitting.
All parties, further-
more, agree that agents can detect the goodness or fittingness of some
states of affairs. Finally, all parties agree that agents act for goals or for the
sake of bringing about certain states of affairs that are (or are believed to be)
good. Suppose we say that if it is fitting for an agent to bring about a state
of affairs, then that agent has a reason to do it. Then the question for
naturalists is, to use Davidsons terminology, whether reasons can be causes.
The answer seems to be: Yes, they can be causes, provided that the
notion of a cause with which we are working is sufficiently minimal.
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Minimalist accounts of causality, such as David Lewiss and J. L. Mackies,
differ in their details, but what they have in common is the idea that a
cause is necessary for its effect (although Mackie allows that we often think
of causes as being sufficient for their effects). The idea is usually presented
in terms of the truth of counterfactuals of the following sort: Given a
certain set of background conditions, if a certain state of affairs C had not
occurred, then a second state of affairs E would not have occurred (on the
assumption, in Mackies case, that C is causally prior to E).
causal explanations that appeal simply to accounts of causality of this sort
are relatively uninformative. They tell us only that there is an explanatory
story connecting two things. But they dont shed much light on what that
explanatory story is or what the mechanisms that ground the truth of a
causal claim might be. Still, there is a case to be made that the minimal
conception of a cause closely approximates our ordinary notion of a cause.
For example, we regularly offer true causal explanations such as Her
smoking caused her lung cancer without thereby having shed much light
on what it is about smoking that causes cancer; the mechanisms are
nowhere in sight. In any event, the bearing of minimalist views of causality
on teleological explanations should be clear. Teleological explanations are
causal explanations. To say that a reason (or a good state of affairs) caused
an agent to behave in a certain way is simply to say that it satisfies the
criteria for a minimal causal explanation. And to say that an item of
behavior satisfies such an explanation is to claim that there is an explanation
to be had of this behavior in which that reason will figure importantly.
Suppose, then, teleological explanations are minimalist in character. As
such, they are acceptable to naturalists and nonnaturalists alike. But if they
are acceptable to naturalists and nonnaturalists alike, then there is no sense
in which the fact that human behavior is explained teleologically could
itself be a reason for rejecting naturalism or arguing for nonnaturalism.
Granted, there will be both naturalists and nonnaturalists alike who are not
satisfied with minimalism of this variety. To be genuinely naturalist in ones
approach to these issues, according to these philosophers, is to offer
informative explanations of human behavior that appeal to causal mechanisms
of various sorts.
I have my doubts about whether this is true. But the
issue neednt be settled here. For our purposes, we can summarize the force
of Hamptons argument as follows: At most, Hamptons argument succeeds
in posing a challenge to naturalists. On the assumption that minimalist
causal explanations are insufficiently naturalist, the challenge is to identify
those causal mechanisms by which reasons or values cause behavior.
3. The Prospects for Nonnaturalism
At the beginning of our discussion, I said that my aim in this article is
twofold: to locate what separates nonnaturalism from naturalism and to
engage critically with several recent arguments for moral nonnaturalism.
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Recent Faces of Moral Nonnaturalism 875
Each of the arguments weve considered, I have argued, is open to
considerable objections. Still, I do not view our discussion as primarily a
destructive enterprise. Nor do I conclude that the arguments weve
considered are without promise. Rather, as I see things, two issues have
emerged from our discussion.
First, weve found that the contemporary debate between naturalists and
nonnaturalists exhibits certain patterns, as it tends to cluster around certain
core issues. For example, the articles by Copp, Shafer-Landau, and Fine
all indicate that a main point of difference between naturalists and
nonnaturalists concerns the role of the a priori in ethical thought. Non-
naturalists believe that its role in moral epistemology is more prominent
than naturalists believe, contending that naturalists cannot account for this.
Somewhat differently, Hamptons argument also identifies a point of differ-
ence between naturalists (of at least some types) and nonnaturalists
concerning how we explain action done for moral reasons. Naturalists who
desire to go beyond merely minimal causal explanations of human behavior
tend to accept broadly Humean strategies of action explanation, while
nonnaturalists do not, finding these strategies deeply unsatisfactory.
to say, to have located points of deep disagreement is not thereby to have
made progress toward solving them! But sometimes even modest gains are
noteworthy. Which brings me to the second and related point: If we have
in fact located substantive issues that divide moral naturalists from non-
naturalists and not, say, simply differences in methodology we have a
better idea about where future work in (at least this corner of ) metaethics
should be focused. For instance, suppose one believes, as I do, that there
is something to the nonnaturalists claim that ethical thinking is, in large
measure, a priori. The task for nonnaturalists, then, is clear: to defend
sophisticated forms of a priori warrant and indicate the degree to which
accepting an account such as this compromises the integrity of the
naturalist project.
Thanks to Steve Finlay, Steve Layman, Brad Majors, Luke Reinsma, and Russ
Shafer-Landau for comments on an earlier draft of this article.
Short Biography
Terence Cuneo works primary in the areas of ethical theory and history
of early modern philosophy. His papers have been published in the
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, British Journal for the History of Philosophy,
Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Nos, Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Philosophy
and Phenomenological Research, The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism, The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and elsewhere. He is the editor (or
co-editor) of three books, The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Reid
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(Cambridge, 2004), Religion in the Liberal Polity (Notre Dame, 2005), and
Foundations of Ethics: An Anthology (Blackwell, 2007). His book The
Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism (Oxford, 2007) develops
an argument for moral realism that turns on the similarities between
epistemic and moral facts. He is presently working on two projects, the
first concerning the role of speech acts in metaethics, the second concerning
Thomas Reids ethical theory. From 19992001, Cuneo held a post-
doctoral fellowship at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. Presently an
assistant professor at Calvin College, Cuneo will begin teaching at the
University of Vermont in fall 2008.
* Correspondence address: Dr. Terence Cuneo, Philosophy Department, Calvin College, Grand
Rapids, Michigan, United States. Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
As Moore himself noted, getting clear on what exactly is being claimed in the Open Question
Argument is not easy. I offer here a variant of a standard way of understanding it.
See, for example, Cuneo, Moral Realism; Enoch; Fine; FitzPatrick; Hampton; Huemer;
McGinn; Parfit; Regan; Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism; Stratton-Lake. In fairness, it should be
noted that the nonnaturalist tradition has had a continued presence in British circles due to
Dancy (Moral Reasons; Nonnaturalism), McDowell, McNaughton, Wiggins, and others.
Shafer-Landau (2006); Fine (2002); Hampton (1998).
For an alternate way of carving up the territory, see Finlay. Finlay has also pointed out to me
that the view I propose has certain affinities with Harman, Is There a Single True Morality?.
In calling this the standard definition, I follow Sturgeon, Moral Naturalism 92.
See Copp 18590. Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism II.3 defends a similar characterization,
although, to my knowledge, Copp and Shafer-Landau developed their views independently of
one another. I will have more to say about Shafer-Landaus view shortly.
See BonJour ch. 4.6; Casullo ch. 3; Plantinga ch. 6.iii.
Accordingly, I find myself disagreeing with Shafer-Landaus characterization of nonnaturalism
in Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism II.3.
See section 2 of Copp, as well as Rea chs. 1, 2.
See van Fraasen. Rea (Introduction), develops a similar view, although he prefers to think of
naturalism not as a stance, but as a research program. According to Reas characterization, a
research program is a set of methodological dispositions, where these are primarily dispositions
to trust at least some of our cognitive faculties as sources of evidence and to take certain kinds
of experiences and arguments to be evidence (2). While the notion of a stance is closely related
to Reas account of a research program, I think there are at least the following two differences
between them.
First, Rea maintains that research programs such as naturalism are maximal sets of
methodological dispositions, where a set of dispositions is maximal just in case it is possible to
have all of the dispositions in the set but it is not possible to have all of them and to have other
methodological dispositions (3). Second, Rea holds that research programs are dispositions to
take certain cognitive faculties as basic, reliable sources of evidence. By contrast, I do not assume
that stances such as the naturalistic one are maximal. One can adopt a stance and be undecided
about how to treat certain sources of putative evidence, thus leaving open the possibility that
ones stance may include further components. Indeed, one might think of the metaethical
stances with which Im concerned in this article as sub-components of larger research programs,
such as the naturalist one. Second, as Ill point out shortly, stances include not only dispositions
to count certain cognitive faculties as reliable basic sources of evidence, but also dispositions to
weigh and evaluate evidence of particular types in certain ways. In my estimation, it is the
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Recent Faces of Moral Nonnaturalism 877
tendency of nonnaturalists to weigh certain types of evidence differently from naturalists that,
in many cases, distinguishes their position from naturalists.
See Timmons ch. 1.
See Jackson ch. 5.
Let me add to this a qualification. Strictly speaking, a more accurate map of this conceptual
territory would divide things up more precisely. A more fine-grained division would say that
naturalism maintains the priority of the external. Anti-naturalism, however, would be any stance
that rejects the priority of the external. Within the anti-naturalist camp, we can draw the
following twofold division: A supernaturalist view is one that rejects the priority of the external
in favor of the priority of the supernatural that is, the privileging of certain types of religious
experience, religious tradition, religious texts, and so on. A nonnaturalist view is one that rejects
the priority of the external in favor of the priority of the internal.
As Rea (ch. 1) points out, among its virtues is that it approximates what some very prominent
philosophical naturalists themselves have claimed, such as Dewey, Roy Wood Sellars, and
See Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism II.3; Oddie ch. 6. Admittedly, Oddies case for nonnaturalism
hinges on some fairly abstract considerations regarding the nature of properties. Still, it is clear
that Oddies project is driven by a commitment to the primacy of the internal.
What about the claim that naturalism is the view according to which everything that exists is
what would be mentioned in an ideal scientific theory? This view is not vulnerable to the
concern just raised. Even so, I think it is an uninformative account of naturalism. Who knows,
after all, what will be mentioned by a fully comprehensive and accurate scientific theory of the
One could, I suppose, call these latter concepts natural and the properties to which they refer
natural properties. But by this we should mean only this: Natural concepts and properties are
those countenanced by the external accommodation project, given our best present understanding
of those things whose existence to which it commits us. Nonnatural concepts and properties, by
contrast, are those countenanced by the internal accommodation project, given our best present
understanding of those things whose existence to which it commits us.
As do Regan; Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism 568; Stratton-Lake, Introduction. Gibbard,
who is an expressivist, also finds value in the argument, although not the same value that
nonnaturalists do.
The divine command theory comes in different guises. The type of view I am considering is
roughly the type of view defended by contemporary philosophers such as Adams, Quinn (Divine
Commands; Recent Revival), and Wierenga.
Let me add a qualification here. It is sometimes argued that, if the divine command theory
were true, there is at least one obligation that is not a divine command, namely, the obligation
to obey Gods commands. It is also sometimes said that this obligation can be known a priori.
Still, even if this is correct, ethical inquiry is not, according to the divine command theory,
primarily an a priori enterprise.
I try my hand in Cuneo, Normative Web chs. 46.
See Putnam, Reason, Truth, and History; Representation and Reality.
Here I follow Lynch 45. The type of relativity here calls for fuller exploration. Alston (201)
maintains that the relativity can be understood on the models of the relativity of motion and indexicals.
For the argument, see Alston 325.
In what follows, Im drawing from Alston 445.
Do these claims conflict with the claim that it is indeterminate whether a substance or process
ontology is correct? For Alstons answer, see 513.
For a nonnaturalists approach to normative explanation, see Enoch; Majors, Moral Explanation
and the Special Sciences; Moral Explanations.
Hampton (ch. 3) defends an argument very similar to Fines. Fine has indicated to me in
private correspondence that, to the best of his knowledge, his argument and Hamptons were
developed independently.
In fairness to Fine, he does not call the position for which he argues nonnaturalism. But he
clearly identifies it as Moorean. See Fine 278 n37.
Fines view appears to echo Kim, according to which supervenience itself is not an explanatory
relation. It is not a deep metaphysical relation; rather, it is a surface relation that reports a
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pattern of property covariation, suggesting the presence of an interesting dependency relation
that might explain it (167).
See Jackson; Lewis, Dispositional Theories; Smith.
For the record, there may be independent reasons to reject property identities of this sort.
While both being good and being the property that I would value under ideal conditions are properties,
the latter appears to be a second-order property of properties, while the former does not.
Fine (272) appeals to conditionals of this form to avoid having to work with conditionals that
are true merely because their antecedents are false.
Fine adds to this three points: First, according to Fine, an ideal cognizer is someone capable
of grasping a complete description of the world. Second, Fine adds that grasping the concepts
involved in a world-bound conditional might require us to have empirical experience. Finally,
Fine says that the reasons for judging a world-bound conditional true are sustainable. Roughly,
the idea here is that if reasons of a certain kind are parasitic on other reasons as in the case of
testimony then they cant have greater probative value than the reasons upon which they
depend (275).
See Boyd; Brink; Sturgeon, Moral Explanations for developments of Cornell realism.
Wolterstorff defends this view.
For an argument that the relation itself is normative, see FitzPatrick.
See Jackson for an example.
I am assuming that identity is a relation such that, if it holds at all, it holds necessarily.
See, in particular, Brink 1767.
They are not natural, according to Shafer-Landau, because we can know them a priori.
Hampton ch. 3.
Hasker (63) suggests something similar.
See Bedau for a discussion of the issues. In what follows, Ive been helped by Murphy ch. 1.
See Schueler, especially ch. 1.3.
Or at least nearly all do. In her Presidential Address to the American Philosophical Association
in 1983, Philippa Foot denied it. To accommodate views such as this, one can read what follows
as including an implicit qualifier according to which all realists believe that there are states of
affairs or objects that are good or fitting.
See Mackie; Lewis, Causation.
See, for example, Harmans reply to Sturgeon in Harman, Moral Explanations. One way to
read the debate between Harman and Sturgeon about moral explanation is that Sturgeon believes
that naturalists can be minimalists about causal explanation, while Harman does not.
Dancy (Practical Reality), McDowell, and Parfit are nonnaturalists who argue in this vein.
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Wiggins, David. Needs, Values, Truth. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.
Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Justice: Rights and Wrongs. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, forthcoming 2008.
Wright, Crispin. Truth and Objectivity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1992.
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