Odds, Ends, and Morals

Our overview of substantive metaethical positions has gone in a kind of circle. We started with error theory, a view that calls ethics into question based on some of the worries about even minimal realism raised in our introductory chapters. We then surveyed different systematic attempts to defuse many of these worries, either by supplementing the minimal realist commitments or by rejecting them. Subjectivism and scientific realism took the former path, whereas non-cognitivism and fictionalism (to a lesser extent) took the latter. And then we came back around to examine a view popularized by Moore in the face of the Open Question Argument, non-naturalism. It is just minimal realism paired with the claim that the properties represented in moral thought and language are sui generis . For completeness we discussed supernaturalist views in their own short chapter, noting the similarities to naturalism. My hope is that the survey organizes the main metaethical positions in a useful way, displaying them as at least somewhat natural responses to various desiderata , importantly among them the ability to respond to at least some of the puzzles introduced in the early chapters.