Robust Realism in Ethics: Normative Arbitrariness, Interpersonal Dialogue, and Moral Objectivity 0198886489, 9780198886488

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Robust Realism in Ethics

Robust Realism in Ethics Normative Arbitrariness, Interpersonal Dialogue, and Moral Objectivity STEPHEN INGRAM

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Stephen Ingram 2023 The moral rights of the author have been asserted All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2023933406 ISBN 978–0–19–888648–8 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198886488.001.0001 Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A. Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

Contents Preface

ix

Introduction 0.1 Approach 0.2 Background 0.3 Overview

1 1 2 5 PART I. MORAL REALITY

1. Arbitrariness Charges 1.1 Starting Points 1.2 Bruteness 1.3 Privilege 1.4 Normative Deficits 1.5 Ownership 1.6 Stability 1.7 Conclusion

11 11 14 16 19 20 23 27

2. Modest Stance-Dependence 2.1 Expectations 2.2 Bruteness and Privilege 2.3 Inglish Values 2.4 Idealisation

29 29 31 32 35

2.4.1 Ideals and Aliens 2.4.2 Our Moral Species

2.5 Localised Error 2.5.1 Moral Criticism 2.5.2 Enough Goes 2.6 Conclusion

3. Ambitious Stance-Dependence 3.1 Borderline Cases 3.1.1 3.1.2 3.1.3 3.1.4 3.1.5

Practical Necessity Systems of Rules Rigidification Rhetorical Power Moral Grammar

3.2 Constitutivism 3.2.1 Constitutivist Claims 3.2.2 Constitutivist Deficits 3.3 Conclusion

35 40

43 44 47 49

50 50 50 51 52 53 56

58 59 63 70

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4. Stance-Independence 4.1 Stance-Independence 4.2 The Ownership Charge 4.3 The Bruteness Charge

71 71 72 77

4.3.1 Inherent Authority 4.3.2 Moral Arguments 4.3.3 Queerness and Error

77 81 83

4.4 The Normativity of Needs 4.4.1 Categorical Needs 4.4.2 Companions in Innocence 4.5 Conclusion

85 85 87 91

5. Robust Ontology 5.1 Three Options 5.2 Quasi-Realism 5.2.1 Conceptual Status 5.2.2 Expressivist Deficits

5.3 Relaxed Realism 5.4 Robust Realism 5.4.1 Non-Archimedean Robustness 5.4.2 Moral Supervenience 5.5 Conclusion

93 93 97 97 100

108 111 112 115 120

PART II. MORAL DIALOGUE 6. Dualistic Intuitionism 6.1 Moral Inquiry 6.1.1 Objective Inquiry 6.1.2 Dialogue’s Role

6.2 A Priori Moral Beliefs 6.2.1 E-Dependence and J-Dependence 6.2.2 Neglected Moral Truths 6.3 A Posteriori Moral Beliefs 6.3.1 Empathic Dialogue 6.3.2 Shifting Moral Emotions 6.4 General Objections 6.4.1 Irrelevant Factors 6.4.2 Causation 6.5 Conclusion

7. Actual Dialogue 7.1 Inclusion 7.1.1 Criteria for Inclusion 7.1.2 Implementing Inclusion

125 126 126 128

132 132 134 137 137 140 144 144 146 147

148 148 148 154

 7.2 Cooperation 7.2.1 Cooperative Inquiry 7.2.2 Implementing Cooperation 7.3 Conclusion

8. Sceptical Challenges 8.1 Disagreement 8.1.1 The Metaphysical Argument 8.1.2 The Epistemological Argument

vii 156 157 164 170

171 171 171 177

8.2 Debunking 8.2.1 Third Factors 8.2.2 Reliable Reflection 8.3 Conclusion

182 182 188 194

9. Moral Reference 9.1 Semantic Access 9.2 Conceptual Role Semantics

195 195 196

9.2.1 ‘Ought’ 9.2.2 Ellians Again

9.3 Moral Mental Files 9.3.1 The Theory 9.3.2 Two Payoffs 9.4 Conclusion

196 198

201 202 209 214

10. Conclusion

215

References Index

217 235

Preface I am a robust realist about morality. I think that there are at least some stanceindependent, irreducibly normative, non-natural moral truths, and that they are a source of categorical reasons to act. I also think that we know these truths on the basis of intuition, and that ordinary moral terms—like ‘right’ and ‘good’ in English—can designate robust moral properties. In this book I develop and defend these views. I do this by asking what it takes for a moral choice to be normatively non-arbitrary, and by examining the role of interpersonal dialogue in moral inquiry and language. I think that robust realists can learn a lot by paying close attention to the concept of normative arbitrariness, and to facts about how human beings can, do, and should talk to one another about moral issues. I have been interested in metaethics since I first became aware of it, but it was only after several years of studying that I started to take moral realism seriously. I ended up doing my PhD on the metaphysics of robust realism, and part of what led to me writing this book was my dissatisfaction with that doctoral work. I note this because, like many others I know, I became somewhat disenchanted with philosophy after finishing my PhD, and in my case this involved the feeling that I had passed my viva but failed as a philosopher. I still feel a sense of failure when I think of my PhD work. I started this project not in the hope of exorcising such feelings, but in the hope of finding a sound case for my metaethical beliefs. In the Grand Scheme of Things the book doubtless falls short of that. But it defends robust realism to my satisfaction, and has led me to be once again enchanted by philosophy, which will do for now. In my time studying metaethics, and in the process of working on this book, I have benefited from conversations with and comments from Graham BexPriestley, Jimmy Lenman, Miranda Fricker, Leonie Smith, Lewis Brooks, Joe Saunders, David Enoch, Maeve MacPherson, and David Liggins. I would also like to thank two anonymous readers for Oxford University Press, whose kind and constructive suggestions have improved this book significantly, and Peter Momtchiloff, whose support for this project has been a great source of encouragement and reassurance. I am grateful to Graham Stevens, Chris Daly, and Helen Beebee for their generosity to me in their times as Head of Philosophy at Manchester. I am grateful to my parents—Maggie and Dave—for their loving support, and for talking to me about something other than philosophy. I am grateful to Toni, Denise, Shirley, Lesley, Sharon, and Sonja for being happy distractions. And above all I am grateful to Lizzy Kirkham, whose courage, honesty, perseverance, and kindness are a lesson not only in how to conduct inquiry, but also in how to be a good person.

Introduction You have to start somewhere, and in metaethics there are many places at which an inquiry might begin. I have two points of departure. First, I am interested in what it is for a moral choice to be normatively non-arbitrary. Second, I am interested in the role of interpersonal dialogue within moral inquiry and moral language. In this book I consider what we can learn about moral reality by paying close attention to normative arbitrariness and moral dialogue. The first part of the book argues that robust realism—roughly, the view that there are stanceindependent, irreducibly normative, non-natural moral truths—is the theory that is best placed to secure the normative non-arbitrariness of moral choice.¹ The second part of the book argues that, by better understanding how we can, do, and should talk to one another about moral issues, we can defend epistemological and meta-semantic theories that complement robust realism. In this introductory chapter I’ll first say more about my two main points of departure (§0.1). I’ll then outline the theories and concepts that will play a role throughout the book (§0.2). I’ll conclude with a chapter-by-chapter overview (§0.3), explaining how, taken as a whole, the book makes a (near enough) comprehensive case for robust realism.

0.1 Approach My core aim is to defend a robustly realistic view of moral normativity. I’m focusing on specifically moral normativity, and not on normativity in general, for I think that the hardest questions about normativity are writ large in the moral case. I will have occasion to discuss a non-moral normative domain in §4.4, and I don’t think that moral normativity is unique, but I do believe that there are normative domains—including the epistemic, the legal, and the aesthetic—that are unlike morality in key ways.² These other domains are interesting in themselves, but I am most interested in understanding the ontological, epistemological, and meta-semantic commitments that underlie the authority of true moral claims. As I’ve noted, my discussion of these issues will centre on ideas about normative arbitrariness and interpersonal dialogue. I think that debates about the

¹ I provide a more careful gloss on robust realism in §0.2 and §5.1. ² This claim is somewhat controversial, but I won’t defend it here. I offer a non-robust view of epistemic normativity in Ingram (2018a).

Robust Realism in Ethics: Normative Arbitrariness, Interpersonal Dialogue, and Moral Objectivity. Stephen Ingram, Oxford University Press. © Stephen Ingram 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198886488.003.0001

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objectivity and authority of morality often hinge on intuitions about what it takes for moral deliberation and choice to be non-arbitrary. Yet the notion of arbitrariness has never been examined in depth. It is often loosely connected to the notion of justification, but (as I’ll suggest in Chapter 1) philosophers have had different things in mind here. Disentangling and unpacking these distinct interpretations of arbitrariness will put us in a better position to assess the ontological commitments that are required to explain the objectivity and authority of morality. I’ll suggest (in Chapters 2–5) that a robustly realistic moral ontology is our best hope of vindicating the non-arbitrariness of moral choice. In the case of moral dialogue, there are two reasons to think that it can teach us something about the epistemology and meta-semantics of morality. First, as I’ll argue in Chapters 6–7, moral dialogue should play a significant role in any account of moral knowledge and inquiry. As individuals we are limited in our ability to attain moral knowledge, for we each have a particular social position that shapes the borders of our moral experience and insight. Learning from others is thus critical in moral inquiry, and the best way to do this is through inclusive and cooperative dialogue. This point applies to any metaethical theory, but a second reason to focus on moral dialogue is that it will be particularly helpful when it comes to defending robust realism. Robust realists take the basic moral facts to be necessary and stance-independent, and this can make it seem an untenably asocial and ahistorical view of morality. As we’ll see, by focusing on the role of dialogue in moral inquiry, robust realists can account for the social character of moral life. Relatedly, as we’ll see in Chapter 9, examining the conditions in which it is possible for different linguistic groups to engage in genuine moral dialogue will help us to choose between theories of moral reference. In short, moral dialogue has deep epistemic and meta-semantic import, especially for realists. I could say more here about my general approach to philosophy—for instance, I tend to be suspicious of ‘blockbuster’ arguments that seek to refute all possible formulations of a certain type of theory, and I tend to think that there are deep links between abstract and practical questions about morality. But this will become clearer as we go along, so I won’t go into it now. In the next section I set the scene for the rest of the book by outlining the views and concepts that will be at issue in it.

0.2 Background Let’s begin with the divide between moral realism and anti-realism. I’ll follow what has become the standard way of drawing this distinction, according to which moral realists maintain that there are at least some ‘stance-independent’ moral truths (or facts, or properties, or relations, etc.), whilst moral anti-realists maintain

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that there are no such truths (or facts, or properties, or relations, etc.³). Some use terms other than ‘stance-independent’ here (‘mind-independent’ is quite common, as is ‘response-independent’), but the general idea is similar. A moral truth counts as stance-independent if its existence and authority is not solely dependent on us—in particular, on our (actual or idealised) attitudes, perspectives, relationships, and conventions (cf. Shafer-Landau 2003: 15).⁴ Realists claim that there are such truths, anti-realists deny this.⁵ Some anti-realists believe that there are no moral truths at all—moral error theorists, for example, defend a nihilistic moral ontology. Other anti-realists offer a non-nihilistic picture on which all moral truths are fundamentally stance-dependent. These ‘stance-dependence theories’ regard the existence and authority of all moral truths as being in some way dependent on our actual or idealised attitudes, perspectives, social relationships, or cultural conventions. There are many such theories, but before discussing them I’ll first outline the different forms of moral realism. An initial distinction here is between ‘naturalistic realism’ and ‘non-naturalistic realism.’ There is debate as to exactly how we should draw this distinction, and I’ll say something about it in §4.3.1. But, in rough and general terms, naturalistic realists are optimistic about the possibility of understanding stance-independent moral truths in such a way that they can be identified with, reduced to, or entirely explained in terms of entities posited by the natural and social sciences. Nonnaturalistic realists, in contrast, are pessimistic about this—they think that, given what we already know about the ontology and methodology of the sciences, and given the ontological commitments that appear to come with positing stanceindependent moral facts, there is reason to think that some such facts are fundamental rather than identical with, reducible to, or fully explicable in terms of more basic natural entities. I favour a non-naturalistic form of realism. I will argue (in §4.3.1) that to secure the non-arbitrariness of moral choice we must maintain that the basic moral facts generate irreducibly normative, categorical moral reasons. And, since I am pessimistic about even the most subtle efforts to naturalise categoricity, I defend a non-naturalist ontology for moral realism. There are at least three ways to flesh out such an ontology: robust realism, relaxed realism (also known as ‘quietism’), and quasi-realism. Relaxed and quasirealism differ in various ways, but both understand the commitment to stanceindependent, non-natural moral truths as a first-order moral commitment. They suggest that this enables them to avoid the metaphysical baggage that is often ³ I’ll be loose in speaking of truths, properties, facts, or relations, etc. Little hangs on which of these is central, so I will mostly base my use of terms on stylistic factors. (I develop my preferred metaphysical view in §5.4.2.) ⁴ The ‘solely’ here isn’t often specified (though see Tropman 2018), but it matters for reasons explained in §4.1 and §9.3.2. ⁵ As will become clear, I am grouping quasi-realism among realist views. It is usually treated as an anti-realist view that tries to capture some realist-sounding claims, but I don’t consider this the best labelling given that quasi-realists can offer an account of stance-independence (see §5.1).

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associated with realist views. Robust realists, in contrast, deny that this commitment can be purely moral in nature. As we’ll see in §5.4, robust realists may agree that first-order moral claims are crucial to the overall defence of moral realism, but they insist that a convincing defence of realism must also accept metaphysical posits that do not lie within the first-order moral domain.⁶ The stance-independence of moral facts is a point of agreement among robust realists, relaxed realists, quasi-realists, and naturalistic realists (even though they interpret this commitment in distinct ways). But this central commitment of realism is not uncontroversial. Many philosophers think that all moral truths are stance-dependent, existing or having authority solely in virtue of our actual or idealised attitudes, perspectives, social relationships, cultural conventions, and the like. I will divide stance-dependence theorists into two camps: the ‘modest’ and the ‘ambitious.’ The difference between these camps involves their expectations of a metaethical theory—in particular, their views about the intuitions that a metaethical theory needs to capture in order to be viable. Specifically, modest and ambitious stance-dependence theories are divided by their views on whether or not metaethical theories need to accommodate a certain form of normative objectivity. Although they agree that we should avoid the strongest form of objectivity— namely, stance-independence—they disagree on whether we need to capture a weaker (but still fairly strong) form of objectivity found in the concepts of agentneutrality and inescapability. A reason to act is agent-neutral just in case it is one that all agents must have (cf. Schroeder 2007: 18). An inescapable reason needn’t be had by all agents, but if one has such a reason then one has it regardless of what one’s own attitudes happen to be.⁷ Ambitious theorists hold that a theory must posit agent-neutral or inescapable reasons if it is to capture our moral intuitions, so their task is to explain how this strong form of objectivity is compatible with the idea that all moral facts derive their existence or authority from us. The most influential ambitious theory is Kantian constitutivism, but in Chapter 3 we will see that ambitious theories can come in a number of forms. In contrast, modest stance-dependence theories do not attempt to capture the existence of agent-neutral or inescapable reasons to act. Some modest theorists argue that there is simply no intuitive basis for positing such reasons, at least once we fully think through those cases in which they are putatively needed. Others argue that moral discourse is committed to agent-neutral and/or inescapable reasons, but ⁶ The theory that I will be defending belongs to the same family as those defended by Shafer-Landau (2003), FitzPatrick (2008), Enoch (2011a), and Wielenberg (2014). It is different to the relaxed realism of Dworkin (1996; 2011), Nagel (1997), Kramer (2009), Parfit (2011), and Scanlon (2014), the quasirealism of Blackburn (1993; 1998), Gibbard (2003), and Sinclair (2021), and the naturalistic realism of Sturgeon (1988), Boyd (1988), and Brink (1989). ⁷ These are minimal glosses on agent-neutrality and inescapability—I want to leave space for competing views on the ontology of agent-neutral and inescapable reasons. They are types of objectivity because they allow for reasons that an agent has whether they like it or not, and whether they know it or not. ‘Objectivity’ is a term of art, and I take these to be legitimate ways of fleshing out that term.

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suggest that we can do without such reasons. This second type of modest view involves a sort of localised moral error theory. Unlike more traditional (‘global’) error theories about morality, which hold that moral thought and discourse are wholly in error, this type of modest theory suggests that only part of moral thought and discourse is in error—namely, the part committed to agent-neutral or inescapable normativity.⁸ The idea is that this part can be eliminated without moral thought and discourse as a whole being undercut with it. Put another way, most moral claims can be vindicated stance-dependently, and are thus unaffected by the rejection of agent-neutral and inescapable reasons. In Chapter 2 we’ll see that many modest theories rest on a broadly Humean approach to morality.⁹ My final point by way of background concerns the epistemology and metasemantics of robust realism. I will be offering an intuitionist epistemology on which the most basic epistemic justification for moral beliefs is non-inferential. The idea here is that we are capable of a kind of direct awareness of moral reality such that, in the right conditions, we gain moral knowledge. Some intuitionists defend a rationalist view on which the intuitional justification of moral beliefs is a priori. Others take an empiricist approach on which our intuitions are a posteriori.¹⁰ My approach will be dualistic—I give a central place to both a priori and a posteriori intuition. I defend this picture in Chapter 6, and build on it in Chapter 9 to develop a view of the reference of moral terms. I argue that moral reference is possible because we stand in intuitional acquaintance relations with moral reality. This is not the usual robust realist meta-semantics, but I will explain how it is plausible in its own right, and also has the attraction of helping robust realists with certain challenges. That’s enough by way of background. I will, of course, do more to clarify various concepts and theories as we go along. Before starting my defence of robust realism, however, I will give an overview of how the book will unfold. This will help to clarify how, taken as a whole, the book provides a (near enough) comprehensive defence of robust moral realism.

0.3 Overview Chapter 1 focuses on how the concepts of normative arbitrariness and nonarbitrariness feature in metaethical debate. It sets the scene for Chapters 2–5, ⁸ A related type of modest theory posits an error in our substantive moral intuitions, rather than in our moral concepts. I am grateful to an anonymous reader for raising this possibility. My reply to this proposal will be in the same vein as my reply to those positing a conceptual error, so I will not go into it here. I will return to it in §2.5. ⁹ Modest theorists include Lewis (1989), Street (2009), Manne (2014), and Shemmer (2016). Ambitious theorists include Smith (1989; 1994), Korsgaard (1996; 2009), and Velleman (1996; 2009). ¹⁰ Forms of intuitionism have been developed by Shafer-Landau (2003), Audi (2004), Huemer (2005), Tropman (2009), and Stratton-Lake (2016). There is also a related approach involving moral perception (McGrath 2004 and Audi 2013), but I will not defend a perceptualist view.

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which—in combination—argue that a robustly realistic moral ontology is best placed to capture the non-arbitrariness of moral choice. I identify two general principles that underpin intuitions about arbitrariness, and I outline five resulting ways in which a theory might be accused of failing to secure the non-arbitrariness of moral choice. I don’t assess the force of these ‘arbitrariness charges’ in Chapter 1, but I explain how they are meant to work and what it will take for them to succeed. Chapter 2 explores the prospects of modest stance-dependence theories. I argue that, in denying that moral reasons are agent-neutral or inescapable, modest theorists introduce a destabilising contingency into the moral domain. I consider the two moves that modest theorists can invoke in an effort to show that, although they bring a contingency into the normative domain, it is not destabilising. I argue that neither move succeeds, and that modest stancedependence theories thus fail to capture an important way in which moral choices are non-arbitrary. Chapter 3 focuses on ambitious stance-dependence theories, which try to capture the agent-neutrality or inescapability of moral facts in a way that is consistent with their being stance-dependent. I argue that the most promising ambitious theories are also unable to capture the non-arbitrariness of moral choice, though in different ways. This is one way in which the work of Chapter 1 is crucial—even if stance-dependence theories all fall foul of an arbitrariness charge, they do not all fall foul of the same charge. We’ll see in Chapter 3 that some ambitious theories can avoid the type of arbitrariness that challenges modest theories, but are unable to avoid another type of arbitrariness. Chapters 2 and 3 thus show that the prospects of taking morality to be stance-dependent are dim. Chapter 4 moves on to considering a stance-independent moral ontology—that is, the ontology of moral realism. I suggest that realists can sidestep arbitrariness charges facing stance-dependence theories, but that they must face two charges of their own. One involves a worry about the ‘bruteness’ of the realist moral facts. The other involves the idea that, for morality to merit our interest and concern, we must have a form of ‘ownership’ over the basic moral facts, which is inconsistent with their being stance-independent. I argue that realists can deal with both of these charges, but that to do so they must accept a commitment to categorical and (therefore) non-natural moral normativity. I defend this commitment first by answering certain moral arguments against it, and then by giving a ‘companions in innocence’ argument (involving the normativity of our non-moral needs) to clarify the cost of adopting an error theory. Of course, a commitment to nonnaturalism does raise other questions (I answer these in later chapters), but Chapter 4 shows that it can get off the ground. Chapter 5 then goes into more detail on the ontology of non-naturalistic realism. I suggest that relaxed realism and quasi-realism fall foul of certain arbitrariness charges, and that a robust moral ontology is thus needed. I also defend a view on how the robust realist should deal

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with a major metaphysical objection to their view—the need to explain the supervenience of moral facts on natural facts. Chapter 6, which begins the second part of the book, considers the epistemology of robust realism. I defend a dualistic form of moral intuitionism on which a priori and a posteriori intuitions both play a central role in the justification of moral beliefs. I make my case for this view by exploring the importance of inclusive and cooperative dialogue at the ‘frontiers’ of moral inquiry. More specifically, by examining the ways in which such dialogue facilitates the formation of justified moral beliefs, we arrive at a theory on which some moral beliefs are justified through an adequate understanding of self-evident moral facts, whilst others are justified through certain kinds of emotional state. By paying closer attention to moral dialogue, robust realists are thus able to give a plausible moral epistemology grounded in the social nature of moral inquiry. Chapter 7 goes into further detail on how moral dialogue should be conducted. I defend a view on what it takes for moral dialogue to be suitably inclusive and cooperative, giving a central place to empathic engagement with others. In this context, the nature of moral dialogue matters for two main reasons. First, it fleshes out the intuitionist ideas of Chapter 6, clarifying what we must do to refine our intuitions so that they are reliable. Second, it informs the discussion of Chapter 8, which answers three sceptical challenges facing robust realism—namely, the metaphysical and epistemological arguments from disagreement, and the evolutionary debunking argument. By drawing on my claims about moral dialogue, I show that robust realists can defuse these challenges. I thereby establish that robust realists can remain optimistic about the existence of moral facts and the possibility of acquiring justified moral beliefs. Chapter 9 then builds on this epistemological picture to explain how we achieve ‘semantic access’ to moral reality. I develop a theory of ‘moral mental files’ according to which the reference of moral terms is based on our intuitional acquaintance with robust moral properties. I then argue that this approach also helps robust realists with two other challenges that they must face, one involving the relationship between moral judgement and moral motivation, the other (which comes from Eklund 2017) involving the alleged possibility of alternative normative concepts. Chapter 10 is a brief concluding chapter. It reiterates that, taken together, the preceding chapters offer a near enough complete defence of robust realism. No book can deal with every issue, but I take myself to have given good reason to prefer robust realism to its rivals, and to have answered the main objections facing robust realism. So, whilst no defence of a theory will be the final word on it, by the end of this book I will have offered a near enough comprehensive case for robust moral realism.

PART I

MORAL REALITY

1 Arbitrariness Charges This morning I decided to put on my left shoe first, and my right shoe second. That decision was arbitrary. I had no reason to start with the left shoe, and it would not have mattered if I had started with the right shoe instead. Choices like this—arbitrary choices—are commonplace. But much of what we do is not like this. Our choices—moral choices, in particular—are often non-arbitrary. For instance, although I had no reason to put on my shoes in a specific order, I did have a reason to put on shoes. Putting on shoes enabled me to walk to work, which I needed to do in order to keep my promise to meet a student. My choice to put on shoes was therefore non-arbitrary, even though it was arbitrary that I chose to start with the left. Intuitions about arbitrariness and non-arbitrariness play a key role in contemporary metaethical debate. It is an interesting feature of such debate that both moral realists and anti-realists face what I’ll call ‘arbitrariness charges.’ Roughly put, to issue an arbitrariness charge to a metaethical theory is to accuse that theory of being unable to capture the non-arbitrariness of moral choice. This is only a first gloss on the notion of an arbitrariness charge. The precise nature of these charges remains obscure, for the concept of arbitrariness itself has never been examined in depth. This is a shame, for our views on whether a given metaethical theory can vindicate the non-arbitrariness of moral choice will depend on how we understand this notion of arbitrariness. As we’ll see, there are several ways to flesh out what it means for a choice to be normatively arbitrary. My aim in this chapter is to illuminate five types of arbitrariness charge that feature in metaethical and metanormative debate. This will set the scene for Chapters 2–5, in which I assess the force that those charges have against the theories at which they are targeted.

1.1 Starting Points Let’s start with the connection between the notion of arbitrariness and the notion of justification. This can be articulated as follows: J. A choice to Φ is normatively arbitrary when there is no justification for Φ-ing.

Robust Realism in Ethics: Normative Arbitrariness, Interpersonal Dialogue, and Moral Objectivity. Stephen Ingram, Oxford University Press. © Stephen Ingram 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198886488.003.0002

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J only offers a sufficient condition for a choice’s counting as arbitrary—as we’ll see, there is a way for choices to be arbitrary even when there is a sense in which they have some justification. Note too that it refers specifically to normative arbitrariness. This is important, for there is also a non-normative notion of arbitrariness that won’t be my focus here. The non-normative notion is at play when we explain choices. Suppose, for example, that Antonia feels that she must avoid stepping on lines in the pavement, and that she has this feeling because her obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) makes her worry something disastrous will happen if she stands on a line. There is a clear sense in which her choice to avoid the lines is non-arbitrary. It is not something that she does at random, or on a whim, and we can make sense of why she does it. But it is a non-normative notion of non-arbitrariness that is at work here. There is another sense in which her choice is arbitrary. After all, it doesn’t really matter if she steps on a line. There is no actual reason to avoid them. Antonia may well know this. Recognising that it is a result of her OCD, her choice may seem silly to her even as she feels that she must make it. It is thus normatively arbitrary in that it has no justification, but non-normatively non-arbitrary in that we can explain it. My interest is in the normative notion of arbitrariness. We’ll see that there are several ways to develop normative arbitrariness charges, and that some of them are underpinned by J. But before we unravel these arbitrariness charges, it is worth noting that this line of thought features prominently in contemporary metaethical debate. Russ Shafer-Landau, for example, objects to non-cognitivist views by arguing that, if reasons are explained in terms of desires, or desire-like attitudes, then any ‘chain’ of justifying attitudes (in which a choice is justified by a desire, which is justified by another, deeper desire, which is itself justified by another, even deeper desire, and so on) will at some point bottom out with a ‘brute’ desire that is not justified by anything else, and is not self-justifying.¹ Shafer-Landau holds that, at this point, we would have “identified something that lacks a justifying reason, and so is arbitrary” (2003: 29) and that “basing evaluation on attitudes that are arbitrary is problematic . . . because it infects all justificatory efforts” (2003: 29). Put another way, a chain of justifying attitudes falls apart if it is initiated by a desire that lacks justification and is, in that sense, arbitrary. This arbitrariness charge is targeted at non-cognitivism, and I’ll explain it in more detail in the next section.² But note first that realists face a parallel charge. The idea behind this charge is put vividly by P.H. Nowell-Smith:

¹ I agree with those who deny that non-cognitivists are committed to saying that our choices are ultimately justified by our desires, but this is how Shafer-Landau (2003) interprets the view. I discuss its actual commitments in §5.2. ² Shafer-Landau (2003: 43) also applies this sort of charge to constructivist theories. For related arbitrariness charges see Enoch (2006; 2011a: 86), Parfit (2011: 619), and Stern (2012).

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[On a realist view, l]earning about ‘values’ or ‘duties’ might well be as exciting as learning about spiral nebulae or waterspouts. But what if I am not interested? Why should I do anything about these newly revealed objects? Some things, I have now learnt, are right and others wrong; but why should I do what is right and eschew what is wrong? (1954: 41)

Nowell-Smith does not mention arbitrariness here, but his point is that we need some reason to take an interest in moral facts as realists view them, for realism is a theory on which such facts are brute posits. There is nothing that lies ‘beneath’ the brute moral facts that can justify our taking a special interest in them, or organising our lives around them (cf. Lenman 1999, Bedke 2014, Erdur 2016, and Dasgupta 2017). When combined with the J principle this generates an arbitrariness charge against realism—a charge that runs parallel to ShaferLandau’s claims about non-cognitivism. The charge is that the brute moral facts have no deeper explanation—realists cannot tell us why we must obey them, or how they render our choices choiceworthy—and that they are thus unable to initiate a chain of justification. The upshot is that they fail to supply a nonarbitrary justification for moral choice. For now I offer no judgement as to the force of these charges, or the replies that one might make to them. I’ll return to this, but we must first take note of a nuance in the connection between arbitrariness and justification. J is only meant as a sufficient condition for arbitrariness. It allows for cases in which a choice is arbitrary even though it has some justification. And there do appear to be such cases. Recall my choice to put on my left shoe before the right. It is not quite right to say that this choice has no justification at all, for I had a reason to wear shoes, and I had to put them on in some order. It seems more plausible to suggest that starting with my left shoe was no more or less justified than starting with the right would have been—I might just as well have done something incompatible with what I actually did, for it would have made no normative difference either way. This suggests a second principle, which is complementary to J in that it is another sufficient condition for arbitrariness: S. A choice to Φ is normatively arbitrary when one must choose between Φ-ing and Ψ-ing, and nothing of normative significance hangs on whether one Φs or Ψs. The idea here is that there are cases in which it matters that one choose one or another option, but it does not matter which of these options is chosen. Note that S is not just a claim about cases in which one has equally weighty reasons to make incompatible choices. It may be that I have equally weighty reason to start with my left shoe as I do to start with my right, but there is a difference between this sort of case and many others in which incompatible

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options are equally supported. For instance, even if I have equally weighty reason to pursue a career as a nurse as I do to pursue a career as a teacher, what I choose here is normatively significant in a way that my choice in the shoe case is not. There may be no non-arbitrary method for choosing between teaching and nursing, such that I am rationally permitted to make my choice on the toss of a coin, but what I do here still matters and is in that sense normatively nonarbitrary. That is, since it matters what I do with my life, something of normative significance hangs on the outcome of the coin toss. However, nothing of normative significance hangs on what I do in the shoe case—my choice here doesn’t matter, so long as I choose something. So, although the career case and the shoe case both involve having to decide among equal yet incompatible options, S only implies that what I choose in the shoe case counts as normatively arbitrary. For now I leave open what exactly is involved in a choice having normative significance. This should become clearer as we proceed. The key point so far is that there are two ways for a choice to be normatively arbitrary. One is for it to lack any justification, the other is for there to be nothing of any normative significance hanging on one’s choosing it rather than something that is incompatible with it. Some choices are arbitrary in the senses at work in J and S, and this is fine. The question for metaethicists is whether we can account for moral normativity in a way that avoids rendering our non-arbitrary moral choices as arbitrary. In issuing an arbitrariness charge, one thus accuses a metaethical theory of rendering moral choices arbitrary in the ways described by J or S. And, as we will see below, these accusations can take different forms. In the rest of this chapter I will sketch five types of arbitrariness charge that feature in metaethical debate.

1.2 Bruteness Our first arbitrariness charge involves intuitions about bruteness. We saw two examples of it in §1.1. One was issued to non-cognitivism by Shafer-Landau—he argued that, if a chain of justification bottoms out in a brute attitude (an attitude that has no deeper justification, and is in that sense arbitrary) then this foundational arbitrariness infects all choices whose justification was supposed to trace back to that attitude. Shafer-Landau’s claim was about non-cognitivism (as he interprets it), but the charge really applies to any anti-realist theory on which moral facts bottom out in brute attitudes. The analogous arbitrariness charge against realist theories said that, for the realist, a chain of justification must end in a brute moral fact. Such facts lack any deeper explanation (they are, after all, brute) and they are therefore an arbitrary basis for making moral choices—there is nothing to explain their authority, and nothing to explain why we must obey

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them. Thus, they cannot initiate a chain of justification, and they fail to ensure the non-arbitrariness of moral choice. There are two moves in this pair of ‘bruteness charges.’ The first move suggests that, at a certain point, the target theory has nothing to say about why certain considerations (e.g. the brute fact that Φ-ing is right, or a brute pro-attitude towards Φ-ing) provide an authoritative starting point for a chain of justification. The second move insists that there should be something to say here, for the purported justificatory foundation cannot stand alone. Bruteness charges can be developed in different ways, but the debate between realists and anti-realists often revolves around them.³ To see this, consider how each side answers its bruteness charge. A familiar reply to the charge against realism is that brute moral facts are inherently authoritative—unlike brute attitudes, such facts are by their nature a source of categorical reasons. Thus, if it is a brute fact that keeping promises is right, then I have a reason to keep my promises whether I like it or not. In which case it makes no sense to ask why I must obey this moral fact. Such facts are inherently reason-giving. The bruteness charge against realism is misguided, on this response, for it rests on a faulty characterisation of the brute moral facts. One might worry that this reply plays into the hands of realism’s critics. For, as Shafer-Landau observes, it seems to imply that realists are “reduced simply to insisting on the bare normativity of moral facts” (2003: 204).⁴ And this is precisely what led to this bruteness charge in the first place—the concern was that all realists can do is insist on the authority of the brute moral facts, and that this tells us nothing about why choices made on the basis of such facts are choiceworthy, or why we should take an interest in such facts. However, whether realists face a problem here depends on whether we intuitively do need to say more about how the brute moral facts are intrinsically reason-giving. This is the key moment of disagreement between realists and their critics. For whilst critics of realism feel a need for explanation here, realists do not. This seems to be a deep clash of intuition. One side finds intrinsically reason-giving facts odd, and asks for an explanation of their authority. The other finds no untenable oddness, and is thus willing to posit such facts as an ontological primitive for which no additional explanation is needed. What about the charge against anti-realism? One familiar reply here rejects the foundationalist approach to justification on which this charge seems to rely. For instance, consider the following from Jimmy Lenman:

³ I read Enoch (2006) as issuing one to constitutivists, Enoch (2011a: 86) as issuing one to expressivistic quasi-realists, Parfit (2011: 619) as issuing one to anti-realists, and Nowell-Smith (1954: 41), Lenman (1999), Bedke (2014), and Dasgupta (2017) as issuing one to (non-naturalist) realists. ⁴ Shafer-Landau (2003: 206) notes that a way forward is a ‘companions in innocence’ strategy on which there are intrinsically reason-giving epistemic facts (see e.g. Cuneo 2007 and Rowland 2013). I reject this strategy (Ingram 2018a), but I give a different companions in innocence argument in §4.4.

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  Ask me to justify some particular normative judgement and I may have a lot to say. Ask me to justify them all and I can’t say much. It’s just the way I am. Or, if we enjoy a little commonality, it’s ‘just us’ . . . The whole caboodle is something I might stably reflectively endorse but it makes little sense to ask after my reason for doing so. (2009: 9)

No individual normative attitude is properly brute, on the coherentist view that Lenman proposes, for such attitudes are always justified (or not) in relation to a broader network of attitudes. It’s true that, if this network is considered as a whole, it is brute and unjustified, and is in a sense arbitrary (more on this shortly). But, on the kind of reply that Lenman is suggesting, there is simply no call for justification here (cf. Goldman 2009, Street 2012, and Sinclair 2021: 95). After all, we live and make choices from within our network of attitudes. It thus makes no sense to ask for the network itself to be justified by anything beyond it. In short, if we adopt a coherentist view this bruteness charge has no force. If realists and anti-realists adopt the replies just outlined, then debates about arbitrariness that involve intuitions about bruteness are likely to end in stalemate. For there seems to be a very deep conflict in our intuitions about what can be accepted as brute. Realists are guided by their intuition that there is no need to justify brute moral facts, and anti-realists are guided by their intuition that there is no need to justify one’s (broadly) coherent network of normative attitudes. If this is how the debate goes, then bruteness charges won’t get us far on their own. Of course, there might be ways out of this impasse, but intuitions about the relationship between bruteness and arbitrariness will play second fiddle if we have to appeal to some further consideration to back them up. It’s worth noting that replies to the charge against anti-realism needn’t involve the coherentist picture offered by Lenman and others. It may be possible to defend an anti-realist foundationalism by arguing that certain brute normative attitudes are in some sense self-justifying. This line is not available to all anti-realists, but it is to some. Christine Korsgaard’s (1996; 2009) defence of Kantian constitutivism appeals to it, for example. I will come back to this in §1.4 and §1.5, for it relates to certain other conceptions of arbitrariness that I am going to discuss. I will also return to it in Chapter 3, in which I argue that even the most promising constitutivist views ultimately fail to avoid a certain form of normative arbitrariness. For now, though, we can move on to a second kind of arbitrariness charge that plays a significant role in metaethical debate.

1.3 Privilege Our second type of arbitrariness charge is related to, and can be viewed as a spinoff from, the bruteness charge. But it is worth distinguishing because it relies on

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S rather than J. There are several versions of the type of charge I have in mind, but they are all to do with the idea of privileging some things (e.g. certain attitudes, codes of conduct, normative concepts, etc.) over others. To clarify the general idea behind this sort of ‘privilege charge,’ let’s focus on a case involving the privileging of certain subsets of normative attitude over others. We can call this version of the privilege charge the ‘privileged attitudes charge.’ The bruteness charge against anti-realism operated on the basis that brute normative attitudes lack justification, and thus cannot serve as a non-arbitrary foundation for a chain of justification. Note, though, that anti-realists needn’t view just any old attitude as a source of moral normativity. Indeed, they tend to say that some subset of attitudes has a special role here. To illustrate, consider a Humean view on which our moral reasons are based in the sentiments that spring from sympathy. The privileged attitudes charge starts by asking why we must privilege this subset of attitudes over others. The idea is neatly stated by Michael Huemer: [S]ympathy is just one source of emotion among others; there is no reason for attaching any special weight to the desires it occasions, as opposed to those caused by other emotions . . . If my hostile emotions should conflict with my natural sympathy, there is no Humean reason why the latter should generally take precedence. Moral judgments appear to correspond to nothing but an arbitrarily selected subset of our emotions and desires. (2005: 187)

This point generalises: whatever a stance-dependence theorist takes to be the relevant subset of attitudes, they can give no adequate reason to privilege it over other subsets—they cannot ensure that something of normative significance hangs on whether we choose to act in line with, say, our pro-social attitudes rather than our anti-social ones. So, in line with S, stance-dependence theories render such choices as arbitrary. This helps to clarify how the concept of normative significance figures in arbitrariness charges that fall under S. Although there are cases in which it doesn’t matter if one Φs or Ψs, intuitively it does matter that you choose to act upon sympathy-based attitudes and not, say, cruelty-based attitudes. Something of normative significance does hang on this. The privilege charge here is that Humeans cannot tell us what this ‘something’ is. So, the notion of normative significance (as it figures in the privileged attitudes charge) serves to identify a gap in a metaethical theory’s resources: the theory is said to fail (by making moral choices arbitrary in the way that deciding to put on my left shoe first was arbitrary) when we intuitively need a reason to favour Φ-ing over Ψ-ing, and when the theory in question cannot tell us where such a reason could come from. The apparatus of the theory offers nothing that could supply such a reason. This also shows how privilege charges relate to bruteness charges. Both types of

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arbitrariness charge involve there being an unmet call for justification, but in a privilege charge the call is not simply for justification, but for the justification of one thing over some other thing. Put another way, privilege charges have an inherently comparative dimension that is not essential to bruteness charges. Consider how a stance-dependence theorist might respond to a privileged attitudes charge. One idea would be to appeal to our higher-order attitudes. Perhaps the (second-order) desire to act on our (first-order) pro-social desires can serve to privilege them over more anti-social desires. However, this in itself doesn’t solve the problem, for, as Huemer (2005: 188) notes, we can simply ask the stance-dependence theorist why (by their lights) anything of normative significance hangs on our acting on this second-order desire rather than some other such desire. That is, the arbitrariness charge can be reapplied at the second-order level. A better reply is to say that we don’t need a reason to prefer one subset of attitudes over others—something about the attitudes in question means that we privilege this subset without there being a call to justify doing so. For instance, we might focus on a subset of attitudes that are structurally complex (e.g. in the sense that, unlike mere urges, they dispose us to direct our attention in favourable or unfavourable ways at certain objects). The thought is that such attitudes are specially placed to play a role in reflective deliberation (cf. Frankfurt 1988 and Shemmer 2007), and that this privileges them over other attitudes in a domain whose subject matter centres on reflective deliberation and choice. Another idea, which is compatible with this appeal to structural complexity, is to identify a set of attitudes that is (contingently) central to who we are. For we are unlikely to feel an intuitive need for a reason to privilege these attitudes. They just are privileged, given their role in our psychology. To illustrate, consider Kate Manne’s view that the core claims of morality are provided by our ‘bodily imperatives’—deep and involuntary states that occur when we undergo things like intense pain and thirst, and “brutal, degrading, or humiliating forms of treatment” (2017a: 8). Manne views such states as a call for action, a call to make it stop. These bodily imperatives figure centrally in human psychology, not only in the sense that we generally cannot help but issue them in certain situations, but also in the sense that most humans are to some degree moved by the bodily imperatives of others.⁵ What matters here is not the plausibility of Manne’s view, but that it aims to derive moral normativity from a set of attitudes that just are normatively significant for us given our psychological nature. We need no independent reason to privilege this subset of psychological states—it just is privileged for us. Again, for now I won’t assess the force of the privileged attitudes charge. I will return to it in due course (see §2.2). I will also return to other privilege charges ⁵ Though not all of us—as we’ll see in §2.5, Manne thinks that some people have no reason to act morally.

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that differ in their details (and in their targets), but that have a similar form to the privileged attitudes charge (see Chapter 4 n.4 on the ‘privileged codes’ charge, §5.3 on the ‘privileged domains’ charge, and §9.3.2 on the ‘privileged concepts’ charge). For recall that the privileged attitudes charge is just one example of the more general idea that some theories need, but are unable to offer, a justification for privileging certain things over others. However, for now we can move on to the third kind of arbitrariness charge that features in metaethical debate.

1.4 Normative Deficits Our third arbitrariness charge accuses its target metaethical theory of failing to provide adequate ethical guidance. This might seem a strange charge to put to a metaethical theory, for the first-order ethical domain is often assumed to be thoroughly independent from the second-order metaethical domain, such that one has no implications for the other. However, although it may be true that some metaethical theories have no first-order implications (see e.g. Dreier 2002), others rely on the claim that there is no sharp divide between ethics and metaethics. I’ll focus here on Kantian constitutivism, but this idea is also important to certain forms of reductive naturalism (see e.g. Jackson 1998). In the case of Kantian constitutivism, the claim is that substantive moral laws derive from formal facts about what is constitutive of agency. This is a stance-dependence theory according to which agents legislate or ‘will’ laws for themselves, where the authority of those laws derives from the agent’s authority over themselves as a reflective, selfgoverning being. This is a metaethical claim about the source of moral normativity, but Kantian constitutivists also hold that the constitutive nature of agency commits every rational agent to certain first-order laws—laws that are fashioned, of course, on Kant’s Categorical Imperative. They thus treat ethics and metaethics as a single, unified package—the content of the first-order moral laws is tied up with their authority being sourced in our agency.⁶ This view comes in many varieties (see e.g. O’Neill 1989, Korsgaard 1996; 2009, Reath 2006, and Engstrom 2013), but what matters here is that, for Kantian constitutivists, every first-order moral fact must in some way trace back to facts about what is constitutive of agency. For this is what supplies the content and the authority of those facts. With this background in place, I can now explain our third type of arbitrariness charge (as it applies to Kantian constitutivism). I’ll call it the ‘normative deficit charge,’ for its point is that the target theory is unable to answer certain moral questions to which we need an answer. Consider that, having said that all moral ⁶ On the relationship between ethics and metaethics within Kantian constitutivism, see Hussain and Shah (2006).

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facts must derive from formal facts about agency, it will be an issue for Kantian constitutivists if there are moral questions that require an answer, where that answer cannot plausibly be traced back to the formal facts about the nature of agency. This will leave us with a normative deficit, for by the lights of Kantian constitutivism there is no answer to such questions. Any choices made in relation to them will thus lack justification, and will in that sense be arbitrary. As this suggests, the normative deficit charge falls under the J principle. It involves cases in which normative guidance is needed, but in which the target theory cannot offer any (or enough) guidance, so that choices made in these cases are incorrectly rendered as arbitrary. Versions of what I’ve termed the normative deficit charge have been put to several forms of Kantian constitutivism. For instance, Tom O’Shea (2015) argues that Korsgaard’s formulation of this theory fails to provide sufficient guidance on how to choose among the wide range of practical identities (which, roughly speaking, are descriptions under which an agent values herself—Korsgaard 1996: 101) that we might permissibly adopt. Korsgaard may be able to ensure that certain practical identities are obligatory, and that others are forbidden, but this leaves a huge amount permissible and therefore open to an agent’s discretion. And, whilst a degree of discretion seems appropriate in one’s choice of practical identity, O’Shea argues that Korsgaard leaves too much open here—she leaves us with no rational way to choose among permissible identities. Donald Regan (2002) outlines a similar worry about how we are to choose among permissible projects. The basic point that O’Shea and Regan are making is that, once we meet the demands that Kantian constitutivists claim to derive from the constitutive features of rational agency, there remain vast areas of practical life for which no normative guidance has been provided, despite there being an intuitive need for such guidance in these areas. I’ll suggest in Chapter 3 that O’Shea and Regan do not actually do enough to undermine Kantian constitutivism here. However, I’ll also suggest that this theory does nevertheless leave us with a normative deficit, and that this is a sufficient reason to reject it.⁷

1.5 Ownership Our fourth notion of arbitrariness is also linked to constitutivist ideas, though it features in other theories as well. The notion of arbitrariness that I have in mind

⁷ I’ll also argue, in §5.2, that expressivistic quasi-realism leaves a normative deficit. Although it initially seems like a metaethical position that can be (largely) neutral on concrete moral questions, we’ll see that it must take on a constitutivist commitment, and that this makes it vulnerable to a normative deficit charge.

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builds on what I will call an ‘ownership’ intuition.⁸ The rough idea is that a choice counts as non-arbitrary when we have a form of ownership over its justification. To flesh this out, it will help to first consider a substantive moral claim. The claim in question has a long history, but it is neatly articulated by John Rawls. In developing a first-order theory of justice, Rawls famously insists that “accidents of natural endowment” and “contingencies of social circumstance” must not fundamentally shape our view about how to allocate resources, for such considerations are “arbitrary from a moral point of view” (1999: 14). The idea is that agents are not responsible for their natural talents, their class, their gender, their race, etc., and that it is thus arbitrary to distribute resources on the basis of such traits.⁹ In short, because these facts about us are not due to the will (we don’t choose them, and often can do nothing to change them), they cannot in themselves fix what we deserve. Rawls is appealing here to an ownership intuition. He is saying that, in the domain of distributive justice, choices regarding resource-allocation are arbitrary when based on facts about you that are beyond your control—facts that you do not in this sense ‘own.’ More generally, one invokes an ownership intuition if one judges that the arbitrariness or non-arbitrariness of a given consideration in a given domain is fixed by whether or not it is in some way ‘owned’ by the agent(s) about whom one is making the judgement. In Rawls’ case, the domain is distributive justice, the considerations in question are facts about agents (e.g. facts about race, gender, class, etc.), and the concept of ‘ownership’ involves an agent’s having a more or less direct form of control over those facts. Note, however, that the relevant account of ownership may differ from one domain to another. For instance, whatever we think about the case of distributive justice, looking to what is under our more or less direct control won’t apply in the metaethical case. No one thinks that we have direct control over the content and authority of the fundamental moral facts. Nonetheless, many anti-realists are motivated partly by the idea that, in order to avoid our choices being normatively arbitrary, we need a more modest form of ownership over the moral facts. This underpins Kantian constitutivist claims about self-legislation. As we saw in §1.4, Kantian constitutivism tells us that the authority of moral laws derives from our legislating them for ourselves—their content is fixed by the nature of rational agency, but their authority is sourced in the agent’s will. As Korsgaard puts it, “reason needs a principle – not one imposed on it from outside, for it has no reason to accept such a principle, but one that is its own” (2009: 213). Onora O’Neill similarly maintains that self-legislation is needed to avoid deference and anomie in reasoning: “any ⁸ This terminology echoes Frankfurt (1988), but I’ll relate the point to theories other than those (like his) that emphasise identification with higher-order attitudes. ⁹ We may need to redistribute resources to those deprived of them due to their race, etc. But we do this to correct unjust distributions that exist in virtue of discrimination involving features that, in themselves, are morally arbitrary.

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authority that reasoning can have must be constituted by those who reason; it cannot be imposed and it will not emerge from anarchy” (1989: 22). These are ways of voicing what I have called an ownership intuition. The idea is that, for a law to bind the will, it must belong to the will. Just as, for Rawls, the allocation of resources is arbitrary when it is based (entirely) on facts about us that are beyond our control, for the Kantian constitutivist our moral choices are normatively arbitrary when they are based on laws that we have not (rationally) legislated for ourselves. Similar ideas appear in other anti-realist theories. For instance, although Humeans will deny that we can derive substantive moral laws from what is constitutive of agency, they share the Kantian interest in sourcing normative authority in the attitudes of agents.¹⁰ For instance, Sharon Street (2012: 41) notes that her Humean constructivist theory draws on the Kantian theme of ‘giving laws to oneself,’ whilst Yonatan Shemmer explicitly invokes the notion of ownership when he says that, in order for a desire to be reason-giving, . . . it must be ‘owned by the agent’ . . . In other words, it must represent the agent. The idea here is that certain desires that dispose us to action are in some deep sense not ours . . . we do not identify with them, we see them as external forces alien to our real identity. (2007: 328)

This is just one spin on a Humean account of ownership, on which the emphasis is on our identifying with the relevant attitudes. The notion of ownership can be fleshed out in different ways, but the general idea is that, in order for a moral choice to be normatively non-arbitrary, its justification must be owned (in a sense that has to be specified) by the chooser. We can thus see a fourth kind of arbitrariness charge as arising from a theory’s failure to capture the ownership intuition. In practice, this charge will apply only to realist theories, for only realists deny that moral normativity is wholly dependent on us, and that agents in some strong sense ‘own’ the moral facts. In essence, the ‘ownership charge’ states that realists are unable to capture the nonarbitrariness of moral choice in the sense of ‘non-arbitrary’ given by the relevant ownership intuition. Korsgaard issues a charge of this kind, for one of her central concerns about realism is that it cannot explain “how reasons get a grip on the agent, because [it] supposes that reasons exist independently of the rational will” (1997: 56). According to Korsgaard, realism forces us to ask “why it is necessary to act in accordance with those [stance-independent] reasons, and so seems to leave us in need of a reason to be rational” (1997: 53). The first issue here is that it seems ¹⁰ There are a number of Humean approaches to metaethics—some are reductionist, some constructivist, some expressivist. See e.g. Williams (1981a), Tiberius (2002a), Schroeder (2007), Shemmer (2007), Street (2008; 2012), Goldman (2009), Lenman (2010a), and Manne (2014).

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misguided to ask for a reason to be rational—Korsgaard thinks that rationality is our plight, and that it is “not one of the options which we might choose or reject” (1997: 56). It is thus not the sort of thing for which there can be reasons for or against.¹¹ This generates an arbitrariness charge. Having failed to capture the ownership intuition, thereby leaving us in need of a reason to be rational, realists create a need to justify being rational. And since it makes no sense to ask for a reason to be rational, this call for justification cannot be answered. So, by the realist’s lights, our choices lack the justification that they need in order to be rationally non-arbitrary. They are arbitrary in the sense given by J. Korsgaard thinks that the way to deal with this charge is not to look for a reason that can justify being rational, but to instead reject realism in favour of a theory that can capture the ownership intuition. I respond to this ‘ownership charge’ in §4.2 by suggesting that it trades on an ambiguity in the question of what reason there is to be rational. I argue that the ownership charge can be dissolved once this ambiguity is recognised.

1.6 Stability The idea in our final arbitrariness charge is that there is a link between normative arbitrariness and normative contingency. This is a familiar thought, but it must be handled with care, for contingency does not, in itself, suffice for arbitrariness (cf. Smith 1989: 101). For instance, my existence is contingent. If history had gone differently—even just a bit differently—I would never have been born. But this does not in itself lead to any problematic form of arbitrariness. In particular, it doesn’t imply that my being or remaining in existence is unjustified. Nor does it imply that there is nothing of normative significance hanging on my being or remaining in existing. In short, neither the contingency of my existence, nor even my becoming aware of that contingency, serves to undermine the fact that my being and remaining in existence matters, or is justified. Of course, some people experience a sort of existential vertigo when they entertain the sheer improbability of their existence. It can be a peculiar thing to consider. But this does not mean that there is any rational path from the thought my existence is contingent to the thought my life is arbitrary. At least not if it is the normative sense of arbitrariness that we have in mind.¹² For this contingency just doesn’t bear on the questions that are relevant to whether my life matters. The questions that are relevant here ¹¹ O’Neill (1989: 115) makes a similar point, but she locates our plight in our status as interdependent but limitedly rational creatures who face coordination problems. Lenman (2009) presents a Humean expressivist take on the ownership charge. Street (2012: 49) presents a Humean constructivist take. ¹² This vertigo may be due to a failure to distinguish the normative and explanatory notions of arbitrariness. Recall the case from §1.1, in which I must choose whether to be a nurse or a teacher,

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concern whether I have any reason to continue living, whether I can enjoy a good or meaningful life, whether I can contribute anything worthwhile to the world, and so on. The fact that I would not have existed if things had gone a bit differently (if, say, another of my father’s sperm cells had fertilised my mother’s egg cell) is irrelevant to how I answer these questions. My answers to them need not—and should not—change in light of this fact. Any appearance of normative arbitrariness here is thus an illusion. The contingency of my existence is simply not relevant to whether my existence matters, or is justified. Nevertheless, in some cases there is a path from contingency to arbitrariness. Suppose that Bella comes to believe in God. If she arrives at this belief by reflecting on what the (relevant) evidence necessitates, then her belief plausibly counts as epistemically non-arbitrary (even if it is false). However, if closer scrutiny shows that her belief is the result of simple wishful thinking, then our views about it should change. For instance, if Bella’s belief results entirely from her desperate hope that there is an afterlife in which she will meet her recently deceased friend, then it is epistemically arbitrary. For if her friend hadn’t died, or if she was at peace with the idea of never being reunited with her friend, then Bella would not have formed a belief in God. In short, Bella’s belief is contingent in a way that seems relevant to its epistemic standing. This contingency is relevant because it means that her belief in God is in a certain sense unstable—it is liable to vary in concord with factors with which it plausibly should not vary. A belief that is liable to vary in this way is epistemically arbitrary—it is formed without any connection to the aim of truth. There may be ways in which irrelevant considerations can influence our beliefs without those beliefs thereby being arbitrary (see e.g. White 2010). But what matters here is that, in a simple case like this one, there is a path from a belief ’s being contingent to its being arbitrary. More generally, the mere presence of contingency does not (in itself) suffice for arbitrariness, but a relevant contingency can generate arbitrariness. Likewise, the mere presence of necessity is not (in itself) sufficient for non-arbitrariness, but a relevant necessity might be. The upshot is that, to get an arbitrariness charge in which contingency has a key role, we must consider when a contingency is relevant to an item in the metaethical domain. I’ve already hinted at how I think this ought to be fleshed out—contingency leads to arbitrariness if it is in a certain sense ‘destabilising.’¹³ For an item’s contingency to be (in the relevant where each option is equally well-supported. I argued that, even if make my choice on a coin toss, it is normatively non-arbitrary because it has normative significance—it matters. But the choice is also nonnormatively arbitrary, for the outcome of the coin toss is a matter of chance. The explanation for my choice is one on which my way of choosing was arbitrary. Similarly, the explanation for my existence is one on which it is arbitrary—it rests on many chance encounters/events. But the chance nature of my existence is just irrelevant to the normative question of whether my existence matters, or is justified. ¹³ O’Connor (2008) also sees a link between stability and arbitrariness, but glosses it in Wittgensteinian and anti-foundationalist terms. I discuss such views in §3.1.5. See also Tiberius (2002b), and Moody-Adams (1997) on ‘moral confidence.’

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sense) destabilising is for it to make it possible for that item to change in ways that we intuitively think should be impossible, or that we tend to evaluate negatively. For instance, if Bella’s belief in God is the result of simple wishful thinking, then it is possible for it to vary in line with factors with which it should not be able to vary—namely, epistemically irrelevant factors involving her attitudes toward her recently deceased friend. That was a bit quick. To unpack the concept of stability as I’ll be using it, let’s first consider how this notion operates in other contexts. Consider that, when a medical doctor informs her patient’s family that their relative’s condition is stable, she typically means that his medical state has been the same for some time, or is not expected to change at present. When my friend describes me as emotionally stable, he means that I am not prone to sudden and unpredictable changes in emotional state. And when a tower is described as unstable this typically suggests that, although it now stands upright (as towers should), it is unable to withstand potential changes (of the sort that towers should be able to withstand) in its environment. The thing to note about these examples is that they all involve a claim about (potential) change, and a positive or negative evaluation of that (potential) change. In describing a tower as unstable, for example, one negatively evaluates its ability to remain upright in the event of some potential changes in its environment. And when my friend calls me emotionally stable, he positively evaluates my ability to stay on a relatively even keel whether I meet with triumph or disaster. So, as I understand them here, stability judgements about some item ‘X’ involve a claim about, and an evaluation of, X’s susceptibility to change. Stability judgements underpin many of our intuitions about arbitrariness. When a line is drawn from contingency to arbitrariness, we are implicitly being asked to evaluate possible changes in moral and normative reality. We are being asked to determine whether the target metaethical theory enables moral reality to change in ways that should not be possible, or that we evaluate negatively. At the extreme, a theory might end up permitting a sense in which anything goes from a moral point of view. To see this, consider a toy stance-dependence theory on which agent A has a moral reason to Φ if and only if A has an occurrent desire to Φ. By linking facts about what we have moral reason to do to something as contingent and variable as our occurrent desires, this toy theory has the unappealing implication that the moral facts could have directed us to do pretty much anything, and also that they could direct us to do pretty much anything in future. As we’ll see in Chapter 2, what matters is not whether a metaethical theory entails that anything goes, but whether it entails that enough goes for ordinary moral thought and discourse to be undermined. The lesson for now, however, is that this generates another arbitrariness charge. I’ll call it the ‘stability charge,’ and it falls under the S principle because the idea is that, if a metaethical theory implies that anything (or enough) goes from the moral point of view, then by that theory’s

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lights nothing of normative significance can hang on whether an agent makes choices on the basis of the moral facts as they actually happen to be, rather than some other (perhaps very different) way that they could have been, or could come to be. It is worth noting that stability charges, as I interpret them, are distinct from charges of ‘extensional inadequacy.’ A metaethical theory is said to be extensionally inadequate if it fails to render the intuitively correct verdict about some case.¹⁴ Our toy stance-dependence theory, for example, is radically extensionally inadequate because it implies a great many falsehoods about our moral reasons to act. For instance, suppose that, as they cross the road, Callum has an occurrent desire to push Don in front of an approaching bus. It is clear that Callum has no moral reason to do this, but our toy view (on which A has moral reason to Φ if and only if A has an occurrent desire to Φ) implies that he does have such a reason. It gives an incorrect verdict in this case, and others like it. It thus fails as an account of our concept of a moral reason. Its implications for the extension of this concept do not match the actual extension of this concept, which we determine through our firstorder intuitions. Note that this sort of extensional inadequacy charge is based on a conservative method of metaethical theorising (cf. Cowie 2015). This method takes our firstorder moral intuitions pretty much at face value (it might allow some room to refine them), and proceeds to evaluate a metaethical theory according to how well it conserves those intuitions. Whatever we think about this as a method, the charges of extensional inadequacy that it yields are distinct from stability charges of the kind that I have in mind. The stability charge alleges that some target theory allows the moral facts to change in such a way that moral choices are arbitrary (for, by that theory’s lights, nothing of normative significance hangs on whether a choice reflects these facts rather than some other set of facts). The extensional inadequacy charge, in contrast, makes no such claim—it does not involve the idea of normative significance, and it does not suggest that moral choices are arbitrary by the lights of the target theory. It just reveals an alleged mismatch between that theory and our intuitions about the extension of a certain moral concept, and then claims that this weakens the theory as an account of that concept. So, whilst our toy theory is subject to an extensional inadequacy charge—it gives the wrong verdict in cases like Callum’s, for example—it also falls foul of a stability charge. That is, it enables moral reality to change in destabilising ways, for it says that Callum’s moral reasons come and go with his occurrent desires. Even if everyone’s occurrent desires just so happened to always align with our intuitions about their

¹⁴ For extensional inadequacy charges against various forms of anti-realism see e.g. Kramer (2009), Shafer-Landau (2009), and Parfit (2011). For replies see e.g. Street (2009) and Hopster (2017). For general discussion see Behrends (2016).

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reasons to act, this would still introduce a destabilising contingency to the moral domain. Of course, real stance-dependence theories are far subtler than this toy theory. Even those who believe that moral facts are contingent can make moves designed to avoid instability. Whether such moves do avoid the stability charge is something I consider in Chapters 2 and 3. For now what matters is that, although there is a relationship between arbitrariness and contingency, it is mediated by facts about stability. The question is whether the authority of moral facts, as interpreted by a given metaethical theory, is stable enough to rule out changes to such facts that we judge to be impossible, or that we are inclined to evaluate negatively.

1.7 Conclusion This chapter has identified five types of arbitrariness charge. For ease of reference, I summarise the central point of each charge as follows: The bruteness charge alleges that its target metanormative theory has nothing to say about why we can justifiably take certain considerations (e.g. a brute moral fact, or a brute attitude) as an authoritative starting point for a chain of justification, where intuitively there should be something to say here. This charge falls under J. A privilege charge alleges that its target theory can offer no suitable reason to privilege one subset of (e.g.) normative attitudes over another, with the result that, by that theory’s lights, nothing of normative significance hangs on whether one’s choices conform to the allegedly privileged subset of attitudes. This charge falls under S. The normative deficit charge alleges that its target theory is committed to deriving all first-order normative guidance from formal or metanormative considerations, and that the theory in question fails to make good on this commitment, leaving us without a source of justification for certain moral choices. This charge falls under J. The ownership charge claims that a viable metanormative theory must vindicate a specified ‘ownership intuition,’ and alleges that its target theory cannot capture this intuition. This charge falls under J. A stability charge alleges its target theory is committed to a destabilising moral/ normative contingency, where such a contingency is destabilising just in case it makes it possible for moral reality to change in ways that we think should not be possible, or that we are inclined to evaluate negatively. This charge falls under S.

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I have so far been neutral on the force of these charges, for my goal has been to describe them rather than to put them to work in defence of a metaethical theory. This neutrality is about to end. Having clarified the ways in which a choice might be arbitrary, we can deploy these charges to evaluate rival metaethical theories. Taken in combination, Chapters 2–5 will argue that a robustly realistic moral ontology is best placed to capture the non-arbitrariness of moral choice. In the next two chapters I focus on the different kinds of stance-dependence theory, in order to show that the most promising options each fall foul of an arbitrariness charge.

2 Modest Stance-Dependence The basic idea in any stance-dependence theory is that all moral truths depend solely on us for their existence and authority. There are many ways of developing this claim—one might appeal to our attitudes (e.g. beliefs, desires, and values), to our perspectives (e.g. as humans, or as rational agents), to our relationships, or to our cultural conventions as the source of moral normativity. And there are many views about just when and how these things give rise to moral reasons to act. However, stance-dependence theories will only work if they can capture the nonarbitrariness of moral choice. This chapter and the next argue that, in different ways, the most promising stance-dependence theories fail to do this. I said in the introduction that we can distinguish ‘modest’ and ‘ambitious’ stance-dependence theories. In this chapter my focus is on modest theories, but I’ll begin by reintroducing this distinction (§2.1) and by suggesting that neither side needs to worry about the bruteness charge or the privileged attitudes charge (§2.2). I won’t argue that the claims made by these charges are false, just that they are ineffective (at best) in this dialectical context. However, whilst these charges have no real bite, another is more effective against modest stancedependence theories. By appealing to a thought experiment (§2.3), I’ll show that modest theories are vulnerable to the stability charge. I’ll suggest that my thought experiment is immune to the two main moves that modest theorists can make in trying to avoid a destabilising contingency. One of these moves involves a form of idealisation (§2.4), the other involves a localised error theory (§2.5). Neither is able to deal with the stability charge, and I therefore conclude that modest theories are badly placed when it comes to vindicating the normative non-arbitrariness of moral choice.¹

2.1 Expectations In dividing stance-dependence theories into those that are modest and those that are ambitious, I wish to draw attention to a difference in the expectations of different stance-dependence theorists. Some maintain that a tenable metaethical

¹ I won’t be discussing the ownership charge in this chapter, even though it indirectly supports stance-dependence (because it attacks realism). I’ll respond to this charge on behalf of realism in Chapter 4.

Robust Realism in Ethics: Normative Arbitrariness, Interpersonal Dialogue, and Moral Objectivity. Stephen Ingram, Oxford University Press. © Stephen Ingram 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198886488.003.0003

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theory must capture a strong form of moral objectivity. I am using ‘objective’ in a sense that acknowledges degrees of objectivity. The realist is committed to the strongest degree of moral objectivity, on which (some) moral facts are stanceindependent. Even the most ambitious stance-dependence theorist will reject that form of objectivity, but the ambitious theorist’s defining expectation is that (at least some) moral normativity is either agent-neutral or inescapable. A reason to act is agent-neutral just in case it is one that all agents must have (cf. Schroeder 2007: 18). An inescapable (or ‘categorical’) reason needn’t be had by all agents, but when you have such a reason you have it whether you like it or not. These are lesser degrees of objectivity than stance-independence, but they are still quite strong—they imply strict constraints on the degree to which the moral facts can be ‘up to us,’ for they insist that there are (some) moral facts or reasons that apply to us irrespective of our individual and cultural idiosyncrasies. This is why I call stance-dependence theorists who hope to capture agent-neutral or inescapable reasons ‘ambitious.’ They are not as ambitious as realists when it comes to their view of moral objectivity, but they still have high expectations for metaethical theory. The ambitious theorist’s task is to show that they can square these fairly strong forms of objectivity with their belief that all moral reasons depend on us for their existence and authority. There are different ways of trying to meet this challenge, and in the next chapter I’ll discuss the most promising approaches. My focus in this chapter is primarily on theories with more modest expectations for metaethical theorising. These modest stance-dependence theorists deny the existence of agent-neutral and inescapable reasons to act, and thus see no need for a metaethical theory to supply the degree of moral objectivity that such reasons offer. (This is compatible with there being an even weaker degree of objectivity that modest theorists can accept, as long as it falls short of agent-neutrality or inescapability—e.g. it may just involve the claim that one can be mistaken about one’s reasons to act.) I will divide modest theories into two further groups.² The first suggests that there is no intuitive call for inescapable or agent-neutral reasons, at least once we think through the cases in which such reasons are allegedly needed. Sharon Street (2009) belongs to this group—she holds that, on reflection, there is no intuitive need for a strong form of moral objectivity. In contrast, the second type of modest theory allows that there is an intuitive call for inescapable or agent-neutral reasons, but still holds that no such reasons exist. If such reasons were essential to moral discourse this would result in a global moral error theory—a theory on which moral discourse as a whole is undermined by the fact that it is essentially committed to the existence of non-existent entities. But if we deny that agent-

² Strictly speaking, there is a third type of modest stance-dependence theory, but this third approach can be handled in the same way as the second, so for brevity’s sake I won’t discuss it here. See n.8 in the Introduction, and n.10 in this chapter.

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neutral and inescapable reasons are essential to moral discourse, then we can instead offer a localised error theory. On this view, claims involving inescapable and agent-neutral reasons are in error, but this doesn’t undercut moral thought and discourse as a whole.³ David Lewis (1989) says things that suggest a localised error theory, as do Bernard Williams (1995) and Kate Manne (2014; 2017a). Yonatan Shemmer (2016) explicitly offers one. The idea is that we can capture most of our moral intuitions in stance-dependent terms, and that most of moral discourse can therefore be retained even if we must reject the part of that discourse involving agent-neutral or inescapable reasons. Despite their differences, both types of modest theory deny the existence of agent-neutral and inescapable moral normativity. This is a contrast with the approach taken by ambitious theorists. Of course, this modest/ambitious distinction is rough, and there may be theories that reside on its borders. But it is a useful distinction, for we must take such differences in expectation into account when assessing a theory’s plausibility. A theory might fail to deliver the kinds of normativity that it asks us to expect from moral discourse. Or it might fail by having the wrong expectations—its expectations might be too high or too low, but either way the theory will have mischaracterised what it was meant to explain. With this in mind, we can start to ask how stance-dependence theorists fare when it comes to securing the non-arbitrariness of moral choice.

2.2 Bruteness and Privilege Let’s start with bruteness and privileged attitudes charges, versions of which can be put to both modest and ambitious theories (see §1.2 and §1.3). I suggest that neither charge is effective, and that they may even beg the question. For instance, the bruteness charge insists that moral choices must have intrinsically justified foundations, and that nothing less than this can initiate a chain of justification— no brute attitude (or network of attitudes) can be the foundation of a justified moral choice. But this foundationalist view of moral justification is part of what is at issue between realists and stance-dependence theorists—as we saw in §1.2, stance-dependence theories often invoke a coherentist view. One might suggest that foundationalism is not just being assumed here, but is instead supported by the intuition that justification cannot come out of something (including an interlocking network of attitudes) that itself lacks an independent justification.

³ This means rejecting or moderating the conservative method discussed in §1.6. A localised error theory must allow that metaethicists can question, revise, and reject our first-order intuitions. Sometimes this will mean biting the bullet by rejecting an intuition that we wish to capture, but, as Cowie (2015) observes, it could also involve transforming moral thought itself so that we come to have new intuitions.

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However, many stance-dependence theorists differ in intuition here, so the bruteness charge is ineffective in the dialectical context. Similarly, privileged attitudes charges appeal to the intuition that we need some independent reason to privilege one subset of attitudes over another. But stance-dependence theorists who privilege certain attitudes tend to do so not for an independent reason, but because of the functional role that those attitudes have in reflective deliberation, or because their centrality to who we are means that they just are privileged for us without our needing an independent reason to privilege them. Whether such a reason is needed is part of what is at issue, and many stance-dependence theorists do not share the realist’s intuition about this. So this charge is again ineffective in the dialectical context. Of course, there may be a separate case for the foundationalist view on which the bruteness charge relies, and there may be a separate case against the idea that functional complexity or centrality to who we are is a sufficient basis on which to privilege one set of attitudes over others. But once we start making separate cases for these claims, we in effect move away from the bruteness and privileged attitudes charges. By providing separate cases for the intuitions on which these charges rely, we are no longer appealing to our intuitions about bruteness and privilege in order to evaluate stance-dependence theories. Instead we are arguing against stance-dependence theories in some other way, in order to defend our initial intuitions about bruteness and privilege. It’s fine to argue in this way, but the fact that we need to do so shows that the bruteness and the privileged attitudes charges lack dialectical force in themselves—they need outside support. I am thus going to set these charges aside. In doing so I am not disavowing the intuitions on which they rely. I share the intuition that brute attitudes cannot be a source of reasons in themselves, and that we cannot privilege some attitudes over others purely because of their functional role or centrality to who we are. My point is that these intuitions must be defended, rather than assumed, when we assess stancedependence theories. There is a clash of intuitions here, and just insisting on one’s intuitions won’t move us forward. To move forward we must go beyond claims of bruteness and privilege.

2.3 Inglish Values For a stronger case against modest stance-dependence theories we can look to the stability charge. Modest theories, I’ll suggest, fail to capture the non-arbitrariness of moral choice because they bring destabilising contingencies to the moral domain. To show this I’ll need to introduce a thought experiment, but it will be useful to first discuss some familiar cases to which my own is related. The cases that I have in mind involve what Street (2009) calls ‘ideally coherent eccentrics,’ or ICEs. ICEs are people whose normative attitudes are coherent (they hang together

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in the right way), and whose (relevant) non-normative beliefs are all true, but who have highly eccentric normative attitudes. Their desires, aims, values, and moral beliefs, etc., are in some way odd or appalling. There are many well-known ICEs in metaethics. For instance, there is a man who prefers the destruction of the world to the scratching of his finger (Hume 1739–40: §2.3), a man whose sole pleasure is counting blades of grass (Rawls 1999: 379), a woman who accepts norms prescribing starvation even if it leads to her death (Gibbard 1990: 171), a fictional version of Caligula who aims to maximise the suffering of other people (Gibbard 1999: 145), a man who is indifferent to future agonies if they are scheduled for a Tuesday (Parfit 1984: 124), a man who has a basic, non-instrumental desire to switch on radio sets (Quinn 1993: 236), a Mafioso who values strength and honour above all (Cohen 1996: 183), and so on. ICEs are used to test the plausibility of a metaethical theory (or, more generally, a theory of reasons and rationality). The test is usually pitched in terms of extensional adequacy, where (as we saw in §1.6) a metaethical theory is extensionally inadequate if it cannot provide the intuitively correct verdict about some case. For instance, if your theory implies that an ideally coherent Caligula actually does have a reason to maximise the suffering of others, then something has gone wrong with that theory. For, intuitively, no agent has such a reason.⁴ We’ll see that failure to provide the right verdict in these sorts of cases only becomes problematic when it can be shown to be destabilising—that is, when it entails that it is possible for moral reality to change in ways that should not be possible, or that we evaluate negatively. However, before getting to that, I’ll first outline my own odd and morally appalling case. I don’t do this simply for the sake of it—as will become clear, my case challenges modest theories in a way that other cases, like those outlined above, do not. The case I have in mind borrows the premise of Will Self ’s novel The Book of Dave (which is itself inspired by Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker). Dave is a London cabbie who becomes increasingly mentally disturbed after his wife leaves him and prevents him from visiting his son. Dave’s latent sexism turns into a deeper hatred of women, and he develops a misogynistic vision of the values and norms around which his ideal society would run. He records this in a book made from metal plates, which he buries in his ex-wife’s garden. Some time later, after flooding has turned England into the ‘Ing’ archipelago, Dave’s book is discovered. It gradually becomes the basis of all moral understanding, actionguidance, and character formation within ‘Inglish’ culture. That is, the

⁴ There is, of course, debate about precisely what the correct verdict is in these cases. Hare (1979), Hubin (1991), Lenman (1999), Street (2009), Goldman (2009), and Hopster (2017) maintain that, when fully described, such characters intuitively have reason to act in weird or appalling ways. (I’ll return to this in §2.4.)

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misogynistic values and norms set out in ‘The Book of Dave’ are the social vision around which Inglish society is organised. This book governs the attitudes and social practices of the Inglish. Occasionally they consult it directly when making choices, but usually its effects are indirect, for it has led the Inglish to internalise misogynistic ideas, and it is the basis for the entrenched norms and institutions in which they operate. To illustrate, based on ideals outlined in The Book of Dave, men and women live apart—interaction for reasons other than procreation is generally prohibited. Inglish children spend half the week with their father and half with their mother, moving from one house to the other in a ritual called the ‘Changeover.’ Yet, even during the half of the week a child spends with its father, actual childcare duties are performed by teenaged girls (known as ‘opares’). Among the Inglish, women without children are termed ‘lezzas.’ Men without children are termed ‘queers.’ When a woman can no longer have children she is a ‘boiler,’ and is seen as pointless and expendable. If a woman is found to have slept with a man not assigned as her sexual partner by the procreation system, then she will be subject to humiliating penalties. All sources of social power—such as political, legal, commercial, and religious institutions, etc.—are in the hands of men. Since men and women live apart, and have no permissible interactions outside of sanctioned procreation, women do not exert even indirect forms of influence over the running of Inglish society. Gender identities that do not neatly fit the man-woman binary are not recognised, to the point that anyone who feels that they do not belong in either group is unable to fully comprehend or articulate their experience even to themselves. Inglish men and women do not protest against the misogyny of their culture—they view it as something to be upheld. I’ll take it for granted that the attitudes and norms of the Inglish are morally appalling. Like the ICEs mentioned above, the Inglish are radically mistaken in their views about right and wrong. However, the Inglish are in certain ways unlike those ICEs. In particular, given that misogynistic norms have played (and continue to play) a huge role in human cultures (cf. Manne 2017b), it seems that the Inglish are not so unlike us. I’ll say more about this below, but this is the key difference between the Inglish and most ICE cases. After all, whatever else we say about a man whose sole pleasure is counting blades of grass, we can certainly say that he is unlike most humans. As we’ll see, we cannot say the same of the Inglish. I’ll argue that we can therefore use the Inglish to get a powerful stability charge against modest theories. Even when we consider the moves that modest theorists make to avoid instability, they still fail to rule out the possibility of moral reality coming to reflect Inglish values. Thus, they make it possible for the moral facts to change in ways that should not be possible, or that we evaluate negatively. The result is that such theories fail to secure the non-arbitrariness of moral choice.

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2.4 Idealisation Modest stance-dependence theories can be developed in various ways, but all such theories are committed to a deep moral contingency. This is because they reject agent-neutrality and inescapability. That is, they deny that there are any moral reasons that every agent must have, and they deny that any individual agent has a reason that she cannot avoid having. The idea is that, since all moral facts derive from our attitudes, and since these attitudes are contingent, it is possible for moral reality to change in concord with changes in our attitudes.⁵ Now, as we saw in §1.6, contingency only generates arbitrariness when it is destabilising. Modest theorists thus need a way to block the path from contingency to arbitrariness, a way to ensure that the changes in moral reality that are allowed by their theory are not ones that should be impossible, or that we evaluate negatively. One proposal involves tying moral reality to our idealised attitudes—that is, the attitudes that we would have in ideal deliberative conditions. In this section I will first explain how this idealising move works (§2.4.1). I’ll then suggest that the versions of it that are available to modest theories are unable to help with the Inglish (§2.4.2).

2.4.1 Ideals and Aliens Idealising moves are made in various parts of moral philosophy.⁶ The idea in the metaethical context is something like this: an agent’s moral reasons to act are constitutively dependent not on her actual attitudes, but on the attitudes that she would have were she ideally rational.⁷ Of course, this raises an obvious question: what is it to be ideally rational? Modest theorists have said various things about this, but what they say must be aligned with their rejection of agent-neutral and inescapable reasons. They thus tend to focus on a couple of fairly low-key idealising moves.

Idealising Moves We can begin with the claim that ideally rational agents have to be fully informed about the relevant non-normative facts. Street, for example, thinks that in order for an agent to be ideally rational in her acceptance of some value, her ⁵ I’ve only mentioned attitudes here, for ease of exposition, but some modest theories focus on other contingencies—e.g. social conventions and relationships. I’ll hereafter typically just refer to attitudes, though my arguments can be generalised. ⁶ An early example is Smith (1759), but more recent examples include Firth (1952), Brandt (1979), Williams (1981a), Railton (1986), Smith (1994), Goldman (2009), Street (2008; 2009), Manne (2014), and Dorsey (2017). ⁷ The strategy here is to rigidify the reference of ‘moral reason’ on an agent’s idealised attitudes. Some propose to rigidify moral terms on our actual attitudes. I discuss and reject this latter approach in §3.3.

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commitment to it “would have to be consistent with all non-normative facts about her situation, including facts about how she acquired this value in the first place and facts about alternative sorts of lives that it would be open to her to lead” (2009: 280). Brandt (1979) argues that, in order for an agent’s desire to be rational, it must survive the test of ‘cognitive psychotherapy,’ which involves repeatedly and vividly imagining what realising the desire would be like. Williams (1981a: 103) stresses that reasons cannot derive from desires that are based on false beliefs or ignorance. Goldman holds that rational agents have to be relevantly informed— they must know “what it would be like to act on a purported reason and what it would be like not to act on it” (2009: 45). Tiberius suggests that anti-realists can explain the need for open-mindedness in normative life, despite there being no normative reality to be open to, partly on the basis that it helps to reveal “evidence for or against the factual beliefs upon which our normative judgments are based . . . [as well as] how to respond appropriately to these facts” (2012: 202). And these are just a few examples—the view that ideally rational agents have to know all relevant non-normative facts is widely held.⁸ Another widely held view is that being ideally rational involves having coherent attitudes. The rational agent’s attitudes hang together in the right way, such that they do not frustrate one another (cf. Street 2008: 228, Goldman 2009: §2.III, Shemmer 2012, Manne 2014: 97, and Hopster 2017: 771). This needn’t imply that it is irrational to have conflicting desires, in the narrow sense of that term. But it does mean that a rational agent will remove conflicts in her values, intentions, or moral beliefs. We can derive a familiar means-end norm of rationality from this, for if A judges that she has decisive reason to realise end E, and also judges that she has no reason to take the means necessary to realising E, then A’s normative attitudes are in conflict. Another aspect of coherence involves the fact that not all of an agent’s attitudes will be equal to her—some will be deeper, longer-lasting, and more important to her than others. Ideally rational agents will prioritise those attitudes when making choices. They may also account for the chance of success in realising certain ends, for it is plausible that coherence decreases if one prioritises an end that is less likely to be realised over one that is more likely to be realised. The riskier option might be better if it comes off, but there seems to be something self-defeating (and in that sense internally incoherent) about realising neither end because one sought the improbable best over the more probable good. The details here are open to debate, but the main point is that the hierarchical structure of normative attitudes will influence how rational agents resolve internal conflicts. Another nuance here concerns coherence with oneself over time. An account of what it is for an agent to be ideally rational needs something to say about conflicts ⁸ But it is not uncontroversial. Hubin (1996; 2003) argues that it is a mistake for neo-Humeans to focus on this idealisation. Shemmer (2007) claims that it is only in some contexts that having full information is normatively important.

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between our past, present, and future attitudes. Again, the details here are open to debate, but this will also inform the ideal attitudes and reasons that come out of the idealising move. Full information and internal coherence are the main idealising moves made by modest theorists. But they do not exhaust the available options. For instance, Manne’s modestly stance-dependent account of reasons appeals to the figure of an ideal advisor, and in describing this advisor Manne includes these conditions but also goes beyond them. She adds that one’s advisor “should be imagined to be a flesh and blood human – as opposed to the disembodied voice of reason” (2014: 97), and that she can be understood as “virtuous and wise” as well as being “welldisposed to her advisee” (2014: 97). We can also assume that she is “especially wellsuited to play this social role for the particular agent in question. She is the person who is best suited to ‘getting through’ to her, morally” (2014: 97). Manne offers these idealising moves because she recognises the social dimensions of reasoning and agency. She thus focuses not only on someone’s being fully informed and coherent, but also on their social conditions. This is just one example of an additional idealising move that modest theorists can make. There may be others. But let’s now consider how these moves are meant to help the modest theorist.

Aliens and ICEs Note first that even modest idealising moves introduce some stability. Given these moves, the moral facts can only vary in line with variations in the attitudes that we would have if we were internally coherent and fully informed. We can expect our idealised attitudes to be less variable than, say, our occurrent desires. (Modest theorists can therefore claim to improve on the toy theory from §1.6.) They will also be more secure than values based on ignorance or false belief, and values that conflict with other more deeply held values. Of course, modest theories are still committed to saying that even idealised attitudes are contingent. This follows from their rejection of inescapable and agent-neutral reasons. But contingency only creates arbitrariness when it is destabilising, and since idealising moves limit the variability of our normative attitudes, it might be that they block the path from contingency to arbitrariness. I’ll shortly argue that the Inglish reveal that this is not so—this path is very much open. But first let’s see how idealising moves enable modest theorists to respond to the challenge posed by familiar cases involving ICEs. Consider, for instance, a version of Caligula whose main aim in life is to maximise the suffering of others. The idea in modest idealising moves is that, for this aim to give Caligula a reason to maximise others’ suffering, it must be an aim that he would continue to have even once he is fully informed and coherent. Thus, having grasped what it is like to suffer and cause suffering, and being aware of the consequences that his actions are likely to have for himself and for anything else that he values, and having vividly imagined what it would be like to not aim at maximising the suffering of others, he maintains this aim. The modest theorist

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must accept that an ideally rational Caligula is possible, given their take on what it is to be ideally rational. So we might try using him in a stability charge. Recall that a stability charge goes beyond a charge of extensional inadequacy. The latter says that, intuitively, Caligula has no reason to maximise suffering, and that it is a cost of modest theories that they do not conserve this intuition. In contrast, a stability charge evaluates possible changes in moral reality that are allowed by modest theories. Rather than focusing on Caligula’s reasons, it thus asks us to imagine that our attitudes become like his, such that we have a reason to maximise suffering. The stability charge is that our reasons should not be able to change in this way, and that modest theories fail if they allow such changes to be possible. Specifically, they render our moral choices arbitrary by implying that nothing of normative significance hangs on whether we choose on the basis of how our idealised attitudes actually happen to be, rather than the Caligulean way they could come to be. However, modest theorists have a neat answer to this version of the stability charge. They can argue that, since the stability charge asks us to imagine being like an idealised Caligula, we must think carefully about what such an agent’s psychological profile would actually be like. And, once this is fleshed out, it becomes clear that an idealised Caligula is not like us. In fact, he is more alien than human. For most of us have deep attitudes and values that rule out an aim to maximise suffering—we have a natural concern for the wellbeing of others, and an aversion to their suffering. So, if you aim to maximise suffering, and do not lose or demote this aim in the course of ensuring that your attitudes cohere with each other, then you will instead have had to lose or demote some characteristically human attitudes. This is why, upon close inspection, an idealised Caligula seems more alien than human. For he would have to have a psychological profile in which natural and characteristically human psychological states are absent, or radically deprioritised. This line of thought is popular with modest theorists. Street, for example, suggests that, in the majority of cases, “an accurately imagined ICE will look more like an interesting visitor from another planet than a human being” (2009: 281). Hopster similarly suggests that Caligula is “a very exotic kind of creature, who inhabits some possible world which may be quite distant from the world that humans inhabit” (2017: 775). (For related claims see Lenman 1999, Williams 2008: 148, and Sarkissian et al. 2011.) Even those who do not describe such characters as aliens insist that they are rare and highly abnormal (see e.g. Goldman 2009: 138). Modest theorists can use this line of thought to offer powerful replies to the extensional inadequacy charge and a Caligulean stability charge. To the charge of extensional inadequacy they can insist that it is intuitively plausible that an idealised Caligula has normative reason to maximise suffering. (Or, at least, that it is no longer intuitively clear that he doesn’t have such a reason.) Psychologically speaking he is an alien, and has reasons that an alien might have. So, in entailing

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that an idealised Caligula has reason to maximise suffering, modest views may in fact succeed in conserving our intuitions. We just have to fully think through the case to get the correct intuitions. In the case of the stability charge, modest theorists can say that, once we see how radically unlike us the idealised Caligula is, it becomes clear that we would be radically unlike us if we became like him. To become like the idealised Caligula would mean dramatic changes to our psychology. There is therefore no need to fret about what ‘we’ would have reason to do in this situation, for there isn’t a ‘we’ in it. In forming a Caligulean psychology, we would have become a different moral species, one that seems more alien than human. What we have here is a two-step strategy for blocking the path from contingency to arbitrariness. The first step is just the idealisation move—that is, modest theorists argue that the contingency at issue is not the contingency of our actual attitudes, but our idealised attitudes, which are far less variable and thus far more stable than non-idealised attitudes. The second step is the suggestion that the contingency of our idealised attitudes is not destabilising, for whilst it may seem as though our idealised attitudes could change in weird and appalling ways, such changes mean us vanishing from the scenario that we are considering. A scenario in which we become like the idealised Caligula wouldn’t just involve our continuing to exist but with different attitudes. Instead, it would involve our ceasing to exist entirely—the psychological changes involved in this sort of attitudinal shift would be so great that it would no longer be our attitudes that we are considering. It would instead be the attitudes of something altogether alien. And there is no issue with saying that members of an alien species can have reasons to do terrible things. (If we encounter such aliens we may have to fight them, but we could not reason with them—cf. Williams 2008: 148 and Street 2009: 293.) The upshot is that the moral facts that are applicable to beings like us shouldn’t be thought capable of changing such that they require suffering to be maximised. Assuming that the other ICEs are similarly unlike us, modest theorists can insist that the moral facts applicable to us are unable to change in ways that intuitively should be impossible, or that we are inclined to evaluate negatively. In short, given plausible claims about human psychology, modest theorists can deny that their view is committed to a destabilising contingency. They are committed to the contingency of moral facts, and to the claim that such facts could change in line with changes to our idealised attitudes. However, these idealised attitudes have to be recognisably human if they are to provide reasons to us (rather than an alien moral species into which we could transform).⁹

⁹ Note that this doesn’t imply that we have no reason to prefer belonging to our moral species than any other moral species. It just means that the existence of such reasons is indexed to facts about what we are like.

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In short, the contingency in a modest theory needn’t imply that ‘anything goes’ for beings like us. And since it is beings like us that are of interest here—as Gibbard puts it, “[w]hat matters chiefly is not what we can say to strange beings who are merely conceivable, but what we can say to each other” (1990: 201)—this level of stability can sustain moral thought and discourse. I believe that this is the most promising way for modest theorists to develop their idealising strategy in answer to the stability charge. I will argue, however, that this strategy fails in the case of the Inglish. For they are like us. We and the Inglish belong to the same moral species, so we get a more serious stability charge in their case.

2.4.2 Our Moral Species I think that the analogy between aliens and ICEs is revealing—as I put it above, characters such as the idealised Caligula do indeed belong to a different moral species. But this raises a question: which qualities are characteristic of our moral species? In saying that an idealised Caligula is not like us, what assumptions are we making about what we are like? To clarify the question, we are not looking for a claim about the essence of human (moral) psychology here. We could in principle be part of the same moral species as non-human aliens (e.g. we seem comfortable in allowing that humans and Vulcans in Star Trek aren’t morally alien to each other, despite their biological and psychological differences), and there might be psychologically atypical humans (e.g. psychopaths) that do not belong to the same moral species as the rest of us. What we are looking for instead is a way to distinguish the sets of normative claims that could possibly constrain us from the sets of normative claims that could not. That is, we are looking for general facts about us that shape which sets of considerations can and cannot count for us as reasons to act. There are many things we can say here, but a good starting point comes from Terence Cuneo and Russ Shafer-Landau. In the course of suggesting that certain substantive moral propositions are conceptual truths, they index these truths to ‘beings like us.’ We needn’t worry for now about the claim that there are moral conceptual truths. What is of interest here is how Cuneo and Shafer-Landau characterise beings like us: Beings like us are mortal, embodied, not subject to daily bouts of complete amnesia, susceptible to physical, emotional, and other psychological pleasures and pains, capable of introspection, of friendship, of self-esteem, possessed of some degree of empathy and sympathy, and able to reason deductively, inductively, and abductively in at least minimal ways. (2014: 404)

Given this interpretation of ‘beings like us,’ an ideally rational Caligula can be stipulated to be in certain ways like us (mortal, embodied, etc.). But he is unlike us

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in that, given what I have said already, he lacks the kind of empathy or sympathy that is found in our moral species. If he ever had a capacity for empathy and sympathy, he will have eliminated or suppressed it in order to retain the aim of maximising suffering. It is also unlikely that he is capable of friendship—someone who wishes to maximise the suffering of others is not someone who can have the sort of concern for others that is important to friendship. In these ways he is so unlike us that he is best seen as belonging to a different moral species. However, it isn’t just positive qualities and capacities (such as friendship and empathy) that characterise our moral species. After all, we are also the sort of creature that is subject to cognitive biases, that is naturally prone to feel a degree of suspicion, hostility, or fear towards outsiders, that values strength, and that lusts for power. There may be variations between individuals and cultures here when it comes to how much influence these tendencies have, and we can do a better or worse job of countering our more negative qualities. But they exist, and even if we view them as faults, they are as characteristic of beings like us as our positive qualities. The more negative qualities of our moral species manifest in various ways in our moral culture—for instance, in racism, misogyny, homophobia, and other forms of unjust discrimination. As we’ll see, this has implications for the idealising strategy discussed in §2.4.1. Consider that, whilst Inglish values obviously are not identical to ours, the Inglish are not so unlike us. Indeed, the premise of Self ’s novel works precisely because there is much of the Inglish in us. What is unsettling about them is that, although they value things that many of us repudiate, and live by norms that are highly misogynistic, we are not so different. Indeed, current human society is also full of misogyny—the Inglish ramp it up quite a few notches, but they build on norms and values that exist in the present. Their practices are even based on the vision set out by one of us—one of us with problems, but one of us nevertheless. This suggests that the Inglish are far less psychologically odd than characters like the idealised Caligula. Of course, an idealised version of the Inglish will need to ensure that their misogyny coheres with their other attitudes. But there is reason to say the Inglish could achieve coherence, retain their misogynistic values, and still be a part of the same moral species as us. Again, this is because their norms and values are all too human. True, in becoming coherent the Inglish might have to decide to prioritise misogyny over other values and emotions that are also exceedingly human. For instance, if prioritising sympathy and compassion for others would undercut their misogynistic values, then to be ideally rational misogynists the Inglish will have to demote these very human states within their psychological profiles. This is not enough to make them moral aliens, however. Consider that they need not eliminate sympathy entirely, as someone whose aim is to maximise suffering probably would. They could just give it less priority, or could foster sympathy primarily for men. Idealising in a way that prioritises the misogynistic aspects of humanity, rather than our more egalitarian or

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compassionate tendencies, is certainly appalling. However, it is not inherently incoherent, and it need not make the Inglish into inhuman aliens. What about the idea that the misogynistic norms and values of the Inglish are based on ignorance and false belief? In particular, they presumably rest on a range of false beliefs about men and women, and about the authority of The Book of Dave. Their false beliefs mean that the Inglish are unaware of non-normative facts that are highly relevant to their moral values. Because of their false beliefs, their values are not formed in ideal conditions. One might argue that, on this basis, modest theorists can reject the values of the Inglish as irrational. But this won’t work either. Imagine that the Inglish learn the relevant non-normative truths— they learn that there are no essential gender or sex differences when it comes to our capacities to reason, suffer, emote, etc., and they learn that The Book of Dave was composed by an ill and ignorant man with no divine authority. Even after discovering these things they may keep their misogynistic values, and this won’t be a normative error by the modest theorist’s lights. For they may decide to reflectively endorse the misogynistic values outlined in The Book of Dave, even once they have corrected the false beliefs that led to their initial endorsement of them. That is, they can acknowledge the mistakes that led them to their way of doing things, and decide to persist with this way of doing things. And, crucially, this would not involve their psychological profiles being more alien than human. If anything, it makes them more like us. After all, many of us deny that the Christian Bible has divine authority, yet reflectively endorse the values of forgiveness, love, and charity that it helped bake into Western culture. We can know that we came to accept these values in an intellectually suspect way, yet reflectively decide that we can endorse them as values to live by. Similarly, the Inglish might reflectively endorse their misogyny even after grasping the non-moral facts. The upshot of this is that, although an idealised version of the Inglish are clearly different from us, they are not so different. They are human—all too human, in fact. For us to become like them would just involve building on existing prejudices. This affords a stability charge that is immune to the modest theorist’s idealising moves, for we could become like the ideally coherent Inglish without thereby transforming into moral aliens. That is, even after idealising as the modest theorists suggest, their account of moral reality permits it to change in ways that we evaluate negatively—it makes it possible for misogynistic norms to apply to beings like us. This is destabilising, for it suggests that, by the lights of a modest theorist, nothing of normative significance hangs on whether our idealised attitudes are misogynistic or non-misogynistic. Yet something of normative significance does hang on this. Choices to be non-misogynistic are therefore rendered as arbitrary by this modest view. This shows that one cannot reply to a stability charge involving the Inglish simply by tying reasons to coherent and informed attitudes. But what if we add some further idealising moves? The modest theorist cannot build so much into

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their idealisation they end up committed to inescapability or agent-neutrality, but maybe something like Manne’s account of the ideal advisor can help here. Manne (2014) suggests that reasons to Φ are considerations apt to be cited in favour of Φ-ing in the social practice of reasoning with an ideal advisor, where this advisor is fictitious, but is imagined as a flesh and blood human who is coherent, informed, virtuous, wise, well-disposed to her advisee, and well-placed to ‘get through’ to that advisee (in that she is someone the advisee will find trustworthy and persuasive). The temptation here is to claim that such an advisor would only cite considerations favouring the rejection of misogyny when reasoning with the Inglish. But it would be a mistake to think that this can give the Inglish reason to reject misogyny. Manne herself suggests that there are “real limitations on what can be said and done . . . within the interpersonal activity of reasoning with an agent” (2014: 91). This is due to a familiar idea in stance-dependence theories— that an agent must not be ‘alienated’ from her reasons. These reasons must derive from attitudes that are genuinely hers. (This relates to the ownership intuition— see §1.5.) They needn’t be her present attitudes, but they must at least be the attitudes she herself would form through the process of ideal reasoning. Thus, if Inglish agents end this process with no attitudes favouring the rejection of misogyny, there is nothing for an ideal advisor to tap into in the course of interpersonal reasoning. Manne thinks that at this point the conversation has broken down, and that the ideal advisor cannot aptly advise this sort of character to reject misogyny. The upshot is that Manne’s appeal to the ideal advisor isn’t able to deliver nonmisogynistic reasons for characters like the Inglish. Nor is it intended to—Manne actually seems to favour the second type of modest view, involving a localised error theory. I will come to this next. For now we can simply conclude that modest theories cannot respond to the stability charge just by idealising. For the Inglish can at once be ideally rational (in the senses recognised by modest theorists), terribly misogynistic, and entirely human. In principle, then, we could become like them without becoming a distinct moral species. Put another way, the moral facts applicable to us could change in ways that shouldn’t be possible, or that we evaluate negatively. The idealising moves thus do not allow modest theorists to avoid a destabilising moral contingency. They must therefore seek another way to avoid the type of arbitrariness revealed by the stability charge. And this takes us to the localised error theory.

2.5 Localised Error Although some modest theorists believe that, on reflection, there is no intuitive call for inescapable or agent-neutral normativity, others think that there is such a call. They deny that it can be answered, but suggest that moral thought and

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discourse can survive without inescapable and agent-neutral reasons. The idea is that only part of moral thought and discourse is unsustainable—much of it will remain intact even if it is a mistake to posit inescapable and agent-neutral reasons. In short, these modest theorists, among whom we can count Manne (2014; 2017a), Shemmer (2016), and possibly Lewis (1989), supplement their modest theories with a localised error theory. In this section I’ll argue that this strategy does not save modest theorists from the stability charge. I’ll first clarify the strategy (§2.5.1). I’ll then argue that the instability that is revealed by the Inglish cannot remain localised in the way it assumes (§2.5.2).

2.5.1 Moral Criticism Modest theorists who endorse a localised error theory agree that there is an intuitive demand for inescapable and agent-neutral reasons. Like ambitious theorists and realists, they judge that the Inglish intuitively have a reason to reject misogyny. But in contrast to ambitious theorists and realists, they deny that the Inglish actually have such a reason, for it would have to be an inescapable or agent-neutral reason, and there are no such reasons. This means that moral thought and discourse are in error, for they are committed to the existence of entities that do not exist.¹⁰ Now, if such entities were essential to ordinary moral thinking, then moral thought and discourse as a whole would be undermined by this. But the suggestion here is that they are not essential—inescapable and agentneutral reasons can be removed from our ontology without this affecting the whole of moral thought and discourse. Indeed, most of ordinary moral thought is left intact here, for most moral claims can be viewed as stance-dependent—as Shemmer puts it, “if we put aside objectivist beliefs, the rest of the moral phenomena are best explained without appeal to the truth of objectivism” (2016: 214). As a response to the stability charge, we can understand the localised error theory as an attempt to amputate those elements of moral thought that generate instability. Adopting such an approach violates stricter versions of the conservative method of metaethical theorising, for it gives up on the attempt to capture all of our considered moral intuitions. But since the modest theorist claims to conserve most of our intuitions, perhaps this is not such a big deal— any costs here are offset by other benefits of the theory. ¹⁰ Another possibility, suggested to me by an anonymous reader, is that the error lies in our substantive moral beliefs rather than in our moral concepts, or moral thought and discourse. I agree that this is a possibility, but the exact location of the error will not affect my argument below. I will argue that, if we regard our objectivity intuitions as being mistaken, then (a) we have no authentic way to morally criticise characters like the Inglish, and (b) we destabilise the moral domain as a whole. This is the case whether the intuitional error is located in our concepts or in our substantive beliefs. I will therefore focus on what I take to be the more common view, on which the error lies in the nature of moral thought and discourse.

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Manne seems sympathetic to a localised error theory, for whilst she is transparent about the fact that her modest theory will not supply certain people—like the Inglish, in my example—with reason to act as we would like, she also notes that there is a “widespread hankering for something more by way of the rational authority or binding force of morality” (2017a: 22). Thus, given the non-existence of inescapable or agent-neutral reasons, this hankering in ordinary moral thought must be in error. Manne thinks that this is a “sad truth about people we just have to learn to live with” (2014: 116). But others have embraced this result. Shemmer (2016: 209–11) suggests that accepting the localised error theory will enable us to reallocate our intellectual resources, such that we no longer waste time on the fruitless search for objectivity, and instead focus on understanding the rest of morality. We may also have a localised error theorist in Lewis (1989: 136–7), for he suggests that his account of ‘value’ secures enough of our ordinary concept for us to continue evaluating, even if it doesn’t capture the intuition that some things must be valued. And Berker (2019a) defends an unconventional interpretation of Mackie (1977) on which he is not a global moral error theorist, but a stancedependence theorist whose error theory remains localised (cf. Ridge 2020). In the next section I show that the instability revealed by the Inglish cannot be isolated and localised in the way this strategy requires. But first let’s consider the idea that sits alongside the localised error theory—specifically, the idea that modest theories still give us plenty to say about people like the Inglish, even if they cannot offer a way to (truthfully) say that such characters have reason to reject misogyny. For instance, Manne is sympathetic to Williams’ remarks about a man whose idealised attitudes give him no reason to stop abusing his wife.¹¹ Williams points out that “there are many things I can say about or to this man: that he is ungrateful, inconsiderate, hard, sexist, nasty, selfish, brutal, and many other disadvantageous things” (1995: 39). In the case of the Inglish, we may similarly say that their values are sexist, nasty, brutal, repugnant, abhorrent, and so on. Manne also thinks that, whilst we cannot (truthfully) say that the abusive husband has a reason to treat his wife better, we can say that he should be the sort of person who has such a reason (cf. Williams 2001). The idea here is that there are many ways to morally criticise a man like this, and a group like the Inglish, without making a claim about their reasons. This may mitigate the worry that they are somehow let off the hook by our failure to meet the intuitive call for them to have reasons to act as we would like them to. The obvious issue with this suggestion is that the most relevant and powerful of these moral criticisms rely on assumptions about what the Inglish have reason to do. For instance, it is implicitly built into an accusation of nastiness and brutality that the accused agent has reason not to be these ways, and not to do the things ¹¹ Some of Williams’ claims (e.g. in his 1995 and 2001) evoke a localised error theory, but I’m unsure of what exactly he saw as a commitment of ordinary moral thought.

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that lead us to make these accusations (cf. Scanlon 1998: 367, Street 2009: n. 50, and Parfit 2011: 456). In which case, we cannot use these criticisms against the Inglish without (erroneously) ascribing to them reasons that they do not have. One option for modest theorists is to deny that accusations of nastiness (etc.) really imply claims about reasons—maybe ‘Edith is a nasty piece of work’ just conversationally implicates that she has reason not to be. This would enable us to isolate the claim about her nastiness from the claim about her reasons. For we can just cancel the implicature: ‘Edith is a nasty piece of work, though she has no reason to be otherwise.’ But, even if this is the correct view about how terms like ‘nasty’ work, it does nothing to shore up a localised error theory.¹² For we are interested in terms like ‘nasty’ as moral criticisms, and cancelling the implicature in this case drains ‘nasty’ of its critical power. After all, if Edith is bullying you, then as a criticism it seems inadequate to say ‘she is a nasty piece of work, though she has no reason to be otherwise.’ This lacks the force of genuine moral reproach. It weakens the point to a mere expression of my dislike for Edith, and so lets her off the moral hook. This implies that the critical force of a term like ‘nasty’ rests on an assumption about reasons. The same goes, I suggest, for claims like ‘Edith ought to become the sort of person who has reasons not to be nasty.’ Manne (2014: 114) views this as a way of connecting the claim that someone is nasty (etc.) to reasons-talk (cf. Williams 2001: 96), but the critical strength of such a claim is weakened once it is recognised that the agent has no reason not to be nasty. That is, if Edith has no reason to become someone who has reasons not to be nasty, then our saying that she ought to be such a person lacks the strength needed for genuine reproach—it is only an expression of how we would like her to be. Such expressions are fine—we can say that we dislike Edith and her conduct, for this needn’t imply or implicate anything about her reasons. It just expresses our feelings about her. But such claims are far weaker than the moral criticisms we expect to make against characters such as the abusive husband and the Inglish. At this point it might be argued that, even if the idealised Inglish have no reason to be non-misogynistic, we have reason to say that they do (see e.g. Street 2009: 293 and Manne 2014: 123). After all, this may causally influence misogynists to change their ways, and it is a nice way to confirm our rejection of misogyny to each other. The idea is that this is enough to justify making false claims about the reasons of the Inglish (or the abusive husband, or whoever), and explains why we hesitate to cancel the implicature in cases like that of our moral criticism of Edith. My worry about this, however, is that, even if we have reason to falsely claim that

¹² ‘Nasty’ is a ‘thick’ term. It has descriptive and evaluative content. The idea that the description and evaluation in such terms are separable is controversial, and Williams (1985: 130) himself held that they are inseparable. I can avoid taking a stand on this, for my point is that even if separation is possible it doesn’t help modest theorists.

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the Inglish have reason to behave differently, it is the wrong kind of reason to underwrite genuine moral criticism of them. We may have prudential reason to talk about a person or group in critical moral terms, but this isn’t the sort of reason that can make such criticism apt. And failure to offer the latter sort of reason seems to me much costlier than modest theorists suggest. Perhaps we have to bear this cost, but the costliness is not diminished by the fact that it is useful to talk about the Inglish in critical moral terms. I’ll return to this line of thought in §3.1.4. But for now I conclude that modest theorists gain little ground by identifying nonerroneous moral claims that we can make about the Inglish.

2.5.2 Enough Goes Even if we cannot say all that we’d like to say in criticising the Inglish, a localised error theory may still leave much of ordinary moral thought intact. Recall the idea that localising the error enables modest theorists to localise the instability. The claim is that we can isolate and reject the problematic elements of the moral domain, leaving the rest of it to be understood in modestly stance-dependent terms. We cannot criticise the Inglish in quite the way we would like to, but they are just one case. Most real-life misogynists have attitudes that would lead them to reject misogyny if they were rational, and we can criticise those people if they stay misogynistic, for their idealised attitudes give them reasons not to be. Unfortunately, however, the instability that I have identified won’t remain localised in the way this response requires. To see this, we must return again to the difference between stability charges and charges of extensional inadequacy. If the case of the Inglish only raised questions of extensional adequacy, then a localised error theory might deal with them. Failure to give the correct verdict in some marginal cases might cost a theory (at least if we adopt a conservative method), but, if it gives the right verdict in the majority of cases, then this may be a cost worth bearing. However, the Inglish do not only raise questions of extensional adequacy. My claim is that modest theories imply that we would have reason to be misogynistic if we became like the Inglish, and that this is destabilising. It undermines not just part of the moral domain but the whole thing, for it implies that nothing of normative significance turns on our living as we actually do rather than as the Inglish do. This serves to undercut the authority that morality is meant to have, for we might just as well adopt a deeply misogynistic way of life. Thus, by revealing the fragility of our reasons to reject misogyny, the Inglish case exposes the general fragility of our reasons as modest theorists interpret them. In short, one part of the moral domain cannot be destabilised without the whole thing being destabilised. The problem is not just that we are unable to say what we would like to say about the Inglish, but that their case reveals how modest theories fail to rule out the

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possibility that the moral facts applicable to beings like us can change in ways that should not be possible. Localising the error to some specific intuitions doesn’t localise the instability, or the general arbitrariness that this instability reveals. A possible reply here is that stability comes in degrees. After all, a tower may be more or less stable—it may be better or worse placed to withstand potential changes (of the kind that towers should be able to withstand) in its environment. So perhaps we can say that, although the localised error theory cannot stop a certain level of instability from applying to moral reality as a whole, it can at least ensure that this is a fairly low level of instability. That is, modest theorists might argue that there is plenty of normative significance hanging on our attitudes and reasons being as they are, and not like those of the Inglish, even if we and the Inglish belong to the same moral species. The thought here is that modest theories are not committed to the idea that anything goes from the moral point of view. That would be an intolerable normative instability, for it would suggest that nothing of normative significance hangs on any of our moral choices. However, because modest theorists suggest that ‘what goes’ for us is determined by our idealised attitudes, they can ensure that something of normative significance hangs on our choices. The point is that, even if moral reality is not maximally stable, and even if it is not as stable as we would like it to be, a localised error theory ensures that it remains stable enough to sustain ordinary moral practice. Now, I agree that stability comes in degrees, and that modest theories can avoid saying that anything goes. The question, therefore, is how much instability we can allow before we judge that enough goes for moral choices to be arbitrary in the sense of it making no normative difference whether we Φ or Ψ. What matters for the stability charge is not whether anything goes for a modest theorist, but whether enough goes. To clarify and answer this point, it will be helpful to return to the case of an ideally coherent Caligula. If modest theorists such as Street (2009) are right about this character’s psychology, then it is intuitively plausible (at least after reflection) that he has reasons to maximise the suffering of others. We might not like that he has such reasons, but we can accept it as a fact because he is more alien than human, and so has the reasons that an alien might have. Most importantly, this case is not destabilising. It is compatible with there being something of normative significance hanging on whether beings like us—that is, members of our moral species, with the features characteristic of ordinary human psychology—choose to prevent or maximise suffering if we are called upon to make such a choice. That is, it is normatively significant that we choose to prevent rather than maximise suffering, for such a choice reflects something about who we are and what we are like. We find that we identify with such choices, and that we draw meaning and purpose from being the sort of beings who have (at least some) compassion for others. Perhaps we can deal with the Inglish in the same way. The cases differ in that we and the Inglish belong to a single moral species, whilst Caligula is more alien than

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human. But if we actually now identify with a non-misogynistic way of life, or a way of life that involves combating misogyny, then we can note that we draw meaning from our being (and trying to be) non-misogynistic. Thus, as with the contrast between us and Caligula, we might insist that something of normative significance hangs on our being non-misogynistic, even if we also accept a localised error theory about the reasons of the Inglish. That is, the choice to be non-misogynistic reflects who we are and what we think, and is in that sense normatively significant to us. The problem with this, however, is that the Inglish may get the same sort of meaning and purpose from a misogynistic way of life. And in doing so they are no less human than us. The issue, then, is that modest theorists cannot say why something of normative significance hangs on our getting meaning from one way of life and not the other—something of normative significance does turn on whether we derive meaning from a misogynistic rather than a non-misogynistic way of life, but modest theories cannot say what this ‘something’ is. And once we reach this point I find it hard to agree that modest theorists capture enough of ordinary moral thought to offer a suitable level of stability for moral reality. It may not be that anything goes on their theory, but enough goes to seriously destabilise the moral facts. The lesson here is that a localised error theory fails as an answer to stability charges involving the idealised Inglish. The instability that is revealed by their case cannot be localised—it extends to the moral domain as a whole by implying that nothing of normative significance turns on whether we choose a non-misogynistic or a misogynistic way of life. And the degree of instability that this creates is too significant to secure the non-arbitrariness of moral choice. Put another way, since we and the Inglish belong to the same moral species, we face the choice between living as we do and living as they do. However, by the modest theorist’s lights, there is nothing of normative significance hanging on which of these choices we make. Something of normative significance intuitively does hang on this, however, so a localised error theory does not save the modest stance-dependence theorist from rendering moral choices normatively arbitrary in the sense outlined in the S principle.

2.6 Conclusion In this chapter I have argued that modest stance-dependence theorists cannot block the path from contingency to arbitrariness. But this is not the end for stancedependence theorists. More ambitious defenders of this outlook can try to account for the fact that the Inglish have reason to reject misogyny, and that something of normative significance does hang on whether we accept or reject their values. In the next chapter I outline and assess the most promising ambitious stancedependence theories.

3 Ambitious Stance-Dependence A stance-dependence theory is ambitious if it claims that at least some moral reasons are inescapable or agent-neutral. A major attraction of admitting such reasons into one’s moral ontology is that it makes space for us to argue that characters such as the Inglish have reason to reject misogyny. Of course, the challenge for ambitious theorists is to explain how inescapable and/or agentneutral reasons can derive solely from our attitudes, perspectives, relationships, and conventions, etc. In this chapter I’ll argue that the most promising efforts to meet this challenge fail. I don’t have a blockbuster argument that refutes every ambitious theory in one fell swoop, and I cannot hope to examine every ambitious theory here. I’ll thus focus on promising approaches that involve (more or less) generalisable argumentative strategies, in order to explain just how hard it is for ambitious theorists to capture the non-arbitrariness of moral choice. I’ll start by arguing that a stability charge (of the kind developed in Chapter 2) can be applied to five stance-dependent views of inescapability and/or agent-neutrality (§3.1). I’ll then consider the prospects of ambitious constitutivist theories. I’ll argue that some such theories are able to avoid the stability charge, but that they instead run into the normative deficit charge (§3.2). I’ll end by summarising what we have learned about stance-dependence theories, concluding that we have reason to explore the option of a stance-independent ontology (§3.3).

3.1 Borderline Cases Some stance-dependence theories are clearly modest, whilst others are clearly ambitious. But there are also borderline cases in which a theory gives us something in the vicinity of inescapable and/or agent-neutral normativity without it being immediately clear that the theory delivers the stability that is lacking in modest theories. In this section I explore five such cases, and argue that they do indeed fail to stabilise the moral facts.

3.1.1 Practical Necessity One way of thinking about inescapability involves the phenomenon of ‘practical necessity.’ This is Williams’ (1981b) term for cases in which one finds that one Robust Realism in Ethics: Normative Arbitrariness, Interpersonal Dialogue, and Moral Objectivity. Stephen Ingram, Oxford University Press. © Stephen Ingram 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198886488.003.0004

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must act in a certain way because no other option is compatible with one’s commitments or character. A nice illustration of this is the case of Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms—when asked if he stood by his alleged heresies, Luther refused to recant and is said to have ended his speech with the claim ‘here I stand, I can do no other.’ The idea that Williams has in mind involves Luther being incapable of recanting. Refusing to recant wasn’t simply the option that he favoured or thought best. It was practically necessary for him—all other courses of action were unavailable given his personality and his commitments. Put another way, his deepest values and beliefs meant that refusing to recant was inescapable for him. There is a clear motivational element to the phenomenon of practical necessity, but if our normative reasons derive from our attitudes—as Williams (1981a) believes—then we can view the inescapability involved in it as stancedependently normative. The question, then, is whether this conception of inescapability allows the stance-dependence theorist to avoid stability charges involving the Inglish. It may be tempting here to say that, if the rejection of misogyny is practically necessary for us, then the Inglish are no longer a problem because we cannot entertain their way of life. I do not know how many of us this practical necessity claim applies to, but even if an Inglish way of life is not one that we can choose given our moral commitments, this doesn’t change the fact that the Inglish are beings like us. It isn’t news that many of us have deep commitments that are at odds with Inglish values, and that we would be very different people if we came to share their values. (Similarly, we would be very different people if we became ideally coherent anti-misogynists.) The question is whether this would make us more alien than human. And it wouldn’t—as we have seen in Chapter 2, despite our various differences we and the Inglish belong to the same moral species. Thus, even if we don’t want to become like the Inglish, we could become like them and remain all too human. This is the sense in which Inglish life is an option for us, even if we presently find that we must reject it. For it is a way of life that beings like us can adopt. Suppose, moreover, that misogyny is itself practically necessary for the Inglish. There is nothing to stop appalling commitments giving rise to practical necessity as Williams interprets it (cf. Hampton 1998: 87). We thus have to acknowledge not just that we—that is, beings like us—could live as the Inglish do, but also that we could experience their way of life as practically necessary. So, practical necessity doesn’t help with the Inglish—if anything, it adds to the instability revealed by their case.

3.1.2 Systems of Rules For another way of understanding inescapability in stance-dependent terms, we can look to Philippa Foot’s views on the normativity involved in systems of rules.

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Foot (1972) argues that many ‘should’ and ‘ought’ claims continue to apply to an agent regardless of what that agent cares about, for these claims are supported not by the agent’s own attitudes, but by a system of socially instituted rules. Here is Foot: The club secretary who has told a member that he should not bring ladies into the smoking room does not say, ‘Sorry, I was mistaken’ when informed that this member is resigning tomorrow and cares nothing about his reputation in the club. Lacking a connection with the agent’s desires or interests, this ‘should’ does not stand ‘unsupported and in need of support’; it requires only the backing of the rule. (1972: 308–9)

The rules of a club are inescapable, in that they apply to club members regardless of their attitudes. And this extends to cases in which one has not deliberately signed up to the system of rules. For instance, the rules of etiquette continue to exist whatever your attitudes. Even if you don’t care about what etiquette demands, it is still true that you should (from the standpoint of etiquette) pass the port to the left. Foot sees morality as a system of socially instituted rules—most of us care more about ethics than etiquette, but an ethical claim can only be inescapable in the same way as a claim of etiquette. These cases of inescapability have the same structure. Does this view of inescapability help with the Inglish? It doesn’t, for the Inglish have a socially instituted system of rules recommending misogyny and, even if they should reject misogyny from the standpoint of our system of rules, it is also true that they should accept it from the standpoint of their system. Since the Inglish are beings like us, we can in principle come to endorse their misogynistic system without turning into a different moral species. There is thus a destabilising contingency in Foot’s view of morality as a system of (socially instituted) rules. It is worth emphasising that Foot (1972: 315) herself is undisturbed by the contingency in her view. She sees it as compatible with our continuing to care about liberty, equality, justice, and so on. But the concern about the Inglish isn’t that we will in fact lose our existing moral concerns. It is that, given the possibility of our becoming like the Inglish, the moral facts that are applicable to us are able to change in ways that shouldn’t be possible, or that we evaluate negatively. Foot’s view of morality and its inescapability thus fall foul of the stability charge as I’ve developed it.

3.1.3 Rigidification A third option for stance-dependence theorists involves treating moral terms as rigid designators. A rigid designator is a term that designates the very same entity

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for every possible world at which that entity exists (see Kripke 1980). If ‘right’ and ‘good’ (etc.) are rigid designators, then there is a sense in which stance-dependent moral truths are necessary and inescapable, for the referents of our moral terms will remain fixed across worlds. The rigidification move that is of interest here has been developed by Wiggins (1987a), Johnston (1989), Lewis (1989), Dreier (1990), and Jackson (1998: 143–4). It fixes the reference of a moral term on our actual attitudes—the claim is that what it is for something to be (say) wrong is fixed by what we actually judge to be wrong rather than what we could judge to be wrong. (The insight behind this is that ‘actually’ has a rigidifying function—see e.g. Lewis 1970.) If we rigidify moral terms on our actual attitudes, we seem to get a response to the stability charge. For in imagining that we become like the Inglish, we are imagining a world in which we have the misogynistic attitudes that they have. But if the meaning of ‘wrong’ is fixed on our actual attitudes, then a world in which we have Inglish attitudes is still a world in which misogyny is wrong (assuming that our actual attitudes give us reason to reject misogyny) because what is ‘wrong’ cannot vary from world to world. However, this doesn’t really get to the heart of the issue. Lewis, who is sympathetic to the rigidification strategy but sees that it doesn’t give us everything we want, makes this clear: The trick of rigidifying seems more to hinder the expression of our worry than to make it go away. It can still be expressed as follows. We might have been disposed to value seasickness and petty sleaze, and yet we might have been no different in how we use the word ‘value.’ The reference of ‘our actual dispositions’ would have been fixed on different dispositions, of course, but our way of fixing the reference would have been no different. In one good sense – though not the only good sense – we would have meant by ‘value’ just want we actually do. And it would have been true for us to say ‘seasickness and petty sleaze are values.’ (1989: 132–3)

By replacing claims about seasickness and sleaze with claims about the Inglish, we can thus see that this sort of rigidification doesn’t avoid the stability charge. The upshot is that we do have to take counterfactuals—such as those in which we become like the Inglish—into account as we assess a metaethical theory. The rigidification strategy offers a form of necessity, but not in a way that avoids the instability revealed by the Inglish.

3.1.4 Rhetorical Power Another approach to morality’s inescapability focuses on the rhetorical force of categorical, unconditional moral claims. The idea is that it is useful to be able to

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make moral claims that involve no reference to our attitudes (or conventions, etc.). For example, Dennett (1995: 506) and Joyce (2006: 111–12) emphasise the role of ‘conversation stoppers’—considerations that aim to bring moral deliberation and dialogue to an end, so that we are not paralysed by repeated calls for justification, or by the urge to endlessly reconsider our options. Examples include ‘but that’s wrong’ and ‘we must do this.’ These are conversational tools the point of which is to depict an act as being required with no ifs, ands, or buts. Relatedly, categorical moral claims are often assumed to play a motivational role. One idea here is that reasoning in categorical terms helps one to overcome weakness of will (see e.g. Joyce 2001: 211–28). But a more common suggestion is that categorical claims do rhetorical work for us in moral discourse—they play a role in coordinating moral attitudes (see e.g. Sinclair 2016; 2021: 216), and in encouraging others to act as we want them to act (see e.g. Finlay 2014: 180–8). The idea is that a categorical claim like ‘you must Φ,’ on which Φ-ing is depicted as being inescapably demanded of you, has more rhetorical power than statements like ‘I want you to Φ’ or ‘I demand that you Φ.’ Whereas the latter claims allow ‘so what?’ as a reply, the categorical claim does not.¹ Now, some philosophers hold that, since there are no categorical moral facts to back up this rhetoric, all categorical moral claims are mistaken (see e.g. Joyce 2006). Others, however, deny that categorical language needs any ontological backing—for instance, as Finlay (2014) sees it, categoricity is a pragmatic phenomenon. He suggests that the meaning of all normative statements involves their being somehow conditional on an end, but that in moral cases it is often pragmatically appropriate to omit the end from one’s moral claim so that it has greater rhetorical power.² This might seem to vindicate categorical moral language, for we can justify making moral claims in categorical, inescapable terms. Put another way, even if statements made in categorical terms are strictly false (there are no categorical moral facts to back them up), using such language is not a mistake. For we use it not to describe reality, but to serve our interest in motivating ourselves and others. Applying this to the Inglish, perhaps we can continue to insist that they ought to reject misogyny, even if they have no desires directly or indirectly supporting this end, for this puts rhetorical and psychological pressure on them to change their ways. I considered an idea similar to this in §2.5.1. In that case the claim was that, even if A has no (stance-dependent) reason to Φ, we have prudential reasons to falsely say that A has reason to Φ, and that this justifies certain kinds of moral

¹ Whether categorical claims really do have more force than explicit prescriptions or statements of desire is an empirical question. Note too that there can be costs as well as benefits to categorical language (see e.g. Garner 2007 and Ingram 2015a). ² Note that Finlay’s semantics isn’t stance-dependent—on his view, normative terms are relativised to ends, but ends are states of affairs that needn’t tie into our attitudes (and the like). It is in his pragmatics that stance-dependence enters Finlay’s picture, for here the desires and prescriptions of both a speaker and her audience are relevant to the pragmatic function of categorical language.

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criticism of A. My worry about this was that moral criticism isn’t apt if it is based purely on prudential grounds. For even if it is in our interests to speak in critical terms about a person or group, this doesn’t bear on whether they actually merit the criticism. I think that the same goes for an attempt to vindicate the use of categorical language in terms of our interests in using it to motivate people. It’s true that rhetorical and psychological pressure are familiar and often legitimate tools in moral discourse. Humans are not purely rational creatures, and we needn’t appeal only to reason when we seek to convince and motivate others. But for a categorical claim to be apt there must be more reason to make it than the fact that it serves our interest in motivating someone. For we employ categorical claims not just to motivate people, but to motivate them in the direction of what we actually take to be demanded of them. If there is no sound basis for thinking that the target of one’s categorical claim really is subject to the demand that it communicates, then the claim is not really merited. The fact that it would move them to act in a way we would like them to act may still be a reason to make the claim, but it is the wrong kind of reason. Compare it to a case in which an evil demon threatens you with severe punishment unless you issue a categorical moral claim to some other agent. This is a reason to issue the claim, but it doesn’t make the claim apt. For it is the wrong kind of reason—that it is in your interests to make the claim does not bear on the demands to which the target of that claim is subject. In a similar vein, your interest in motivating some agent may give you a reason to issue them with a categorical claim, but this interest does not bear on the moral demands to which the agent is subject. It is thus the wrong kind of reason to make a categorical moral claim. The significance of this here is that categorical language cannot be vindicated just by appeal to its rhetorical power—unless characters like the Inglish are also bound by categorical moral facts, we make an error when we issue them with a categorical moral claim. Perhaps it is an error that we have prudential reasons to make, but it is nevertheless an error. This is grist to the mill of philosophers like Joyce (2006), who emphasise the rhetorical force of categorical claims in order to explain why we make such claims even though they are actually erroneous. But it is a problem for philosophers (like Finlay, as I read him) who take it both to explain and vindicate categorical language. For it is the wrong kind of vindication.³ It thus doesn’t give us a way to stabilise the moral domain, for even if it serves our interests to be able to issue categorical moral claims to the Inglish, such claims are

³ Note here that I am not simply insisting that this approach gives us ‘the wrong kind of categoricity.’ Finlay (2014: 194–7) rightly argues that it would beg the question to just assume that we’re after something metaphysical rather than purely pragmatic. However, what I have argued is that prudential considerations (in themselves) offer the wrong kind of reason to make categorical moral claims. This does mean that the purely pragmatic approach gives us the wrong kind of categoricity (at least if we aim to vindicate rather than just to explain categorical language). But that is a conclusion at which I have arrived, not a premise that I have simply assumed.

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in error unless they can be backed up by categorical moral facts. Without this, categorical claims don’t necessarily involve the Inglish being subject to antimisogynistic moral constraints. And this means that we wouldn’t be subject to such constraints if we were to become like the Inglish. That’s the basis of the stability charge. To vindicate categoricity we thus need to look beyond rhetorical factors, and beyond what it serves our interests to be able to say.

3.1.5 Moral Grammar The final line of thought that I wish to consider in this section involves the ‘grammar’ of the moral language game. The notion of ‘grammar’ at play here is Wittgensteinian. It thus doesn’t just refer to rules of correct syntax, but to the more general idea of a system of rules governing the linguistic moves that a speaker can intelligibly make—as Wittgenstein himself puts it, the grammar of a natural language “has somewhat the same relation to the language as the description of a game, the rules of a game, have to the game” (1974: §23). Put another way, the grammar of a linguistic practice is the set of norms that constitutes and regulates participation in that practice. These grammatical rules are determined by the way the linguistic community—the participants in the language game— collectively use its words, concepts, and other such items in the game. The significance of this for us is that it encourages a certain way of thinking about morality’s inescapability. The idea is developed most pertinently by Peg O’Connor, but versions of it appear in many places.⁴ O’Connor sees grammatical rules as giving “the standard against which to judge the permissibility or meaningfulness of a particular move” in the language game (2008: 91). There are thus standards of correctness in the moral language game by which we can judge a person’s conduct and character (and the like). To the charge that we may simply opt out of the moral language game, O’Connor says the following: The language-games of morality are not optional. Even though I may choose no longer to identify with or believe in certain moral judgments and concepts, I myself have little control over the fact that others treat me as a moral being. Others will continue to interact and treat me in morally relevant ways. Morality is inescapable within our shared ways of living. Morality is an integral dimension or weave in our complicated forms of life. (2008: 86–7)

⁴ E.g. Hampshire makes reference to “a kind of grammar of conduct” (1978: 13), and Lovibond (1980: 63–5) is sympathetic to certain ways of developing this point. See also Kallenberg (2001) and Christensen (2018). For related metaethical claims that place less emphasis on the notions of grammar and language games see e.g. Walker (2007) and Jaggar and Tobin (2013a; 2013b).

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Since the moral language game is inescapable, and since it is governed by certain grammatical rules, what we seem to have here is an account of inescapable moral rules that avoids a stance-independent ontology. Moreover, participants in the moral language game can be more or less competent with its grammar, and will sometimes need to be instructed in it. Children are a relatively innocent example of those who need such instruction. Perhaps the Inglish are a less innocent example. Crucially, O’Connor thinks that we can engage with people whose moral attitudes are mistaken (given the rules of the moral language game) in ways that encourage them to conform to the moral grammar. In other words, by interacting with such people, and by treating them in certain ways, we engage in a socialisation process that, as O’Connor puts it, “eliminates individuals’ peculiarities of judgments” (2008: 110). If this is correct, we appear to have an account of morality that gives us a basis on which to criticise the Inglish, as well as a basis on which to try to change their ways. One thing that makes this proposal particularly interesting is that Wittgensteinians acknowledge (and in fact emphasise) the ways in which the rules of a grammar are arbitrary. In this they are following Wittgenstein (e.g. 1953: §497; 1974: §133) himself—he insisted that grammars have no ‘ultimate’ justification, and stressed that alternative grammars are possible. The latter point makes the view vulnerable to a stability charge, but we should note that Wittgensteinians also insist on a sense in which grammatical rules are non-arbitrary. For instance, although O’Connor (2008: 92–5) is on board with the claim that our moral grammar is in certain respects arbitrary, she also says that there are constraints on the grammatical rules that humans can adopt, and maintains that this is enough to stabilise moral reality.⁵ In particular, O’Connor (2008: 95–100) thinks that these constraints involve human nature (i.e. our cognitive and perceptual capacities, as well as the ways in which we naturally tend to respond to certain stimuli), practices and traditions, along with the fact that we live in environments governed by the same empirical regularities. These constraints ensure that there is no easy or immediate way to change the moral grammar that applies to us, and that we cannot escape these moral rules just by disavowing them. The problem with this is that it doesn’t help us with the Inglish. We and the Inglish are subject to some of the same constraints (given our biological nature as humans, and given that we are Earthlings who encounter the same empirical regularities). Where we diverge is in our social practices and traditions. And, as we’ve seen, it is possible for our practices and traditions to become like those of the Inglish without this turning us into an alien moral species. These changes might have to be gradual, for O’Connor (2008: 155) is right to say that we cannot change moral grammar at will. But we can imagine it changing over time, and without ⁵ O’Connor (2008: 11–15, 61–87) uses the image of stability in connection with the notion of nonarbitrariness, though her use of the term is not identical to mine.

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anyone deliberately aiming to make such changes. In this way the moral grammar that we operate with could come to reflect Inglish values. Constraints deriving from our existing attitudes, relations, and traditions simply do not rule this out, for there is plenty of implicit and explicit misogyny to be found in these. Becoming like the Inglish would simply involve building on the more negative elements of our existing practice.⁶ In sum, Wittgensteinian claims about the grammatical rules of our moral language game are not sufficient to stabilise the moral facts. Wittgensteinians like O’Connor suggest that our grammatical rules are at once arbitrary and nonarbitrary, but the case of the Inglish suggests that it is not possible to deliver nonarbitrariness in these terms. More generally, we have so far seen five apparently ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful efforts to get stance-dependent accounts of inescapability or agent-neutrality. In the next section I consider the type of ambitious theory that, in my view, is best placed to give an answer to the stability charge.

3.2 Constitutivism The type of theory in question is constitutivism. What members of the constitutivist family of theories have in common is the suggestion that all substantive moral (or normative) reasons to act in some way derive from formal facts about the nature of action or agency.⁷ The idea is that a commitment to certain moral attitudes and norms is constitutive of (rational, ideal, or ‘full-blooded’) agency— having those attitudes and following those norms is part of what it is to be an agent. Reasons that derive from such attitudes or norms thus apply to all agents regardless of their idiosyncratic inclinations. These reasons are agent-neutral— even characters like the Inglish have them by virtue being agents. I will first outline the most promising constitutivist views, arguing that some (not all) avoid the stability charge (§3.2.1). I’ll then suggest that even constitutivists who avoid the stability charge are unable to capture the non-arbitrariness of moral choice, for they are vulnerable to normative deficit charges (§3.2.2). I’ll identify areas in which it is hard to see how constitutivists can answer moral questions that need answering, given that their answers must ultimately trace back to what is constitutive of agency.⁸ ⁶ For this reason, the Inglish will not be unintelligible to us in the way that O’Connor (2008: 102), following Stroud (1965: 512), claims that woodsellers who sell wood by the area it covers rather than a cubic measure (Wittgenstein 1967: §149) would be. ⁷ As we’ll see in §5.2, constitutivist ideas can be developed without a focus on what it is to act or be an agent, but for now my focus is on the more standard approach. ⁸ Note that I won’t be appealing to Enoch’s (2006) shmagency objection. Although it is the standard critique of constitutivism, it consists in a sophisticated version of the bruteness charge or the privilege charge. It is therefore dialectically ineffective in the same way as those charges (see §2.2). The normative deficit charge has greater force in the present dialectical context.

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3.2.1 Constitutivist Claims Standard constitutivist theories are united by the idea that formal facts about agency entail substantive facts about what we have moral reason to do. But they are divided over what these substantive moral facts are, and over the precise formal facts that do the entailing. Let’s begin with David Velleman’s version of constitutivism. This will be instructive, for Velleman’s theory fails to avoid the stability charge. It will thus help us to see what ambitious constitutivists have to do to avoid the instability in other stance-dependence theories. Note first that, for Velleman, the constitutive aim of action is intelligibility to oneself.⁹ On this view, an action is a bodily movement occasioned by a belief about what one will do (i.e. about what it is in one’s character to do in these circumstances) and the aim of being intelligible to oneself. Failing to Φ whilst believing that you will Φ undercuts your conception of yourself as someone who is going to Φ, and thus makes you less intelligible to yourself. Velleman thus argues that the “criterion of correctness of action is intelligibility, because intelligibility is its constitutive aim” (2009: 134). On this view, reasons to act are simply considerations on the basis of which an action counts as intelligible, that is, as flowing from one’s self-understanding. We thus have something agent-neutral at the heart of this view, for an agent’s reasons are ultimately sourced in her desire for intelligibility—a desire that is not particular to her, but is constitutive of agency itself. Velleman suggests that, given all this, there is ‘rational pressure’ on an agent to act morally. This is because the aim of intelligibility to oneself is (allegedly) best facilitated in a way of life that is intelligible to others too. This in turn leads rational agents to coordinate with others, and to settle upon ways of life that are universal, transparent, and mutually agreeable. I doubt, however, that Velleman’s constitutivism is sufficient to stabilise morality. After all, the self-conceptions of Inglish agents are such that they would become unintelligible to themselves if they were to relinquish their misogyny. And, given that the Inglish share in their misogynistic way of life, Inglish agents will easily be able to coordinate with one another, and will remain mutually intelligible, without having to give up their misogyny. (This also doesn’t make them unintelligible to us, given how we are alike.) Of course, Velleman recognises that we can have reason to change our way of life—he argues that “figuring out how to live is a process of trial and error, in which the trials are what Mill called experiments in living” (2009: 83). But it seems possible that the Inglish, having tried a non-misogynistic way of life, could revert to misogyny without thereby becoming less intelligible to themselves and others. In short, Velleman’s version of constitutivism cannot stabilise the moral domain against the Inglish. It is thus ⁹ The following is a very brief summary of claims developed in detail by Velleman in his (1989; 2000; 2009).

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vulnerable to a stability charge, and is poorly placed to vindicate the nonarbitrariness of moral choice.¹⁰ However, other constitutivist theories do well with the stability charge. For instance, Korsgaard’s (2009) Kantian constitutivism starts with the idea that human agents are self-conscious rational animals—rather than just following our inclinations, as non-human animals do, we are able to reflectively endorse or veto our inclinations. This means that, as rational agents, we face a certain problem. Inclinations are the potential grounds of our actions, so the fact that we can question them means that we are one step removed from the grounds of our actions. That is, the capacity for rationality divides the agent’s self. Korsgaard’s constitutivism is geared towards solving this problem of the disunified self. Her suggestion is that the constitutive goal of reflective action is self-constitution. In deliberating and acting you determine yourself as the cause of some effect, and Korsgaard thinks that by deliberating and acting on the basis of self-legislated universal principles you can avoid inner disunity. Deliberation and action need a principle (an ‘I shall Φ’), and Korsgaard thinks that agents must identify with this principle. The basis for this is Kantian—Korsgaard thinks that “determining yourself to be a cause is not the same as being moved by something within you, say some desire or impulse” (2009: 72). Something further is needed, “something which is you, and which chooses which incentive to act on” (2009: 75). You thus have to identify with the principle on which you act, seeing it as an expression of your identity—as a law that you adopt as a way to settle what to do. Moreover, these self-legislated principles must be universalised, according to Korsgaard, because the alternative simply “eradicates the distinction between a person and the incentives on which he acts” (2009: 76). That is, if you don’t will universally then you are just a bunch of disunified inclinations. You are determined by desires that can change from moment to moment. You don’t determine yourself by committing to act in certain sorts of way in certain sorts of situation. One concern about this is the ‘empty formalism’ objection (first put by Hegel), which says that the commitment to universalising lacks substantive moral implications. It provides the form that deliberation must take, but this leaves the content of deliberation—the factors that may or may not in fact be reasons— wide open. Korsgaard answers this by arguing that, to unify your self, you must will laws not only for your present self but for every rational being: [U]nless the laws that you make now bind you at other times and in other situations, and unless the laws that you know you would make at other times and in other situations bind you now, they won’t hold you together into a unit after ¹⁰ Velleman (2013) develops a form of moral relativism, so maybe his constitutivism isn’t intended to be as ambitious as it sometimes seems.

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all. And in order to do that, the reasons that you legislate must be public. So the laws have to be laws for every rational being, laws whose normative force can be shared. (2009: 214)

There is more to Korsgaard’s argument, but the claim is that agents are rationally required not only to will their maxims universally, but also to will maxims that can be laws for all rational beings. Put another way, they are committed to recognising all rational beings as fellow ends in themselves who are bound by the same laws. If we accept this, we seem to derive substantive moral content from the formal nature of rational agency. And, crucially, we seem to get a way to deny that Inglish agents have reason to be misogynistic, for their misogynistic maxims won’t be universalisable in Korsgaard’s sense. They won’t be laws for all rational beings. In sum, if Korsgaard is right about what it is to be an agent, then she is able to avoid the stability charge. The moral law binds all rational agents, so it would continue to bind us even if we came to have Inglish attitudes. And since we cannot escape our status as agents—Korsgaard says that this is our plight, that we are condemned to choice, and that reflective choice is a “simple inexorable fact of the human condition” (2009: 2)—this seems to supply us with inescapable and agentneutral normativity. Of course, we might question Korsgaard’s account of what it is to be an agent, and defenders of the shmagency objection will say that agency is escapable in the sense that we can (without irrationality) begrudge or refuse to internalise the aim of self-unification. But this is a powerful way for stancedependence theorists to answer the stability charge. Smith (1994; 2013a; 2015) offers a different constitutivist view that also does well against the stability charge. His starting point is the idea that there is an analytic link between the concept of a reason and our function qua agents. According to Smith, an agent’s basic function is to realise its desires, and agents can do better or worse at performing this function. An ideal agent, then, is an agent who does optimally well at realising her desires. Smith thinks that, to be such an agent, one will need two core agential capacities: first, the capacity to gain knowledge of the world that is relevant to how one might satisfy one’s desires, and, second, the capacity for instrumental rationality (so that one is able to take the necessary means to satisfying one’s desires). These are the two core conditions of ideal agency, but Smith maintains that various other conditions follow from them. In particular, an agent must have certain regulatory desires in order to optimally realise her other desires. That is, the two core agential capacities might conflict, so an ideal agent will need what Smith (2015) terms ‘dominant coherence-inducing desires.’ For instance, she will need a dominant desire not to interfere with her ability to know the world as it is (so as to avoid forming false beliefs if doing so helps to satisfy one of her desires). She also needs a dominant desire not to interfere with the current exercise of her ability to realise her intrinsic desires. Moreover, because she exists over time, the ideal agent needs a dominant desire

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not to interfere with the desires of her future self. She must want to cohere with herself not only at a time, but also across time. Crucially, Smith suggests that the ideal agent will not only have this dominant desire to cohere with her future self, but also with other presently existing agents. For to be fully consistent, treating like cases alike, an ideal agent must think of others as on a par with her future self. So, just as she will want to avoid interfering with the desires of her own future self, she will also want to avoid interfering with the desires of other rational agents—in short, she will want to respect their autonomy. Smith thus suggests that we can derive substantive moral truths from (allegedly) analytic truths about the nature of agency. If reasons come from the desires of our ideal selves, and if a desire to respect the autonomy of others is one that all ideally rational agents will have, then there is agent-neutral reason to respect the autonomy of others. Smith (2013a) also thinks that we can derive other elements of morality from this. Consider, for example, promise-keeping: [S]uppose a young man promises to meet his friend at the movies, and she turns up at the agreed time, but he fails to show up . . . because he just didn’t feel like going when the time came. What is the wrong that he does, exactly? . . . The young man knowingly interferes with his friend’s exercise of her capacity to have knowledge of the world in which she lives, as he led her quite reasonably to believe, falsely, that he would be at the movie, and he also knowingly interferes with her exercise of her capacity to realize her desires, as he led her to form that belief knowing that she would act on her desire to spend the evening with him, a desire that she had no chance of realizing, given that he wouldn’t be there. (2013a: 27)

Similar arguments can be made, according to Smith, for principles that prohibit lying, manipulation, cheating, disloyalty, and free-riding. Like promising, these involve creating and then disappointing expectations in a way that prevents another person from (optimally) exercising their agency. Smith (2013a: 28) also thinks that respect for autonomy leads to our having reason to help others in developing (or rebuilding) their capacity for knowledge and desire-satisfaction, and that this generates many of the duties that parents have to their children, and many of our social and political duties (e.g. to create a decent, accessible education system). In a moment I’ll suggest that, despite its resourcefulness, there are normative deficits in this constitutivist theory. But if Smith is right about what it is to be an agent, then he can at least answer the stability charge. Given how Inglish culture treats women, its agents and social institutions will inevitably and repeatedly interfere with their agency. The requirement not to do this is agent-neutral, so it applies to Inglish agents as much as anyone (even if they do not care about disrespecting women’s autonomy). Thus, even if we came to have the attitudes

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of the Inglish, we would still be required to avoid misogyny. The moral facts that apply to us therefore cannot change so as to require misogyny—a constitutivist theory like Smith’s implies that such a change is just not possible. In sum, at least some forms of constitutivism avoid the stability charge. Unlike most other stance-dependence theories, these forms of constitutivism do not entail that our moral choices are arbitrary in the sense at work in that charge. It is worth noting that, in order to achieve this result, constitutivists like Korsgaard and Smith have to build a lot into their accounts of what it is to be an agent. In the next section I will argue that, even when we grant them their controversially ‘thick’ views on the nature of agency, they still leave us with problematic normative deficits.

3.2.2 Constitutivist Deficits A theory faces the normative deficit charge if it fails to give us all of the guidance that we need. The charge only applies to those theories—like constitutivism—that purport to derive all substantive moral facts from formal facts about agency (or whatever). The charge is that this is too slender a basis on which to answer all of the moral questions to which an answer is needed. Without moral facts that exist independently of agency, these moral questions can only be answered in a way that lacks sufficient justification, and is in that way arbitrary. Of course, different constitutivist theories may have different deficits. I’ll focus here on two potential areas of deficit that can be applied to a range of constitutivist theories.

Relational Reasons If constitutivists are right about the nature of moral normativity, then all of your moral reasons to act must be traceable back to your agency. But there is something odd, I think, about the idea that what I owe to you is ultimately to be understood in terms of facts about me. To bring this out, let’s consider cases in which you do something that gives me moral reason to act in some way. This kind of ‘reasongiving,’ as Enoch (2011b; 2014a) calls it, is a familiar aspect of moral life. For instance, we give and receive reasons through our requests, invitations, orders, agreements, contracts, apologies, confessions, acts of atonement, and so on. I think that constitutivists will struggle to account for all of our given and received reasons. We must be careful about how we spell this out, for the most plausible theory of reason-giving—the theory offered by Enoch (2011b; 2014a)—is one on which the reason-giver ‘activates’ (Enoch uses the term ‘triggers’) a preexisting conditional reason that the reason-receiver already had. In some cases this pre-existing reason may plausibly be traced back to the reason-receiver’s agency (i.e. to her own desires, or her agent-neutral attitudinal commitments). Consider, for example, a pedestrian who steps onto the road and (thereby) gives an

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approaching driver a reason to hit the brakes (see Enoch 2011b: 4). Smith might argue that the driver’s pre-existing conditional reason (to hit the brakes if a pedestrian steps onto the road) rests on the general requirement to respect autonomy (which Smith sees as deriving from what it is to be an agent), because crashing one’s car into a pedestrian tends to interfere with their ability to exercise their agential capacities. And Korsgaard might suggest that the driver’s preexisting conditional reason falls out of a law that every rational being has to endorse, for a maxim that permits causing avoidable physical harm to a fellow agent is not universalisable. In sum, constitutivists like Smith and Korsgaard can reasonably claim to capture some of our given reasons by deriving the corresponding pre-existing conditional reasons from the nature of agency. One might hope that this line of thought will generalise to all of our given reasons, for more complex cases of reason-giving still involve the activation of a pre-existing conditional reason. For instance, if I ask you to read a draft paper that I am writing, my request gives you reason to read it even if you had no such reason before (it is a mediocre paper on an issue that bores you). This case is more complex than that of the pedestrian and the driver, for your reason to read my paper is the fact that I asked you to do so (Enoch 2011b: 16), whilst the driver’s reason to hit the brakes is (something like) the fact that failing to do this would violate the pedestrian’s autonomy, or cause them an avoidable physical harm. However, even in the more complex case of requests, where the (fact of the) reason-giver’s act is itself the reason-receiver’s reason, the process of reason-giving still consists in the activation of a conditional reason (Enoch 2011b: 10). If my request gives you a reason to read my paper, it is because you have pre-existing reason to Φ if I ask you to Φ (within certain limits, within certain contexts, etc.). So, to account for reason-giving without leaving a normative deficit, constitutivists must capture all of our pre-existing conditional reasons. The question, then, is not whether constitutivists can capture the general process by which one agent gives a reason to another. It is whether they can derive all of the conditional reasons that feature in this process from the nature of agency. My worry is that constitutivists lack the resources to do this, for their bottom line is an individual’s agency, and reason-giving often has an inherently relational basis. One can give oneself reason to Φ (e.g. by promising to Φ—cf. Enoch 2011b: 2), but many forms of reason-giving rest upon the relationships that exist between two or more agents. And the nature of the relationship is essential to the existence and strength of the pre-existing conditional reasons that those agents have in regard to each other. With requests, for example, the relationship between the requester and requestee makes a big difference to the existence, limits, and strength of the requestee’s reason to Φ if the requester asks her to Φ. Consider: a complete stranger has a pre-existing reason to move out of my path if I ask her to do so, but she has no such reason to read my paper, or to give me a lift into town, or to assist me in moving house. My colleagues have pre-existing reason read my paper if I ask them

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to, but a colleague who has become a mentor to me has stronger reason to do so than those who haven’t. None of my colleagues have pre-existing reason to agree to my request for a prostate exam, but my GP plausibly does. This seems obvious, but the importance of it lies in the fact that the existence, content, and weight of our pre-existing conditional reasons is due not just to facts about the agent who has the reason, but also to facts about a relationship in which they stand with another agent. A’s reason to Φ if B asks her to Φ is conditional not only on B’s asking, but also on how A and B are related to each other. Your reason to read my paper isn’t just that I asked you, but that I asked you. The relationship between the ‘I’ and the ‘you’ is a crucial part of the conditional reason. In short, your reason to Φ if I ask you to Φ is grounded not just in your agency, but in our relationship. The ultimate foundation of this reason is not simply your status as an agent, but our shared status as friends, lovers, or co-workers (etc.). The constitutivist claim that one’s moral reasons to act all trace back to one’s status as an agent therefore results in a normative deficit, because not all of our reasons have their source in individual agency. This view fails to supply the relationally realised reasons found in many cases of reason-giving, and so gives us nothing to say in response to normative questions that we answer by appeal to such reasons. Choices that we make in answer to such questions thus lack justification, and are in that sense arbitrary by the constitutivist’s lights. A possible reply to this (riffing on Smith’s view of promising) is that A’s relationship with B is relevant only insofar as it creates certain expectations in B, including an expectation that A will treat certain of B’s requests as reasongiving. A then violates B’s autonomy if she fails to meet this expectation. The idea here is that A and B’s relationship is secondary to the actual basis of A’s reason to Φ if B asks her to Φ, which is A’s reason to respect B’s autonomy (which, constitutivists can argue, is based in A’s agency). Their relationship just shapes the exact way in which A may or may not violate B’s autonomy (given what B expects of her). This has some initial plausibility in the case of requests, for here expectations do appear to affect what one agent can legitimately ask of another—we have different expectations, and thus can make different requests of, friends, lovers, colleagues, and complete strangers. But it’s less clear that this response works in every other case of reason-giving. For instance, my repentance gives you a reason to forgive me for some wrong that I have done you, whether or not I have any reason to expect that you will treat it as such. There is something morally dubious about expecting the victim of one’s wrongdoing to treat one’s repentance as a reason to forgive, even if they have done this before, and even if they are a friend. Our friendship may give rise to a repentance-based reason for you to forgive me, but you do not violate my autonomy by failing to treat my repentance as a reason to forgive. (Nor, incidentally, are you rationally committed to endorsing the maxim of treating repentance as a reason to forgive as a universal law for every rational

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being—there is nothing contradictory about failing to will such a law.) However, the deeper worry about this response is that even in the case of requests it doesn’t actually account for the reasons that we are trying to capture. It may show that there is a reason, deriving from A’s status as an agent, for A to treat requests from B as a reason to act, but that isn’t what we were looking for. That there is a reason for A to treat B’s request as a reason is not identical to B’s request being a reason. Nor is it identical to A’s having a conditional reason to Φ if B asks her to Φ— conditional reasons are not reasons to treat certain considerations as reasons, but reasons that are only active in certain conditions. The constitutivist’s resources thus seem insufficient to deliver the reasons found in many cases of reason-giving. To avoid a normative deficit, we must therefore posit reasons to act that don’t depend solely on what is constitutive of agency. Perhaps stance-dependence theories other than constitutivism can supply these relational reasons. It may even be straightforward for some of the theories discussed in §3.1—social relations are central in O’Connor’s appeal to moral grammar, as well as in Foot’s appeal to the normativity of socially instituted systems of rules, and Finlay’s appeal to the rhetorical force of categorical language. However, I have already rejected those views, so it would be little consolation if they can avoid constitutivism’s deficit. But note that a realist ontology can account for relational reasons. Realists can say that A’s pre-existing reason to Φ if B asks her to Φ is partly grounded in the stance-independent fact that agents who are related in a certain way (the way instanced by A and B) have such a reason. For realists, the task of spelling out our relational reasons belongs to first-order normative theory, but a commitment to stance-independence allows them to avoid constitutivism’s normative deficit.

Within the Permissible The second potential area of deficit that I wish to discuss is particularly pressing for Kantian constitutivist theories—that is, theories that seek to derive one or another version of the Categorical Imperative from the nature of agency. These views face a normative deficit charge because, although they give us a way to determine whether an act is obligatory, forbidden, or permissible, they do not do enough to guide the choices we must make between the wide range of options that are permissible for us. I’ll make this point in relation to Korsgaard’s influential defence of Kantian constitutivism, but the idea can be adapted to other Kantian theories too (e.g. those of O’Neill 1989 and Engstrom 2013). The basic point is that, whilst an account of our reasons to act should leave some things up to an agent’s discretion, Kantian constitutivism fails to offer adequate normative guidance on how agents are to choose between the various acts, projects, and practical identities that one can permissibly pursue. The discretionary aspect of Korsgaard’s theory involves the idea that, in the process of self-constitution, one can choose from countless ‘practical identities.’

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A practical identity is a description under which you value yourself. Your practical identities may include, for example, being a parent, being a businesswoman, and being a dog person, etc. A practical identity is a source of reasons to act (e.g. adopting the identity of ‘parent’ gives you reason to look after your children), and many such identities can permissibly be chosen (or endorsed, if they were in some way inherited rather than being chosen). Some practical identities are no doubt required or ruled out by morality. As we’ve seen, Korsgaard is with Kant in saying that one must value humanity, including in one’s own person, as an end in itself. And morality will forbid valuing oneself as, say, a liar. However, as Tom O’Shea (2015: 1159) suggests, between what is obligatory and forbidden a great deal is permitted. The charge facing Korsgaard is that her theory fails to offer adequate guidance on choices made within the set of permissible practical identities. It’s not that no guidance is available here, for internal unity demands that our practical identities are consistent, and this will shape the combinations of identity that an agent can rationally choose. O’Shea, however, thinks that, this aside, Korsgaard’s theory fails to guide decisions made within the permissible. The risk here, O’Shea suggests, is that the Kantian will end up in the same boat as the Humean, for whom “practical reason is held hostage to what we simply happen to care about rather than being able to help us work out what that should be” (2015: 1160). In a similar vein Donald Regan (2002: 275) holds that, by Korsgaard’s lights, once the demands of morality and consistency are met, an agent’s choice of projects can only be determined by ‘arbitrary self-launching.’ For there is nothing else to guide the agent on how to choose among permissible projects. It seems that what is needed here is a way to ensure that, among the many permissible projects and practical identities, some are more advisable or sensible for a particular agent than others. The normative deficit charge issued by Regan and O’Shea is that Korsgaard lacks the resources to accommodate this. Her theory tells us that one must unify the self, but has too little to say about how one should do that. I think that Regan and O’Shea actually underestimate the resources available to Korsgaard here, but I’ll ultimately agree that her theory is unable to capture the normative contours that exist within the permissible. Note first that Korsgaard’s (2009: 210) proposal for how one is to go about unifying one’s own self involves a role for desires and desire-like states. She just thinks that we have to be careful about how we treat this role. Korsgaard suggests that we should not think of desire as the source of value, but that it is fine for agents to be guided by desire when choosing among valuable identities and projects. So, one’s reasoning should not be: ‘I want my book to be required reading, so I will write a good book as a means to my end.’ It should instead be: ‘someone ought to write a book on Kant that is good enough to be required reading, and I want to be that someone.’ (This example is Korsgaard’s.) This seems to give a Kantian role for desires in practical life—on this view, desires are not what makes an identity valuable or good, but they enable one to choose between the identities and projects that there

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is reason for someone to adopt. Korsgaard therefore has an account of how to choose within the permissible. The question is whether it is enough to avoid a normative deficit. I am sceptical, for I think that there are practical identities that are of value (in that there is reason for someone to adopt them), that I can permissibly adopt, but that are inadvisable for me to adopt even if they are what I desire most. To illustrate, let’s suppose that Felix wants to be a therapist. This is clearly a valuable practical identity—it is good for some people to be therapists. We can stipulate that Felix’s desire to be a therapist is consistent with his many other desires, identities, and projects—he can want to be a therapist, and he can pursue a career as a therapist, without disunifying his agency. If he has any identities that are inconsistent with being a therapist, then reflection will lead him to repudiate them. Given this, we can agree that Felix has some reason to pursue a career as a therapist, for it is a valuable practical identity that he can permissibly choose. Nevertheless, it may also be inadvisable for Felix to choose this practical identity. If he is in some ways ill-suited to being a therapist, then he has a reason (perhaps a strong one) to avoid this job. To clarify, by ‘inadvisable’ I don’t just mean that such a choice would be imprudent, for given his ends it would in fact be prudent (in the traditional Kantian sense) for Felix to pursue a career as a therapist (i.e. this will realise his ends). The idea is that his being ill-suited to the job is a strong (albeit defeasible) reason for him to avoid this identity, even though it is permissible for him, and is what he most desires. The worry is that it’s unclear where this reason not to be a therapist comes from for Korsgaard. Being a therapist isn’t forbidden by the moral law, and it is in fact a valuable way of life. If choices among permissible and valuable identities can be guided by inclinations, then it is unclear why Felix’s being ill-suited to a permissible and valuable identity to which he is strongly inclined can be a reason not to adopt it. We may suppose here that there is nothing in Felix’s will to guide him away from being a therapist, for, even if he knows that he is in certain ways ill-suited to the job, this doesn’t force him to be even somewhat inclined against it. This leads to a normative deficit charge against Korsgaard’s version of constitutivism. By giving a role to inclinations, her Kantian view offers some guidance within the permissible. But it does not deliver all of the guidance that we expect, for it fails to capture the fact that one can have strong reasons to avoid a permissible, valuable, and coherently desired identity. There are replies that Korsgaard could try here. One idea is that, although being a therapist is certainly not forbidden by the moral law, Felix’s being one is forbidden given that he is ill-suited to the job. This might be plausible if the ways in which he is ill-suited to the job would lead him to break the moral law, but that needn’t be the case. It needn’t be that he would harm or deceive his clients, for example. It might just be that he finds it tiring to listen to others’ problems, and that he will struggle to stay on top of the paperwork that therapists must do. These

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facts alone don’t make it impermissible for Felix to be a therapist, and they needn’t provide any will-derived reason for him to not be one. For Felix may know these things about himself without it making him even somewhat inclined against a career in therapy. Another possible reply appeals to Kant’s claim that one has a duty to develop one’s talents—perhaps Felix fails in this duty given that he has little talent for therapy. However, when Kant argues that we have such a duty, it is because he thinks that we ought to try to live lives that are of use, rather than living for “idleness, amusement, and pleasure” (1785: §4.423). Even if being a therapist stops Felix from developing his talents, he isn’t choosing a life of pleasure over a life in which he seeks to be of use. In any case, a duty to develop one’s talents is not the same as a duty to avoid that for which one lacks talent. Even if we should develop our talents, that Felix has little talent for therapy is not a reason to avoid it if he also develops his talents. In sum, although Felix does have a reason to pursue a career as a therapist, he also has a (strong) reason to avoid such a career. This is so even though being a therapist is a valuable practical identity that he (coherently) wants to adopt, and even though it is permissible for him to adopt it. The issue for Korsgaard’s version of Kantian constitutivism is that it cannot capture this reason. Within the category of permissible identities, she cannot distinguish between those that are advisable for me to adopt and those I coherently want to adopt. Of course, many of the identities that I coherently want to adopt are also advisable for me to adopt, and often because I want to adopt them. But we have seen that, as a normative constraint, the (in)advisable is not identical to the (un)desired. Korsgaard thus cannot capture the inadvisable as it exists within the permissible, meaning that there is a normative deficit in her theory. Choices made in answer to certain normative questions fail to count as non-arbitrary by the lights of her theory, for it cannot give all the guidance we need when we ask how to choose among permissible practical identities and projects. I think that a similar line of thought can be applied to other forms of Kantian constitutivism, though I won’t pursue this here. For now I’ll just conclude that there is scope to argue for the existence of a normative deficit in any view that can only appeal to the agent’s will for guidance within the set of permissible acts and identities.

Lessons We’ve now seen that even the most promising ambitious constitutivist views (those that can handle the stability charge) face an arbitrariness problem. They fall foul of the normative deficit charge. They offer some normative guidance, but even if we grant them their rather thick views on what it is to be an agent they fail to offer normative guidance for all of the areas in which it is needed. This isn’t a proof that constitutivism necessarily leaves a normative deficit. But it is likely that, to avoid such a deficit, constitutivists will have to build even more into their account of agency than Smith and Korsgaard. Since there is already reason to

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worry that these accounts of agency have too much built into them (see e.g. Street 2012), adding even more isn’t a promising way forward. For this reason I reject the constitutivist picture. Despite its initial promise as an ambitious theory that can answer the stability charge, it does not offer an adequate account of the normative non-arbitrariness of moral choice.

3.3 Conclusion I haven’t discussed all possible ambitious stance-dependence theories, and I have been fairly brief with some of those I have discussed. I have, however, argued that one or another arbitrariness charge can be put to the strongest ambitious theories of which I am aware. Moreover, there is scope to extend these charges to other ambitious theories given that they tend to involve general argumentative strategies. So, whilst I cannot say that it is impossible for any ambitious theory to succeed in capturing the non-arbitrariness of moral choice, I can say that there is reason to be pessimistic about this possibility. I think that we are better off exploring the prospects of a stance-independent moral ontology—that is, the ontology of moral realism. This will be my topic in the next chapter.

4 Stance-Independence Having rejected the most promising stance-dependence theories, I will now consider the prospects of a stance-independent moral ontology—that is, the ontology of moral realism. My aim in this chapter is to show that a realist position is well-placed to capture the non-arbitrariness of moral choice. I’ll begin by explaining how the realist’s commitment to stance-independent moral facts allows them to avoid the arbitrariness charges that challenge stance-dependence theories (§4.1). I’ll then ask whether realists can handle the arbitrariness charges facing their own view—namely, the ownership charge (§4.2) and the bruteness charge (§4.3). Answering the latter requires a commitment to categorical and (therefore) non-natural reasons. This is a controversial commitment, so I will provide a partial vindication of it by defending a ‘companions in innocence’ argument— one involving the normativity of non-moral needs (§4.4). I discuss further questions about the ontology of realism in Chapter 5, but in this chapter my aim is just to argue that realism is well-placed to accommodate the normative nonarbitrariness of moral choice.

4.1 Stance-Independence The basic claim of moral realism is that there are stance-independent moral facts. But what does this mean? An initial gloss is easy enough: for a moral fact to be stance-independent is for it to be independent of us, such that its existence and authority does not rest on our actual or idealised attitudes, perspectives, relationships, or conventions, etc. Yet there is clearly some link between us and the moral facts. After all, such facts are supposed to guide us, and we clearly shape their content at a certain level of particularity. For instance, the fact that we are friends means that, when you ask me to help you move house, I have a reason to do so that I don’t have when a stranger asks me the same thing. This is a case in which facts about what I have moral reason to do are shaped by the existence of a particular social relationship. Even more general moral claims—for instance, that there is pro tanto reason to help one’s friends—often relate to facts about human attitudes or social relations. This indicates that a commitment to stance-independence is best read as a commitment to there being moral facts that do not depend solely on us for their existence or authority (cf. Tropman 2018). Our attitudes and relationships, in combination with the nature of our moral species, are relevant to the

Robust Realism in Ethics: Normative Arbitrariness, Interpersonal Dialogue, and Moral Objectivity. Stephen Ingram, Oxford University Press. © Stephen Ingram 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198886488.003.0005

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content and authority of the moral facts that apply to us, but these facts do not enter or exit the world with our social and psychological contingencies. This is the core claim of realism, as I read it. I’ll say more about our relationship with moral reality in §9.3.2, so if this seems puzzling it should become clearer in due course. What matters now is that, unlike any stance-dependent ontology, the realist ontology can go beyond our attitudes, perspectives, relationships, and conventions. It can thus sidestep the arbitrariness charges that I put to stance-dependence theories. Realists easily avoid the stability charge, for they deny that (all) moral facts are fixed by our contingent attitudes (etc.) alone, and instead say that (at least some of) the moral facts that apply to our moral species have a necessary existence or authority over us. They can thus say that such facts are not liable to vary in ways that should be impossible, or that we evaluate negatively. This means that realists can avoid destabilising moral contingencies by avoiding moral contingency altogether. Realists can also sidestep the normative deficit charge—if the moral facts do not derive solely from the formal nature of agency, then we can posit as many reasons as are needed to fit the moral data. (We’ll see in §5.2 that this is not true of quasi-realism, but the point applies to traditional realist views.) However, even if realists avoid these arbitrariness charges, other such charges create issues for them.

4.2 The Ownership Charge One arbitrariness charge facing realists involves what I have called an ‘ownership intuition.’ We appeal to such an intuition when we suggest that the arbitrariness or non-arbitrariness of a given consideration in a given domain is fixed by whether or not it is ‘owned’ (in a sense that will need specifying) by the agent or agents about whom we are making the judgement. I suggested in Chapter 1 that ownership intuitions can be invoked in various contexts—Rawls (1999) appeals to an ownership intuition when he maintains that it is arbitrary to allocate resources on the basis of facts about (e.g.) race and gender alone, for such facts are beyond our direct control. We do not own (in that specific sense) these facts about ourselves, and what we deserve thus cannot be determined by them. Claims about what is under one’s direct control do not apply to the metaethical domain—we clearly do not have direct control over the basic moral facts—but another conception of ownership might be. Many stance-dependence theorists are moved (in part) by the intuition that we must have ownership over the justification for moral choices. For instance, Korsgaard maintains that “reason needs a principle – not one imposed on it from outside, for it has no reason to accept such a principle, but one that is its own” (2009: 213). Similar ideas appear in other Kantian stance-dependence theories, as well as many Humean theories.

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As this implies, the ownership intuition supports the claim that all moral facts and reasons are stance-dependent. The basic idea is that the justification for our choices must in some way derive from us if our choices are to count as normatively non-arbitrary. I’ve already rejected stance-dependence theories, but one can still appeal to the ownership intuition to get an arbitrariness charge against realism. For it may turn out that neither realism nor non-nihilistic anti-realism can capture the non-arbitrariness of moral choice, in which case we would be left with an error theory according to which every moral choice is arbitrary. The arbitrariness charge involving the ownership intuition maintains that, in denying that the moral facts depend (solely) on us for their existence and authority, realists have to deny that we (as individual agents, or as a community, etc.) have ultimate ownership over those facts. In which case realism fails to secure the form of nonarbitrariness that is at play in the ownership intuition, and so renders our moral choices arbitrary. In this section I argue that efforts to clarify and support the ownership intuition do not result in an arbitrariness charge that could undermine realism. The most natural way of understanding the ownership intuition involves the idea that moral facts must be capable of ‘getting a grip’ on an agent in order to justify anything to that agent, and moral facts are only able to get a grip on us if we in some way own them—to bind the agent’s will they must in some way derive from the will. This is a rough and metaphorical way of putting the point, but we can flesh it out in a couple of interesting ways. One popular idea is that normative reasons have what Williams (1981a) calls an ‘explanatory dimension.’ A reason has to be capable, at least in principle, of motivating the agent who has it—it must be able to explain one’s inclination toward action. And the standard (Humean) theory of motivation says that to be motivated one must have a relevant desire— something that gives you a psychological push to action. Thus, for a reason to be able to motivate you it must be suitably sourced in your desires (or, more broadly, what Williams calls your ‘subjective motivational set’). In other words, your reasons must be owned by you insofar as they derive from your ‘internal’ normative attitudes. I don’t think, however, that this is a convincing way to underpin the ownership intuition. I think that Sobel (2001a; 2001b) gets it right when he argues that, if there is a link between motives and reasons, it is best seen in terms of what makes it the case that some consideration is a reason, rather than in terms of whether that consideration is able (in principle) to motivate an agent who contemplates it. I won’t go into detail on this, but the issue with an explanatory requirement is that the most promising formulations of it are either too weak, in that they are compatible with the stance-independence of reasons, or too strong, in that they end up begging the question against the view that reasons are stance-independent. For instance, if the claim is that R can only count as a reason for A to Φ if there is some (perhaps nearby) possible world at which A is motivated to Φ as a result of

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having soundly reflected on R, then this is compatible with the stanceindependent normativity of reasons. For this is just a claim about the link between having a reason and being able, in principle, to act on it—it is just a variation on ‘ought implies can’ and defenders of stance-independence need not deny that ‘has a reason to Φ’ implies ‘can Φ.’ If, however, the claim is that R can only be a reason for A to Φ if R serves a desire or concern that A actually has, such that A would be motivated to Φ in a possible world at which A has reasoned soundly from her actual desires and concerns, then this just begs the question against those who deny that reasons have to be grounded in our attitudes. Obviously more could be said here (see e.g. Sobel 2001a: 219–23, and Finlay 2009: 2–10), but I believe that it will be more productive to explore an alternative way of understanding the claim that some form of ownership is needed if moral facts and reasons are to ‘get a grip’ on us. Specifically, let’s explore whether ownership is needed to ensure that certain considerations are rationally binding for us. This line of thought is suggested by Korsgaard, who attacks the commitment to stance-independence (or, more specifically, what she calls ‘dogmatic rationalism’) by arguing that it makes it possible to ask a question that it shouldn’t be possible to ask. In particular, Korsgaard argues that the realist’s stance-independent ontology makes it possible to ask for “a reason to be rational” (1997: 53). For if one’s reasons are independent of one’s will, then one must ask “why it is necessary to act in accordance with those reasons” (1997: 53). The issue, according to Korsgaard, is that it should not be possible to ask for such a reason. It makes no sense to ask for a reason to be rational.¹ We just are rational. This is “not one of the options which we might choose or reject” (1997: 56). It is our plight. It is not something for which there can be reasons for and against, but something to which we are condemned (Korsgaard 2009: 1–2). Rationality is not escapable or optional for us—we can fail to obey its norms, but (given our nature) we cannot fail to be bound by them. The upshot of this is that, if a theory is committed to there being reasons for and against rationality, then that theory has gone wrong in some way. Realism is such a theory, for the idea that we need a reason to be rational only becomes relevant if one “supposes that reasons exist independently of the rational will” (Korsgaard 1997: 56). Put another way, because realists are unable to secure the ownership intuition, they are unable to explain how we are bound by rational norms. This failure to capture the ownership intuition leads to the unanswerable demand that we justify being rational. Thus, by realism’s lights our choices lack the justification that they need in order to be rationally non-arbitrary. I think that this is a forceful arbitrariness charge against realism, but I also think that realists can provide a convincing response to it. To show that realists can avoid the sort of

¹ Broome (1999) and Kolodny (2005) also deny that there is a reason to be rational, but they approach the issue from a different direction that we needn’t consider here.

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arbitrariness that is being attributed to them here, we must unpack what it can mean to ask for reason to be rational. Note first that we can distinguish two (complementary) notions of rationality— there is rationality in the capacity sense, and there is rationality in the success sense (cf. Broome 2013: 110 and Ridge 2014: 226). To be rational in the capacity sense is to have the psychological powers necessary for rational thought, such as the power to accept and reject ends, to identify and pursue the means to those ends, to form beliefs about one’s reasons to pursue an end, and so on. To be rational in the success sense, however, is to exercise these psychological powers correctly, such that you adopt the correct ends, identify and pursue the best possible means to those ends, form true (or justified) beliefs about one’s reasons to pursue those ends, and so on. We needn’t worry about the exact nature of our rational capacities and their correct use. What matters is that there is a distinction here. Being rational in the success sense requires that one is rational in the capacity sense, but we can see that these notions are distinct by observing that someone can have the powers of rational thought without always (even ever) exercising them correctly. The importance of this distinction now is that, when one asks for a reason to be rational, one might be asking one of two questions: (1) What reason is there to be rational in the capacity sense? (2) What reason is there to be rational in the success sense? To ask (1) is to ask for a reason to have certain psychological capacities. To ask (2) is to ask for a reason to exercise those capacities correctly. As we’ll see, whilst it may not make sense to ask (2), it does make sense to ask (1). And I’ll argue that, once we answer (1), it becomes clear that having a strong form of ownership over the justification for our choices is not essential for an explanation of why it does not make sense to ask (2). To see that (1) is a real question in need of an answer, consider the fact that one can destroy or damage one’s rational capacities. I can take action to end my life, or to damage my brain. And it makes sense to ask whether I have reason to do these things. This is something that Korsgaard (2009: 23) recognises, for she argues that I have a reason to avoid destroying my rational capacities (see Korsgaard 1996: 161–4 for a related take). Roughly, she thinks that my ability to choose death means that I need a law to guide my choice, and that once this law is in place it commits me to valuing humanity as an end in itself. And this commits me to the judgement that, since I am a human agent, I have a reason not to destroy myself (for in doing so I would destroy something inherently valuable). What Korsgaard is offering here is a reason to be rational in the capacity sense. She asks and answers (1) from a Kantian point of view. But (1) probably isn’t what Korsgaard had in mind with her ownership charge. She was probably getting at something like (2), for her claim was that, if reasons were independent of the will, then we

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would be able to ask for a reason to act on them. And this concerns the reasons we in fact have, rather than the capacity for rationality. That is, because the commitment to stance-independence conflicts with the ownership intuition, it forces one to ask for a reason to do what one in fact has reason to do—for a reason to be rational in the success sense. And that is an odd result, for it is (at least usually) misguided to ask for a further reason to act on one’s reasons.² If we always needed a further reason to act on our reasons to act, then we would get into a regress of reasons. It is thus a mistake to treat (2) as a question that can sensibly be asked. So, if realism forces us to ask (2), that will be a problem for realism. Fortunately, realism doesn’t force us to ask (2). This is because, once we get an answer to (1), asking (2) becomes pointless. We answer (1) by positing a reason to have or retain our rational powers. And once we show that there is such a reason, we automatically rule out the need for a further reason to act on one’s reasons. This is because a reason to be rational in the capacity sense just is a reason to be the kind of entity that is ‘condemned’ to choice—to the evaluation and selection of ends. And the practice of evaluating and selecting ends—that is, the practice of being a rational agent—is regulated by aims and rules. One of which is the aim of pursuing the correct ends—those one actually has reason to pursue. My reason to be rational in the capacity sense thus commits me to the aim of being rational in the success sense. It commits me to the aim of getting things right, for it is essentially a reason to play the rationality game. And playing the rationality game involves aiming for success. The point here is that, if realists maintain that there is a positive answer to (1), they automatically show that we cannot sensibly ask (2). A possible rejoinder to this is that an answer to (1) cannot get a suitable grip on an agent if it is given in the realist’s terms. For, on their theory, one’s reason to be rational in the capacity sense is independent of one’s will—it is a reason that one has even if one doesn’t identify with it, and even if one doesn’t legislate it for oneself. So the worry now is that one can simply ask what reason one has to act on one’s stance-independent reason to be rational in the capacity sense. For, being independent of the will, it cannot get the grip on me that Korsgaard wants. This worry is misplaced, however. Remember that my reason to be rational in the capacity sense commits me to aiming at rationality in the success sense—it commits me to the aim of adopting those ends that I actually have reason to adopt. So if I actually have stance-independent reason to be rational in the capacity sense, then whatever its metaphysical nature I am rationally committed to making this one of my ends. That is, I am rationally committed to the end of retaining my rational capacities. It doesn’t matter whether I in any way ‘own’ my reason to be rational in the capacity sense, for if realism is right then I still have such a reason, and it rationally ² No doubt there are exceptions here (e.g. we can ask whether there is moral reason to act on our epistemic reasons, etc.), but they don’t affect the general point.

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commits me to aiming at success. It’s just that part of success will involve aiming to be rational in the capacity sense. That is, I will be irrational if I do not ensure that success is one of my ends. So, even if I am yet to make it one of my ends, I am rationally committed to making it one of my ends, and therefore to trying to keep my rational powers. In short, failure to capture the ownership intuition doesn’t force the realist to ask misguided questions about our reasons to be rational. Capturing the ownership intuition is one way to ensure that we cannot sensibly ask (2), but not the only way. By answering (1), the realist can explain why it doesn’t make sense to ask (2), and it doesn’t matter that their answer to (1) posits a stance-independent reason to retain one’s rational capacities. For even if one does not identify with or ‘own’ one’s reason to be rational in the capacity sense, this doesn’t change the fact that such a reason automatically commits one to aiming for rationality in the success sense. There may be other ways to defend the ownership intuition, but I am not aware of any that are more compelling than this. I thus deny that a theory must capture this intuition to be tenable. This means that the ownership charge is not an issue for realism. However, another arbitrariness charge does raise more serious questions for the realist.

4.3 The Bruteness Charge I begin this section by reintroducing the bruteness charge as it applies to realism, and by arguing that realists must posit irreducibly normative, categorical, nonnatural reasons to deal with this charge (§4.3.1). In a sense the bruteness charge is thus easy to answer. But other challenges follow from it—there are various objections to an ontology that posits irreducible, categorical, non-natural normativity. Some of them will be discussed in later chapters—here I’ll simply argue that a realist theory can get off the ground.³ Specifically, I’ll consider the moral case against moral realism (§4.3.2), and the influential ‘argument from queerness’ to which moral error theorists often appeal (§4.3.3). In the final main section of this chapter (§4.4) I’ll answer this argument from queerness by appeal to a (nonstandard) version of the companions in innocence strategy.

4.3.1 Inherent Authority The bruteness charge against realism alleges that it cannot explain why we must obey the stance-independent moral facts. At first glance this looks like Korsgaard’s ³ I will discuss supervenience challenges in Chapter 5, epistemological challenges in Chapters 6 and 8, and meta-semantic challenges in Chapter 9.

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defence of the ownership intuition. Korsgaard argued that a stance-independent ontology forces us to ask for a reason to be rational, and the bruteness charge asks what reason there is to obey the stance-independent moral facts. However, the similarity here is superficial, for Korsgaard’s claim was that realists force us to ask a question that it makes no sense to ask, whereas the bruteness charge claims that realists fail to answer a question that does need answering—specifically, why are moral choices choiceworthy? The charge is that realism renders such choices arbitrary because it is unable to explain the authority of the basic moral facts. Such facts are brute in the sense that they have no explanation, and according to the bruteness charge they therefore cannot provide a justification for our moral choices. So, if you make choices on the basis of the brute moral facts, your choices will be arbitrary. My reply to this bruteness charge is a familiar and obvious one: unlike our brute moral attitudes, the brute moral facts are by their very nature a source of categorical reasons to act.⁴ Such facts are inherently authoritative, in that they furnish us with unconditionally inescapable normative reasons to act. In other words, the brute moral facts do not need some deeper justification, for they are intrinsically reason-giving. Now recall that, in §2.2, I said that the bruteness charge is dialectically ineffective, maybe even question-begging, when applied to modest and ambitious stance-dependence theories. For it assumes things—like a foundationalist view of moral justification—that many such theories explicitly deny. Might realists argue that the bruteness charge against them is similarly ineffective? After all, it does rely on the intuition that there must be a deeper explanation for the brute moral facts, which is exactly what realists claim is not the case. However, we cannot dismiss this bruteness charge so quickly. Unlike stancedependence theories, a theory that posits brute yet inherently authoritative moral facts adds something new to our ontology. That is, it adds irreducibly normative, categorical, non-natural reasons. For it is hard to see how categorical reasons generated by brute moral facts could fit into a naturalistic view of the world. They are not reducible to any naturalistically respectable entities. Before saying more here, it is first worth a brief comment on the natural/nonnatural distinction.⁵ I won’t try to provide a complete and definitive account of this distinction, but I will just sketch my preferred approach to it in order to clarify what I mean when I say that the realist is committed to a non-naturalistic view. ⁴ This reply can be extended to the privilege charge that spins off from the bruteness charge against realism. This privilege charge holds that, by realist lights, nothing of normative significance turns on whether you obey the realist moral facts rather than a rival code of conduct (cf. Kawall 2005). E.g. even if utilitarianism is the theory that reflects moral reality one could still act on Kantian laws, and without some further explanation of why one ought to follow the brute moral facts there will be nothing of normative significance hanging on which code of conduct we follow. We can call this a ‘privileged codes charge,’ but we needn’t go into it anymore because, as a spin-off from the bruteness charge, it is dissolved once we respond to that more basic charge. ⁵ For fuller discussion see Copp (2003), Shafer-Landau (2006), and Dowell (2013).

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I think that naturalism is best seen as a sort of promise. Specifically, a naturalist promises to restrict their fundamental ontology to entities posited by the natural and social sciences. Of course, in metaethics it is standard to interpret naturalism in relation to the sciences, but it is normally taken to be the proposition that everything in existence can be identified with, reduced to, or fully explained in terms of the entities posited by the sciences. Interpreting naturalism as a promise, and not as a proposition, avoids issues (such as a version of Hempel’s dilemma— cf. Ney 2008) that do not directly relate to questions about the arbitrariness/nonarbitrariness of moral choice. So, on this approach, moral naturalism is the promise to restrict one’s moral ontology to entities that can be identified with, reduced to, or fully explained in terms of entities that are posited by the sciences. Note that such a promise is compatible with the view that the posits of the sciences will be revised over time. The moral naturalist just thinks that their promise is the sensible one to make, and that it can be kept, given what we know of the ontology and methodology of the sciences. In contrast, non-naturalists doubt that the naturalist promise can be kept in the case of moral reality, so they avoid this promise. Put this way, the dispute between moral naturalists and non-naturalists rests on whether it is sensible to make the naturalist promise given what we already know of the ontology and methodology of the sciences. If you believe that stance-independent moral facts are necessary to avoid the stability and normative deficit charges, and that we must think of these facts as inherently authoritative to answer the bruteness charge, then you’re unlikely to be prepared to make the naturalist promise. For such facts do not figure in the current ontology of the sciences, and, given what we know of the methodology of the sciences, it seems a bad idea to bet that such facts will enter their ontology in the future. The various empirical, observational, and experimental techniques that feature in the sciences are ill-suited to the discovery of intrinsically authoritative moral facts. Put crudely, we aren’t going to find categoricity by looking into a microscope, by firing some elementary particles at one another, by analysing statistical regularities in our behaviour, or by studying CT scans. Of course, moral naturalists do not make such crude claims. But categoricity is a problem for them—as we saw in §3.1, there is reason to reject various conceptions of inescapability that could be adopted by a naturalist. This means that, for a naturalist promise to be at all viable, it must come with a way to defuse the intuition that there is a deep and irreconcilable difference between that which is categorically normative and that which is natural. Put another way, naturalists need some way to deal with what Enoch (2011a: 100) has called the ‘just-toodifferent’ intuition—that is, the intuition that the normative and the natural are just too different for a reduction to be plausible. The most obvious way forward for naturalists involves what I will call ‘the normative concept strategy’ (an analogue to ‘the phenomenal concept strategy’ endorsed by many physicalist philosophers

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of mind). The idea in this strategy is that there is an unbridgeable gulf between the categorically normative and the natural, but it exists in our concepts rather than within reality itself. More specifically, the normative concept strategy states that our normative concepts are not reducible to any natural concepts, but that they nevertheless pick out entirely natural properties. Versions of this line of thought have been developed by Sturgeon (1988), Boyd (1988), Brink (1989), Gibbard (2003: ch. 2), Schroeder (2005; 2007: ch. 4), and Hursthouse (2012), among others. These naturalists have various theoretical commitments, but they all suggest that moral or normative concepts are unanalysable, even though moral or normative facts and reasons can be understood in wholly naturalistic terms. The usual idea behind the normative concept strategy is that, just as water is reducible to H₂O even though the concept  is not equivalent to the concept ₂, a property like goodness is reducible to some (perhaps complex) natural property even though the concept  is not equivalent to any natural concept. If they go down this road, naturalists can suggest that the apparent gap between the normative and the natural is consistent with, and in fact predicted by, their metaethical picture. The normative concept strategy attempts to neutralise the just-toodifferent intuition by recognising that there is a difference between the normative and the natural, whilst denying that this adds anything new to our ontological picture. In response, I would first like to note that I am not that invested in the natural/non-natural distinction itself. My interest is in getting a view of morality that can secure the non-arbitrariness of moral choice. So, given what I have argued thus far, a normative concept strategy can only work if it captures categoricity in purely conceptual, and therefore non-metaphysical, terms. For we require categoricity in our answer to the bruteness charge, and we cannot locate it within a naturalistic view of moral properties. In short, a normative concept strategy must locate categoricity either within the semantic content of our moral concepts, or within the pragmatic use to which those concepts are put. However, neither option is promising for naturalists. We’ve seen (in §3.1.4) that a pragmatic view of categoricity is inadequate, so a normative concept strategy that understands categoricity in terms of the function of moral concepts is not a way forward. But if categoricity is instead located in the semantic content of our concepts, then a truly naturalistic realism is untenable.⁶ For such concepts would attempt to refer to categorically authoritative moral facts or reasons, which have no place in natural or social science. In short, then, combining a conceptual commitment to categoricity with the naturalistic worldview is a recipe for moral error theory.

⁶ Gibbard (2003) may avoid this worry, for he combines a normative concept strategy with an expressivist picture. I reject that picture for other reasons in §5.2.

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The upshot of this is that, if you are committed to the existence of stanceindependent, brute moral facts, then you are also committed to treating such facts as a source of irreducibly normative, categorical reasons. And this commits you to non-naturalism. Of course, it may be that those commitments are untenable, in which case we have to take moral thought and discourse to be in error. I will return to the prospect of moral error theory soon. But first I will reply to another worry about brute moral facts. Specifically, some philosophers have recently made a moral case against non-naturalistic realism. Thus, for a realist theory to get off the ground we will need to show that realism doesn’t have the morally objectionable implications that these critics have attributed to it.

4.3.2 Moral Arguments The claim that non-naturalistic moral realism is morally objectionable is made most clearly by Melis Erdur and Max Hayward.⁷ Erdur (2016) and Hayward (2019) both maintain that it is morally objectionable to make facts about what matters, or about what we morally ought to do, conditional on the existence of stance-independent moral facts. Erdur, for example, suggests that it is a mistake to treat the wrongness of (e.g.) genocide and slavery as being conditional on the existence of the brute moral fact that they are wrong, for such practices would still be wrong “even if there were no independent reality that dictated that they were wrong” (2016: 597). Erdur’s objection here seems to be that it is a substantive moral error to rest the wrongness of genocide and slavery (etc.) on the existence of brute moral facts—this reprehensibly implies that the wrongness of these practices is not ultimately a matter of their causing suffering and loss (etc.), but of there existing a brute moral fact that dictates or entails that genocide and slavery are impermissible (or, perhaps, that it is impermissible to cause avoidable suffering and loss). The charge is that, although the moral facts (as realists interpret them) are necessary and stable, they are just not relevant to the wrongness of genocide or slavery (or anything else, for that matter). What is relevant is that such practices generate suffering and loss, and Erdur thinks that this is so “regardless of whether or not the badness of such suffering and loss is confirmed by an independent reality” (2016: 597–8). In other words, she thinks that the realist’s mistake is to see what is right and wrong as depending (‘ultimately’) on the existence of certain brute moral facts. In short, Erdur is asking “whether it makes moral sense to take the dictates of some independent reality to be the ultimate reason why genocide is wrong” (2016: 597), and her suggestion is that it does not.

⁷ For a related argument see Lenman (1999: 176).

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To answer this objection we need to clarify what it means to say that the brute moral facts are inherently authoritative. If it means that my ‘ultimate’ reason to Φ is the fact that there is a brute moral fact that demands Φ-ing, then Erdur is right to object. However, this is not how we should interpret the claim that the brute moral facts are inherently authoritative. For the claim is not that our reasons to avoid or prevent (e.g.) genocide depend on the existence of some brute moral fact. The claim is instead that our reasons to avoid and prevent genocide depend on certain natural facts—like the fact that genocide produces suffering and loss—but that this dependence relation is stance-independent and non-natural. That is, one’s reason to avoid and prevent genocide is that it leads to suffering and loss, but the reason relation that connects this natural fact (i.e. the fact that genocide leads to suffering and loss) and a possible act (avoiding genocide) is itself stanceindependent and non-natural (cf. Scanlon 2014). Thus, strictly speaking the brute moral fact concerns the existence of this reason relation. It is not itself a part of my reason to act. The claim that the brute moral facts are inherently authoritative is basically a shorthand for the claim that, independently of our attitudes and practices, certain natural facts demand or support certain courses of action. This deals with one version of the moral case against realism. Realists needn’t make the morally objectionable claim that genocide is wrong because there is a brute moral fact that forbids it. However, there are more powerful ways of making a moral case against realism. Hayward’s (2019) version of the objection focuses on non-naturalistic realism. He starts by noting that non-naturalists often suggest that, if there are no non-natural normative facts, then nothing matters (in a normative sense). He thus claims that non-naturalists are committed to a ‘counterfactual nihilism,’ for they make the question of whether something (normatively) matters, or supplies one with reason to Φ, conditional on the existence of non-natural normative facts. On this interpretation, non-naturalists hold that we must choose between non-naturalism and nihilism—they endorse a ‘non-naturalism or bust’ thesis. This is what Hayward finds morally objectionable. To illustrate, consider the natural fact that my partner is in distress. Non-naturalists can agree that this is a reason for me to comfort her, for, as we’ve seen, it is (facts about) the reason relation that they claim to be non-natural, not the facts that supply us with reasons. Hayward’s (2019: 909) claim, however, is that whether or not my partner’s distress is a reason for me to comfort her should not turn on the truth or falsity of naturalism. But if non-naturalists accept a counterfactual nihilism, then they must say I would have no reason to comfort my partner if naturalism were true. And this is a morally objectionable result—it is reprehensible to insist that my reason to comfort my partner stands or falls with the falsity of naturalism. In response to this, I think that non-naturalists should just deny that, if there were no non-natural normative facts, then there would be no (normative) sense in which anything mattered. This is undoubtedly a claim that some of the most

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influential non-naturalists have made—Hayward rightly attributes it to Parfit (2011) and Scanlon (2014)—but it is not essential to the view. That is, the nonnaturalist can allow that there are normatively interesting ways for things to matter that do not involve any non-natural moral facts, whilst also maintaining that these don’t exhaust all the ways of mattering that we need if we are to capture the non-arbitrariness of moral choice. After all, even if non-naturalism is false, there will still be ways in which life can go better or worse given our desires and interests. There will be institutions and social practices that give conditional reasons to those invested in them. And there will still be caring relationships, and a sympathetic concern for others, that provide conditional reasons to help and look after one another. Although such considerations are not enough to stabilise the moral facts against the Inglish, and are therefore unable to vindicate the nonarbitrariness of moral choice, they are still normative in a perfectly legitimate sense. They can serve to guide, regulate, and evaluate within certain kinds of context. Crucially, non-naturalism is compatible with the view that these conditional reasons exist and can be understood naturalistically (e.g. in terms of our desires and conventions). Such reasons exist alongside non-natural reasons, and they exist whether or not non-naturalism is true. That is, I have conditional reasons to comfort my partner (e.g. a desire-based reason to help her because I care about her) as well as irreducible, categorical, non-natural reasons (given our relationship, I have a special moral duty to help her). A strictly naturalistic view offers less than we should expect, but it does offer something. Thus, rejecting non-naturalism doesn’t entail a systematic normative nihilism, even if it does lead us to a moral error theory.⁸ In sum, the moral case against realism is unconvincing—the realist picture does not have the morally objectionable implications attributed to it, at least in its most plausible form.

4.3.3 Queerness and Error You might agree with everything I’ve said so far, and yet deny that our best ontology will include stance-independent moral facts. For it might be that moral thought and discourse are systematically in error. On the type of error theory that matters here, moral thought and discourse are said to be essentially (‘nonnegotiably’) committed to the existence of stance-independent, irreducible, categorical, non-natural moral facts. But, it is claimed, there are no such facts. Moral ⁸ For related claims see e.g. Enoch (2014b: 859–62), FitzPatrick (2014: 561), and Ingram (2018a). Note that the point is not that most non-naturalists would accept a form of naturalism, rather than nihilism, if they came to reject non-naturalism. As Hayward (2019: 911) notes, what matters is what non-naturalism implies, not what actual non-naturalists might do in the face of defeat. My point is that non-naturalism does not imply a ‘non-naturalism or bust’ claim, even if some do make such a claim.

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thought and discourse are therefore systematically in error.⁹ This kind of moral error theory has been suggested by Mackie (1977), Garner (1990), Joyce (2001), Olson (2014), and Kalf (2018). They each hold that there is something untenably ‘queer’ about a commitment to metaphysically robust moral facts.¹⁰ This notion of ‘queerness’ is a bit opaque—on Mackie’s original definition, a queer entity is one that is “utterly different from anything else in the universe” (1977: 38). But this makes it sound as if queerness is just ontological uniqueness, and this cannot be the whole story given that all brute entities, whether posited by physics or metaphysics, will be unique. Garner makes the point more specific by arguing that moral facts “are not just unusual in the way that facts about quarks and black holes are unusual, they are unusual in an unusual way – they demand” (1990: 143). It is hard to make sense of moral demandingness, Garner argues, for it is “hard to make sense of a demand without a demander, and hard to find a place for demands or demanders apart from human interests and conventions” (1990: 143). This does help to flesh out the queerness claim, but it also indicates that it is of limited use on its own. For realists can view moral demandingness as ontologically primitive, that is, as having no deeper foundation or explanation. The queerness claim then amounts to the intuition that this primitive demandingness is unacceptably mysterious. And the realist, it seems, doesn’t share this intuition. The lesson to take from this is that the error theorist cannot rely solely on a queerness claim to make a compelling case against realism—this leads to an impasse, given that realists and error theorists differ in their intuitions about what can be posited as a brute, primitive entity (cf. Olson 2014: 136, and Morton and Sampson 2014). For this reason, Olson (2014: 84–7) maintains that moral error theorists should treat the queerness claim as the first step of a two-step argument. This first step identifies something that is prima facie queer, in the sense that it is unique and not explicable in terms of that which is already admitted within our ontology. The second step asks whether this entity is needed in the best explanation of our observations and beliefs. The idea is that positing a unique and primitive entity is acceptable if it is necessary for the best explanation of our observations and beliefs, but not if the best explanation of our observations and beliefs can do without it. Thus, for Olson, queerness claims must be combined with debunking arguments—arguments that explain our having (moral) observations/beliefs in a way that discredits the idea that they get at something real. I think that Olson is right about this, and I’ll reply to debunking arguments in §8.2. But for ⁹ This isn’t the only form of moral error theory. Other forms hold that moral thought and discourse require untenable conceptions of moral knowledge, supervenience, or motivation—see Olson (2014: ch. 5) for discussion. My arguments in later chapters allow me to avoid such error theories—I discuss moral knowledge in Chapters 6–8, supervenience in §5.4.2, and motivation in §9.3.1. Streumer (2017) defends an error theory about normativity as a whole, rather than moral normativity specifically, but a defence of moral normativity suffices to undermine his normative error theory. ¹⁰ I have reservations about the term ‘queer’ (cf. Manne 2017a: n.25), but since it is the label familiar to metaethicists I will persist with it.

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now I want to focus on the first step of the argument, according to which irreducible, categorical, non-natural normative facts are unique to morality, and are thus prima facie queer. I’ll argue that such facts appear in another domain, and that removing them from our ontology thus has effects beyond the moral domain. In other words, I’ll offer a ‘companions in innocence’ argument. It won’t fully exonerate realism, but it will show that an error theory is costlier than its defenders might think.

4.4 The Normativity of Needs The general idea in any companions in innocence argument is that the allegedly untenable commitments of one domain can be vindicated by the discovery of similar commitments in another domain—one that is plausibly not in error. One popular formulation of this argument offers epistemic normativity as an innocent companion to morality (see e.g. Cuneo 2007 and Rowland 2013). I reject this line of thought elsewhere (Ingram 2018a, see also Cowie 2019), so I won’t discuss it here, but in essence I doubt that epistemic reasons are irreducible or categorical. \\172.24.136.40\Oup Fortunately, there are other places \UK to look for an innocent companion to morality. I think that we will do better\03_Typesetting_NX to focus on non-moral aspects of the practical domain. I am not the first to say this—Jean Hampton (1998) takes this approach ML\PFLOW to instrumental reason, and Guy Fletcher (2018a) proposes prudential normativ\StevensCrawshaw_ ity as an innocent companion to morality. My preferred view centres on the 9780198867432 \QC_Process\Finals normativity of non-moral categorical needs. I start by exploring what it is to \Compare_2 have a need (§4.4.1). I then argue that some (not all) needs generate non-moral, irreducible, categorical, non-natural normative reasons. These give us an innocent companion to moral reasons (§4.4.2), and thereby help to clarify that accepting the moral error theory would be even costlier than it initially seems.

4.4.1 Categorical Needs First let’s distinguish between ‘instrumental’ and ‘categorical’ needs.¹¹ An instrumental need is conditional on some desire, purpose, or end. A categorical need is inescapable, for it is not conditional on any desire, purpose, or end. There are two schools of thought about the needs that we have. According to ‘instrumentalists’ (e.g. Barry 1965: 48, Flew 1981: 117–34, and Frankfurt 1984), all of our needs are

¹¹ Some refer here to absolute/instrumental needs (cf. McLeod 2014; 2015), others to contingent/ non-contingent needs (cf. Reader and Brock 2004), and others still to fundamental/instrumental needs (cf. Thomson 2005). These labels are not obviously interchangeable, but in practice they are used for the same distinction. I have chosen labels to fit with terminology used elsewhere in this book.

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instrumental. According to ‘anti-instrumentalists’ (e.g. Wiggins 1987b; 1998; 2005, Thomson 1987, and McLeod 2014; 2015), we have categorical as well as instrumental needs. The arguments in this debate often draw on the semantics of ‘need,’ but what’s at issue is an ontological question: what kinds of need are there?¹² I believe that we have categorical needs, and that some of these needs generate categorical reasons to act. Of course, some of our need-based categorical reasons are moral reasons, and the debate about categorical needs typically focuses on their place in moral life (in addition to those noted above, see e.g. Braybrooke 1987, Copp 1998, Brock and Reader 2002, and Brock 2005). I am sympathetic to those who give needs a prominent role here, but my focus is on the idea that we have non-moral categorical needs, and that some of them generate non-moral categorical reasons. This is vital if the normativity of needs is going to serve as an innocent companion to the realist moral facts. It may seem implausible, at least initially, that any of our needs are categorical. Instrumentalists often claim that there is a conceptual link between A’s needing N and A’s having a desire, purpose, or end to which N is a necessary means—this is what Brian Barry seems to have in mind when he suggests that “[w]henever someone says ‘x is needed’ it always makes sense (though it may be pedantic in some contexts) to ask what purpose it is needed for” (1965: 48, cf. Flew 1981: 120–1). The claim here is that statements of the form ‘A needs N’ always raise the question ‘what for?,’ and that the answer must involve N somehow serving a desire, purpose, or end of A’s. However, this is far too quick, for there are antiinstrumentalist ways of interpreting ‘A needs N for . . .’ Consider that A’s having N may just be necessary for a certain state of affairs to obtain—a state of affairs that needn’t have any connection to A’s desires, purposes, or ends (cf. McLeod 2015). A’s having N may be necessary for A’s survival (cf. Reader and Brock 2004), flourishing (cf. Anscombe 1958), or avoiding harm (cf. Thomson 2005), regardless of whether the realisation of these states of affairs is something that falls within A’s desires, purposes, and ends, or indeed anyone else’s desires, purposes, or ends regarding A. For instance, you have a biological need to consume water in order to survive, and this is so even if your survival is not among your (or anyone’s) desires, purposes, and ends. In short, A can need N even if she is indifferent to the states of affairs for which N is a necessary means. The concept of needing can thus accommodate needs that do not depend on desires, purposes, or ends. Moreover, the existence of a biological need for water shows that we have such needs. Categorical needs are thus not just a conceptual possibility. They are a reality. Instrumentalists might reply to this by arguing that they do not have to treat A’s needs as being conditional on her mental states—her desires, purposes, and ends, etc. ¹² Fletcher (2018b) develops the right semantic approach when he argues that ‘need’ works similarly to strong modal terms like ‘must.’

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They can instead suggest that, even if A’s needing water is a matter of it being necessary for her survival, this still implies a connection between a means and an end. It’s simply that the end is a possible state of affairs, which A (or whoever) may or may not want to realise. The claim here is that, because drinking water is a necessary means to A’s survival (whether or not she wants to survive), we can interpret this need instrumentally—it is conditional on an end, or state of affairs. However, whilst this has a superficial plausibility to it, it mischaracterises the link between A’s survival, A’s drinking water, and A’s need for water. It is true that A’s survival is conditional on her drinking water—drinking water is necessary for her survival. But this isn’t the same as A’s need for water being conditional on anything. A’s need for water is not conditional on her survival, for her biology means that she has it whatever happens to her. Put another way, A’s need for water is in a sense directed at her survival, but it isn’t the means to her survival. The general point here is that we must distinguish (1) an agent’s need, (2) the state of affairs at which this need is directed, (3) what is needed for this state of affairs to be realised, and (4) the agent desiring (or otherwise aiming for) the realisation of this state of affairs. A’s need for water is directed at her survival in the sense that this is the state of affairs that will be realised (or made possible) by her consuming water, but it makes little sense to treat A’s need for water as being conditional on her survival (except in the irrelevant sense that the dead do not have needs), because the need exists in virtue of her biological nature rather than in virtue of her survival. The upshot of all this is that, since there are cases in which a need exists whether or not anyone desires the state of affairs at which it is directed, some needs count as being categorical. Put another way, we have needs that do not depend for their existence on anyone’s desires, purposes, or ends, and that are not in any relevant way dependent or conditional on the states of affairs at which they are directed. Now, in itself this conclusion has limited import, for although the biological need for water is categorical it does not in itself generate categorical normativity. I’ll explain why in the next section, in which I also argue that certain other non-moral categorical needs do generate non-moral categorical reasons, which can serve as morality’s innocent companion.

4.4.2 Companions in Innocence It is very plausible that needs can be a source of reasons to act. The fact that A needs N is, in many cases, a reason for A to act in ways that will realise N. For instance, the fact that I need to trim my beard is a reason to charge my beard trimmer. Moreover, needs can also be a reason for others to act in certain ways. The fact that I need help moving house is a reason for you, my friend, to help me. Of course, A’s needing N is not always a reason (even a defeasible one) for A to get or be given N. After all, in the case of instrumental needs the presence of a reason

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depends on the moral status of the desire, purpose, or end on which the need is conditional. For instance, even if Geraint needs a gun to realise his end of shooting Haroun, this doesn’t mean that there is any reason for him to get or be given a gun. He should abandon the end on which this need is conditional, for this is not a permissible end. Moreover, even if it is a permissible end on which one’s instrumental need is conditional, the need isn’t the ultimate source of the reason—this is more credibly seen as the end itself. For instance, if Imogen needs more training to realise her end of being a mechanic then she has a reason to get more training. But this reason derives from her desire to be a mechanic—her ultimate reason to get more training is that she wants to be a mechanic. The fact that she needs more training is not doing the essential normative work here. What about categorical needs? It may be tempting to think that such needs are always a source of categorical reasons to act, but this is not so. Some needs exist unconditionally without being, in themselves, a source of normative reasons. The human biological need to consume water is a nice example here. ‘A needs to drink water’ simply describes what is necessary for A to survive, given her biological nature. There is no normativity inherent in this need, for it is just a matter of biological necessity. Put another way, it is a specific instance of natural necessity— given the laws of nature (in particular, those relevant to biology) it is impossible for a human to survive (for longer than a few weeks) if they don’t consume water. This is just a statement of biological fact, and in itself has no normative implications. Of course, there often are reasons (including categorical reasons) to satisfy our biological needs. There is reason, for example, to ensure that A can satisfy her biological need for water—there is reason to prevent avoidable suffering and death, and long-term dehydration will result in A’s suffering and death. However, the existence of a reason to ensure that A can satisfy her biological need for water is not entailed by the mere existence of a biological need (cf. McLeod 2014: 301). For, again, that is just a case of natural, biological necessity. However, not all categorical needs are natural, biological needs. Indeed, the more common examples in the literature focus on what is necessary for a creature to avoid harm. Garrett Thomson, for instance, tells us that “to claim that X is a fundamental [i.e. categorical] need for person A is to assert that X is a nonderivative, non-circumstantially specific and an inescapable necessary condition in order for the person A not to undergo serious harm” (2005: 175). If this is meant to provide a definition of categorical (‘fundamental’) need, then it is too narrow—not all of our categorical needs are directed at the avoidance of harm.¹³ Nevertheless, it is plausible that harm-based needs are categorical. Of course,

¹³ Wiggins (1998) and Miller (2007) also focus on harm, but categorical needs can be directed at many ends—e.g. Anscombe (1958) focuses on flourishing, Braybrooke (1987) on social functioning, and Reader and Brock (2004) on survival. A general definition (like the one at the start of §4.4.1) is thus more appropriate.

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harm-based needs often coincide with biological needs. (I need water to survive, and I undergo serious harm if I am without it for too long.) But these needs are not identical, for harm-based needs contain more than a description of biological necessity. Harm-based needs are value-laden, in that claims about what is or is not harmful imply claims about what it is and is not good to bring about (cf. McLeod 2014: 301). All else being equal, it is good to bring about situations in which no one gets harmed, and bad to bring about situations in which someone gets harmed. Our harm-based needs thus appear to be a source of reasons. In general, we have reason to act in ways that will satisfy the harm-based needs of ourselves and others. And, crucially, because our harm-based needs are categorical in the sense outlined above, the reasons deriving from them are categorical too—there is no desire, purpose, or end on which a reason grounded in a categorical need can be conditional. My claim is that categorical needs, and the categorical reasons that derive from them, provide a companion in innocence to the categorical moral facts. Note that for this to be true it is necessary that harm-based needs and reasons are not inherently moral (though they could be inherently normative). Claims about harm are clearly relevant in moral life, and it may be that harmbased needs give rise to categorical moral reasons. However, to constitute a companion to (and not just a subset of) moral categoricity, we’ll have to be able to separate the normativity of at least some harm-based categorical needs from whatever moral import they have. Happily, we can do this. There are various reasons to deny that harm-based categorical needs essentially have moral import. The most obvious concerns beings—like infants, and some non-human animals—that have harm-based categorical needs, and (therefore) harm-based categorical reasons, even though they currently lack the sort of agential capacities that are necessary for the possession of moral reasons.¹⁴ For instance, a human toddler plausibly has a harm-based categorical need for attention from his primary caregiver. If he doesn’t receive adequate attention his development will be impaired in harmful ways. This need is categorical—it is not just a means to one of the toddler’s desires, purposes, or ends, but a necessary condition for his avoiding a serious harm. And, intuitively, this need is the basis of the toddler’s categorical reason to seek out the attention of his primary caregiver by, say, asking for cuddles, being playful, crying, or misbehaving. The toddler clearly lacks the abilities required for moral agency, or the possession of moral reasons. But he can respond (unconsciously, perhaps) to a need-based reason to get attention. This reason guides (and in a sense rationalises) his behaviour, but it is not a moral reason. It cannot be, for the toddler cannot

¹⁴ Lowe (2005) argues that needs give (external) reasons to those capable of personal agency. I’m extending the point to beings that can respond to reasons despite lacking the sort of personal agency that Lowe emphasises.

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have moral reasons at all. He thus has a categorical, non-moral, need-based reason to act. And this means that, intuitively, there exist at least some categorical reasons that are fundamentally non-moral in nature. Crucially, the categorical reasons deriving from our harm-based needs are irreducibly normative and (thus) non-natural. This is not to suggest that needs are themselves irreducible or non-natural. After all, biological needs are categorical yet natural. They simply describe what is biologically necessary for survival, and biological necessity is a form of natural necessity. Moreover, although harmbased needs are (unlike biological needs) inherently value-laden, they should also be viewed in naturalistic terms. For they simply describe what is necessary to avoid harm, and it is a good bet that the sciences will tell us what is necessary to avoid harm. (I doubt that the sciences can establish what harm itself is, but once this conceptual question is answered the question of what is necessary to avoid harm is an empirical one.) However, this doesn’t matter for our account of the normativity deriving from our categorical needs. Even if needs are natural entities, the normativity deriving from them is still irreducible and non-natural. And this is analogous to the moral case. As we’ve seen, moral reasons rest upon natural facts—such as facts about what produces suffering and loss. These facts are natural in the same way that needs are—science cannot establish that it is pro tanto wrong to cause suffering, but it can tell us what does in fact (tend to) cause suffering, just as it can tell us what is required to avoid harm. The point is just that, given what we already know of the ontology and methodology of the sciences, it seems a bad bet to suppose that we can naturalise the reason relation linking natural facts/ needs with possible actions. In other words, these reasons aren’t included in the ontology of the sciences, and it is unlikely that further scientific progress will lead to their inclusion. For, as I’ve discussed, the categorical reason relation is ill-suited to discovery via the empirical techniques characteristic of the sciences. Perhaps, in some areas, the reason relation is amenable to a naturalistic reduction—maybe the instrumental reason relation is a naturalistic relation between means and ends, and perhaps epistemic normativity can be grounded in a desire for truth or knowledge that is constitutive of inquiry. But we cannot take this approach in the case of need-based categorical reasons, for these reasons, and the needs from which they derive, are unconditional. They don’t depend on any desire, purpose, or end. In short, the categorical reason relation is beyond the scope of the sciences. The gulf between the categorically normative and the natural exists whether we are talking about moral reasons deriving from brute moral facts or non-moral reasons deriving from categorical needs.¹⁵

¹⁵ The most promising naturalist take on this gulf is the normative concept strategy, which I rejected in §4.3.1.

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I thus claim that there are non-moral categorical needs that give rise to nonmoral categorical reasons, that these non-moral categorical reasons are irreducibly normative and non-natural, and that they can play the role of morality’s innocent companion. You might suggest that this companionship isn’t as innocent as I’m making out—perhaps the queerness of categoricity is just as ontologically problematic when the categorical reasons in question are due to our non-moral needs as it is when they are due to the brute moral facts. However, I find it very hard to doubt the existence of categorical need-based reasons. To my mind it is deeply implausible that a toddler has no need-based reason to seek the attention of his primary caregiver. And the best conception of this reason treats it as irreducibly normative and non-natural. If the choice is between positing irreducibly normative, non-natural reasons, and a toddler having no reason to seek out his primary caregiver’s attention, then we should go for the former. That’s my judgement, at least. If it is correct then the moral domain’s allegedly untenable commitments can be found in another domain, and since it is unappealing to deny their existence in this other domain, the accusation that they are untenable is weakened. This doesn’t fully vindicate moral realism, for those who are sympathetic to moral error theory will probably be willing to accept (or embrace) the non-existence of need-based categorical reasons. But it does clarify that irreducibly normative and non-natural normativity is not unique to the moral domain, and that a moral error theory thus has costly implications beyond the moral case. I thus think that, unless there is independent reason to reject our intuitions about irreducible, categorical, and non-natural normative reasons, we should avoid that cost. The idea that we do in fact have reason to reject these intuitions is supported by the second step in the two-step defence of error theory. That is, the error theorist might look to a debunking argument in order to discredit the intuitions that support non-naturalistic realism. I’ll get to debunking arguments in Chapter 8, for I’ll first need to defend some other metaphysical and epistemological claims. What matters for now is that we cannot immediately dismiss non-naturalistic realism— it at least gets off the ground, in that it takes more to undermine this view than the queerness claim (taken on its own). This concludes my response to the bruteness charge—it’s true that realists are committed to positing brute moral facts, and that they are thus committed to the existence of irreducible, categorical, non-natural moral reasons. But we must take this commitment seriously given how costly it is to reject it not only in the case of moral reasons, but also in the case of non-moral need-based reasons.

4.5 Conclusion This chapter has defended the basic claim of moral realism by showing that it is well-placed to capture the non-arbitrariness of moral choice. The realist’s stance-

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independent moral ontology enables them to avoid the stability charge and the normative deficit charge entirely, and they can answer the ownership and bruteness charges. In so doing they take on a commitment to irreducible and categorical normativity, and thus have to accept a non-naturalistic picture. This picture is controversial, but we’ve seen that it can at least get off the ground. I will of course say more to develop and answer objections to it as I proceed in the rest of this book. In the next chapter I will defend a ‘robust’ conception of the realist’s moral ontology, rejecting ‘relaxed’ and ‘quasi-realist’ accounts of it.

5 Robust Ontology The realist ontology that I have defended—specifically, one that posits stanceindependent, irreducible, categorical, non-natural moral truths and properties—can be developed as a commitment to robust realism, relaxed realism, or quasi-realism. In this chapter I argue that a robust approach is needed to vindicate the nonarbitrariness of moral choice. I’ll start with the differences between robust realism, relaxed realism, and quasi-realism (§5.1). I’ll then argue that quasi-realism is subject to a normative deficit charge (§5.2), and that relaxed realism faces a privilege charge (§5.3). I’ll explain how a robust ontology fares better here (§5.4), and in so doing I’ll develop a reply to the challenge posed by the phenomenon of moral supervenience. I’ll conclude that robust realism is the view best placed to secure the non-arbitrariness of moral choice.

5.1 Three Options To understand the difference between robust realism, relaxed realism, and expressivistic quasi-realism, we must distinguish two perspectives from which we can think about moral issues. First, there is an ‘internal’ perspective. This is the perspective that we occupy when we engage in substantive moral thought and discourse. It is the standpoint at which we ask first-order moral questions—both specific questions (e.g. is it wrong to eat meat?) and more general questions (e.g. what is justice?). Of course, we might disagree in our answers to such questions. These are substantive moral disagreements occurring within ethics. They are internal to the moral domain. Second, however, there is an ‘external’ perspective on morality. This is a higherorder standpoint at which we aim to understand the ontological, psychological, epistemological, semantic, and meta-semantic assumptions that underpin moral practice. At this perspective we are less interested in ethical questions, focusing instead on metaethical questions about moral reality, moral knowledge, moral discourse, and so on. This perspective is external in that it is concerned with the nature of moral practice, rather than with engaging in moral practice. As this suggests, the external perspective is often thought of as being ‘disengaged’ or ‘detached’ from the internal perspective.¹ On one way of reading this ¹ See e.g. Miller (2009). Even those who deny that there is any external perspective for us to occupy (e.g. Dworkin 1996: 88) characterise it this way.

Robust Realism in Ethics: Normative Arbitrariness, Interpersonal Dialogue, and Moral Objectivity. Stephen Ingram, Oxford University Press. © Stephen Ingram 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198886488.003.0006

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detachment claim, the suggestion is that answering external metaethical questions doesn’t force one to take a stand on any substantive moral issue—that is, one can be wholly neutral on internal matters when asking external questions. I’ll argue in §5.4.1 that there is a much more complex connection between the internal and external perspectives than this suggests, but what matters for now is that, when we answer external metaethical questions, we are primarily interested in the nature and possibility of moral practice, rather than in getting a systematic account of what is (in general and in particular) right, good, just, and permissible, etc. With this rough view of the internal/external distinction in place, we can begin to get a grip on our three ontological options. The robust realist sees the commitment to stance-independent, irreducibly normative moral facts as involving external commitments. For robust realists, the claim that there are such facts is not a purely first-order moral claim (even if it turns out to have first-order moral implications). Instead it is an external metaphysical claim about what we are ontologically committed to if we maintain that first-order moral claims can be (‘objectively’) true or false, and that first-order moral choices can be normatively non-arbitrary. For many years this robust form of realism was taken to be the only form available—both by those who accepted and by those who rejected realism. But in recent decades relaxed realists and expressivistic quasi-realists have claimed that the commitment to realist moral facts should be treated as a purely moral commitment—that is, a commitment endorsed at the internal and not the external perspective. Let’s start with the expressivistic quasi-realist view. Expressivistic quasi-realists begin with an (external) account of moral thought and discourse—they argue that moral judgements and sentences serve to express certain non-representational attitudes. For instance, ‘killing is wrong’ might express disapproval of killing, a plan to avoid killing, acceptance of a norm against killing, a prescription to not kill, or something like that. This is the expressivistic element of the view. The quasi-realist element consists in the idea that the features of moral thought and discourse that initially appear to support a robustly realistic view can be (and are best) understood in expressivist-friendly ways.² After all, the idea that moral judgements and sentences express non-representational attitudes seems at first glance to conflict with the possibility of our forming moral beliefs, and of such beliefs being true or false independently of our attitudes. The quasirealist claim is that, when moral belief, truth, and objectivity are interpreted correctly, they are compatible with an expressivist theory. To illustrate, quasirealists will adopt a deflationary view of truth according to which ‘it is true that p’ is semantically equivalent to ‘p.’ On this approach the sentence ‘it is true that ² Cf. Blackburn (1984: 171). Quasi-realism is sometimes seen as ‘mimicking’ robust realism, but its real aim is to vindicate the features of ordinary thought and discourse that may appear to conflict with expressivism.

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killing is wrong’ simply means ‘killing is wrong,’ and this is a first-order moral claim which can then be glossed in expressivist terms (as something like disapproval of killing). From here it is a short step to a quasi-realist view of moral belief, for the concept of belief is related to that of truth. Believing that p just is, or is very close to, thinking that p is true. Quasi-realists can thus say that to believe that killing is wrong is to think it true that killing is wrong, which is just to think that killing is wrong, which is in turn just to express something like disapproval of killing. In the case of stance-independence, quasi-realists also treat this as an internal, first-order moral claim. Here is Simon Blackburn: ‘[M]oral truths are mind-independent’ can only summarise a list like ‘If there were no people (or people with different attitudes) then X . . .’ where the dots are filled in by some moral claim about X. One can then only assess things on this list by contemplating the nearest possible world in which there are no people or people with different attitudes but X occurs. And then one gives a moral verdict on that situation. (1998: 311)

The thought here is that a commitment to stance-independence is best read as a commitment to various counterfactual claims, like the claim that kicking dogs would still be wrong even if we all approved of it (cf. Gibbard 2003: 186). Blackburn’s insight is that such claims are made within the internal perspective. They are first-order claims about what is right or wrong in specific counterfactual conditions, and can thus be glossed in expressivist terms. This is underpinned by the fact that our moral attitudes respond to natural features of the world. We judge that kicking dogs is wrong because of the pain they suffer when kicked, not because we happen to disapprove of such behaviour. Quasi-realists can therefore hold that kicking dogs remains wrong in worlds at which our counterparts approve of it, for our disapproval of their so approving tracks the dog’s pain, which remains present even though the attitudes of our counterparts are unlike our actual attitudes. In short, our moral standards settle when to approve/disapprove of something, and can be met even at worlds at which ‘our’ attitudes differ. (It is easy to see how this allows quasi-realists to respond to a stability charge involving the Inglish.) Like the expressivistic quasi-realist, the relaxed realist thinks of stanceindependence as an internal moral commitment. However, the relaxed realist differs from the quasi-realist by maintaining that there are no interesting external questions about morality. This means that, not only is there no need for the external metaphysical posits of robust realism, there is also no need for the expressivist’s external psychology and semantics (which purport to go beyond the internal moral domain by explaining the nature and function of moral thought and discourse). Attempting to go beyond the moral domain to answer questions

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about morality is just misguided, according to relaxed realists. This position is often termed ‘quietism.’ I prefer to call it ‘relaxed realism,’ because, as Sarah McGrath (2014: 187) notes, it involves a rather striking lack of anxiety about the metaphysical implications of our first-order moral practice. The most powerful way of fleshing out relaxed realism involves an ontology of ‘domains.’ Just as there is an autonomous mathematical domain in which we quantify over numbers (and other such items) and an autonomous physical domain in which we quantify over quarks and electrons (and other such items), there is a subject matter, a cluster of concepts and claims, that make up the autonomous moral domain.³ In this domain we quantify over moral reasons, facts, and properties, etc. Moreover, given the autonomy of morality—i.e. its independence from other domains—it is simply not possible to undermine moral thought and discourse from the outside. Questions about morality can only be answered from within the moral domain, and according to the internal standards of the domain. As Dworkin puts the point, it is misguided to “expect answers that step outside morality to find a nonmoral account of moral truth . . . that expectation is confused: it rests on a failure to grasp the independence of morality” (2011: 38). Scanlon similarly says that the “truth values of statements about one domain, insofar as they do not conflict with the statements of some other domain, are properly settled by the standards of the domain they are about” (2014: 19). Put another way, as long as first-order normative statements— including, following a reading akin to the quasi-realist’s, the statement that there are stance-independent moral facts—do not conflict with scientific or mathematical statements (etc.), then their truth is to be determined by appeal to internal normative standards that exist within the first-order normative domain. This is a relaxed interpretation of the realist moral ontology. I’ll say more about our three ontological options as this chapter unfolds, but I’ve now said enough to clarify the choice we face. Having agreed that there are stanceindependent, irreducible, categorical, and non-natural moral facts, we must decide whether to understand them as an external metaphysical postulate, an internal moral commitment that is combined with an external (expressivist) view of moral thought and discourse, or an internal moral commitment requiring no external claims at all. In the next two sections I argue that neither quasi-realism nor relaxed realism is able to vindicate the non-arbitrariness of moral choice.⁴

³ Dworkin (1996; 2011) concentrates on morality, Parfit (2011) and Scanlon (2014) on normativity more generally. Parfit (2017) changes his label for his position from ‘non-metaphysical’ to ‘non-realist’ cognitivism, but it is hard to understand his view except as a form of relaxed realism. ⁴ For brevity, I haven’t said how quasi-realists and relaxed realists might understand normativity as non-natural. We needn’t worry about the details here, but note that Gibbard (2003) defends a normative concept strategy, and Scanlon (2014) holds that items in the normative domain are irreducible to items in the natural domain.

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5.2 Quasi-Realism In this section I’ll first consider the status of the claim that moral facts are stance-independent, agreeing that expressivistic quasi-realists can vindicate stance-independence on their own terms (§5.2.1). However, I will then suggest that, once we understand precisely how they achieve this, it turns out that they face a version of the normative deficit charge (§5.2.2). The expressivistic quasi-realist is therefore vulnerable to an arbitrariness charge, but not the one that we may have expected her to face.

5.2.1 Conceptual Status Many philosophers have doubted quasi-realism’s ability to deliver the sort of stance-independent moral facts needed for non-arbitrary moral choice. Consider, for instance, the following from Enoch: An honest noncognitivist or expressivist – even a quasi-realist – will have to agree that there is a sense in which all normativity is grounded in the attitudes she just happens to find herself with. Such views, then, cannot eliminate the constitutive role in shaping normativity of these normatively arbitrary attitudes. And while the unending ingenuity of expressivists can make this problem less obvious, it cannot, it seems to me, make it go away. (2011a: 80–1)

The suggestion here is that quasi-realists are ultimately committed to a stancedependence theory, given that they treat moral judgements as expressing our attitudes. If this is right, it means that quasi-realists fall foul of the arbitrariness charges that arise for other stance-dependence theories. They can then be dismissed on similar grounds to those other theories. However, it is a mistake to criticise expressivistic quasi-realism in this way. There have been many attempts to show that expressivism cannot capture the stance-independence of morality, but most of them rely on a mischaracterisation of its (meta-)semantic commitments.⁵ In particular, a mischaracterisation of what expressivists are committed to when they say that the meaning of a moral sentence is a function of the attitude it expresses. The assumption is that this ultimately implies that, if the sentence is true, it has to be made true by that attitude. But this is not the case, for, as Schroeder argues, expressivists can accept a parity thesis on which “the relationship between ‘stealing is wrong’ and disapproval of stealing is exactly the same as the relationship between ‘grass is green’ and the belief that ⁵ The most subtle and charitable attempts come from Jackson and Pettit (1998) and Suikkanen (2009), but even these rely on mischaracterisations (see Schroeder 2014).

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grass is green” (2014: 280; see also Schroeder 2008). On this picture, whatever it is about the expression relation that stops the truth of ‘grass is green’ depending on my belief that grass is green will apply to ‘stealing is wrong’ as well. Expressivists need to explain what that is—in other words, they need an account of the expression relation—but whatever it is it ensures that the truth of ‘stealing is wrong’ does not depend on my disapproval of stealing, even as it expresses my disapproval of stealing.⁶ It is thus a mistake to reject quasi-realism on the grounds that it is (covertly) a stance-dependence theory. However, expressivistic quasi-realists do face more interesting questions involving stance-independence. In particular, Nick Zangwill (1994) argues that the internal moral reading of stance-independence is incompatible with its status as a conceptual truth. I do not agree with Zangwill on this, but I do think that quasi-realism becomes vulnerable to a normative deficit charge once we consider exactly what it must say to avoid his objection. Before presenting this normative deficit charge, I thus need to explain both the objection and the strategy for answering it. The starting point for the objection is the claim that it is a conceptual truth that moral facts, if there are any, are stance-independent. We can see this by noting that, in order to be competent with moral concepts, one must recognise that moral judgements aspire to correctness—they can be correct or incorrect, and are defective when they are incorrect. But one cannot recognise this unless one also recognises (implicitly, at least) that (in most cases) one cannot make a moral judgement correct just by making that judgement—for instance, I cannot make lying right simply by believing that lying is right, or by approving of lying, and so on. Put another way, to be competent with moral concepts one must recognise that their correct application is independent of how they are in fact applied. Stance-independence is therefore a conceptual truth in the sense that we can know moral truths to be stance-independent just “by following out the implications of what we must know in order to successfully deploy a [moral] concept” (Zangwill 1994: 211–12).⁷ Any account of stance-independence—including that

⁶ One may reply here by rejecting the parity thesis (see e.g. Woods 2014), but it seems plausible to me. ⁷ You may wonder why I spent so long criticising stance-dependence theories (in Chapters 2–3) if belief in stance-independence is part of competence with moral concepts. The answer is easy: stancedependence theorists deny the conceptual status claim. They can accept that the aspiration to correctness has a conceptual status, and is essential to moral thought and discourse. But they maintain that it can be met in ways that are friendly to a stance-dependence theory. Chapters 2–3 show that this is not so. I argued that even the most promising stance-dependence theories fail to capture intuitions about when a moral choice is non-arbitrary, and that moral thought is thus committed to stanceindependence. Having rejected stance-dependent accounts of the aspiration to correctness, I can now say that moral conceptual competence requires (implicit) recognition of stance-independence. We found this by following out the implications of what we must know to successfully deploy moral concepts. Conceptual truths can be non-obvious, and it took argument to support this one. (Note too that those who deny stance-independence can be competent with moral concepts, for one can know how to use a concept without having the correct theory of what is required to use it.)

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of the quasi-realist—must capture this conceptual status. Zangwill thinks that quasi-realists face a problem here—the conceptual status of stance-independence is, he argues, incompatible with the internal, first-order moral reading of it. The basis for this incompatibility claim is neatly put by Neil Sinclair, in his discussion of Zangwill’s argument:⁸ If p is a conceptual truth about a range of concepts then one cannot abandon p without ceasing to trade in those concepts altogether. Yet the internal reading takes claims of mind-independence to be founded on a substantive moral position and thus represent claims which, presumably, can be denied without abandoning morality altogether. So the internal reading is inconsistent with the conceptual status of claims of mind-independence. (Sinclair 2008: 273; cf. Sinclair 2021: 202)

The thought here is that, if stance-independence is a moral claim then it cannot also be a claim that governs competence with moral concepts, for we can reject any given moral claim whilst continuing to use moral concepts. The quasi-realist needs a reply to this. They must explain the status of stance-independence consistently with their moral reading of it. Sinclair develops the natural strategy for a quasi-realist reply to Zangwill. He suggests that, for expressivists, the defining aim of moral discourse is to aid in mutual coordination among agents with differing interests, desires, and beliefs, etc. That is, the ultimate point of making claims that express moral attitudes is to encourage habits of behaviour and thought that enable us to live together better.⁹ And, crucially, this coordinating function of moral practice constrains the competent use of moral concepts. Moral concepts are meant for mutual coordination, so their applicability is regulated by a goal of mutual coordination. The point Sinclair (2008: 273; 2021: 203–4) makes is that, for our moral concepts to play this role in mutual coordination, they must be used in a stance-independent way. This is because of the fact that, in order to potentially facilitate coordination, a moral claim must be based upon considerations that could move others to revise their attitudes (so that we grow more aligned). Stance-dependent considerations are illsuited for this—the fact that I disapprove of kicking dogs is not a reason for you to do so. Thus, if I base my judgement that it is wrong to kick dogs on my disapproval of kicking dogs, it will lack the persuasive force that is necessary for

⁸ Zangwill’s own discussion of this point is unconvincing—he says that “substantive moral truths are eminently controversial” and are therefore “unlikely candidates for conceptual truths” (1994: 213). But conceptual truths can be controversial—see n.7. ⁹ The goal of coordination has long been at the heart of expressivism—see e.g. Ayer (1936: 111), Stevenson (1944), Hare (1981: ch. 5), Gibbard (1990: ch. 13; 2003: ch. 14; 2008), Blackburn (1993: 168–9; 1998: ch. 7), Sinclair (2008; 2016; 2021), and Lenman (2010a). The idea is that expressing desirelike states usually has more rhetorical power than simply reporting them (cf. §3.1.4).

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a moral claim to aid the coordination of attitudes. But if I endorse a commitment to stance-independence, then my reason for judging that it is wrong to kick dogs must lie outside my own attitudes. It must involve something like the fact that this causes dogs pain, for this is a consideration that could convince others to change their moral attitudes. In short, the idea here is that we can take stance-independence to be a moral commitment with a special status. It is a moral commitment that regulates one’s other moral commitments, given that it is essential to the coordinating role of moral discourse. No one could abandon this commitment without ceasing to trade in moral concepts, for this would be to abandon the aim of coordination that defines moral discourse. In other words, stance-independence is a moral judgement about how to make moral judgements—it is a (second-order) moral claim that sets a general standard for how the rest of moral thought and discourse can unfold. And this standard has to be accepted by any competent moral agent. In sum, quasi-realists can account for the stance-independence of morality on their own terms. Their (meta-)semantic position doesn’t entail that moral truths depend for their truth on our attitudes, and the moral reading of stanceindependence is consistent with its status as a conceptual truth. So far so good for quasi-realism. However, I will now argue that their take on the conceptual status of stance-independence makes quasi-realists vulnerable to a normative deficit charge—the sort of arbitrariness charge that I made against constitutivist views back in §3.2.

5.2.2 Expressivist Deficits To see this note first that, in explaining how stance-independence can be both a moral and a conceptual truth, quasi-realists have taken on a constitutivist commitment. Unlike traditional forms of constitutivism, like the Kantian picture discussed in §3.2, quasi-realism doesn’t make a claim about the nature of action or agency. Its claim is instead about the nature of moral practice. In general terms, the claim is that mutual coordination is the constitutive goal of such practice—as Sinclair puts it, “the function of moral practice is to develop, test, refine, and sustain mutually beneficial patterns of action and reaction” (2021: 203). This is crucial to the account, for if the aim of mutual coordination were not constitutive of and therefore essential to moral practice, then it would not set the conditions of moral conceptual competence. Quasi-realists thus have to say that the goal of coordination is constitutive of moral practice, for this is what underwrites their claim that a commitment to stance-independence is (partly) constitutive of competence with moral concepts. My argument will be that this constitutivist commitment makes quasi-realists vulnerable to the normative deficit charge, for we cannot tie all of the moral

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guidance that we need to a coordination goal that is plausibly considered constitutive of moral practice. That quasi-realism faces this charge might come as a surprise, for the view is often taken to be neutral on concrete moral questions.¹⁰ However, a full defence of quasi-realism is committed, I will argue, to convincing us that all of the moral guidance we need can be tied to a coordination goal that defines morality. And since I am pessimistic about the chances of making good on this commitment, I will conclude that quasi-realism leaves us with a normative deficit, and fails to capture the non-arbitrariness of moral choice.

Coordination Goals It’s one thing to say that moral practice is governed by a goal of mutual coordination, and another to say exactly what this aim consists in. For there are many things we may be aiming for here—Sinclair thinks that the least morality aims for is to “avoid ruinous conflict” whilst the most it aims for is “maximal flourishing of those things which people value” (2008: 273). This is rather open-ended and nonspecific, which is fine for the purposes of establishing a general point about the commitment to stance-independence. But a full defence of quasi-realism must offer some more specific claims about the precise nature of the coordination goal that regulates moral thought and discourse. One might doubt this—Sinclair is not wrong when he says that stance-independence should be understood as a constraint on “the space of possibly correct moral outlooks, or as [an enabling condition] for any type of engagement in the discursive coordinating practice of morality, with it being a further question precisely how to coordinate” (2021: 205–6). However, this doesn’t let quasi-realists off the hook when it comes to offering specific accounts of the coordination goals that may define moral practice. This is because whatever precisely this goal turns out to be, the quasi-realist must show that we can derive all the moral guidance that we need from it. To see why this is the case, consider that the argument of §5.2.1 commits quasirealists to a coherentist view of moral justification.¹¹ As Sinclair puts the point, “attitudes such as approval and disapproval are not appropriate in themselves, but only when located within a practice of mutual coordination” (2008: 277). Put another way, an individual attitude can only be morally justified by its position within a system of attitudes that is governed by the goal of mutual coordination. Attitudes that float free from the coordination goal—however it gets specified— are incapable of moral justification, for they lie outside of morality. So, to avoid facing a normative deficit charge, quasi-realists must establish that there is at least one way of understanding the precise nature of the coordination goal that enables ¹⁰ Having said that, Hare (1981) and Gibbard (2008) defend forms of utilitarianism that build on their expressivist theories, and Lenman (2010a) binds his expressivism to first-order contractualism, so perhaps it should not be such a surprise. ¹¹ Coherentism is popular among quasi-realists anyway—see Blackburn (1993: 188–97; 1998: 72), Gibbard (2003; 2008), and Lenman (2009: 9).

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all of the moral questions to which some answer is needed to receive an answer that is directly or indirectly tied to this goal. In short, if it turns out that we can make moral judgements expressing attitudes that don’t in some way tie in with the coordination goal, then quasi-realism will create a normative deficit in any possibly correct moral outlook. For such judgements will not count as genuine moral judgements by quasi-realist lights. The lesson to take from this is that quasirealists have to say enough about mutual coordination to convince us that it can be interpreted in a way that avoids a normative deficit. In other words, quasi-realists must offer at least one account of the coordination goal such that it is (a) a plausible candidate for being constitutive of moral practice, and (b) capable of offering all the moral guidance that we need. Getting such an account will be difficult, for (a) and (b) pull in opposite directions. Consider that less demanding views of the coordination goal can plausibly claim to govern moral thinking, but are unlikely to give us all the moral guidance we need. To illustrate, it is plausible that morality at least aims to avoid ruinous conflict, but very little moral guidance can be tied to this aim. After all, a democratic and an authoritarian regime might do equally well at avoiding conflict, but one might nonetheless judge that a democracy is morally better on the grounds that it is more able to respect individual liberty, or that it tends to make for happier citizens, or that it tends to allocate resources more efficiently. If quasi-realism is true then these considerations only count as reasons to prefer democracy if they can be tied to the specified coordination goal. It’s not sufficient that they are logically compatible with this goal—a stronger relationship is required, for otherwise the attitude expressed by a judgement like ‘democracy is better because it makes for happier citizens’ can just float free from the aim of avoiding ruinous conflict (after all, such an aim does not entail that we have to approve of making people happier, or whatever). This would mean that the judgement in question could not be morally justified given that, by quasi-realist lights, the attitude that it expresses cannot be justified by itself (this is an implication of coherentism), or by our moral attitudes (this is an implication of endorsing the stance-independence of moral facts). This leads to a normative deficit—the goal of avoiding ruinous conflict does not allow for all of the moral guidance that we need. Such a goal leaves us with no way to choose between options (e.g. democracy and authoritarianism) where a way of choosing is needed, for it cannot explain the normativity of considerations that may guide one’s choice. Those considerations have to tie into the coordination goal that defines morality, and because avoiding ruinous conflict is a very undemanding goal it is unlikely that all considerations with moral weight can be tied to it. Thus, to avoid creating a normative deficit, quasi-realists have to define moral practice in terms of a more demanding coordination goal. However, more demanding goals cause problems too. For instance, we could get a lot of moral guidance from a goal of complete convergence in our attitudes. But it is

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implausible that moral practice is defined by such a goal—a system of attitudes can count as a moral system without being regulated by this goal. In short, when offering contenders for an account of the coordination goal, quasi-realists have to balance (a) and (b).

Contractualist Proposals So far we’ve seen that, although quasi-realism is not committed to any specific view on how to coordinate, it is committed to identifying ways of understanding the morality-defining coordination goal such that it can provide the basis for an answer to all of the moral questions that need answering. Quasi-realists tend not to offer a detailed account of the coordination goal and the normative guidance it provides, perhaps assuming (incorrectly, given what we’ve seen) that this is not required for a full defence of the view. I will focus here on two exceptions—Allan Gibbard and Jimmy Lenman—who defend contractualist accounts of coordination. For instance, Gibbard holds that “[t]he point of morality . . . is to live with each other on a basis that none of us could reasonably reject. No one has a reasonable objection if the system we live by is what we would have agreed to in fair conditions – and one way to make conditions fair is a veil of ignorance” (2008: 41–2). And Lenman says that the aim of morality is “to figure out a set of principles acceptable to us all in the light of which we might agree to live together as a moral community” (2010a: 177).¹² These are candidate specifications of the morality-defining coordination goal. However, both leave a normative deficit. Specifically, a deficit involving our direct duties to non-human animals. The problem of accounting for such duties is a familiar issue for contractualist positions, for non-human animals cannot enter into the social contract that is meant to determine our duties to one another.¹³ Being able to reasonably object to possible ways of living together, and being able to figure out and agree to a principles that we can all accept, requires rational capacities that animals do not have. More generally, contractualist views centre on the idea that morality is fundamentally about justifying ourselves to other rational agents, on the basis of our standing in relations of mutual recognition to each other—relations in which we view each other as beings who can assess and act for reasons. Non-human animals cannot stand in such relations to us, for they lack the relevant rational capacities. They are thus excluded from our social contract. In short, if our moral duties to each other derive from the social contract that we have rationally agreed to live by, then we cannot have moral duties to nonhuman animals. At least, not directly. We may still have indirect contractual duties

¹² Scanlon (1998) and Rawls (1999) are a clear influence on these claims, though (as we’ll see) Gibbard and Lenman depart from them (and each other) in certain ways. ¹³ For discussion see Carruthers (1992), Scanlon (1998: 178–87), Hooker (2000: 66–70), Talbert (2006), and Southwood (2010: 169–70).

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to animals, perhaps deriving from our direct duties to humans, or from the contingent fact that we care about animals and want them to be protected. But duties of this sort are not owed to animals directly because they are themselves worthy of moral consideration. And it is intuitively plausible that we have direct duties to non-human animals. My duty to not kick Fido is not owed to Fido’s human owner, but to Fido himself, and it has to do with the badness of the pain he will feel upon being kicked, rather than the contingent concern that humans have for him not to feel pain. This is why animals present a challenge to contractualist theories. Scanlon (1998: 184) responds to the challenge by accepting that not all moral duties can be captured in contractualist terms. That is, he accepts that we can have direct duties to non-human animals, but sees those duties as lying beyond the scope of contractualism—such duties must be explained in other ways. What Scanlon offers here involves a somewhat disunified theoretical picture, and this may well be a cost of contractualism (one that contractualists will argue is outweighed by the theory’s benefits). But this is an option for most contractualists—they can make space for direct moral duties to animals by accepting that such duties fall beyond the scope of their theory. Unfortunately, however, this way of avoiding a deficit regarding animals is unavailable to quasi-realists who, like Lenman and Gibbard, offer contractualist accounts of the coordination goal. If quasi-realists suggest that our direct duties to animals can be understood separately from the contractualist coordination goal, then they end up offering a picture on which those duties float free from that goal. In which case, the relevant judgements and attitudes do not tie into the coordination goal that is supposed to define and regulate our whole system of moral attitudes (rather than just some localised part of it). These judgements and attitudes will be incapable of moral justification, because they are not tied to, or do not cohere with, the contractualist coordination goals that Lenman and Gibbard specify as defining our engagement in moral practice.¹⁴ In short, although Scanlon (and most other contractualists) can avoid a normative deficit by adopting a disunity strategy, this option is not available to Lenman and Gibbard because their contractualism is built upon a quasi-realist foundation. A better way forward for them is to argue that direct duties to animals are, in fact, needed to satisfy the relevant coordination goal. More specifically, they could appeal to an idea discussed by Scanlon, on which we can include some nonhuman animals in our contract because they have a good (things can go better or worse for them), and because we are capable of feeling guilt towards them (e.g. if ¹⁴ Note that, although Gibbard (2008) arrives at an average rule-utilitarian view from a contractualist coordination goal, and although most utilitarians can capture direct duties to animals by arguing that such duties are owed not just to beings with whom we stand in relations of mutual recognition, but to beings with the capacity to suffer, he still leaves us with this deficit. Non-human animals cannot be contracting parties, so in determining how to live together behind a veil of ignorance, we needn’t consider the possibility that we might turn out to be non-human animals.

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our actions make things go worse for them). The thought is that these facts mean that there is a sense in which we can do things that are unjustifiable to animals. Although animals cannot participate in contractual negotiations themselves, we can assign trustees to them whose task is to represent the good of the animal in the negotiations.¹⁵ Contractualists can thus secure direct duties to animals, for in a certain sense we are able to include animals in our social contract. Put in terms of Lenman’s coordination goal, when we are trying to “figure out a set of moral principles acceptable to us all in the light of which we might agree to live together as a moral community” (2010a: 177), our claims about what is acceptable to us all must allow for what will be acceptable to non-human animals (according to their trustees). This trustee claim would give the quasi-realist a way to avoid an animalbased normative deficit. Ultimately, however, appealing to trustees is not a good option. It cannot be squared with the basic motivation for a contractualist view (cf. Carruthers 1992: 100 and Hooker 2000: 69). As we have seen, this view is based on the idea that morality is about justifying ourselves to other agents with whom we (have reason to want to) stand in relations of mutual recognition. That one can appropriately feel guilt towards an animal (e.g. when one carelessly causes it pain) does not mean that one has such a relationship with it, or that actions and moral principles can be more or less justified to it. The appropriateness of guilt towards an animal does imply that one can do it wrong, but not that this wronging must be based on what is and isn’t justifiable to the animal. No action can be justifiable to an animal—they lack the psychological capacities needed to identify and comprehend justification. From the perspective of an animal there may be pleasurecausing and pain-causing actions and events, but no justifiable and unjustifiable acts or principles. We can thus do something that is unjustified to an animal, but we cannot do something that is unjustifiable to that animal. There is thus no real contractualist rationale for an appeal to trustees—this response seems ad hoc. I do not know of a more plausible contractualist-friendly way to secure direct duties to animals, so I maintain that quasi-realists face a normative deficit charge if they see the morality-defining coordination goal in contractualist terms. Note again that the worry here is distinct from (and worse than) the general worry facing contractualism, given the possibility of the disunified picture noted above. Since our direct duties to animals cannot be tied to a contractualist coordination goal, quasi-realist contractualists like Gibbard and Lenman leave us with a normative deficit. They offer a view that cannot answer all of the moral questions about the treatment of animals to which we need an answer. Answers to such questions thus end up being arbitrary on these views, for they lack adequate

¹⁵ Scanlon (1982: 113), Talbert (2006), and Southwood (2010: 111–12, 169–70) offer trustee views. Scanlon (1998: 184) ultimately prefers a different approach.

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justification. In sum, contractualist readings of the morality-defining coordination goal are not a promising option for quasi-realists.

Other Proposals What other options do quasi-realists have? Bearing in mind their need to balance (a) and (b), here are two proposals worth considering: (1) The goal of moral practice is to resolve interpersonal conflicts—not only ruinous ones, but all conflicts in our aims, desires, interests, moral judgements, etc. (2) The goal of moral practice is to help to foster altruistic activity—that is, helping behaviour motivated by a direct concern for another’s welfare. Both of these proposals could be developed more fully, but a case could be made for either of them defining engagement in moral practice.¹⁶ And both of them are well-placed to supply direct duties to non-human animals.¹⁷ However, neither (1) nor (2) is ultimately workable. They either create a deficit or end up failing to define morality. In the case of (1), note first that it does not assume that all interpersonal conflicts can be rationally resolved. In itself this is fine. It may be that some attitudinal conflicts are not resolvable by rational means. (I’ll argue in §8.1.1 that we can predict that most moral disagreements will be resolved in ideal conditions, but we can set this aside here.) But this raises a question: what are we to do in such a case? Are we required to avoid a conflict that we cannot resolve? I could avoid conflict by giving in and changing my plans to fit yours. This doesn’t resolve the conflict, but it does in a sense promote coordination. Of course, in many cases a compromise should be sought, but in some cases of moral conflict we can and should stand our ground (cf. Enoch 2011a: ch. 2). This seems like the right response to persistent and unresolved conflict with the Inglish, for example. The issue here is that, as it stands, (1) gives no guidance on how to handle such cases. It thus leaves a normative deficit—it cannot help us when we ask what to do in a given case of a persistently unresolved conflict. Those sympathetic to (1) must therefore revise it in some way to clarify what we are to do in such a case. Various revisions can be offered here, but it is hard to see any of them being constitutive of moral practice. A revision that tells us when we should compromise and when we should stand our ground, for example, will involve finegrained moral claims, and it is unlikely that moral practice is defined by such

¹⁶ Stevenson (1944; 1963) seems sympathetic to (1)—he stresses the role that moral language plays in resolving disagreements. (2) might be based on evolutionary ideas—see e.g. Kitcher (2011). ¹⁷ With (1) it may be that humans must try to avoid conflict not only with each other’s desires and interests, but with those of non-human animals too. With (2) it may be that the ‘others’ for whom we have altruistic concern must include animals.

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moral claims. I thus doubt that (1), or a refined version of it, can give us a coordination goal. (2) is also likely to lead to a normative deficit, for certain duties are not justified by altruistic considerations. For instance, promissory duties may well foster altruistic behaviour (e.g. by encouraging the sort of trusting relations that make altruism less risky), but this seems only to explain the development of a promissory principle. It doesn’t justify such a principle, and it would be an odd sort of justification for it—my duty to keep a promise that I have made to you is more plausibly due to your right to respectful treatment than it is to my altruistic concern for you, or to our shared interest in people being altruistic. Moreover, given that there is debate as to how altruistic we are morally obligated to be, a proposal like (2) will either need to get more specific about the kinds of altruistic activity that moral practice aims for, in which case it will end up making controversial moral claims that make it unlikely to regulate moral practice, or it will need to invoke a deeper coordination goal to settle this debate, in which case that deeper goal will be the one that matters. Either way, I doubt that (2) can serve as a coordination goal. There may be ways of polishing (1) and (2) that avoid the issues just raised, and there may be other candidate coordination goals worth considering. However, I’ve said enough to show that quasi-realists face a real issue when it comes to vindicating the non-arbitrariness of moral choice, for they are vulnerable to the normative deficit charge. In itself, quasi-realism is not committed to a specific view of how to coordinate. But the constitutivist claims that it takes on to explain the conceptual status of stance-independence commit it to identifying at least one way of interpreting the goal of morality such that all of the moral guidance we need can be understood in terms of this goal. Since there is reason to be pessimistic about the likelihood of getting such an interpretation, expressivistic quasi-realism is not a promising way to develop a realist picture.

Hybrid Expressivism Before moving on I want to briefly note that a normative deficit charge applies not only to the ‘pure’ forms of expressivistic quasi-realism that I focused on above, but also to ‘hybrid’ forms of expressivism. A hybrid theory says that moral judgements are complex states that incorporate both belief-like and desire-like elements, and hybrid expressivists assign a deeper normative role to the desire-like elements of moral judgement. Roughly put, hybrid expressivists suggest that the desire-like element of a normative judgement determines the content of its descriptive, or belief-like element. For example, Michael Ridge (2014: 115) holds that a normative judgement consists in the combination of a ‘normative perspective’—i.e. a set of relatively stable self-governing policies about which deliberative standards to accept and reject—and a belief about whether a given action (etc.) is recommended, required, ruled out (etc.) by these standards. I think that, like pure

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expressivism, this hybrid theory faces a normative deficit charge. This is because the standards that go into the desire-like aspect of a normative perspective must be justified stance-independently. The hybrid expressivist is thus committed to an internal moral interpretation of stance-independence and its conceptual status— one on which this is a moral standard that regulates the rest of one’s normative perspective because of its role in serving the mutual coordination goal that constitutively governs moral practice. Hybrid expressivists and pure expressivists are thus committed to the same sort of constitutivist claims. And the additional resources available to hybrid expressivists don’t help to avoid a normative deficit. For if the content of the belief-like element of moral judgement is fixed by the desire-like element, then a deficit in your desire-like normative perspective will lead to a deficit in the moral judgements that you can make. In sum, including a belief-like element in normative judgement might help hybrid expressivists with some of the problems facing pure expressivists, but not with the normative deficit charge. Ridge’s is not the only hybrid expressivist view, but the charge generalises to other views.¹⁸ Adding a belief-like element to normative judgement does not fill in the deficit in its desirelike element. Going hybrid thus does not help.

5.3 Relaxed Realism We can now move on to relaxed realism. The main worry about relaxed realism is that it is overly permissive in its ontological criteria. In other words, its criteria for determining whether or not an entity exists are too inclusive—relaxed realism is too relaxed about what there is, for it commits us to the existence of entities that do not exist. Its defence of stance-independent moral or normative facts is thus rather hollow, for it allows us to come by the existence of such facts too easily, and in an inappropriate way. Versions of this objection have been put by Enoch (2011a: §5.3), McPherson (2011), and Enoch and McPherson (2017). I will explain how the objection is best understood as a privilege charge—specifically, what we can call the ‘privileged domains’ charge. My aim in this section is to defend a privileged domains charge against relaxed realism. Relaxed realism is best understood as resting on an ontology of domains. This ontology is at its strongest and most explicit in Scanlon (2014), but Kramer (2009) and Dworkin (2011) appeal to the notion of a domain in what appears to be a similar way. And although Parfit (2011; 2017) doesn’t speak in terms of domains I suspect that they are necessary to make sense of his suggestion that some entities

¹⁸ E.g. Toppinen (2013) suggests that normative sentences express the higher-order state of being in something like the state described by Ridge. Toppinen will thus still face a corresponding normative deficit charge, and the same goes for other versions of hybrid expressivism.

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exist in a ‘non-ontological’ sense. (I find Parfit’s view hard to understand.) Since the ontology of domains is most explicitly and powerfully defended by Scanlon, he will be my focus. Scanlon understands a domain “in terms of the kind of claims it involves, and hence in terms of concepts that it deals with, such as number, set, physical object, reason, or morally right action” (2014: 19). The idea is that a domain is a subject matter, a subject that a certain kind of thought or statement is about (see also Dworkin 2011: 31 and Scanlon 2017). Some domains are autonomous in that they are independent of other domains. The key relaxed realist idea is that the question of whether an entity posited in an autonomous domain exists, and whether a proposition belonging to an autonomous domain is true, can be answered only by appeal to the standards of the domain. As Scanlon puts the view, the “truth values of statements about one domain, insofar as they do not conflict with the statements of some other domain, are properly settled by the standards of the domain they are about” (2014: 19). Scanlon doesn’t tell us how we are to adjudicate conflicts between domains, but he does think that various entities can be rejected this way. For instance, we can deny the existence of witches because many claims about witches (e.g. that they can turn people into frogs) conflict with truths that have been discovered through our best way of knowing about the natural world—science. Thus, when it comes to the existence of normative facts and reasons, relaxed realists suggest that the only interesting external question about them is whether their existence is consistent with our commitments from other autonomous domains. Beyond this, the existence of normative facts and reasons can only be settled by normative standards— the internal standards of the domain. The problem is that a domain ontology is extremely permissive, which makes its vindication of moral and normative facts quite hollow. Enoch and McPherson give a vivid example to illustrate this: [S]uppose that we have an adequately regimented way of thinking about magical elves, understood as existing in a wholly causally isolated partition of the universe. On the liberal interpretation of Scanlon’s view, it seems that these conditions entail that it is true that the elves exist . . . Accepting such magical elves into one’s ontology strikes us as hard to swallow, to put it mildly. (2017: 825)

The lesson that Enoch and McPherson take from this is that there must be domain-independent restrictions on our ontology. I think that they are right about this, though we’ll need to say more to hammer the point home. Consider that one may object to their example on the basis that, although these elves are causally isolated from the rest of the universe, they have to be posited as part of the natural or physical domain if they are capable of the kind of causal work that ‘magic’ involves (cf. Scanlon 2017: n.4). In which case their existence must be determined by appeal to the empirical scientific standards of the natural or

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physical domain. A commitment to magical elves, like a commitment to witches, is very unlikely to be vindicated by those standards. However, other examples make Enoch and McPherson’s point more effectively. Consider theism. We might worry that the existence of God comes too easily on a domain ontology—all it takes is for there to be an internally consistent theistic domain that avoids a conflict with other domains. Scanlon’s (2014: 21–2; 2017: 886) response to this is that theism at least seems to conflict with other domains. For instance, there are possible conflicts between the theistic domain and the physical domain (consider e.g. what theists may believe about the creation of the universe). And there are possible conflicts between the theistic and the normative domain (consider e.g. the Euthyphro problem). The relaxed realist reply here is basically that the existence of God (as most Western theists view him) does not come too easily on the domain ontology, for there is a serious question as to whether theistic claims are compatible with the commitments of other domains. However, it is easy enough to imagine a coherent form of theism on which it does not conflict with our commitments in other domains. Imagine a supernatural being who can have no causal influence on the natural world, but who always knows what is happening in that world. Call it ‘The Observer.’ It is plausible that there is an internally coherent subject matter about this being. We can think about what it knows and how it knows it. We can ask how The Observer is similar and different to us in its capacity for knowledge and in its psychology. We can ask if there is only one such being, and, if there is more than one, we can ask what relation these supernatural beings have to one another. We could base an entire religion on such questions. This religion needn’t involve the idea that The Observer has any normative significance. We needn’t think that it has authority over us, or that it cares for us, or that it wants certain actions from us. In short, there is an internally coherent subject matter involving The Observer that avoids conflict with other domains. For relaxed realists, existence questions about The Observer can thus be answered only by standards that are internal to this theistic domain. These presumably imply that it exists, which seems absurd. It is absurd not only to posit such a being, but also to adopt ontological criteria that so easily commit us to its existence. Such criteria are overly permissive. The relaxed realist’s ontology of domains is therefore implausible as it stands. Enoch and McPherson are thus correct that further ontological criteria are needed. We need domainindependent limits to what there is. One thing that this shows is that the issue facing relaxed realism can usefully be interpreted as an arbitrariness charge. Specifically, it is a version of the privilege charge, for it suggests that a domain ontology fails to provide adequate reason to privilege the commitments of some domains over others. Put another way, the relaxed realist needs, but is unable to provide, a reason to privilege the commitments of domains that are ontologically committing (e.g. the physical domain) over those that obviously are not (e.g. the theistic domain considered above). The

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upshot is that a relaxed realist ‘vindication’ of normative facts is hollow—it offers insufficient reason to group the normative domain alongside domains that we should treat as ontologically committing, rather than alongside those whose commitments we should doubt. In other words, by relaxed realist criteria the commitments of the normative domain may be on an ontological par with those of the theistic domain outlined above. This doesn’t mean that there can be no reason to privilege some domains. But the most plausible options here are at odds with relaxed realism, for they would involve giving up either its relaxed or its realist element. For instance, we could appeal to pragmatic considerations as a domain-independent constraint on our ontology. Most obviously, we could adopt a neo-Carnapian position on which a domain is privileged (roughly) by it being useful to think or speak in terms of it (cf. Carnap 1956).¹⁹ However, a pragmatic view conflicts with the realist element of relaxed realism. Realism is a claim about what exists, not what it is useful to think or say given our aims and needs. Alternatively, we could privilege a domain’s commitments by maintaining that their existence is to be settled not only by considerations internal to the domain, but also by considerations external to it. But this would give up the relaxed element of relaxed realism. The idea that there are stance-independent moral truths is no longer being understood as a purely internal moral claim. More carefully, the normative domain and the physical domain can be privileged over the theistic domain if we maintain that there are existence questions about each of them that are not fully answered by their internal standards, where external existence questions about the normative domain and the physical domain are given a positive answer and those concerning the theistic domain are not. This means rejecting the relaxed approach to normative reality that a domain ontology was meant to give us. It means defending robust realism instead, but I have no issue with this. I think that non-naturalistic realists can and should accept external ontological posits so as to avoid the privileged domains charge. In the next section I explain and defend this position in greater detail.

5.4 Robust Realism We are now left with robust realism as our best hope of vindicating the commitment to stance-independent, irreducible, categorical, and non-natural moral facts. In this section I’ll first discuss the ‘robustness’ of robust realism, explaining what this means and why it is not, as some suggest, an ‘Archimedean’ commitment ¹⁹ Scanlon (2014: 19 n.3) explicitly rejects this proposal: he denies that the standards governing a domain are merely linguistic rules, and Carnapian ideas conflict with his realism (cf. Enoch and McPherson 2017: §4).

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(§5.4.1). I’ll then consider an external metaphysical question about the plausibility of robust realism—specifically, a question about the supervenience of moral properties (§5.4.2). I’ll conclude that the realist ontology needed to vindicate the non-arbitrariness of moral choice is viable when understood in robust terms.

5.4.1 Non-Archimedean Robustness What is it to say that moral facts exist in an ontologically robust sense? Roughly, the suggestion is that our commitment to such facts is not, as relaxed realists and quasi-realists think, purely an internal, first-order moral commitment. It is an external, metaphysical commitment. And this means that the plausibility of robust realism may be settled in part by considerations that are independent of the moral domain itself (and that are not entirely a matter of avoiding conflict with other domains). Put another way, for robust realists the question of whether there are realist moral facts cannot be answered by first-order moral argument alone. Our substantive moral intuitions (e.g. about the Inglish) will be part of the case for positing such facts, but they are not the whole story. To defend robust realism we must also address arguments that engage with domain-independent, non-moral considerations that could go for or against realism. Such considerations may involve non-moral claims about the supervenience of moral properties on nonmoral properties, the queerness of irreducible categoricity, the reference of moral terms, the evolution of moral beliefs, and the possibility of moral knowledge, etc. I’ll come back to this, but let’s note first that this doesn’t commit robust realists to an implausibly ‘Archimedean’ position. In defending his version of relaxed realism, Dworkin claims that it is impossible for there to be an external metaphysical theory of moral objectivity, for such a theory would have to be Archimedean in the sense of purporting to “stand outside a whole body of belief ” so as to “judge it as a whole from premises or attitudes that owe nothing to it” (1996: 88). Dworkin is correct, I think, to reject this sort of Archimedeanism. Metaethical claims are not entirely ‘detached’ from—that is, neutral with respect to—ethical claims, so there is no way to stand entirely outside morality when defending a realist interpretation of it. However, he is wrong to think that a commitment to external metaphysical facts has to rely on an Archimedean approach to metaethics. In fact, the robust realist can and should understand metaphysical robustness in non-Archimedean terms. Dworkin’s case for tying external metaphysical commitments to an Archimedean view of metaethics involves the idea that there can be no neutral, non-moral claims about moral reality. Here is Dworkin: The philosophical-sounding proposition that there are moral properties in the universe, for example, is or entails a broad denial of global internal skepticism: it

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claims that some acts really are unjust, or some people really are good, or something of the sort. So read, the proposition is a (very weak) [internal]proposition, and a skeptic who denied it would hardly be neutral toward substantive morality. (1996: 100)

The idea is that, if you agree that there are moral properties, then you must agree that they are instantiated by acts, agents, and institutions, etc. But this means that even very abstract claims like ‘there are moral properties in the universe’ are not morally neutral. They entail (or just are) internal moral claims. But if a claim about morality has first-order implications (and is thus non-Archimedean), then it cannot lie beyond the moral domain. For that would make it a non-moral claim, and such claims cannot have moral implications on their own. This is because, as Hume held, one cannot derive an ought from an is (cf. Kramer 2009: 6–9). To see the problem with this, let’s focus on the following pair of claims from the passage quoted above: (a) There are moral properties in the universe. (b) Some acts are unjust, some people are good, or something of the sort.²⁰ Dworkin’s claim works on the basis that there is an entailment relation going from (a) to (b), and that consequently (a) can only be understood as a moral claim—since we cannot derive an ought from an is, there is no way of reading (a) as an external or non-moral claim. However, this is not how robust realists should interpret the link between (a) and (b). There is such a link, but it is not an entailment from the former to the latter. Consider: we don’t claim that some acts are unjust or that some people are good as a result of a prior commitment to the existence of moral properties. We instead make a commitment to moral properties because they are required to ensure that some acts are unjust and that some people are good, etc. Thus, to grasp the link between (a) and (b) we must remember the role that external ontological commitments are meant to play in relation to the internal moral domain. We saw in §5.3 that they give us a domain-independent basis on which to privilege the commitments of the moral domain over those of domains that are not ontologically committing. We can thus take the initial entailment to go not from (a) to (b), but from (b) to (a). Once we have understood what it takes to capture the nonarbitrariness of the claims that go into (b), we end up having to endorse (a).²¹ ²⁰ The phrase ‘or something of the sort’ does a lot of work here. (b) is best interpreted as the claim that there is an extraordinarily (maybe infinitely) long disjunctive claim outlining how every possible moral property could attach to every possible bearer of moral properties, and that at least one of these disjuncts is true. So the entailment of (a) will be far more abstract than (b) suggests. ²¹ (b) might be inferable from (a) once both are established. But in the first instance we get to (a) via some argument about (b).

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More generally, we take on external metaphysical commitments because they are required to vindicate our internal moral commitments. We start with internal moral judgements (e.g. about the Inglish). We then learn that, in order to vindicate those judgements, we have to posit moral facts that are stanceindependent, irreducible, categorical, and non-natural. We then find that the relaxed and quasi-realist interpretations of such facts are flawed. We therefore discover that such facts must be independent of the moral domain. We arrive at external posits by beginning within the moral domain, and by reasoning about what is required to vindicate the commitments of that domain. Put another way, we do not need an Archimedean evaluation of morality as a whole to establish that there are metaphysically robust, domain-independent, external moral facts. We are committed to such facts from within the moral domain. This is how internal and external claims are linked. It is thus true that claims such as (a) are not morally neutral, where this involves being logically compatible with all possible moral claims. But this is not a problem once we see that external posits are what privilege the moral domain and its ontological commitments. In short, robust realism needn’t be an Archimedean theory. It is more properly viewed as a non-Archimedean theory according to which our internal moral intuitions lead us to make certain external metaphysical posits. Returning to a point noted above, in saying that these posits are external we are essentially saying that they can be subject to non-moral criticism and defence. Again, this doesn’t require an Archimedean take on our external metaphysical commitments—they are still bound up with internal moral judgements by virtue of being necessary for their vindication. But what this now means is that our internal and external commitments stand or fall together. Robust realists thus need to show that together they stand. To see this, consider that error theorists may agree that it will take external metaphysical posits to vindicate internal moral judgements. But they will say that the irreducible categoricity of such posits is queer, and that they must therefore be erased from our ontology. The result of this sort of error theory is that our internal and external commitments both have to go, for the external commitments are untenably queer, and the internal commitments cannot be secured without them. The point that matters here is that queerness claims are not moral claims. As we saw in §4.3.3, queerness arguments concern the uniqueness of moral normativity, and the possibility of debunking our internal moral views via non-moral explanations of them. Thus, if the queerness argument works, there is a non-moral argument against positing external moral facts and for all internal moral beliefs being in error. The robust realist must therefore reply to non-moral arguments against their view. My reply to the queerness argument started in §4.4 when I denied the uniqueness of irreducible moral categoricity. It will continue in §8.2 when I discuss attempts to debunk categorical moral beliefs. However, the (alleged) queerness of categoricity is not the only non-moral case against a robust moral

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ontology. In the next section I’ll discuss a non-moral argument involving moral supervenience, and I’ll briefly outline what I take to be the most promising way of responding to it.

5.4.2 Moral Supervenience It is quite widely accepted that the moral supervenes on the non-moral (or the natural, or the descriptive, or . . . ), though there is controversy as to what exactly this claim amounts to. The most plausible version of it, I think, is that the moral strongly supervenes on the non-moral in the following sense: ðSSÞ □ð∀F in αÞð∀xÞ½Fx→ð∃G in βÞðGx & □ð∀yÞðGy→FyÞÞ (SS) needs unpacking. α stands for the class of moral properties, whilst β stands for the class of non-moral properties. F stands for a particular property within the class of moral properties, whilst G stands for some particular property within the class of non-moral properties. (Note too that F and G may be complex properties.) x and y stand for individuals that can bear moral properties—actions, agents, institutions, and the like. A little bit more controversially, the first necessity operator in (SS) refers to conceptual necessity, whilst the second refers to metaphysical necessity.²² Informally, then, (SS) states that, as a matter of conceptual necessity, whenever some individual entity has a moral property, there is a (perhaps complex) non-moral property it has such that, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, anything else with this non-moral property also has the moral property. I’ll assume that (SS) is true. (SS) features in two objections to robust realism, but I’ll focus on just one of them—specifically, the idea that robust realists cannot explain (SS).²³ I’ll first clarify the nature of this supervenience objection, and I’ll then reply to it.

²² This exposition of (SS) owes a lot to Väyrynen (2018) and Dreier (2019). (SS) isn’t entirely uncontroversial. Harrison (2013) denies that supervenience is a conceptual truth, Fine (2002) and Rosen (2017) treat the second necessity operator as referring to a distinctive normative necessity (not metaphysical necessity), and Roberts (2018) develops a non-naturalist view on which (SS) is false. I accept (SS) as it stands, so for brevity I set all this aside. Note that Hare (1952) and Blackburn (1993) think that weak supervenience is what matters, but this is an error (see e.g. Dreier 1992; 2019). Sturgeon (2009) argues that it is hard to find a theory-neutral supervenience thesis, but see Ridge (2007) and McPherson (2012) for compelling replies. ²³ The other objection, versions of which are defended by Jackson (1998), Streumer (2008; 2017), and Brown (2011), is that, in combination with certain other claims, (SS) entails that moral properties reduce to descriptive properties. (These arguments usually invoke ‘global’ rather than strong supervenience, but global supervenience is entailed by strong supervenience—i.e. (SS)—in any case.) I set this objection aside because it is well-answered by Dunaway (2015) and Schroeder (2018: 305–6), and I have nothing of substance to add to their discussions.

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The Objection Consider first that, because robust realists understand moral reality as irreducibly normative and non-natural, they think of moral properties as being metaphysically distinct from non-moral properties (including natural and descriptive properties). However, (SS) says that moral and non-moral properties are related not just contingently, but as a matter of metaphysical necessity. The worry for robust realism is that it seems poorly placed to explain this necessary connection between moral and non-moral properties. Our typical ways of explaining such connections (e.g. by claims of identity and reductive analysis) are unavailable if the moral and non-moral are metaphysically distinct. The robust realist is thus committed to a brutely necessary connection between moral and non-moral properties. And, as Tristram McPherson (2012) argues, if a theory appeals to brute necessity because it cannot explain a necessary connection between types of entity, this counts significantly against it. Robust realism thus comes with the significant cost of failing to explain (SS). Before replying to this explanatory supervenience objection, it’s worth emphasising that it is a non-moral, external challenge to robust realism. This is not uncontroversial—Kramer (2009) argues that (SS) is a first-order moral claim, and that it can therefore only be explained in first-order moral terms. This view is linked with relaxed realism (for a related quasi-realist suggestion see Sinclair 2021: 99–100), and the idea is that, in order to explain why the non-moral properties of an act necessitate its moral ones—its wrongness, for example—we just need a firstorder moral theory of what makes an act wrong. To illustrate, if an act is wrong just in case it fails to maximise utility, then as soon as we have made the moral case for this first-order view of wrongness we will have said all there is to say about why the presence of wrongness is necessitated by the non-moral property of failing to maximise utility. It is a mistake, however, to see (SS) purely as a moral claim (cf. Dreier 2019: 1399). Not all of the important questions about it are answered by moral theory alone. I do think that such a theory can help to explain why certain non-moral properties necessitate certain moral properties (see below), but there is more to be explained than this. For even when we have the correct account of what makes an act wrong, we still need to explain why there is no metaphysically possible world in which these moral and non-moral properties do not co-vary. This isn’t just a moral question, for what is at issue is a metaphysical necessity. A first-order theory of which non-moral properties are in fact wrong-making cannot tell us why there is no metaphysically possible world in which the very same non-moral properties are right-making. Explaining this specific supervenience claim will therefore take more than a first-order moral theory. In addition to this, we also need to explain why moral properties have to supervene on any non-moral properties at all—that is, we need to explain not only why moral properties supervene on a specific set of non-moral properties (failing to maximise overall utility, say), but also the fact that they must supervene

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on some moral properties (whatever these turn out to be). Enoch (2011a: 148–9) thinks that this general question is answered by the fact that it is a conceptual truth that moral properties have to supervene on some non-moral properties. However, whilst there are cases in which p’s being a conceptual truth means that p needs no explanation, (SS) isn’t one of them (cf. Elliot 2014: §3.1 and Väyrynen 2018: 175). For instance, it is plausible that there is no need to explain why all bachelors are unmarried men, for it is a conceptual necessity that something cannot be a bachelor unless it is a man and it is unmarried. However, in this case the relevant facts are fixed by our concepts themselves—our concepts of marriage and bachelorhood are what fix whether a man has the property of being unmarried, and thus of being a bachelor. Robust realists cannot make a similar claim about (SS). They cannot take our moral concepts to fix the moral facts— these facts are stance-independent and are not fixed simply by the nature of our concepts. Robust realists should instead see our moral concepts as latching onto a general fact about moral properties—namely, that they have to be related to some non-moral properties. In short, we need an answer to the supervenience objection that covers the general fact that moral properties have to supervene on some nonmoral properties, as well as the more specific fact that they supervene on a particular set of non-moral properties. These are not purely moral claims, so to explain (SS) robust realists will have to go beyond first-order moral argument. In the rest of this section I’ll argue that robust realists can answer this supervenience objection by making claims about the essences of moral kinds.²⁴

Moral Kinds Let’s start by noting that the variables x and y in (SS), which stand for the acts, agents, and institutions (etc.) that can bear moral properties, are particular instances of universal kinds. For instance, in the case of action, the performance of a particular act instantiates a more general kind of act.²⁵ Consider a non-moral case: there is my specific, token act of walking the dog, and there is the universal kind of act—walking the dog—to which this token belongs. After all, if we had

²⁴ The explanation I outline below belongs to the same family as the theories offered by Kaspar (2012), Skarsaune (2015), and Leary (2017), but differs in details that for brevity I won’t make explicit. This family of views differs from two others that realists have defended. Some appeal to moral laws to explain (SS)—see Enoch (2011a), and Elliot (2014). I avoid this for reasons given by Berker (2019b). (Note, however, that Enoch’s 2019 reply to Berker combines an appeal to laws with a modest essentialism that has some affinity with my preferred view.) Others argue that (SS) is explained by the fact that moral properties are constituted, realised, or causally ‘made’ by non-moral properties—see Shafer-Landau (2003), Wedgwood (2007), and Wielenberg (2014). I find this approach unconvincing because it is hard to see how irreducible normativity can emerge from purely natural properties—this seems to imply brute emergence, which is as odd as brute necessity. My preferred theory avoids this worry by avoiding any emergence claim. ²⁵ I’ll focus on action, but the picture I propose can be extended to agents (an agent’s traits will instantiate kinds of trait) and institutions (the structure of this institution will instantiate a kind of institutional structure), etc.

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taken a different route I would have performed a different token act (involving different bodily movements, etc.), but I would have performed the same kind of act. Now consider a moral case: there is my token act of promising to meet you at 16.00, and a kind of act—promising to meet you at 16.00—to which this token belongs. After all, I could have made my promise in a different way (e.g. in an email rather than in conversation) whilst performing the same kind of act. Of course, this act-kind of promising to meet you at 16.00 belongs to a more general act-kind—promising. The more general kind is plausibly what matters from a moral point of view. In any case, the notion of a moral kind will help us with (SS). To see how, we’ll need an account of what a kind is and how its members are determined. I am sympathetic to a metaphysical theory on which a kind is a substantial universal characterised by certain non-substantial universal (i.e. repeatable) properties or relations.²⁶ Consider a natural kind like gold. Particular gold items are concrete objects, but the kind gold is an abstract object that is instantiated by those concrete objects. A concrete object instantiates gold if it exemplifies the non-substantial universals that characterise gold. These might include its malleability, its ductility, its conductivity, and its atomic number, etc. They will not include certain other properties that gold items can and often do have (like solidity, attractiveness, and financial value) but that they need not have. For instance, your brooch is a member of the kind gold because it is a concrete object that instantiates the non-substantial universals that characterise gold (whatever scientific inquiry determines these to be). On this picture we take the universal properties and relations that characterise a kind to form the essence of that kind. By this I mean that these non-substantial universals determine what the kind is.²⁷ So if having an atomic number of 79 is characteristic of gold, then this is part of the essence of the kind gold, and anything that instantiates this kind (e.g. your brooch) essentially has 79 protons in the atomic nuclei of its atoms.²⁸ This is just part of what gold is—it is part of its

²⁶ Lowe (2006; 2009) offers a detailed defence of this picture. I don’t agree with every detail of his theory, but this won’t matter here. Note too that, although I am drawing on a theory of kinds that is obviously controversial, any robust realist explanation of (SS) will likely take a controversial stand on some metaphysical issue. E.g. an appeal to moral laws is, as Elliot (2014) notes, incomplete until it is combined with a specific non-Humean theory of laws. An appeal to the idea that moral properties are realised or constituted by natural properties will have to say that realisation and constitution relations do not entail identity. The related appeal to a ‘making’ relation will involve specific views about causation. So, in appealing to a controversial theory of kinds, I am at least no worse off than other robust realists. ²⁷ Essence is not a further entity on this view, but the formal identity of an entity. For discussion of this (Aristotelian) essentialism see Fine (1994) and Lowe (2006; 2009; 2013). This essentialism is distinct from the Kripke-Putnam theory on which essence is what an entity consists of (e.g. its molecular structure). ²⁸ Distinct concrete gold objects will differ in their ‘individual’ essences. What it is to be this gold brooch differs from what it is to be that gold necklace. But these objects overlap in their ‘general’ essence (cf. Lowe 2013: 145).

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identity or essence. More could be said about this theory of essences and kinds, and it is obviously a controversial metaphysical position to adopt (any robust realist explanation of (SS) is likely to involve some controversial metaphysical claims—see n.24).²⁹ I find it appealing for reasons that are unrelated to metaethics, but it also has the attraction of explaining (SS). Let’s focus on the act-kind of lying, which I’ll abbreviate to Klie. Klie is partly characterised by various non-moral universal properties. For instance, it is plausible that Klie is partly characterised by its being an exchange between two or more agents, by one of these agents saying something to the other(s), by that agent having a certain motive (such as an intention to deceive, or a desire to avoid telling the truth), by the exchange occurring within a warranting context (cf. Carson 2006), etc. For present purposes we do not need a full account of the non-moral characteristics of Klie. What matters is that, in addition to having these non-moral characteristics, Klie is characterised by (at least) one moral universal—being pro tanto wrong. This moral universal, plus various non-moral universals like those just noted, are the essence of the kind lying.³⁰ This picture allows us to answer both aspects of the explanatory supervenience objection. Recall first that we need to explain what it is about moral properties that underpins our concept of them being such that they are necessarily connected to some non-moral properties. On the picture I’ve sketched, moral properties must be connected to some non-moral properties because of the role that moral properties play in characterising moral kinds. Such kinds are always partly characterised by non-moral properties. Token actions, agents, and institutions (etc.) cannot be purely moral in nature—they are spatio-temporally located entities and therefore have non-moral features like extension, shape, duration, and so on.³¹ The kinds to which token acts (etc.) belong must therefore be characterised not merely by moral properties, but also by various non-moral properties. This is why it is a conceptual truth that moral properties supervene on some non-moral properties, whatever

²⁹ One question I don’t have space to pursue here concerns cluster kinds, where there isn’t a single set of non-substantial universals that have to be exemplified by an entity for it to belong to the kind— rather the entity simply has to exemplify enough of some set of properties. Biological species are the obvious candidate for cluster kinds (there is a related issue here concerning the fact that species-kinds evolve gradually and are often not sharply distinct from each other, which seems at odds with the essentialist picture). One possibility is that what is essential in these cases is that enough of a set of individually non-necessary properties are exemplified. Another is that the concept of a kind is polysemous, admitting of both cluster kinds and stricter kinds. ³⁰ Note that this is simply meant as an illustrative example—you could endorse my explanation of (SS) without claiming that lying is essentially pro tanto wrong. E.g. a consequentialist would deny that pro tanto wrongness is part of the essence of lying, but can instead say that goodness is part of the essence of certain act-kinds, or certain kinds of event and states of affairs. ³¹ A dualist defender of agent-causation may reply that, on their view, acts and agents are nonphysical and are thus not characterised by these exact features. A theist may likewise say that God has moral properties without having spatio-temporal features. However, the deeper point here is that no moral kind is purely moral in nature—no kind of act, agent, or institution (etc.) exists without some non-moral characteristics.

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these turn out to be. Our moral concepts are latching onto the fact that moral properties characterise (e.g.) moral act-kinds, which, given what it is to be an action (and an agent, a character trait, an institution, etc.) are necessarily characterised by non-moral properties as well as moral ones. Furthermore, we can now explain the metaphysically necessary connection between moral properties and the non-moral properties on which they do in fact supervene. In the case of lying, for example, we’ve said that certain moral and non-moral properties characterise the kind Klie—these properties are jointly the essence of lying (together they are what a lie is). So if some particular token action instantiates Klie it must (as a matter of metaphysical necessity) exemplify all of the moral and non-moral properties characteristic of Klie. A token act that exemplifies only some of those properties would not count as a lie, given what a lie is. It might be suggested that this doesn’t quite capture the connection between the moral and non-moral properties of a lie, for the pro tanto wrongness of a lie is necessitated by its non-moral properties. They are the wrong-making properties, not just properties with which pro tanto wrongness necessarily co-varies. However, this is the point at which a first-order moral explanation is needed. A first-order moral theory can tell us why the non-moral properties of a lie give rise to the moral ones—why being intentionally deceptive is pro tanto wrong, say. The theory of moral kinds just tells us how these moral and non-moral properties are connected not contingently, but across all metaphysically possible worlds. This theory of moral kinds is a promising way for robust realists to explain (SS). Of course, far more would need to be said to give a full defence of this theory. There are questions about the general theory of essences, kinds, and properties on which it relies, and I haven’t sought to answer those questions here. Moreover, there are rival explanations of (SS) on offer to robust realists, and I haven’t done anything (beyond a few hints in n.24) to show that the theory of moral kinds is preferable to those rival views. Nonetheless, the discussion in this section does at least show that the robust realist can make plausible external claims in response to a powerful external objection. There are obviously costs to taking on a heavy metaphysical framework in order to explain (SS) and defend a robust conception of the commitment to stance-independent, irreducible, categorical, and nonnatural moral facts. I think, however, that these costs are worth bearing as part of the metaethical theory that is our best hope of securing the non-arbitrariness of moral choice. I am thus willing to endorse the theory of moral kinds as an explanation of (SS).

5.5 Conclusion This brings us to the end of Part I. We have so far seen that a robust moral ontology is necessary to vindicate the non-arbitrariness of moral choice. Chapters

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2–4 suggested that we can and should take moral facts to be stance-independent, irreducible, categorical, and non-natural. If we view them in some other way we fall foul of an arbitrariness charge. In this chapter I have suggested that moral facts should be understood in external metaphysical terms—if they were seen as a purely internal moral commitment we would again fall foul of an arbitrariness charge. The upshot is that a commitment to robust realism is the way forward if we wish to avoid all moral choices counting as arbitrary. In Part II of this book I will explore the various non-metaphysical questions and problems facing robust realism. Specifically, I discuss epistemological, psychological, and meta-semantic issues for this theory. A guiding idea in Part II will be that we can make progress on many of these issues by paying close attention to the role of interpersonal dialogue in moral life.

PART II

M O R A L DI A L O G U E

6 Dualistic Intuitionism I’ll start this second part of the book by developing an epistemology for robust realism. Specifically, I will offer a dualistic form of intuitionism. The central claim of intuitionism, as I’ll be using the term, is that some moral beliefs are noninferentially justified.¹ Intuitionists needn’t be robust realists (see e.g. Gibbard 2002), but robust realists are typically attracted to intuitionism because it fits well with their non-naturalism. After all, the usual resources of a naturalistic epistemology—in which perceptual experience is central—cannot be automatically extended to the non-natural. Non-natural properties are causally inert, and cannot (directly) causally impinge on the senses. Some philosophers do argue that moral beliefs are (quasi-)perceptually justified, but it isn’t obvious that moral beliefs are interestingly akin to ordinary perceptual beliefs.² Intuitionists have thus usually been rationalists—they tend to suggest that our basic moral knowledge is a priori. Having said that, some do defend empiricist forms of intuitionism. Sometimes by suggesting that there actually is an informative analogy between moral and perceptual belief, but sometimes without appeal to any analogy with perception. Empiricist forms of intuitionism claim that we have distinctively moral experiences (which may or may not be akin to perceptual experiences) that provide us with non-inferential a posteriori justification for moral belief. The intuitionist view that I will offer is dualistic in the sense that it gives a central place to both a priori and a posteriori intuition. I will develop this picture by focusing on the role that interpersonal dialogue plays in the formation of justified moral belief. The social dimensions of moral inquiry are often ignored by intuitionists. They play a notable role in a view outlined by Bengson, Cuneo, and Shafer-Landau (2020), but whereas they invoke the social aspects of moral inquiry in order to argue that ordinary moral thought is largely trustworthy, my focus will be on what I will call the ‘frontiers’ of moral inquiry—areas of inquiry in which we move beyond familiar moral thinking in order to tease out aspects of our moral understanding that have been misunderstood and neglected. I’ll start by suggesting that, at the frontiers of moral inquiry, moral dialogue is not simply helpful but ¹ This view has a long history (see e.g. the writings of Cudworth, Clarke, Balguy, and Price in Raphael 1991, along with Moore 1903, Sidgwick 1907, Prichard 1912, Ross 1930, and Ewing 1947). Contemporary intuitionists include Shafer-Landau (2003), Audi (2004), Huemer (2005), Tropman (2009), Kaspar (2012), and Stratton-Lake (2016). This chapter is adapted from Ingram (2020). ² Perceptualist views are offered by McGrath (2004), McBrayer (2010a; 2010b), and Audi (2013), among others.

Robust Realism in Ethics: Normative Arbitrariness, Interpersonal Dialogue, and Moral Objectivity. Stephen Ingram, Oxford University Press. © Stephen Ingram 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198886488.003.0007

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necessary for forming justified moral beliefs (§6.1). I’ll then show that we can expect well-conducted moral dialogue to lead to some moral beliefs that are justified a priori (§6.2), and some that are justified a posteriori (§6.3). I’ll conclude by answering two general worries about the epistemological view that I’m offering, arguing that it is a plausible epistemology for robust realism (§6.4).

6.1 Moral Inquiry This section argues that dialogue is crucial to the justification of beliefs formed at the ‘frontiers’ of moral inquiry. The points made here could be applied to any plausible moral epistemology, but in due course I will draw out the specific lessons that intuitionists can learn from them. I’ll start with some background about ‘objectivity’ and the social nature of inquiry.

6.1.1 Objective Inquiry Inquiry is typically a social activity. It is an ongoing process of dialogue and debate between the members of an epistemic community. Even as an inquirer works alone, she will typically be building (unconsciously, perhaps) on the achievements and insights of earlier inquirers, and she will almost always be using concepts, beliefs, and methods that she has inherited from her epistemic community (or some localised part of it). More generally, we make discoveries and form beliefs by pooling our epistemic resources—we use testimony, we form and refine beliefs via discussion and debate, we leave certain questions for others to answer, etc. These facts about epistemic life may be obvious and banal (though until relatively recently they were often overlooked within mainstream epistemology), but, as feminist epistemologists and epistemologists of race have argued, the fact that inquiry is a social activity influenced by social dynamics has implications for how it ought to be conducted, and for our views about ‘objectivity’ in inquiry (see e.g. Code 1981, Longino 1990; 2002, Harding 1991; 1993, Antony 1993, Anderson 1995, Mills 1998, Collins 2000, Fricker 2000, Wylie 2003, and Dotson 2014). Note that ‘objective’ is being used in an epistemological sense here, not the metaphysical sense (involving agent-neutrality or inescapability) from earlier chapters. The epistemological sense of ‘objectivity’ involves the idea that inquiry is more or less objective depending on the degree to which it is free from the idiosyncratic biases, interests, partialities, and values (etc.) of a given person or community. In what follows, it is this epistemic sense of ‘objective’ that I will have in mind (unless otherwise stated). The ideal of objectivity in inquiry has often been tied to a notion of neutrality. On this traditional approach, objective inquiry demands that an inquirer cast

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aside all of his own desires, emotions, and values—such factors are held to involve subjective partialities and biases that can only serve to distort his inquiry. The objective inquirer must seek to enter a standpoint at which he is entirely impartial—a detached and neutral standpoint that transcends his own perspective on things. The thought is that, by at least aiming for this sort of neutrality, an inquirer puts himself in a better position to see reality as it truly is, unburdened by the prejudicial impact of how he imagines, wants, and assumes it to be.³ Feminist epistemologists, however, have criticised the idea that we should typically aim to inquire in a neutral, impartial, and detached way. One objection is that this putatively neutral standpoint is actually saturated with our various biases, values, partialities, and interests (cf. Antony 1993). These manifest in the questions that one thinks to ask, the answers one can imagine such questions having, and even in one’s view on a particular answer’s plausibility. After all, a potential answer to a question may seem less plausible to you (at least initially) if it does not match your own experience of the world, and your experiences are shaped by your particular social and historical position. If the allegedly neutral standpoint appears cognitively ‘pure,’ this is because its biases are so entrenched that they have become invisible to the naked eye (cf. Longino 1990: 80). Moreover, the biases that take root in mainstream inquiry tend to be those of the powerful, at the expense of those of the marginalised and oppressed. There is thus only so much that even the most competent and conscientious inquirer can do on her own, for we each occupy a social and historical position that constrains the borders of our inquiry by shaping the nature of our experiences. (Note that this is also true of the marginalised and oppressed, although their need to navigate the world of the privileged can lead to distinct knowledge and the honing of certain skills—see e.g. Harding 1991, Collins 2000, and Wylie 2003.) Thus, far from offering a more accurate view of the world—one guided by how it really is—the traditional view of objectivity is distortingly partial. However, this doesn’t mean that we should give up on objective inquiry. For there are more promising views of objectivity, views that are informed by the fact that inquiry is fundamentally social activity. Feminist accounts of objectivity have been developed in various ways (see e.g. Keller 1985, Longino 1990; 2002, Harding 1993, Collins 2000, and Solomon 2001), and we needn’t worry about all the options now. The central insight is neatly stated by Helen Longino in relation to objectivity in scientific inquiry: The greater the number of different points of view included in a given community, the more likely it is that its scientific practice will be objective, that is, that it

³ This may be a caricature, but influential philosophers have offered views like it for some areas. Cf. Sidgwick (1907) on the point of view of the universe, Williams (1978) on the absolute conception of the world, and Nagel (1986) on the view from nowhere.

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will result in descriptions and explanations of natural processes that are more reliable in the sense of less characterized by idiosyncratic subjective preferences of community members than would otherwise be the case. (1990: 80)

The general (and very plausible) suggestion here is that inquiry is more objective when it is more inclusive. That is, objectivity doesn’t require individual neutrality, it requires inclusive and cooperative engagement with all salient perspectives. I’ll consider what this involves later in the chapter, and I’ll give more detail in Chapter 7. The important point for now is that the ideal of objective inquiry should be understood in social terms. This idea also drives feminist theories of moral inquiry (see e.g. Walker 2007, O’Connor 2008, Jaggar 2000a; 2000b, and Jaggar and Tobin 2013a; 2013b). Alison Jaggar, for example, makes the following observation: [F]eminists have typically begun from the empirical recognition that the insights of moral agents are always conditioned by their particular social experiences and locations. Because all agents are limited and fallible, feminists generally conceptualize moral rationality as a process that is collaborative rather than individual and its conclusions as partial, situated, and provisional rather than universal or absolute. Many of the alternative models of moral rationality proffered by feminists assert the necessity of empirical conversation. This idea certainly is not exclusively feminist, but feminist work on this topic is distinguished by its rejection of highly idealized models of discourse and its determination to inquire into the empirical conditions of real discourses . . . marked inevitably by misunderstanding, uncertainty, unreason, and inequality. (2000b: 463)

At first glance these comments may not seem friendly to an intuitionist epistemology. But my claim will be that we can defend a plausible form of moral intuitionism by paying closer attention to interpersonal moral dialogue.

6.1.2 Dialogue’s Role First, though, we need to clarify dialogue’s role in moral inquiry. After all, some moral facts are known with very little cognitive effort—even rationalists agree with this. For instance, Henry Sidgwick (1907: 101–2) saw ‘philosophical’ intuitionism as refining and synthesising the moral truths that we already know by common sense. When W.D. Ross (1930: 39–41) appeals to ‘what we really think’ about moral questions, he is working on the basis that some of our moral beliefs are common knowledge. (He also suggests that moral convictions must be subjected

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to reflection and comparison, but Ross (1930: 20 n.1) is clear that some moral facts, such as the promissory principle, are commonly known.) More recently, David Kaspar suggests that “we know what’s right, and thus have no need to deduce, derive, or justify our moral knowledge by means of a supreme moral principle” (2012: 4). Difficulties arise when we try to apply knowledge of general moral norms to specific cases, but the point is that we already know that it is typically wrong to steal, break promises, lie, torture, and kill (etc.). Careful reflection, including in the form of dialogue with others, simply isn’t necessary in these and many other cases. So, given that many moral facts are known with little cognitive effort, what is the role of interpersonal moral dialogue meant to be? Note first that, though I do not have to engage in actual dialogue with others in order to identify many of the basic moral facts, this does not mean that I come to them alone—as Ross notes, our existing body of moral knowledge “is the cumulative product of the moral reflection of many generations” (1930: 41). Much of our moral knowledge comes from an (ongoing) intergenerational dialogue (cf. Bengson et al. 2020). However, more interesting for present purposes is dialogue’s role at the ‘frontiers’ of moral inquiry. After all, the moral questions that have yet to be answered don’t just concern the correct application of general moral facts to particular cases. For instance, we can ask whether there are basic moral facts that have been neglected in philosophical or ordinary moral discourse. Ross identified five basic prima facie duties (specifically, he posits duties of fidelity, reparation, gratitude, beneficence, and non-maleficence), but he allowed that his list might not have been complete. Indeed, later intuitionists have added to it (see Audi 2004: 194–5). There are also open questions as to the possibility of unifying such duties under a ‘supreme’ moral principle. Some intuitionists (e.g. Prichard 1912 and Kaspar 2012) argue that no supreme principle is available or needed. However, others (e.g. Moore 1903, Sidgwick 1907, and Audi 2004) do defend such principles. Thus, whilst there are moral truths that we know with little reflection, there are important and as yet unresolved questions at the frontiers of moral inquiry. This is one reason why we need moral dialogue. It is possible—I think likely— that the marginalisation of certain social groups has led to candidates for intuitable moral truth being missed and neglected in certain quarters. The following is plausibly such a candidate: C. Caring relationships have a basic moral significance, such that we have underivative pro tanto reason to sustain those caring relationships, and to give deliberative priority to the needs and interests of those with whom we have such relationships.⁴

⁴ The field of care ethics originates with Gilligan (1982). For general defence of moral ideas along the lines of C see e.g. Noddings (1984; 2002), Ruddick (1989), Tronto and Fisher (1990), Tronto (1994), Kittay (1999), Engster (2005), Held (2006), Slote (2007), and Collins (2015).

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C has only started to receive attention from philosophers relatively recently, and it has been suggested (I think plausibly—cf. Jaggar 2001) that this is because philosophy has long been a male-dominated field, and care is a culturally feminine value. The idea here is that failure to include (on suitable terms) the members of oppressed or marginalised groups in mainstream moral conversation has meant that some moral values have not received their due in that conversation. However, since the members of such groups have started to enter the conversation, or have become better placed to openly conduct their own conversations, this has started to change. Put another way, C is a candidate for an intuitable moral truth that belongs alongside Ross’ prima facie duties, but philosophers have only started to pay attention to it since the field has become a little bit more inclusive of those for whom the culturally feminine value of caring may be particularly salient, foundational, and vital. It’s not just philosophers who have overlooked the significance of care. A running theme in discussions of care is that we are culturally conditioned to think, speak, and act in ways that diminish it as a moral and political value in comparison to ideas involving autonomy, rights, universality, and impartiality (cf. Gilligan 1982 and Walker 2007). Of course, this doesn’t mean that care plays no role in moral thought. It’s just that it hasn’t been valorised as an ideal, or put on a par with other values. To the extent that this has changed, it is due to feminist voices being amplified in public life. Note too that care has been neglected in public policy. Existing approaches to issues like childcare, disability, homelessness, and the free market generally don’t build on a contentful notion of care, but there is reason to think that care ethical views have something to tell us about these matters (see e.g. Ruddick 1989, Kittay 1999, Noddings 2002, and Held 2006). We can of course ask whether care ethical views give us a correct and complete answer to certain moral and political questions, but the point that matters here is simply that such views tend to be neglected within mainstream moral and political debate. Thus, one reason to engage in inclusive moral dialogue is that a more diverse set of inquirers is more likely to include members whose social position puts them in a position to spot candidate moral truths that would otherwise get missed. But a more important reason is that, even once a proposition like C is taken seriously as a candidate for moral truth, those with certain social experiences may be poorly placed to assess its intuitional credentials on their own. Just as an (imaginary) agent with no experience of suffering may struggle (when inquiring on their own) to fully comprehend the moral significance of suffering, an agent who doesn’t have the roles of carer or cared-for as core elements of their social world may find it hard (when inquiring on their own) to evaluate the plausibility of C. Engaging in dialogue with those who do have such experiences would plausibly help this agent in evaluating C. Of course, everyone has some experience of caring roles (just as everyone has some experience of suffering). But note that fully-fledged caring activity involves more than just partiality towards someone, and more than just sensitivity to their needs (though these are important). Prioritising someone else’s needs in the sense

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at work in C requires that one take practical steps to meet those needs—caring is a form of labour as well as an emotional attachment (cf. Tronto and Fisher 1990, Bubeck 1995, and Held 2006). And, in many areas, caring labour is (or was traditionally) performed by those in less privileged social groups. (Think, for example, about who tends to do more of the complex labour of caring for children, the elderly, and the disabled, etc.) Dialogue with the members of these social groups—or anybody who has the relevant experience of caring work—would thus help those with less experience when it comes to evaluating C. (More on this shortly.) However, I don’t just wish to suggest that dialogue is often useful in moral inquiry. I have a stronger claim in mind—namely, that at the frontiers of moral inquiry one’s moral beliefs cannot be justified unless they derive from, or have seriously been tested against, inclusive and cooperative moral dialogue. The case for this involves a general point about good epistemic practice and some specific facts about moral inquiry. Consider that, in general, we should engage in inquiry in an open-minded, humble way. We should be sensitive to our fallibility, and to our cognitive strengths and weaknesses. We should test our beliefs against rival ideas to see if they stand up to scrutiny. This is particularly important at the frontiers of inquiry, when we move beyond the established facts, and beyond the relatively simple extension of existing ideas to new contexts. It is here that our epistemic position is least secure, and that we should be at our most flexible and self-aware. Thus, a condition on the justification of ‘frontier beliefs’ is that they are acquired via open-minded and humble inquiry. What matters here is that such inquiry is facilitated by inclusive and cooperative dialogue. Recognising your fallibility, you want to find out what others think, and you can achieve this through dialogue with them. Recognising the need to test your beliefs against rival ideas, you ensure that the dialogue includes people whose experiences and beliefs are relevantly different to your own. Of course, in many cases it doesn’t require actual dialogue to engage in open-minded and humble inquiry. Very often one can achieve this by reading about or just imagining rival ideas before considering them on one’s own. However, at the frontiers of an inquiry in which social experience is essential data, inclusive and cooperative dialogue becomes not only helpful but necessary. For your social experiences, and your ability to adequately imagine or simulate others’ social experiences, will be constrained by your particular social history and positions. So, for inquiries in which social experiences play a key role, humility and open-mindedness require dialogue with those whose social world is relevantly unlike your own. This is the only way to gather, or at least verify that you have gathered, all the data against which your belief should be measured.⁵ Thus, given the importance of social ⁵ In other words, failure to engage with all relevant evidence defeats the justification of a frontier belief (this may not be true in ordinary contexts, where beliefs might be innocent until proven guilty, but at the frontiers of inquiry our standards are higher). And there are questions at inquiry’s frontiers in

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experience for moral questions, to form frontier moral beliefs in a way that is humble and open-minded enough for them to be justified, such beliefs must result from, or be tested against, relevantly inclusive dialogue.⁶ Any plausible moral epistemology should account for the role of moral dialogue, but intuitionists have special reason to take note of it. In the next two sections we’ll see that, by clarifying how moral dialogue features in the formation of certain justified moral beliefs, we discover the need for a dualistic version of intuitionism on which both a priori and a posteriori justification are of vital importance in intuitive moral inquiry.

6.2 A Priori Moral Beliefs In this section I focus on the case of a priori moral beliefs, arguing that intuitionists should take moral dialogue to produce such beliefs. I start by briefly explaining how empirical dialogical experiences can feature in the acquisition of a priori justified beliefs (§6.2.1). I then argue that intuitionists should expect inclusive and cooperative moral dialogue to generate such beliefs—moral dialogue can be interpreted as enabling an adequate understanding of neglected but self-evident moral truths (§6.2.2).

6.2.1 E-Dependence and J-Dependence The standard image of a priori inquiry involves it being done ‘from the armchair.’ This image is deceptive, however, and not just because one needn’t literally be sitting in an armchair to engage in a priori inquiry. It is misleading because it which social experiences are relevant evidence, such that one’s beliefs about them cannot be justified unless one considers this evidence. But one cannot access this evidence except by engaging with those who have differing social experiences—one might of course read about and try to imagine such experiences, but since one’s own social experiences can distort one’s judgement about those of others, the only way to reliably access such experiences is by engaging in dialogue (empathic dialogue, to be exact—see §6.3.1) with those who have them. ⁶ To illustrate, disability activists and scholars have often noted that both public and academic discussion of disability involve inaccurate or incomplete conceptions of it because they rarely give a voice to those with the most relevant experiences—namely, disabled people and their families. In a philosophical context, Barnes (2016) notes the disconnect between a belief held by many philosophers who work on disability—specifically, that it is inherently sub-optimal—and the experience of actual disabled people. Kittay (2010) accuses Singer and McMahan of epistemic irresponsibility and immodesty in their claims about the severely cognitively disabled. The lesson I wish to draw here is that failure to engage with disabled people and their families results in a failure to consider all relevant evidence (see n.5), which defeats the justification for these philosophers’ moral beliefs about disability. Even if the beliefs are true, they are unjustified if they have not been tested against all relevant evidence. This applies beyond the moral case too—the rise of participatory research in social science is due in part to the recognition that those who know most about a topic (e.g. disability) are often those being studied (e.g. disabled people and their families).

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gives a falsely individualistic picture of how a priori knowledge works. Consider the following distinction between two ways in which a belief can depend on experience: it can be justified by experience, or it can be merely enabled by experience (Burge 1993). To illustrate, though my belief that all bachelors are unmarried men is a priori (if anything is), I had to learn the meanings of ‘bachelor’ and ‘unmarried man’ before I formed it. My belief thus depends in a certain way on my empirical learning experiences. But this does not make it a posteriori, for such experiences do not (or at least need not) feature in the justification of my belief. They are a key part of its causal history, but the epistemic justification of this belief need not involve its causal history. I am justified in this belief because I understand the concepts ‘bachelor’ and ‘unmarried man.’ Empirical experiences may have been necessary to achieve competence with these concepts, but once this is achieved I need no additional experiences in order to justifiably believe that all bachelors are unmarried men. In short, a belief can be a priori even if it depends on empirical experience, so long as the dependence is a matter of enabling rather than justifying the belief. We should thus distinguish between justificatory and enabling dependence, which I’ll refer to as ‘J-dependence’ and ‘E-dependence.’ A belief that E-depends on empirical experiences is a priori so long as it does not also J-depend on them.⁷ There is no limit to the empirical experiences on which one’s a priori belief may E-depend—a priori beliefs can therefore E-depend on our social experiences, including those we discover or form in moral dialogue. It is a little surprising that dialogue is not part of our standard image of a priori inquiry, for one of the most famous cases of a priori reasoning involves dialogue rather than solo armchair reflection. I’m thinking here of the conversation between Socrates and Meno’s slave. What happens in Plato’s Meno is that, by asking the right questions, Socrates helps a slave to form a priori beliefs about certain geometrical propositions. Dialogue with Socrates enables the slave to cognise those geometrical propositions such that he sees their truth. Without this interaction, or the empirical experiences it involved, the slave would not have been in a position to form the relevant geometrical beliefs. The slave’s justified geometrical beliefs therefore E-depend on certain empirical dialogical experiences, but they needn’t J-depend on them. Socrates’ dialogue with the slave isn’t exactly ideal, of course. He often asks leading questions, and their social statuses mean that he and the slave cannot speak on equal terms. We’ll start to see a better model for moral dialogue in the rest of this chapter (with additional details in the next chapter), as we examine its role in the formation of justified moral beliefs.

⁷ This was known to Ross (1930: 32–3) and other early intuitionists. On the enabling role of experience in relation to intuitionism see Kirchin (2005).

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6.2.2 Neglected Moral Truths I have already alluded to the role that well-conducted dialogue can play in the formation of a priori justified moral beliefs. I suggested in 6.1.2 that some important candidate moral facts have been neglected within philosophical and mainstream moral discourse, and that this is in part due to the marginalisation of those social groups whose members tend to be best positioned to identify, articulate, and defend them. I offered C as an example. Other examples may include neglected candidates for a ‘supreme’ principle that unifies all the Rossian prima facie duties. For instance, proposals for a supreme principle could be developed on the basis of the moral concepts and insights of philosophical traditions with which Western philosophers rarely engage in depth.⁸ We may also have neglected moral truths that, whilst not quite supreme, are general in the way C and the Rossian duties are. Either way, the dialogical process by which neglected moral propositions are noticed, evaluated, and justifiably believed (or disbelieved) is plausibly seen in rationalist terms. Rationalist forms of intuitionism maintain that our basic moral beliefs are (non-inferentially) justified by an ‘adequate understanding’ of self-evident moral propositions (cf. Audi 2004). My proposal is that, when dialogue leads us to justifiably believe a neglected moral truth, it often does so by enabling adequate understanding of it.⁹ Audi (2019) identifies nine conditions that must be met to adequately understand a self-evident moral proposition. One can meet these more or less well, and can thus have a better or worse understanding of the proposition in question. But, according to Audi (2019: 372), to acquire minimally adequate understanding of the sort that can justify belief, each element must be at least minimally satisfied. Moral dialogue is not necessary to satisfy all nine conditions, but it is necessary to satisfy three important ones.¹⁰ Let’s start with the aspect of adequate understanding that Audi (2019: 364) terms ‘recognitional range.’ This is the range of cases that someone who adequately understands a proposition must recognise as instantiating it. For instance, those who understand that there is a pro tanto duty to keep promises ⁸ E.g. consider the concept of ubuntu in the philosophy of southern Africa, of moksha in certain Indian traditions, and of the Dao in certain Chinese traditions. I don’t wish to suggest that these concepts are intended as unifying or supreme moral principles (cf. Ramose 2007), or that they need to become such for Western philosophy to gain by paying attention to them. I do, however, think that the debate is impoverished by limiting its focus to the deontological, consequentialist, and Aristotelian traditions. ⁹ Building on the ontology from §5.4.2, we might see this in terms of knowledge of essence— understanding the proposition that lying is pro tanto wrong requires that one know what the act-kind lying is. ¹⁰ The conditions that I’ve set aside are logical comprehension, explicative capacity, confirmational sensitivity, translational capacity, readiness to meet objections, and accessibility to occurrent thought. Dialogue can help with these, but it isn’t necessary for them.

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will see that, having assured my colleague that I would meet her at 16.00, I have a pro tanto duty to meet her at 16.00. Those who do not see this do not understand the proposition in question. This leads to a second condition of adequate understanding, which Audi (2019: 365) calls ‘a sense of rejectability.’ This involves the ability to recognise that a case fails to instantiate the moral proposition in question. For instance, if I was coerced into telling my colleague that I would meet her at 16.00, what I say can only appear to instantiate a genuine promise. Recognising that coerced promises lack moral force and don’t count as genuine promises is part of understanding the pro tanto duty to keep promises. Moreover, a sense of rejectability involves being able to see when a proposition that looks similar to a self-evident moral truth is not, in fact, equivalent to it. Thus, if you understand that there is a pro tanto duty to keep promises, you cannot also believe that it is always wrong to break a promise. You must see that this should be rejected. The third key element of adequate understanding leads on from the first two. Audi (2019: 367–8) calls it ‘discriminative acuity.’ This involves the capacity to recognise and reject near-equivalents of a self-evident truth, but it also requires an insight into the morally significant differences between them (and, thus, the cases that instantiate them). Audi illustrates this point with two superficially similar propositions: (a) that altruistic people tend to do good deeds for others; and (b) that non-altruistic people tend to do bad deeds toward others. Audi sees (a) as selfevident (on a natural reading of ‘tendency’). But he thinks that (b) is false, for a non-altruistic person might do good deeds for others on a self-interested and thus non-altruistic basis. Thus, to understand (a), an inquirer’s sense of rejectability has to be shaped by a sensitivity to a rather subtle moral distinction—specifically, she has to be capable of discriminating authentically altruistic deeds from merely beneficent ones. My suggestion will be that, when we consider exactly how moral dialogue works at the frontiers of moral inquiry, we find that it enables these three key elements of adequate understanding. Of course, most inquirers don’t need to engage in inclusive and cooperative dialogue to adequately understand the promissory principle or Audi’s claim about altruism. However, for reasons explained in §6.1.2, dialogue becomes crucial with neglected moral truths like C. To see this, suppose that you have little experience of caring roles. Suppose also that such roles are performed much more often by members of social groups to which you do not belong, and with which you have had minimal interaction. Given the epistemic limitations that this implies, you are poorly placed to assess C alone. You should accept that open-minded and humble inquiry into this proposition will mean engaging in dialogue with those who have relevant social experiences. The important question for us is this: what do you gain by such dialogue? How does it contribute to your appraisal of C? The answer is that dialogue serves to test and refine your understanding of C by testing and

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refining your recognitional range, sense of rejectability, and discriminative acuity with respect to it. An example will be useful here, so note first that there is a moral difference between (i) those who prioritise an elderly relative’s needs because they judge that one has a duty to respect elders, and (ii) those who prioritise an elderly relative’s needs from caring concern for them. The difference resides in the fact that care involves a personal tie, an emotional connection, a partiality to a specific person. A general duty to respect one’s elders needn’t involve this sort of relationship, but the activity involved in prioritising an elderly relative’s needs will often be the same in cases of (i) and (ii). Both may involve helping to look after one’s elderly relative when they are unable to look after themselves, for example. What matters here is that, given similarities between cases of (i) and (ii), the ability to recognise whether a case falls under (i) or (ii) will require a nuanced sensitivity to salient features of the case in question. Agents with less caring experience may lack this sensitivity, and, even if they have it, for reasons outlined in §6.1.2 they must see themselves as highly fallible here. An inexperienced but open-minded and humble inquirer will thus seek to engage in dialogue with those who have more caring experience. This dialogue will involve the less experienced agent receptively listening to, asking about, and empathically engaging with actual cases of care described by their more experienced interlocutor. It will involve trying to see things from their perspective (more on this shortly). And, crucially, what dialogue does here is test and refine the inexperienced inquirer’s grasp of C. For consider that, by engaging in dialogue with those who have more caring experience, one begins to learn the social nuances that separate cases like (i) and (ii) (e.g. how a caring person attends to their relative, the tone they use in talking to them, and other such indicators of caring attachment that go beyond a more abstract belief about what is owed out of respect). Learning more about the specifics of actual caring actions and motives should help an inquirer to test and refine their recognition of which cases do and don’t instantiate C. It helps them to test and improve their recognitional range and sense of rejectability in relation to a neglected moral truth.¹¹ This also goes for their discriminative acuity—refined sensitivity to the social nuances that distinguish care and respect will improve their grip on the moral difference between C and moral claims giving similar guidance. In sum, one role of moral dialogue is to test and refine our grasp of neglected moral claims by supplying empirical data that enables us to improve our recognitional range, our sense of rejectability, and our discriminative acuity for those ¹¹ Note that, whilst testimony plays a role here, it isn’t a controversial form of moral testimony (in which one forms a moral belief because someone testifies to it). Wiland (2017) offers a relevant defence of moral testimony, but I can avoid this debate—my view is just that, to understand C, some people need non-moral testimony about the social nuances indicative of conduct based on care rather than respect.

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claims.¹² We should thus expect moral dialogue to result in a priori moral beliefs that E-depend on empirical dialogical experiences. However, in the next section I’ll suggest that we should also expect moral dialogue to result in some a posteriori moral beliefs.

6.3 A Posteriori Moral Beliefs I hinted above that a well-conducted moral dialogue involves empathic engagement with others. I start this section by giving more detail about the sort of empathic engagement I have in mind (§6.3.1). I then argue that exploring what is involved in empathic dialogue helps to show that a posteriori belief should play a key role alongside a priori belief in the intuitionist’s picture (§6.3.2). I won’t argue that empathic experiences are themselves the a posteriori justifier for moral belief. My claim will be that empathic dialogue can induce shifts in one’s moralemotional framework, that such shifts can reframe one’s moral feelings about the situation one faces, and that such feelings often serve to justify a moral belief.

6.3.1 Empathic Dialogue There is no one-size-fits-all account of well-conducted moral dialogue. Different situations involving different people call for different ways of interacting with one another. Speaking generally, however, ideal moral dialogue will be both inclusive and cooperative—it will give a voice to all salient perspectives, and it will involve us working together to attain moral knowledge. I’ll develop these claims in Chapter 7, but one of my main points there will be that cooperative dialogue involves engaging with one another empathically. Ideally, then, moral dialogue involves experiencing things from other perspectives (in a sense that will need fleshing out). Through dialogue about the similarities and differences in our social experiences, our moral beliefs, and our ways of life (etc.), we try to see things with greater clarity from another person’s point of view. Note that, in saying that dialogical moral inquiry involves trying to see things from other points of view, I don’t mean to suggest that we must be able to simulate those points of view, or the social experiences they involve. Some maintain that something like this is part of (ideal) moral reasoning (cf. Hare 1981), but I agree with those who argue that an account of moral reasoning goes wrong if it artificially smooths out our differences in order to render such standpoint-

¹² I’ve focused on a dialogue between an experienced and an inexperienced inquirer. But, in reality, most of us have varying levels of experience, and this will shape how actual dialogues unfold. I explore the nuances of actual dialogue in Chapter 7.

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swapping possible (cf. Habermas 1990, Young 1990; 2000, and Walker 2007). We need a better way to think about our engagement with and experience of other perspectives. It will therefore be helpful to get an account of empathic engagement on the table. This will set up my discussion of a posteriori intuition in the next section, and inclusion and cooperation in the next chapter. On one influential view, empathy does require that empathisers achieve a firstperson simulation of their target’s experience.¹³ On this way of thinking about empathy, for me to empathise with your anger I must in some sense feel your anger too (see e.g. Goldman 2006 and de Vignemont and Jacob 2012), or my feelings must temporarily become ‘more congruent’ with your situation than my own (cf. Hoffman 2000). This view of empathy can be developed in many ways, but it is not the approach that I have in mind. Consider that it might be impossible for someone who has not experienced grief to simulate this experience in themselves, however hard they try. And, as Matthew Ratcliffe (2017) suggests, the personal nature of another person’s grief may well make it impossible for me to simulate their experience, even if I have my own experiences of grief to draw on. Still, something that deserves the name ‘empathy’ is possible here. Specifically, I might come to understand the grieving person’s perspective on the world well enough to imagine and explore things from that perspective. This is a way of empathising with someone, even if it never involves really feeling something of what they feel. To illustrate, one non-simulatory empathic process may involve A working to recognise how a certain experience, like grief, fits into B’s narrative view of his life (cf. Goldie 2000 and Gallagher 2012). That is, without experiencing anything like B’s grief in herself, there is a sense in which A may come to see things from B’s point of view. By learning about B’s life prior to his bereavement, and how it has changed since the bereavement, A comes to appreciate B’s situation from his point of view. Such learning shows A something of how B experiences and lives in the world, enabling A to imagine and understand what B may think and feel in various actual and possible situations. Crucially, this allows one to empathise with those who have perspectives or experiences that differ radically to one’s own. As Ratcliffe argues, the starting point for empathic engagement is an “openness to potential phenomenological differences between self and other” (2017: 205). We suspend beliefs or assumptions involving our “social and cultural norms; the emotional import of various states of affairs; the cognitive and practical abilities one brings to bear on a situation,” and so on (2017: 206) in order to be more open

¹³ Sometimes ‘empathy’ is stipulated to involve simulation (see e.g. Bloom 2017), but sometimes arguments are made for this (see e.g. Goldman 2006, Stueber 2006, and Coplan 2011). I’m not interested in a terminological dispute, and I suspect that many phenomena can legitimately be called empathy given its ambiguity in folk discourse.

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to a different perspective, and so as to imaginatively explore that perspective when we cannot simulate the beliefs or experiences it involves. As this suggests, empathy will ideally involve engagement with others in a collaborative effort to learn about their way of experiencing and interpreting reality. One can of course empathise with people who are not currently present, but empathy is more likely to succeed when the empathiser and her target work together to reach a mutual, shared understanding—as Ratcliffe suggests, empathy is ideally a “prolonged, exploratory, collaborative activity” (2017: 214). It will be a diachronic and dialogical process in ideal cases, rather than a singular simulatory event. It is worth adding that, to count as empathising with someone, the empathiser has to meet certain motivational conditions. It may be tempting to assume that the empathiser must have positive feelings for their target—compassionate or benevolent feelings, perhaps. After all, even if one accurately imagines or simulates another’s perspective, one is not empathising with them if one’s motive is to identify more cutting ways to mock them. Moreover, feeling ill-will towards someone places one at a certain emotional distance from them, which hinders the sort of dialogue that is involved in the model case of empathic engagement. However, whilst feelings of goodwill often aid empathic dialogue, they are not necessary for it. This is because we can, and sometimes should, empathically engage with people to whom we feel no goodwill. One can empathically engage with a Nazi, for example, whilst not experiencing compassion for them. (I will say more about this in Chapter 7.) Rather than requiring goodwill towards the target, it is thus more plausible to require that the empathiser aim to avoid feeling ill-will towards them, and that they aim to be minimally charitable towards them, where this involves imagining the kinds of upbringing and experience that could lead to a relatively ordinary human—i.e. not a monster—forming that perspective. Without at least attempting these things, the empathiser again distances herself from her target by viewing them as in some way inhuman or inherently ‘other.’ Simulating a Nazi’s racial hatred might be impossible for many of us, and it is certainly highly undesirable, but empathising with a Nazi is possible—we can imagine, understand, and explore the perspective in which such hatred seems to make sense. And to achieve these things we must temporarily suspend our hostility and ill-will towards someone who might deserve it. Of course, it is a further question whether and when we should empathically engage with Nazis— I’ll discuss this in the next chapter. However, empathic dialogue with a Nazi is possible, even if we have good reason to avoid it in most cases. In sum, then, on my approach empathy is the imaginative exploration of actual and possible situations from a perspective distinct from one’s own, where this is at least non-ill-willed and minimally charitable, and is ideally done with inhabitant(s) of that perspective through ongoing dialogue.

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I’ll return to questions about empathic dialogue in §7.2.1. What matters for now is that, in moral cases, empathic exploration is key to cooperative moral dialogue. I’ve already argued that, by seeing things from other perspectives, a moral inquirer can refine her recognitional range, sense of rejectability, and discriminative acuity with respect to a neglected moral proposition like C. What I now want to argue is that, by examining the way in which empathic moral dialogue can lead to shifts in an agent’s moral-emotional framework, we learn that some moral beliefs are non-inferentially justified on the basis of a posteriori intuition.

6.3.2 Shifting Moral Emotions I think that emotional experiences can justify moral belief. My case for this will involve clarifying how non-inferentially justified moral beliefs spring from dialogically-induced shifts in an agent’s moral-emotional framework. To be clear, my claim is not that the experience of empathy is what justifies a posteriori moral beliefs (it may do this in some cases, but it need not). My claim is rather that various moral emotions—guilt, blame, resentment, disgust, respect, admiration, etc.—can justify our moral beliefs, and that this can be seen in the moral beliefs that result from dialogically-induced shifts in a moral-emotional framework. This isn’t the only way for emotions to justify a moral belief, but it is a clear case that will establish a key role for the a posteriori in the intuitionist picture. Note first that, by ‘moral-emotional framework,’ I mean to refer to a set of moral-emotional dispositions through which inquirers filter the non-moral but potentially morally relevant data presented by their environment. We obviously differ in our moral-emotional frameworks—we differ in the precise nature of the moral-emotional responses that we tend to have in response to our environment. (Of course, there may also be evolved or socially conditioned commonalities across members of a species or community, alongside individual variations.) To give a simple example, consider the non-moral fact that Φ-ing will cause pain to an innocent person. Suppose that awareness of this leads A to feel aversion to Φ-ing, B to feel drawn to Φ-ing, and C to feel nothing either way. A, B, and C differ in their moral-emotional framework—the same non-moral fact leads them to different moral-emotional responses. Of course, these responses might be ignored or overridden when forming a belief about the rightness or wrongness of Φ-ing. But the key idea for us is that, psychologically, our moral-emotional frameworks enable us to quickly filter the vast amount of non-moral data being presented to us, making some non-moral facts seem (more or less) morally salient, and others seem irrelevant (so that they remain unnoticed most of the time). A moral-emotional framework can be more-or-less refined, and reflection might reveal a need to work at improving it. Of more interest now, though, is

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the way in which empathic dialogue can lead to shifts in a moral-emotional framework. Consider that empathic dialogue, as I described it, is not an emotionally neutral activity. It may not require that one simulate another’s emotions, but it does involve suspending assumptions about the emotional significance of certain situations. We do this not to cast emotional concerns aside, but to open our minds to how others experience the emotional import of those situations. This helps us to appreciate whether and why others may have feelings that we lack, or lack feelings that we have. In the moral case it might mean coming to appreciate why you admire things to which I am indifferent, and why I have an aversion to things that you admire. Thus, empathic dialogue can lead to affective shifts. It can shake you out of indifference by refining the moral-emotional framework through which you view a given situation. The exact way in which moral-emotional frameworks come to be revised will be complex, but by examining how this works we can identify at least one important epistemic role played by moral emotion. Changes in moral-emotional framework involve both cognition and affect. Learning new information might lead you to adjust some of your beliefs, and your empathic understanding of another’s experience might alter your emotional reaction to their conduct (and comparable conduct in others). For instance, you might feel less resentful towards a wrongdoer if you empathically appreciate the psychological frailties that led them to do wrong. An instructive parallel here is the affective shift that results from successful cognitive therapy. Cognitive therapy works (when it works) by helping the patient to adjust their beliefs and goals. It involves the systematic revision of negative beliefs and goals, which in turn results in an emotional shift. We can illustrate this with a real case discussed by Paul Thagard (2000: 207), involving a patient with depression. Among the many negative thoughts and feelings this patient had was the feeling that she had failed as a mother—this was powerful enough that the patient felt that her children would be better off without her, which in turn led to suicidal thoughts. A therapist who worked with this patient helped her to identify examples of things that good mothers do, and to then identify times when the patient had done those things herself. The aim was to build evidence against one of the patient’s core negative beliefs, which (in time, and with effort to keep that evidence in mind) resulted in the belief weakening and fading. As Thagard puts it, by revising this and related beliefs the patient was able to “change her overall emotional appraisal of herself and her situation, which [in turn] could lead to a dramatic improvement in her mood” (2000: 210). Such changes do not come easily. They are hard-won, and even those who put in the relevant effort may find that cognitive therapy is ineffective for them. But the point is that affective shifts can be induced by the revision of one’s system of beliefs and goals. This is how Thagard understands the patient’s shift from a coherent but negative system of appraisal to a coherent and positive system of appraisal. Note that this process involves inference. These can be explicit,

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conscious inferences, or they can be the implicit, subconscious consequence of revisions to a patient’s beliefs/goals. However, whilst the reappraisal process is itself inferential, the resulting mood shift is naturally seen as reframing the patient’s direct, non-inferential experiences of reality. Prior to therapy the depressed patient experienced her children as ‘things’ to which she was unable to connect—she felt alienated and distant from them. They did not appear as available to be hugged, or cared for, and so on. These experiences were not inferred from her negative system of appraisal—that is an implausibly intellectualised view of them. Instead the patient had an unmediated experience of alienation from her children, despite knowing that she should feel deeply connected to them. After therapy she experienced things differently. A feeling of connection came back as her improved mood reframed her experiences of herself and others, changing what was salient to her when engaging with her children. The process that resulted in this affective reframing involved inference and reasoning, but the experience of connection itself wasn’t inferred from anything. Situations and people just present themselves to her in a new and more positive way, for the lens through which she views them has changed. In short, when we look at the phenomenology of affective shifts, we find cases in which an inferential process enables the shift, and the shift produces new noninferential experiences of a situation. And just as therapeutic dialogue can lead to shifts in the patient’s affective state, empathic dialogue can lead to shifts in a moral-emotional framework. Both forms of dialogue involve inferential work (the revision of beliefs and goals, for instance) and both can lead to emotional reorientations that change one’s immediate experience of reality. In moral cases, this involves your empathically exploring how others experience the world, but it consists in a revision to your own moral-emotional framework. This revision makes distinct moral-emotional experiences possible (or stronger/weaker) for you, and shapes how you see the moral relevance of certain non-moral facts. Thus, on the view I’m proposing, empathic dialogue leads a moral-emotional framework to change (and hopefully improve) such that one’s moral-emotional experiences end up tracking moral facts (and relevant non-moral facts) to which one was previously insensitive or insufficiently sensitive. And these experiences, I’ll argue, provide a non-inferential and a posteriori justification for some moral beliefs. Let’s start with an aesthetic example (which I’m adapting from Ratcliffe 2017: 211). Suppose that you and a dear friend are looking at a painting. You can see that it displays a certain technical skill, but feel indifferent to it, or bored by it. You form the belief that it is a mediocre piece of work, and your aesthetic experience is the basis for this belief. But now suppose that your friend tells you how they feel about it. They say that it reminds them of their depression—an experience that you haven’t had. You keep looking at the painting as your friend talks about their depression, and your feelings about it begin to change. You grow to be absorbed,

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and you change from feeling bored to feeling moved by how it evokes what your friend is describing. You form the belief that it is a great work. What happens here is that, by empathically engaging with a friend’s experience, your own experience of the artwork comes to be enriched. You form a new aesthetic belief, but not by inferring it from other beliefs. For instance, you needn’t infer your aesthetic belief from the beliefs about depression that you have formed on the basis of your friend’s testimony. Nor can this be seen as a case of your coming to adequately understand a self-evident aesthetic proposition that you then apply to the painting. It is far more plausible that changes in your aesthetic experience, produced by empathic dialogue with your friend, have led you to a different aesthetic belief. Dialogue reorients how you engage with the work, making a new aesthetic experience possible for you. Something similar happens in the moral case. Suppose that you and a friend see a man repeatedly kicking a dog. You remain unmoved, for you have no experience of dogs, and simply view them as mindless beasts. Because you feel indifferent, you form the belief that the man’s treatment of the dog is odd but morally neutral. Your friend, however, does have experience with dogs. He starts speaking about dogs he has cared for over the years, conveying a sense of how trusting dogs are of humans, of how bonded a human and a dog can become, and of how a dog can experience not only physical pain but long-term psychological trauma. As you empathically engage with what your friend says, your experience of what you are witnessing alters—you pity the dog for its helplessness, you become angry at the man kicking the dog, you begin to feel disgust at its mistreatment, and you feel guilt for your previous indifference. You then form the moral belief that what the man is doing to the dog is wrong. This change in moral belief doesn’t seem to involve any inference from other beliefs (e.g. beliefs about dogs that you have formed on the basis of your friend’s testimony). Nor does it involve you coming to grasp a self-evident moral fact regarding the kicking of dogs. Instead, changes in your moral-emotional experience of the situation have led you to a new moral belief. Empathic dialogue reorients your engagement with what you see, altering what seems morally salient to you. This case of your friend describing his experience of dogs whilst you both watch the poor dog getting kicked is, of course, contrived. But it illustrates the process by which empathic dialogue can lead to a shift in one’s moral-emotional framework. This shift is achieved through a process involving inference—your empathic, imaginative exploration of human and dog relationships involves changes to your background beliefs and attitudes (regarding the moral status of dogs, for example). But the moral-emotional experiences that are made possible here are not inferred from anything, and they directly justify a new moral belief by tracking moral facts (or morally relevant non-moral facts) to which you were previously insensitive or insufficiently sensitive. In short, by clarifying how empathic dialogue can shift an agent’s moral-emotional framework, we get an intuitionist-friendly

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argument for the claim that some moral beliefs are both non-inferential and based on a posteriori moral-emotional experiences. I don’t mean to claim that the epistemic role of moral emotions lies solely in these moral-emotional shifts. Nor do I mean to say that only dialogue can produce such shifts (for other cases involving empathy see Moody-Adams 2017: 163–6). Still, the example of dialogically-induced moral-emotional shifts is instructive, for the non-inferential justificatory role of moral emotions is writ large here. Such shifts lead us to moral beliefs not by any inference from our other beliefs, and not by purely rational understanding, but by direct experience. There is thus an important place for a posteriori intuition, in addition to a priori intuition, in a robustly realistic account of moral knowledge.

6.4 General Objections I’ll now turn to two general objections facing the dualistic intuitionist view that I’ve been developing. I’ll delay answering what I think are the most powerful epistemological problems for realist intuitionism—the disagreement and debunking objections—until Chapter 8, for they will require a detailed discussion. But first I must briefly answer two other objections to ensure that my dualistic intuitionist theory can get off the ground.

6.4.1 Irrelevant Factors Many empirical studies show that moral intuitions are often shaped by epistemically irrelevant factors. For instance, the order in which we are presented with a set of moral scenarios can affect our intuitions about them—Schwitzgebel and Cushman (2012) found that this is true even of professional philosophers. Other apparently irrelevant factors (e.g. odour, physical contact, cognitive bias, mood, peer pressure, tiredness, etc.) also affect our intuitions. This is true of a priori and a posteriori intuitions, and appears to make intuition an unreliable basis for moral belief. The initial worry here is that, even if intuitions have prima facie justificatory force, this justification is defeated given that intuitions are so easily influenced by factors that do not (or are unlikely to) track the moral facts. However, in themselves these distorting factors need not trouble us, for intuitionists can accept the defeasibility of moral beliefs that are justified through intuition. Even if irrelevant factors influence nearly all of our moral judgements, intuitionists can say that we simply need criteria by which to screen our intuitions (cf. Huemer 2008). For instance, we can propose moral dialogue as one such screening process—by engaging in cooperative dialogue with all salient perspectives, we

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can remove or reduce the impact of partiality, bias, social pressure, etc. Such dialogue helps inquiry to be more objective, and in this way it can screen out faulty intuitions. This may lead us to reject parts of common sense morality, but the point is to sort the intuitional wheat from the chaff. However, as Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (2006; 2011) argues, a more interesting question for the intuitionist is lurking here: Empirical studies give informed moral believers reason to ascribe a large probability of error to moral beliefs in general. It is then reasonable for a moral believer to apply that probability to every particular moral belief unless the believer has some special evidence that that particular moral intuition is in a different class with a smaller probability of error. If the believer does not have any such evidence, then it is reasonable for the believer to ascribe a chance of error that is too large for that belief to be justified. And if the believer does have such evidence, then that believer is committed to a justificatory inferential structure. (2011: 21)

The worry is that the influence of irrelevant factors shows that a moral belief can never be justified by intuition alone. It will help to articulate this in relation to the dialogical screening process. The thought is that justified moral beliefs cannot merely E-depend on moral dialogue, but must also J-depend on it, for dialogue serves in part to counteract the impact of irrelevant factors that distort our intuitions and thus defeat the justification for moral belief. And this, one might think, commits intuitionists to a justificatory inference in which the reliability of the dialogical process is a key premise. The justification for a certain moral belief has to be inferred from the fact that it was produced by a reliable screening process. And this undercuts the intuitionist claim that basic moral beliefs are non-inferentially justified. The challenge for the intuitionist is thus to vindicate (some of) our moral intuitions without this vindication featuring in a justificatory inference to a moral belief, for moral beliefs should be justified non-inferentially if intuitionism is true. The answer to this objection is relatively straightforward, for it mischaracterises the sense in which justified moral beliefs depend on a dialogical screening process (or indeed any screening process). When we put moral intuitions to the dialogical test, we will no doubt find that some of them result from biases and partialities in a way that defeats the justification they provide for moral belief. However, intuitions that survive the dialogical screening process and remain undefeated do not receive justificatory support from this process. Instead what happens is that dialogue enables us to see which moral propositions have solid intuitional credentials, and which do not. Put another way, even if we can construct inferences from engagement in dialogue to possession of justified moral beliefs, they will not be justificatory inferences in which the reliability of the dialogical screening process is a

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premise. Instead they will be inferences that describe how moral dialogue enables us to see which intuitions were reliable all along (cf. Ballantyne and Thurow 2013). In sum, the impact of irrelevant factors is not a serious issue for intuitionism. It usefully complicates the view, but it doesn’t undermine it.

6.4.2 Causation The other objection that we need to consider is targeted at a posteriori intuition. The claim that some of our moral beliefs are justified directly by moral-emotional experiences can be challenged on the grounds that those experiences are not suitably caused by the moral features of the world. Robust realism holds that moral properties are non-natural and (thus) causally inert. But it is often said that, when a belief is justified by experience, there must be a causal link between that experience and its object. This is a natural view of perception, for example: my belief that the table is red is justified by my visual experience, but only if that experience is suitably caused by its object (the table’s redness).¹⁴ Now, my defence of a posteriori intuition did not appeal to any analogy with perception. But it might be argued that a posteriori moral beliefs are subject to a similar causal constraint—a moral-emotional experience can only justify belief if it is suitably caused by moral reality. And since moral reality is causally inert, according to the robust realist, this is a problem. In answer to this objection, I think that we can reject the causal constraint on experiential justification. For, as Jack McBrayer (2010b) emphasises, the motivation for such a constraint concerns the need to avoid ‘fluke’ matches between perceptual experience and the world. To illustrate, consider that you could have a hallucinatory experience of a red table in front of you even though your eyes are closed. Even if there is in fact a red table in front of you, your experience is not a perception of it—it’s a hallucination. The match between your experience and the world is a mere fluke. The causal constraint rules out this kind of fluke case—it ensures that your hallucination doesn’t count as a perception, for it was not appropriately caused by the red table that stands before you.¹⁵ However, the existence of an appropriate causal link is only one way to eliminate fluke matches between an experience and its object. For what really matters is that the experience (whether it is perceptual or not) is related to its object non-accidentally. This can be achieved without a direct causal link between them. For instance, one ¹⁴ I’m only suggesting that a causal link may be necessary for my belief to be justified, not that it is sufficient, or that we can supply a causal analysis of perception. For the claim that perception is subject to a causal constraint see e.g. Grice (1961) and Pears (1976). ¹⁵ This raises questions (that I won’t answer) about what constitutes an ‘appropriate’ causal connection, for there can be ‘deviant’ causal chains connecting an experience and its object (see e.g. Lewis 1986).

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possibility suggested by McBrayer (2010b: 302) involves there being a causal link between the experience and something on which its object supervenes. But all we really need is to be able to say that (some) moral experiences non-accidentally track the moral facts. This is an issue I discuss further in §8.2, when I consider evolutionary debunking arguments. For, as a general rule, we can assume that our experiences (including our moral experiences) are accurate until there is reason to doubt them. And the aim of the debunking argument is to show that, if realism is true, then there is reason to doubt the reliability of our moral intuitions (whether these are a priori or a posteriori). So the real task here is to show that our intuitions survive efforts to debunk them. This is what I’ll discuss in §8.2. For now the key point is that, in itself, the causal objection does not threaten the idea that moral beliefs can be justified by a posteriori moral-emotional experiences. For what matters is not whether there is a causal connection between our moral-emotional experiences and the moral facts, but whether our experiences non-accidentally track those facts.

6.5 Conclusion By exploring the nature and phenomenology of well-conducted moral dialogue, I have developed a theory of moral knowledge that is friendly to robust realism, and that gives a central role to both a priori and a posteriori intuitions. Before answering the most serious worries facing this picture—the disagreement and debunking arguments—I’ll first need to say more about what is involved in wellconducted moral dialogue. I have given an indication of what such dialogue involves, but fleshing this picture out will help not only to clarify my views on moral inquiry, but also to underpin my responses to the disagreement and debunking arguments.

7 Actual Dialogue In the last chapter I discussed the role of dialogue in a plausible moral epistemology, noting that well-conducted moral dialogue will typically be inclusive and cooperative. I offered some hints at what I take this to mean—empathic exploration of all salient perspectives—but I didn’t go into much detail. This chapter remedies that. After all, it is one thing to provide the basic outline of an intuitionist epistemology, as I did in Chapter 6, and another to argue that we can put it into effect. My aim is thus to clarify how we can actually go about improving our epistemic position with respect to the moral facts. In addition to fleshing out the intuitionist picture of Chapter 6, this will also inform my discussion of moral disagreement and debunking objections in the next chapter. I’ll thus be discussing the nature and implementation of inclusive (§7.1) and cooperative (§7.2) dialogue in ethics.¹ I’ll conclude that, although we presently do not conduct moral inquiry in anything like an inclusive and cooperative way, there is a realistic chance of improving ourselves and our institutions so that well-conducted moral inquiry becomes the norm.

7.1 Inclusion I’ll start this section by developing and defending a principle by which we can determine who must be included (and who can be excluded) in moral dialogue (§7.1.1). I’ll then explore how we can put this principle into practice (§7.1.2). There are more implementation questions than I can hope to answer here, so I will pay particular attention to the ways in which we may need to reform (and construct) social institutions and practices so that they do better at encouraging and enabling inclusive dialogue.

7.1.1 Criteria for Inclusion I will defend the following principle as a way of determining who must be included in a moral dialogue, and who can be excluded from it: ¹ I cannot do justice to all the relevant literatures here, but what I say is informed by Habermas (1990), Longino (1990; 2002), Young (1990; 2000), Harding (1993), Rawls (1993; 1999), Gutmann and Thompson (1996), Collins (2000), the contributors to Benhabib (1996), Estlund (2008), Gaus (2011), Jaggar and Tobin (2013a; 2013b), and others.

Robust Realism in Ethics: Normative Arbitrariness, Interpersonal Dialogue, and Moral Objectivity. Stephen Ingram, Oxford University Press. © Stephen Ingram 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198886488.003.0008

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I. An inquirer must be allowed to participate in a moral dialogue if (a) they are (likely to be) affected by the moral issue under discussion, (b) they are responsive to the formal standards of moral reasoning and criticism, and (c) they are prepared to try to engage in empathic exploration with any other inquirer who satisfies (a) and (b). My goal in this section is to explain and defend I. I will argue that it is a plausible way to work out whose voices are salient in a moral inquiry.

Affected by the Issue There are two core reasons to value and promote inclusion. The first is that, when making a moral or political decision that will (or is likely to—for brevity I’ll hereafter leave ‘or is likely to’ implicit) affect a certain person or group, then, all else being equal, it is unjust to exclude them from the decision-making process. It violates their right to autonomy and self-determination (cf. Young 2000: 23). A person could exercise their autonomy by choosing to avoid the decision-making process, but justice requires that they are able to take part in it. Participation might sometimes be achieved indirectly (e.g. through a representative), and we’ll need more detail on the terms of such participation. But this is a reason to be inclusive. A second reason concerns the epistemic benefits of inclusion. As we saw in Chapter 6, the experiences of individuals are inevitably limited in a variety of ways. Thus, when engaging in inquiry—particularly moral and political inquiry, where social experiences are highly relevant—it is to our epistemic advantage to include all salient voices. With this in mind, the first condition of I says that we must include the perspectives of those who are affected by the matter being discussed—the decision that results from our inquiry must have some impact on them. Young (2000: 23) fleshes this out by suggesting that the decision in question must significantly condition one’s options for action. (This is still quite vague, but I won’t try to flesh it out further here because conditions (b) and (c) in I are of greater interest than (a) in the present context.) One might wonder whether this point gels with the epistemic rationale for inclusion—are we not more likely to advance moral knowledge when all experiences are brought to the table, and not just the experiences of those affected by the issue? These groups may diverge. Depending on the issue, we may end up excluding people who are unaffected by it, but whose knowledge and experience would be useful in inquiry into it. It is often sensible to include experts in a debate, whether or not they are affected by it themselves. The main thing to note here is that I only tells us who must be included (or, rather, who must be able to participate) in moral dialogue. It does not limit who can be included. That is, it alleges that those who fail to satisfy (a), (b), or (c) can be excluded, but it doesn’t tell us that we have to exclude them. Experts can thus be included in moral dialogue about an issue even

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if they are unaffected by it, and there is often good reason to include them. It’s simply that no injustice is done to them if they are not included. In short, having (a) as a condition in I won’t be epistemically impoverishing. More could be said about (a), but (b) and (c) are of more interest here because they help us with certain problem cases.

Empathic Engagement There are cases in which we plausibly can and should exclude someone from moral dialogue even though they are affected by the matter under discussion. I’m thinking here of a moral analogue to what Daniel Hicks (2011) calls ‘the Nazi problem,’ which he wields against Longino’s view of objectivity in science (see §6.1.1). Longino (1990; 2002) thinks that we should actively cultivate perspectives that are marginalised or excluded from scientific practice, without being swayed by the existing consensus, or by sources of political, economic, and cultural power, in order to ensure that women and minorities must be included on equal terms within scientific education and practice. Hicks’ objection is that this view implies that we must also include and cultivate perspectives that are misguided or even evil. Consider, for example, a psychologist who obeys the intellectual norms of his field, but who has Nazi values that shape his research on racial differences in intellect and character. It is troubling, to say the least, to require that we include and cultivate such a point of view. An analogous worry arises in the moral case. Do we really have to take the views of the Nazis into consideration every time we engage in a moral inquiry that affects one of them? It seems far more plausible that, most of the time, we can take it as read that Nazi views aren’t just mistaken but deeply abhorrent. And something has gone wrong if, say, Jewish people are required or expected to be part of a moral dialogue with a Nazi. An account of inclusion needs a way to handle such cases. The point here is not that we must never engage in moral dialogue with a Nazi. Sometimes such dialogue is worthwhile, as I discuss below. And we mustn’t forget that, however evil or misguided they are, even a Nazi is an autonomous agent with moral status—the belief that this is so is one thing that distinguishes our moral values from his. We thus do not need a case for excluding Nazis entirely. What we instead need is a way to decide when we should and should not engage them in serious moral dialogue. This brings us to (b) in I, which requires that included parties be responsive to the formal standards of moral reasoning and criticism. In saying this I’m adapting a view of Longino’s (1990: 133). She thinks that the defenders of a scientific claim lose their intellectual authority when they are repeatedly unresponsive to criticisms made in line with shared standards for scientific reasoning and criticism. There are probably more obvious and uncontroversial standards of scientific reasoning and criticism than there are in the moral case, but there are at least formal standards of moral reasoning and criticism, acceptance of which is

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required for rational moral inquiry. For instance, a rational inquirer will seek consistency in her moral beliefs, and will aim to form those beliefs in light of the non-normative facts (e.g. about psychology and physiology, etc.). To be clear, my claim is not that an inquirer must be ideally formally rational in order to deserve inclusion within moral dialogue. (b) just calls for inquirers to be responsive to formal rational standards. We must try to live up to them. If someone fails at this (e.g. by serially ignoring and misinterpreting relevant non-normative facts) then eventually they discredit themselves as moral inquirers. We can justifiably exclude such a person from a moral debate in the same way that we justifiably exclude flat earthers from geophysical debate. Their repeated refusal to accept and assign appropriate weight to established facts is due to an approach to inquiry that is disqualifyingly unserious or fatuous. I think it likely that most actual dialogue with Nazis can be avoided this way, for most actual Nazis are unresponsive to criticisms involving well-established facts about human psychology, physiology, history, and culture, etc. It’s not just that they have different views on the moral import of these non-normative facts. It’s that they deny the facts themselves, and thereby reveal an inadequate concern for serious inquiry. So in most cases we can exclude Nazis from moral dialogue even when they are likely to be affected by its outcome. But it is possible for someone to have Nazi values and be responsive to the non-normative facts. Some might be unaware of the facts in question—if their Nazism is due to (culpable or non-culpable) ignorance of non-normative facts about human psychology or physiology, then they might be responsive to moral criticisms involving those facts if they become aware of them. There are times when it is appropriate to engage in dialogue with such a Nazi—making him aware of relevant non-normative facts about race might help him to improve his views, for he is responsive to the formal goal of ensuring that his moral beliefs are based on the non-normative facts. We should have something to say to this Nazi. He is persuadable, and even if dialogue with him involves hearing out his abhorrent views, we should try to persuade him. It might be that we should engage with such a person in an atypical way, however. After all, we do not include him because he has something to teach us about the right and the good. We include him because he needs help—help to learn well-established non-normative facts of which he is uninformed, and help to grasp their import for his values. Since the basis for including this Nazi is to help him, there is good reason to impose restrictions on how he is included. We might require that his interlocutors be trained for dialogue with an agent like him, given the challenges that engaging with extremists will raise. Such dialogue thus will not be forced on anyone, including those whose very existence is at odds with Nazi ideas—a Jewish person, say, need not engage with him unless she is equipped and sincerely willing to do so. What about a Nazi who knows the relevant non-normative facts about race, and who knows why we non-Nazis do not take them to have any intrinsic moral

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import, but who is still convinced that some races are superior to others? Such a Nazi is possible, so we need something to say about him. One temptation is to exclude him on the grounds that he cannot in good faith obey our standards of moral reasoning. For we reason not only on the basis of formal standards of rationality, but also on the basis that humans are equal in moral status. (There is debate as to what grounds moral status, but most of us accept a norm that rejects any moral view that denies such status to certain humans. This is why most Kantians and contractualists try hard to show that they can avoid assigning inferior moral status to human infants, or those with severe cognitive disabilities.) Given that we often take an egalitarian ideal as a starting point for moral inquiry, we may hope that we can exclude a Nazi who is responsive to non-normative facts on the grounds that he cannot (in good faith) reason with this standard—it conflicts with his values. I am persuaded that there is something to this.² But we must be careful about how we formulate the point, for there are two questions that we might have in mind. One is a question about the general entry requirements for moral dialogue. The other is a question about who we must include in moral dialogue in order to form justified beliefs at the frontiers of moral inquiry. Consider that we are not starting our moral inquiry from scratch, and we can take this into account when we try to make progress at its frontiers. For instance, Nazi values have long ago been tested and found wanting, so there is no general responsibility to seek out and engage with the Nazi perspective. But many marginalised views have yet to be fully recognised, cultivated, and tested. It is thus worth ensuring that they get their due at the frontiers of moral inquiry. In short, when our goal is to advance the frontiers of moral inquiry, we have no reason to seek out and cultivate the perspective of an evidence-responsive Nazi. But it would still be a mistake to treat the belief that all humans are equal as an entry requirement for moral dialogue. Even if such a belief is part of the background knowledge that underpins our dialogical inquiry, it is still the sort of thing that can in principle be up for debate in moral inquiry. Having this belief therefore cannot be an official entry requirement—it cannot be built into I. We thus require some other way to deal with the case of an evidence-responsive Nazi. This is where the third condition—(c)—of I comes in. I claim that to merit inclusion one must be prepared to make a sincere attempt to engage in empathic exploration with other parties (who are affected by the moral issue under discussion, and who are responsive to formal norms of moral reasoning and criticism). I make this claim on epistemic rather than moral grounds. Empathy, as characterised in §6.3.1, involves imaginatively exploring actual and possible situations from a perspective distinct from one’s own, where the empathiser is at least

² I am grateful to an anonymous reader here.

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non-ill-willed and minimally charitable to her target, and ideally works with her target. The basis for building moral inquiry on this sort of empathic dialogue is that it is a good way to improve our epistemic position. Our chances of finding the truth improve if, by exploring our similarities and differences, we can achieve a richer understanding of a wider range of social experiences. In short, I propose condition (c) in I on epistemic rather than moral grounds, because empathic exploration is a vital element of epistemically reliable dialogical moral inquiry. The consequence of this here is that, if a Nazi is willing and able to try to empathically engage with others, then they merit inclusion in moral dialogue (if they also meet I’s other conditions). If they are unwilling or unable to do this, then we can justifiably exclude them because they do not accept important epistemic standards for reliable dialogical inquiry. I suspect that most actual Nazis will be unwilling or unable to even try at empathically engaging with other affected parties, for this will often mean engaging with people of other races, or people who the Nazi will see as a traitor to their own race. But it is possible for a Nazi to do this. They would be highly unusual among Nazis, in their openmindedness, and in wishing to view things from the standpoints of those they view as inferior. But such a Nazi is conceptually possible (cf. Hare 1963 on the ‘Nazi fanatic’ case). And it seems right to include them in dialogical moral inquiry—unpleasant as it might be, we should have something to say to this Nazi. A harder question is this: precisely who should say it to them? Who is required to empathise with the Nazi, and is it reasonable to expect them to imaginatively explore the Nazi’s moral stance? This question is important, but to answer it I’ll first need to consider some more general issues regarding the implementation of inclusive moral dialogue. I’ll therefore return to this point in the next section.

Summary We’ve now seen the rationale for the principle with which I began this section: I. An inquirer must be allowed to participate in a moral dialogue if (a) they are (likely to be) affected by the moral issue under discussion, (b) they are responsive to the formal standards of moral reasoning and criticism, and (c) they are prepared to try to engage in empathic exploration with any other inquirer who satisfies (a) and (b). (a) is a matter of justice. Being affected by the issue is the base line for inclusion, and special reason is needed to exclude someone who meets this base line. (b) and (c) give us such reasons and thereby answer the Nazi problem. They imply that a Nazi must be able to participate if they are responsive to formal standards of moral reasoning, and accept the epistemic norm of empathic exploration. Excluding

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Nazis is thus fine in most cases—it is rare for Nazis to satisfy (b) or (c). Moreover, whilst I allows for cases in which a Nazi must be included, it leaves open how they are included. I now turn to this sort of implementation question.

7.1.2 Implementing Inclusion The most common form of moral inquiry involves asking oneself about the right thing to do in one’s particular situation. For instance, suppose that Jamal has a free day each week, and must decide how to spend it. He could volunteer at a local homeless shelter, he could work overtime to earn money to take his family on an expensive holiday, or he could use it as leisure time with his friends. Inclusive dialogical inquiry into what he ought to do here will involve empathically engaging with other affected parties, according to formal standards of moral reasoning and criticism. Specifically, Jamal should engage in empathic dialogue with volunteers and inhabitants at the shelter, with his family, and with his friends. Through this process he can arrive at justified beliefs about the reasons for and against his options, and he can draw conclusions about what he should do. One can thus start to implement I even in everyday decisions (that do not involve exploring the frontiers of moral inquiry) simply by making an effort to empathically engage with other people. This is hardly a revelation. It is no surprise that, when making an important decision, we should speak to those with relevant interests or experiences. But note that one may be more or less willing and able to empathically engage with others, depending on the degree to which one’s education and upbringing equipped one for such activity. There are thus going to be more complex issues of implementation. We must ask not only what individuals like Jamal can do, but also what we can do to improve our institutions such that they foster inclusive empathic dialogue. One idea would be to build structured, expert-led empathic role play into school curricula (e.g. in drama classes, personal development classes, and so on). The thought being that, by regularly guiding young children through the challenge of empathically exploring very different perspectives, in time we may help them to form good habits for future moral inquiry. To implement I there thus need to be changes in our educational institutions. It may seem as if these changes can be minor—adding structured education in empathy would not be a huge upheaval—but deeper educational reforms may also be necessary. An effective empathiser can empathise with people whose experiences are unlike their own, but social, economic, and geographical divisions (due to class, wealth, race, etc.) mean that schools (etc.) tend not to be very diverse. They involve little opportunity for regular interaction among children from different social worlds. Creating spaces in which this is routine will require more significant and systemic reforms to improve educational integration (cf. Anderson 2006; 2010; 2012).

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To achieve this in the context of education we might also need more general social reform (e.g. to wealth distribution, housing policy, employment rights, etc.). As this suggests, differences in experience and perspective often flow from differences in the way in which, and the degree to which, we are subject to social oppression and privilege. We must therefore also ask how to implement I in contexts of social inequality. Part of my answer to this will come in §7.2, when I discuss the importance of cooperation in inquiry. Note first, however, that inclusion is not just assimilation. It cannot be that privileged groups ‘allow’ the oppressed to join in their inquiry, on the condition that they conform to modes of thinking and inquiring that are familiar to and perhaps even serve the privileged. Inclusion demands that all affected parties can participate on equitable terms (cf. Fraser 1990). What this means in practice may differ from dialogue to dialogue, but the general lesson to take from it is that, in a society that is unequal along various dimensions, we must identify and deconstruct barriers to participation impacting oppressed groups. Consider, for instance, the inclusion of autistic inquirers within dialogical inquiry. Many autistic people have ways of empathising that might seem odd, unfamiliar, or even irritating to neurotypical people.³ For example, some autistic people might need contributions to a moral dialogue to convey their content explicitly rather than through implicit contextual clues, and they may need more time to process and respond to those contributions than most neurotypical people. It would thus be unacceptably assimilative to set up moral dialogue in a way that forces an affected autistic party to conform to styles of empathic engagement that are only natural to neurotypical people. To implement I we must thus ensure that the recognised modes of empathic dialogue do not exclude autistic people. And this is simply one case—the point is that we need practical ways to ensure that inclusion avoids becoming assimilation. Crucially, however, this forces us to go beyond what any individual can do. It will take institutional tools to enable the equitable inclusion of all social groups, and the introduction and popularisation of such tools will usually involve the efforts of public policymakers and organised social movements. This is how practical moral progress gets made (cf. Moody-Adams 1999; 2017 and Anderson 2020). However, the importance of institutional tools leads to another implementation question. Specifically, how are we to conduct empathic dialogical inquiry when direct interaction between all affected individuals is not feasible? After all, public policy ³ As this suggests, I deny that autistic people necessarily have an impaired capacity for empathy. Autism is sometimes defined as involving an empathy deficit, but this involves a much narrower sense of empathy than the one I developed in §6.3.1. Some autistic people may have an empathy deficit or impairment in my sense of the term ‘empathy,’ and some who don’t might need more help or practice than the majority of neurotypical people when developing and using their empathic capacities. But this is also true of some neurotypical people.

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decisions typically have a moral dimension, but cannot involve face-to-face discussion with all affected parties. This is also true of decisions made by organised social movements, which will have leaders, or small groups of leaders. The issue here is that we need to implement I on a larger scale, in a way that recognises the intersecting inequalities among affected parties. Part of the answer is for members of oppressed groups to be better represented in political and other such social institutions. However, as many philosophers and political theorists have observed, this cannot be the whole answer (see Young 1990; 2000, Phillips 1998, Williams 1998, and Urbinati 2000). The members of a social group tend to have common experiences, and this tends to create overlap in their perspectives. But individuals are not interchangeable. Members of any given group differ in their interests, capabilities, and beliefs, and they will belong to a wide variety of social groups in a way that complicates their position in any particular group. It is thus a mistake to think that one group member can stand in for all other group members, if this is assumed to involve their embodying a singular group standpoint. But we needn’t view a representative’s role in this way. An alternative idea is that representatives should advocate for the group they represent (see Urbinati 2000). We can also say that they must remain connected to their constituents, where this involves being continually held to account not only through regular elections but also through public meetings and the like (cf. Young 2000: 125–33). There are many details to be ironed out here, but what matters is that, even when it is not feasible to include all affected parties directly, they can still be included indirectly via someone whose role it is to represent them. I have barely scratched the surface of the implementation issues raised by I, but what I’ve said suffices to show that significant social changes are required to realise inclusive moral dialogue. We can work towards these changes through public policy and organised social movements. Although we are not close to being as inclusive as we need to be, we can become more inclusive if we try, and thereby improve our epistemic position with respect to moral questions. In the next section I explore how those who are included should conduct moral dialogues. In particular, I’ll consider the nature and realisation of cooperation in inquiry.

7.2 Cooperation This section considers how and why we should engage in empathically cooperative inquiry (§7.2.1). My strategy will be to identify some core intellectual virtues and skills that the ideally cooperative inquirer must have, focusing on what I’ll call ‘the virtue of empathic cooperation.’ But appealing to virtue is insufficient, for there are cognitive and structural barriers to both the acquisition and practice of virtue. I’ll explain such barriers, and I’ll propose strategies by which we might overcome them (§7.2.2).

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7.2.1 Cooperative Inquiry It may seem obvious that inquiry should be cooperative, if all we mean by this is that it should involve discussions, debates, and other forms of social interaction. But I have something a little stronger than this in mind. After all, we can discuss or debate an issue without cooperating. We can do so competitively, for instance, if we try to outdo each other. Viewing other inquirers as competition will typically involve aims that are incompatible (or at least in tension) with full-blooded cooperation. A competitive inquirer will aim to win the argument, for example, and they might want to defeat or outshine their opponent. As long as these aims do not come at the expense of their also seeking basic epistemic goods (truth, knowledge, etc.), the competitive agent is still engaged in inquiry. It’s just an adversarial form of inquiry. In cooperative inquiry, however, we work with each other to achieve epistemic goods. We can of course do this whilst disagreeing, and even without trying to reach an agreement. What matters for cooperative inquiry is that, even when two inquirers disagree, they are collaborating in an attempt to find the truth (or gain knowledge, or whatever). Put another way, a cooperative inquirer won’t think of their disagreeing interlocutor as an adversary or an opponent, but as a partner who, despite their differing beliefs, is part of a team effort to add to the shared pool of knowledge or justified belief. Why see cooperation as the ideal rather than competition? Note first that cooperation does not preclude the kind of vigorous criticism that we might expect in more competitive inquiry. Such criticism plays a crucial epistemic role in testing beliefs. The cooperative inquirer will work with others to subject her beliefs to critical scrutiny. Moreover, whilst it may be important for inquiry to include a variety of competing views (such that no single view is so dominant that it becomes a dogma—cf. Mill 1859), this is compatible with cooperation—we can disagree persistently whilst still working together to find the truth (see also §8.2). And whilst competition can lead to progress by encouraging us to work harder and think creatively (consider e.g. the Space Race), this doesn’t mean that it is necessary or even the best way to achieve progress. We must ask what cooperation would achieve instead. It might be that, in some contexts, competitive aims are more productive than cooperative ones. This is ultimately an empirical matter, but I strongly suspect that cooperation will often be more conducive to progress, at least in moral inquiry. This is because effective moral inquiry requires an appreciation of different social worlds, which is best attained by empathic dialogical engagement. One is far better placed to access and explore someone’s social world if one sees them as a partner rather than as a competitor. They will be more inclined to talk about their social world, and you will be better able to grasp that world, if you work with them rather than against them. If your aim is to outshine and defeat someone, then they are less likely to open up to you and you are less likely to be open to what they have

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to say. Even if cooperative engagement with them does not result in your belief changing, it still leaves you epistemically better off by forcing you to test and (if necessary) refine your view. This is one general reason to prefer cooperation to competition in inquiry. But the best way to appreciate the importance of cooperation in moral inquiry is by exploring what it involves in practice. I’ll thus examine the main intellectual virtues and skills required for empathic cooperation to be effective.

Cooperation and Virtue I’ll take virtues to be acquired excellences of character that enable one to more reliably get to some good. Virtues therefore have instrumental value as a means to a valuable end, but also non-instrumental value as excellences of character—they are a part of being good qua person, as Jason Baehr (2011) puts it. Intellectual virtues are the excellences of character that help one to more reliably get to epistemic goods (truth, knowledge, understanding, etc.).⁴ Examples include open-mindedness and humility, both of which will feature in the psychological profile of the ideally cooperative inquirer. On a natural view suggested by Linda Zagzebski, the virtue of open-mindedness consists in being “receptive to new ideas and arguments even when they conflict with one’s own in order to ultimately get knowledge” (1996: 169). This might not be all there is to open-mindedness (cf. Baehr 2011: 143–7), but it captures a key aspect of this virtue. The open-minded agent gives a fair hearing to all credible sides of an issue, even if they conflict with her own. Since the other credible sides of an issue are usually defended by real people, an open-minded agent will seek dialogue with those people, to ensure that she considers a real view and not a caricature. Moreover, she will want to test her own view against its strongest rivals, and will thus aim to work with the defenders of other views to refine them as much as is possible. Intellectual humility is the trait that regulates one’s confidence in one’s own cognitive capabilities (cf. Cooper 2002 and Kidd 2016). On this view, humility doesn’t necessarily involve a lack of confidence. Instead it involves having the degree of confidence that it is rational to have given one’s actual capabilities. Ian Kidd (2016) thus suggests that the humble inquirer must have the ability to recognise and respond to ‘confidence conditions’—conditions that determine how confident it is rational to be in a given situation. Some of these conditions concern the agent herself—her level of experience and education, for example. Others are more collective, for, as Kidd puts it, to “have confidence in myself, ⁴ This is a responsibilist view of intellectual virtue. Reliabilists (e.g. Sosa 2007) count any quality that reliably leads to some epistemic good as an intellectual virtue—they thus include perceptual faculties and skills as virtues. Battaly (2008: 651) is probably right that the concept of virtue permits both reliabilist and responsibilist definitions. I adopt a responsibilist view, however, for when I discuss empathy it will be useful to clearly separate virtues and skills. Empathy is a skill (cf. Battaly 2011), but I’ll argue that a distinct virtue is needed to manage this skill.

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I must often have confidence in others – those who trained me, for instance, or whose work and suggestions I rely upon” (2016: 396). Humility reveals the correct level of confidence not only in oneself, but in others who one is working with and learning from. The cooperative inquirer therefore needs humility in order to determine her epistemic standing in relation to other inquirers—in particular, those with whom she is engaged in dialogue. Having this virtue will enable her to identify and then respond rationally to her epistemic superiors, inferiors, and peers. Complicating all this is the fact that entrenched prejudices and biases, perpetuated by oppressive social structures, can undermine the cultivation of these cooperative virtues. For instance, entrenched and unnoticed prejudices (at a personal as well as at a structural level) will influence the degree to which one is inclined to engage open-mindedly with the ideas of those from oppressed social groups. Moreover, one’s ability to recognise whether people from such groups meet collective confidence conditions will be affected by unconscious biases, meaning that one cannot properly exercise intellectual humility unless one can correct this when evaluating one’s own cognitive capacities in relation to others. We thus need ways to handle the fact that unconscious biases and prejudices inhibit our ability to cultivate the virtues of cooperative inquiry. One tempting idea involves developing specialised virtues that target our biases and prejudices. However, virtues are not enough here—as I will explain in §7.2.2, structural, institutional measures are also needed (cf. Langton 2010 and Anderson 2012). Still, identifying some relevant virtues will be a helpful starting point. After all, structural and institutional tools tend to work by enforcing certain sorts of action, and by encouraging us towards (or away from) certain sorts of motive. To see what these tools should look like we thus need to identify the kinds of action and motive that they aim to produce. And presumably these will be the actions and motives exhibited by someone with the relevant excellences of cooperative inquiry—that is, they will be the actions and motives of an inquirer who responds virtuously to their prejudices and biases. Two examples that are worth mentioning here are the virtues of epistemic justice discussed by Fricker (2007). Someone with the virtue of testimonial justice is able to neutralise the influence of prejudice in her judgements about another’s credibility. The idea is that prejudicial stereotypes (about race, class, gender, etc.) may lead one to assign too little credibility to another’s testimony, such that one wrongs them in their capacity as a knower. Testimonial justice is the trait that prevents or corrects unjust credibility assignments, and it will be a quality of the ideally cooperative inquirer in a culture like ours. The same can be said for the virtue of hermeneutical justice, which aims to correct injustices resulting from ‘hermeneutical marginalisation.’ Such injustices occur when an agent cannot (intelligibly) communicate an experience that it is in her interests to be able to communicate, where this is due to a gap in the community’s conceptual resources,

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and where this gap is due to the prejudicial exclusion of a group (to which the victim belongs) from the processes by which we attain knowledge. Those with the virtue of hermeneutical justice are able to “achieve a credibility judgement that reflects the degree to which the interpretation the speaker is struggling to articulate would make good sense if the attempt to articulate it were being made in a more inclusive hermeneutical climate” (Fricker 2007: 170). They might revise a low credibility assignment to account for the injustice, and they will aim to work with a speaker to find ways to articulate her point. This is an inherently cooperative virtue, and it will play a key role in the psychological profile of an ideally cooperative inquirer. Other familiar intellectual virtues will also play a role here—we should not underestimate the social aspects of virtues like generosity, honesty, autonomy, and courage (for discussion, see Kawall 2002). But rather than saying more about these familiar virtues, I want instead to explore a less familiar virtue involving empathy. In itself, empathy is a skill rather than a virtue. But I will argue that a distinct virtue is needed to manage the use of this skill in the context of cooperative dialogical inquiry.

The Virtue of Empathic Cooperation Recall that, as I’m using the term, empathy consists in the imaginative exploration of actual and possible situations from a perspective that is distinct from one’s own, where this is (at the very least) non-ill-willed and minimally charitable to the perspective in question, and where the exploration ideally involves ongoing dialogue with the inhabitant(s) of that perspective (see §6.3.1). Understood this way (and, again, this is not the only legitimate way of thinking about empathy), empathy is a skill rather than a virtue. Skills can be distinguished from virtues, for unlike virtues skills do not in themselves reflect an agent’s dispositions or character. As Battaly (2011) notes, an agent can have a skill and fail to use it (a skilled detective might fail to use her skills to solve a crime because the suspects are her children, despite being able to solve it if she wanted to), and they can deliberately botch its use (a skilled speller might choose to spell incorrectly on a given occasion, whilst still being able to spell). This is not the case with virtues— given the dispositional nature of virtue, if an agent has a virtue she will tend to think, feel, and act in certain ways in certain circumstances (other things being equal, a benevolent agent will not fail to act benevolently when opportunities arise, and will not deliberately choose to act malevolently). In the case of empathy, an agent may be fully capable of empathising with others, yet fail to do so on a specific occasion (either deliberately, e.g. because she is too busy to get involved in an empathic dialogue, or accidentally, e.g. because she fails to notice the opportunity for empathic dialogue). And one can deliberately botch one’s empathic engagement with other perspectives (e.g. by treating its inhabitants as competitors rather than partners) whilst still being capable of effective

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empathic engagement. We can thus see empathy itself as an intellectual skill, rather than as a virtue. However, this does not mean that empathy’s place in the ideally cooperative inquirer’s psychological profile is limited to its status as a skill. The ideally cooperative inquirer will need a distinct virtue—what I will call ‘the virtue of empathic cooperation’—to manage their use of empathy in inquiry.⁵ One might assume that the traditional virtues will be enough here. After all, epistemic virtues such as love of knowledge and open-mindedness will constrain the ends at which an empathiser can appropriately aim in inquiry, and moral virtues such as kindness and justice will do the same for more practical matters. Why think that ideally cooperative inquirers need an additional virtue? The answer is that there are factors that are specific to empathic dialogue that one cannot reliably and successfully navigate purely by exercising the more traditional virtues. These factors concern, for example, differences in the perspectives of people included in the dialogue (some perspectives suit different styles of empathic engagement), the content of the issue that is under discussion (which different people and perspectives may be better or worse placed to illuminate), and the manner in which each party is affected by the issue (which may shape whose voices should be prioritised in dialogue). As crucial as it is to be open-minded, humble, kind, epistemically just, truthful, autonomous, and courageous, these virtues are not designed for all the specific nuances of cooperation and dialogue. For instance, whilst open-mindedness will lead an agent to seek opportunities for dialogue with those who have different perspectives, it will not reveal what the agent’s role within the dialogue should be. It will not shed light on whose perspective should be the dialogue’s focus, or on whether both perspectives should be central. And whilst humility enables an agent to determine how she stands epistemically in relation to others, even this leaves her role in the dialogue open. I may correctly identify you as my epistemic peer, but this doesn’t automatically mean that our perspectives merit equal attention and weight in the dialogue. Factors specific to our dialogue play a major role here—differences in how the issue affects us can make a difference to our proper place in a dialogue, even if we are equal with respect to our knowledge, expertise, intellectual skill and virtue, etc. Other factors—e.g. differences in our perspectives, in our level of skill at imagining other perspectives, in the styles of empathic engagement that suit us, in the circumstances that lead us to a dialogue, etc.—also play a part here. These factors concern dialogue, empathy, and cooperation among persons who differ in ways that go beyond their status as epistemic superiors, inferiors, or peers. Thus, the ⁵ Virtues often regulate the use of skills—e.g. the virtue of humility regulates the use of all intellectual skills by regulating confidence in them. Simultaneously, skills often enable one to exercise virtues in certain contexts—a skill in spotting fallacies is useful for the open-minded assessment of rival beliefs, and a skill in analysing a data set is key to autonomous inquiry in science. The virtue of empathic cooperation regulates the epistemic use of empathic skills.

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ideally cooperative inquirer cannot manage their empathic skills simply by exercising intellectual humility in their dealings with others. I won’t labour the point, but the same applies to other virtues—autonomy, honesty, benevolence, kindness, and courage (etc.) are just not designed for the navigation of these sort of dialogical complexities. Having such virtues would help in well-conducted empathic dialogue, as they would help in any inquiry. However, even in combination they are insufficient, for they are not geared at the dialogical factors noted above. Even Fricker’s virtues of testimonial and hermeneutical justice, which are more directly geared at our epistemic interactions, only deal with a specific type of dialogical nuance—the assignment of credibility to others. And, as we have seen, there are a number of dialogical factors that go beyond being able or disposed to assign others the correct level of credibility. Thus, adding the virtues of epistemic justice to our list is still not sufficient to regulate empathy’s use in inquiry. More is needed here. In particular, an ideally cooperative inquirer needs the virtue of empathic cooperation. As a first gloss, this is a disposition to recognise and respond rationally to the situational factors that make a difference to whether, when, and how one can more reliably attain core epistemic goods (truth, knowledge, justified belief, and so on) through empathic exploration of perspectives other than one’s own. This needs fleshing out, but note that this disposition (or set of dispositions) is plausibly an excellence of character. It is part of being a good person. We can see this by noting that it plausibly constitutes the mean between two vices—a vice of deficiency and a vice of excess. To clarify the virtue, and the area of life it helps one to navigate, it will be helpful to begin with these vices. I will call the vice of deficiency ‘empathic obtuseness.’ An agent is empathically obtuse if he is insensitive, or insufficiently sensitive, (i) to considerations that shape whether it is appropriate to imaginatively explore another agent’s perspective, and (ii) to situational factors that affect how a particular empathic dialogue should unfold. Such an agent may fail to realise that someone is too tired or overwhelmed to engage in a dialogue. He may fail to see that his interlocutor wants or deserves more than a quick, superficial response. And, even when he sees these things, he may talk too much and listen too little (or vice versa) because he mistakes the importance of his perspective in relation to others. He may also fail to notice or respond to relevant features and needs of his interlocutors (e.g. by being unresponsive to an autistic interlocutor’s needs). Note that someone may have impressive empathic skills even if they are disposed to deploy them obtusely. For instance, they may have no difficulty with imaginatively exploring another person’s perspective when they notice or are shown an opportunity to do so, and they may be able to adapt to their specific dialogical situation (e.g. one in which their interlocutors have atypical cognitive needs) if directed by others. They simply lack the dispositions that would lead them to consistently do these things off their own bat. And this is

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because they are deficient in their sensitivity to the nuances of empathic dialogue. This deficiency reflects poorly on their intellectual character, and also makes them less reliable at achieving core epistemic goods. In short, it is an intellectual vice. We can contrast this to the vice of excess, which involves being overly sensitive to situational factors such as those described above, in a way that hinders empathic dialogue and the acquisition of epistemic goods. I will refer to this vice as ‘empathic hypervigilance.’ It may seem odd to interpret this as a vice, for the ideally cooperative inquirer will obviously pay close attention to factors that might affect how dialogue should be conducted. However, the disposition to notice and respond to such factors becomes a vice when it gets so extreme that it obstructs empathic dialogue itself, making one less likely to identify the truth. It is an unrestrained perfectionism, where the perfect is the enemy of the good. Those with the vice of empathic hypervigilance might endlessly interrupt a dialogue to check that an interlocutor’s cognitive needs are being met. They might prevent a dialogue from starting until they are certain that no more can be done to improve its conditions. Sometimes this may be well-meaning. A sincere desire for inclusion, for example, can have this effect if it isn’t balanced by a desire to make progress. In other cases it is due to more questionable motives—the empathically hypervigilant agent may want to be seen to be virtuous, or ideologically pure, such that they refuse to participate in dialogues that fail to meet an unfeasibly demanding standard. In short, then, the vice of empathic hypervigilance is a negative trait consisting in excessive sensitivity and responsiveness to factors that should be balanced with other concerns. Again, even inquirers with strong empathic skills can be vicious in this way. This takes us back to the virtue of empathic cooperation, which is the mean between these vices of empathic obtuseness and empathic hypervigilance. People with this virtue have a set of cognitive, affective, and behavioural dispositions that enable them to successfully navigate the various contextual factors that determine whether, when, and how to engage in empathic cooperative dialogue. Empathically cooperative agents are therefore better placed to achieve core epistemic goods than empathically obtuse and hypervigilant agents. They are also better qua person—their conception of and behaviour towards their interlocutors reflects well on them as a person. In short, ideally cooperative inquirers need more than the skill of empathy. They also need the virtue of empathic cooperation to manage their use of this skill. However, as we’ll see in §7.2.2, there are major obstacles to our becoming ideally cooperative inquirers with this virtue. Cultivating virtue is plausibly a life’s work, and for most of us it will need an environment that is conducive to virtue and cooperation. In the next section I thus explore the implementation of empathic dialogue—in particular, I will consider how structural and institutional tools might help in fostering virtuous conduct and virtue itself.

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7.2.2 Implementing Cooperation There are several kinds of barrier to empathic cooperative dialogue. In this section I focus first on the impact of cognitive biases on individual agents, and then on the wider social problem of epistemic exploitation. I’ll conclude that significant structural reforms are needed to create an environment in which regular empathic cooperative dialogue becomes viable.

Cognitive Biases A cognitive bias is a dispositional skew on a process by which we reason and form beliefs.⁶ Humans are affected by many implicit and explicit cognitive biases, and they are plausibly adaptive. It is not hard to see why a set of reflexive cognitive dispositions would be helpful to a being whose memory is limited, who must often form beliefs in conditions of uncertainty, and who must make rapid choices. Still, useful as they can be, biases can also mislead us. The reflexive skews on our processes of reasoning and belief-formation may lead us to neglect, underrate, and otherwise misconstrue our evidence, and so sometimes lead us to false beliefs. To illustrate, human agents are subject to the confirmation bias (a tendency to test one’s beliefs primarily against evidence that is likely to corroborate them, plus the tendency to ignore or underrate evidence that might challenge or even disprove them), the availability heuristic (a tendency to form beliefs about the frequency or probability of some event based on the number of instances of it that one can readily bring to mind), and the hindsight bias (a tendency for those who know that an event has occurred to overestimate the degree to which they would have predicted it in advance).⁷ These are just three examples—there are many biases, some of which obstruct cooperative dialogical inquiry more than others. For instance, confirmation bias plays an important role in perpetuating prejudices and stereotypes, like those concerning gender, race, and class (see e.g. Myers and Bishop 1970, Darley and Gross 1983, and Murray 1996). It therefore helps to sustain oppressive norms and practices that make inclusive, cooperative dialogue harder to achieve. But what matters here is that it is difficult for individuals to avoid or overcome these biases on their own, given that they tend to be automatic and speedier than conscious thought—this is one reason for thinking that cultivating the virtues is a life’s work for an actual human agent. It may be tempting to assume that, when one has time to think more reflectively, one can avoid the influence of these biases. However, ‘debiasing’ is more complex than this. To see this, consider the biases that are most relevant in relation to cooperative dialogue. Specifically, the biases underlying the phenomena of belief ⁶ For introductions to the topic of cognitive biases see Kahneman (2011), Stanovich (2011), and Pohl (2017). ⁷ These definitions are paraphrases from Colman’s (2015) dictionary of psychology.

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polarisation and group polarisation (for influential studies see Lord, Ross, and Lepper 1979, Plous 1991, Miller et al. 1993, McHoskey 1995, and Munro and Ditto 1997). Belief polarisation is when two or more people who disagree on some issue strengthen their disagreement after considering the same body of evidence. Group polarisation is the tendency for involvement in a group to cause the beliefs of the group members to grow stronger and more extreme (in the direction of beliefs that are dominant within the group). The phenomena of belief and group polarisation raise the question of how realistic it is to expect that inquirers can form justified moral beliefs through dialogue. Even if we try to interact cooperatively with others, this just creates another opportunity for biases to work on us.⁸ So, to avoid moral dialogue making our beliefs less rather than more justified, we will need some debiasing strategies. One might hope that learning more about the existence and nature of cognitive biases will have a debiasing effect, but this is not what the evidence suggests (see e.g. Wilson, Centerbar, and Brekke 2002). One reason for this is that we are subject to a bias blind spot. This is itself a bias, consisting in the tendency to view oneself as less susceptible to biases than others (see e.g. Pronin, Lin, and Ross 2002). Even an awareness of this blind spot is not sufficient for debiasing—as Tim Kenyon notes, “I may very well allow that I am biased on many occasions while yet holding that this is not one of those occasions” (2014: 2535). Indeed, knowing that one is susceptible to bias can actually make things worse, for it can lead an inquirer to think that they have managed to screen the biases out of their belief even if they have not (see e.g. Thompson 1995 and Frantz 2006). One might hope that, after learning of our biases, we could work to internalise a corrective response to them. Although becoming aware of a bias is insufficient to counteract it, developing corrective epistemic dispositions might have more impact. This is what underpins Fricker’s (2007: 91) suggestion that the virtue of testimonial justice is typically corrective, with the virtuous inquirer developing a tendency to correct for her biases when evaluating another’s credibility. But, as Anderson observes, “while virtue can become habitual, we first need to know how to practice it consciously – a challenge when we do not know exactly where or how much we have gone wrong” (2012: 168). This challenge is unlikely to be met through self-reflection alone: knowing that one is subject to bias is one thing, learning how to tell when and how one is biased, and how to correct one’s biases, is another, and is much harder. Some studies do suggest effective ways for an agent to reduce her bias. For instance, false polarisation decreases if subjects are asked to

⁸ Further complicating this is the fact that we are vulnerable to a false polarisation bias—a tendency to overestimate the extent of our differences with others (see e.g. Keltner and Robinson 1993). This is another barrier, for we must consider not only our tendency to grow more polarised, but also to overestimate how polarised we are.

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make the best case they can for an opposing view (Pronin, Puccio, and Ross 2002). But, as Kenyon notes, this strategy works best when it is guided—in experimental contexts a researcher can “stimulate the generation of alternative scenarios when an agent is unimaginative, and impose probabilistic coherence on the generation of alternatives when the agent is imaginatively fecund or undisciplined” (2014: 2541). In most contexts such facilitators are unavailable. A more promising approach will aim not at individual learning or reflection, but at the structure of inquiry itself (cf. Alcoff 2010, Langton 2010, Anderson 2012, Kenyon 2014, and Kenyon and Beaulac 2014; 2018). Using structural tools to shape how a dialogue unfolds will help us to end up with a less biased result. The idea here is that, to facilitate empathically cooperative acts and motives, we need to create the right sort of environments. Since it is psychologically infeasible for most of us to acquire all the virtues of cooperative inquiry on our own, the initial focus should be on creating the spaces that best enable empathic dialogue. Such spaces will involve structural or institutional constraints that guide our epistemic conduct and motives, and should thus help inquiry to have less biased results. Moreover, by repeatedly inquiring within such spaces, in time and with effort we may even hope that the acts and motives that they encourage will become habits (cf. Merritt 2000). In other words, our best hope of developing intellectual virtues is through structural reforms designed to produce the right kind of intellectual environments. There are many possible proposals for reform here, and I cannot hope to give a detailed defence of any of them. Instead I’ll note a few possibilities that may be useful. In some cases an intellectual environment may be improved by the presence of someone who is trained to facilitate empathic dialogue—someone who plays a role like that of a researcher in an experimental context. This facilitator isn’t part of the dialogue itself, but can step in when needed to discourage irrational forms of polarisation, to observe that some pieces of evidence have been neglected, to suggest potential ways to modify behaviour, etc. Indeed, as Kenyon (2014: 2544) notes, versions of this already exist in some contexts—judges often play this role in a court, for example, as do consultants who advise workplaces on non-sexist and non-racist hiring practices. We might broaden such efforts to a wider range of spaces. However, employing a facilitator will be impractical for many everyday contexts, so additional strategies are needed. One obvious idea is to create social policies or rules of epistemic etiquette to discourage and counteract bias in dialogical inquiry. If we find that similar issues emerge again and again in empathic dialogues, then we should design the rules of dialogical inquiry to deal with them. An agent with the virtue of empathic cooperation would not need such rules (for they can identify which features of a situation affect whether and how empathic dialogue ought to be conducted), but most inquirers—who fall short of being fully virtuous—would benefit from them. Such rules might include a prohibition on continuing to ask questions about

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someone else’s perspective when they wish to end the dialogue, and I’ll shortly defend a rule according to which we should prioritise the needs of the oppressed within a dialogical inquiry. But the idea is that, even when the majority of agents have not fully internalised the situational sensitivity involved in the virtue of empathic cooperation, they can act on rules that will enable an imperfect but still productively cooperative dialogue. So, cognitive bias is an obstacle to empathic cooperation, but there are promising debiasing strategies that can help to overcome this obstacle. With structural, institutional tools we can encourage virtuous behaviour, and over time we might even enable the cultivation of virtue itself.

Epistemic Exploitation A second obstacle to well-conducted cooperative inquiry involves what Berenstain (2016) calls ‘epistemic exploitation.’ This is basically when those with power and privilege compel (perhaps unconsciously) those who are oppressed to educate them on the nature of their oppression. I noted an extreme case in §7.1, when I said that we should not expect Jewish people to engage with a Nazi. But there are less extreme cases. Indeed, it is a common issue noted beyond academic philosophy. Here, for example, is Audre Lorde: Black and Third-World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade their responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future. (1984a: 115; cf. Lorde 1984b)

Inviting the oppressed to explain their oppression to the privileged and powerful may seem like a mark of inclusive dialogue, but when it works as Lorde describes it reinforces the oppressive system itself. For it puts the burden onto the oppressed, and coerces them into uncompensated and psychologically exhausting epistemic labour (cf. Berenstain 2016: 570). However we understand it theoretically, epistemic exploitation is real and prevalent. If inclusive and cooperative dialogue is to play a key role in inquiry, we must ensure that it doesn’t just create another place for this form of epistemic oppression (see Dotson 2014: 116) to operate. Here it will be useful again to consider the ideally cooperative inquirer—most inquirers fall short of this ideal, and lack the virtues of cooperative inquiry, but we can start to see how nonexploitative moral dialogue might become a reality by pinpointing the virtuous behaviour that we wish to encourage. For a privileged inquirer with the virtue of empathic cooperation will know how to engage non-exploitatively with others. She will be sensitive to the needs of interlocutors, and will not force moral

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dialogue on those for whom it would be too onerous. And when the privileged but empathically cooperative inquirer does engage in dialogue with an oppressed inquirer, she will have first ensured that she is ready for such dialogue. She will have done what one can do on one’s own to learn about oppression, so as to reduce the burden on the oppressed, and so as to prepare herself for the task of imaginatively exploring perspectives that lack the privileges of her own. Moreover, the empathically cooperative inquirer will be responsive to factors that determine her proper role in the dialogue. She will recognise the need to prioritise a perspective that has hitherto been marginalised, and will know how to engage openly and charitably so as to avoid dismissing or explaining away the experiences or interpretations of the world that it involves. In sum, a privileged but empathically cooperative agent will be able to avoid epistemic exploitation. But virtues are difficult to acquire, and social tools will be needed to encourage virtuous acts and motives. One possibility is to compensate the epistemic labour of the oppressed. This may be infeasible for everyday interactions, but it is achievable in other cases. I noted above that the privileged must avail themselves of existing sources of information in preparing for moral dialogue. Such sources are often created in institutions (e.g. media companies), which may be able to offer formal compensation. Such compensation may be financial, or it might take other agreed forms, but it needs to offset the intellectual labour done by the oppressed creators—their work is likely to be tiresome, psychologically draining, and in some cases distressing, but such work can at least become non-exploitative if it is compensated properly. A more generalisable proposal is to create and enforce rules of dialogical engagement that aim to minimise epistemic exploitation. In creating social norms that aim to encourage empathically cooperative behaviour, we can take into account the need to minimise exploitation of oppressed inquirers by privileged ones. It may help, for instance, to have a social norm requiring that the participants in a moral dialogue prioritise the needs of the oppressed. To put this into effect we would need to say what it is to prioritise the needs of the oppressed, which I won’t try to do here. But some of this norm’s practical implications are obvious. When deciding whether to begin or continue a dialogue, this norm will tell us to give more weight to harms that the oppressed may suffer from it, and less to benefits that the privileged may gain from it. When deciding who should take the lead in directing the dialogue, the wishes of oppressed inquirers should be the starting point—that is, if the oppressed wish to direct the dialogue (e.g. by explaining their own perspectives, or by questioning the privileged about their perspectives) then it should be the default position of the privileged agent to accept this. This doesn’t require the privileged to fully defer to everything the oppressed say. Prioritising the needs of the oppressed means weighing their interests more heavily when making choices about when and how to conduct moral dialogue about oppression, but it does not imply that the privileged should

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be entirely uncritical. Not least because members of oppressed groups are not interchangeable. There is therefore no one ‘oppressed judgement’ to which the privileged can defer. They have to form beliefs in response to many complex and conflicting insights from oppressed agents. The privileged also have their own insights to offer, for they will often be best placed to grasp certain elements of their own standpoints, which is relevant to understanding how social oppression works. Suppose, however, that the privileged do as much as they can to reduce and compensate for the epistemic labour of the oppressed. We can still ask whether bringing this about and engaging in dialogue with the privileged is a productive use of the oppressed agent’s time. Recall the idea canvassed by Lorde: oppressed agents may make better use of their time “in redefining [them]selves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future” (1984a: 115). We might go further, defending a ‘separatist’ approach to empowering the oppressed. The idea in this context is to reject dialogue with privileged agents, and to focus instead on creating a separate social infrastructure for the benefit of the oppressed group. Oppressed racial groups could, for example, build and run their own schools, hospitals, and banks, etc. Unless total separation is achieved, this will still involve the oppressed having to navigate a system favouring the privileged. But this may be easier than getting those who control existing institutions to listen and change. I think, however, that we ought to be fighting for a more justly integrated world. Separation at a group level is problematic because it undercuts autonomy—both that of the privileged and the oppressed—at an agential level. It restricts the choices that individual members of a group can make about whom to befriend, love, marry, live with, talk to, and so on. Enabling such choices requires just integration. It might be suggested that, if integration is our aim, the burden of dismantling oppression must fall on the oppressors, and that dialogue between the privileged and the oppressed is therefore unjustly exploitative because it adds further burdens on the oppressed. However, oppression cannot be dismantled without the involvement of oppressed agents. After all, oppressive social structures have to be replaced with something, and even if the privileged could think up a non-oppressive replacement on their own it would be oppressive to impose it on people who were not involved in its creation. So, both the oppressed and the privileged must be involved in the process of replacing oppressive systems. But there is no clear line between dismantling old structures and replacing them with new ones—these aren’t distinct processes, but a single process of social transformation. The oppressed must play a role in dismantling the social structures that oppress them, for this task cannot be isolated from that of creating better institutions. In short, to get a form of social justice worth having, the oppressed and the privileged have to work together. This is compatible with an oppressed group putting more time and energy into intragroup dialogue and self-definition. This is in fact required for successful

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intergroup cooperation, as Patricia Hill Collins argues in relation to the oppression of Black women in the US. Collins advocates coalition building between privileged and oppressed groups (assuming that those with unearned social privileges are willing to give up those privileges, and play their part in dismantling the oppressive systems—Collins 2000: 41–2). But she also notes that this “requires simultaneous if not prior dialogues among Black women intellectuals and within the larger African-American women’s community” (2000: 42). Without such dialogue the subtlety and diversity of Black feminist thought may be lost as its core messages and insights are abbreviated for the purpose of cooperative moral dialogue with socially privileged agents. More generally, to dismantle oppression we need cooperation and coalition building among the privileged and the oppressed. But we must structure the dialogue and reform process in a way that limits the burden of the oppressed. If this is achieved, then cooperative dialogical inquiry needn’t be just another way for oppression social structures to manifest.

7.3 Conclusion My aim in this chapter has been to clarify what is involved in inclusive and cooperative dialogue, both in theory and in practice. At times this may have seemed like a side issue within my overall defence of robust realism, but it has been important in a couple of ways. First, it fleshes out the intuitionist epistemology offered in the last chapter, explaining how the ideal process by which we are to test and refine intuitive moral beliefs can actually work. Second, the fact that we need to improve the social infrastructure within which dialogical moral inquiry occurs will have important implications for the discussion of the next chapter. For it shapes how robust realists can reply to disagreement and debunking worries.

8 Sceptical Challenges In the last two chapters I developed a theory of moral knowledge and inquiry that is friendly to robust realism. In doing this I generally took an optimistic view toward the possibility of our forming justified moral beliefs about robust moral truths. In this chapter I discuss what I think are the three strongest ways of challenging such optimism. Drawing on what I have said about moral dialogue, I argue that robust realists can handle these sceptical challenges. I start by replying to two arguments from disagreement (§8.1). I then reply to the evolutionary debunking argument (§8.2). I conclude that robust realists can remain optimistic about the possibility of our forming justified beliefs about robust moral truths.

8.1 Disagreement In this section I discuss the two main types of disagreement argument: metaphysical arguments from disagreement, which directly target the realist’s commitment to stance-independent moral facts (§8.1.1), and epistemological arguments from disagreement, which only bear on the commitment to such facts indirectly by alleging that, if realism is true, then (almost) none of our moral beliefs count as epistemically justified (§8.1.2).

8.1.1 The Metaphysical Argument The metaphysical argument from disagreement involves an inference to the best explanation—the idea is that the best explanation of moral disagreement is one on which there are no stance-independent moral facts. This argument is popular with critics of realism (see e.g. Mackie 1977, Loeb 1998, Doris and Plakias 2008, and Leiter 2014). In its most powerful form it focuses on fundamental disagreement; disagreement that is irresolvable even in principle. After all, many disagreements are superficial, resting on faulty beliefs or bad reasoning from at least one party. There are also cases of merely apparent disagreement, in which we appear to disagree on the moral facts because we respond to them differently (e.g. two cultures might agree that the dead must be treated with respect, yet appear to disagree because one buries and the other cremates the dead). Superficial and

Robust Realism in Ethics: Normative Arbitrariness, Interpersonal Dialogue, and Moral Objectivity. Stephen Ingram, Oxford University Press. © Stephen Ingram 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198886488.003.0009

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merely apparent disagreement are easily explained, so it is fundamental disagreement that matters in this context. We can thus formulate the strongest version of the metaphysical argument from disagreement as follows: (1) There is a lot of fundamental moral disagreement. (2) This is best explained by the absence of stance-independent moral truths on which we may converge over time, along with differences in our psychologies, upbringings, cultures, etc. (3) Therefore, by inference to the best explanation, there are no stanceindependent moral truths. (1) and (2) both require support, but let’s begin with (2). The idea here is that, if there were stance-independent moral facts, we would see far more moral agreement than we do. The obvious comparison is science. There is often disagreement at the frontiers of scientific inquiry, but at the same time there is also widespread agreement on a broad range of issues. Moreover, even when scientists do disagree, they typically have shared methodological standards that lead them to at least agree about what sort of evidence would change their minds. We can thus predict gradual convergence in science. The scientific equivalent of (1) is thus false, and no scientific equivalent of (2) arises, for there is little or no fundamental scientific disagreement to explain. Now, as this indicates, (2) only comes into play if (1) gets established. And to establish (1) we need to show that, unlike in science, we cannot predict convergence in moral belief. This might be supported on the basis that, in contrast to science, there are no agreed standards for resolving moral differences. Indeed, substantive norms for moral inquiry tend to be controversial. Disagreement is therefore an issue for moral realists but not scientific realists. I won’t press the point here, but I am not convinced by this case for (2). It seems to me to rely on a rather naïve view of scientific inquiry that ignores real methodological disputes among scientists (e.g. about what the threshold for statistical significance should be, about the role and analysis of qualitative research, about the need for and possibility of a Grand Unified Theory in physics, etc). There is thus a risk that the argument will prove too much by applying to science as well as ethics.¹ However, I think that realists should focus first on (1), for (2) does not even come into play if (1) is false. What, then, can we say about (1)? I will argue below that (1) is false because the very idea of fundamental moral disagreement is incoherent. But let’s assume for a moment that such disagreement is possible. Realists might still deny (1) by denying that most actual disagreements are fundamental. After all, it would be impatient to judge that a disagreement ¹ There may also be realist-friendly explanations of fundamental moral disagreement (cf. Enoch 2011a: 191–5), but I will not go into this possibility here.

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cannot be resolved just because it has not been resolved. It might be that there is an inductive case for (1), given that the history of moral inquiry has not produced a general convergence. But a serious empirical case is needed here, for many of our moral disagreements are superficial or merely apparent. They are subject to ‘defusing explanations’ that show them to be resolvable. One thus cannot defend (1) simply by noting the existence of long-standing disagreement. One must also show that such disagreements cannot be defused. Realism’s critics have a clear way to proceed here, as John Doris and Alexandra Plakias observe: To establish the existence of fundamental moral disagreement . . . find a case of actual moral disagreement and determine whether any defusing explanations are applicable. If any are, conclude that the disagreement would disappear under ideal circumstances and is not fundamental. If none apply, conclude that a fundamental disagreement has been identified. (2008: 319)

Note here that, even if they assume that the idea of fundamental moral disagreement is coherent, realists needn’t suggest that there is no such disagreement. (This is accepted by their critics—cf. Doris and Plakias 2008: 321.) Relatedly, there could be some fundamental disagreement in science without this damaging the case for scientific realism (it may be that some scientific questions cannot be answered by human minds, even in principle). There thus has to be some amount of disagreement that casts doubt on realism about a discourse, which is met by morality but not by science. It’s hard to say precisely what that threshold should be, but I think that anti-realists will be doing well if they can supply us with evidence of fundamental disagreement about certain deeply held and somewhat general values. For this sort of disagreement would give us a reason to expect a lot of fundamental disagreement, flowing from these deep and general values. The most promising candidate for such a disagreement is outlined by Doris and Plakias (2008), and concerns honour. There have been numerous honour cultures throughout human history, but Doris and Plakias focus on a contemporary case involving the Northern and Southern regions of the United States. Drawing on empirical psychological work (in particular, Nisbett and Cohen 1996), they maintain that an honour culture exists among White people in the American South, but not in the North, and that this is visible in the fact that White Southerners are far more likely than Northerners to believe (and act on their belief) that violent retaliation is a morally permissible (and even correct) response to threats, insults, humiliations, and other such affronts (Doris and Plakias 2008: 317–19). This honour culture prizes male strength, reputation, and prestige, and encourages a norm of good manners. Our question is this: is there evidence to suggest that this North/South divide is fundamental, or might we ‘defuse’ it in some way?

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Doris and Plakias (2008: 320–2) argue that the obvious ways of trying to defuse this disagreement fail. They doubt that Southerners or Northerners are misled by self-interest and partiality—there is no reason to think that being ‘quick on the draw’ serves the economic and personal interests of Southerners, or that a tendency to ‘turn the other cheek’ serves those interests for Northerners. They also doubt that this disagreement is due to irrationality; it is unlikely that there is a general rational deficiency among one or both groups. Nor can we attribute the disagreement to non-moral ignorance, for in particular cases it is easy to imagine that Northerners and Southerners agree on the non-moral facts yet disagree morally. For instance, in a case in which someone is called an ‘asshole,’ both parties may agree that this is an insult, and may know the non-normative circumstances involved in its use in this case, whilst disagreeing as to the morally suitable responses to such an insult. Doris and Plakias thus conclude that this North/South divide is a strong candidate for fundamentality. They are reluctant, for obvious reasons, to draw too much from just one case, but in my view what is striking about the moral disagreement around honour is the depth and generality of honour as a value. If disagreement about the moral value of honour is fundamental, then we should expect further fundamental disagreements to follow on from it—cases like that of the insult, among many others, will be correspondingly fundamental. More importantly, the generality of honour as a value means that it has consequences for many other aspects of moral thought. The concept of honour is bound up with various moral concepts (e.g. courage, autonomy, and justice), and may thus lead to fundamental disagreement in other areas as well. However, there are reasons to doubt Doris and Plakias’ reading of this case. For one thing, Doris and Plakias are wrong to dismiss the claim that partiality may explain this disagreement. They themselves suggest (following Nisbett and Cohen 1996) that the Southern honour culture was initiated by the interests of those who colonised the region: [H]onor cultures are particularly likely to develop where resources are liable to theft, and where the state’s coercive apparatus cannot be relied upon to prevent or punish pilfering. These conditions often occur in relatively remote areas where herding is a main form of subsistence; the “portability” of herd animals makes them prone to theft . . . The American South was originally settled primarily by herding peoples from remote areas of Britain; when these peoples emigrated from Britain to America, they initially sought out remote regions suitable for herding, and in such climes the culture of honor flourished. (2008: 317)

Doris and Plakias appear to think that, because the South is no longer a herding economy, and because the machinery of the state is no longer difficult for Southerners to access, the interests that plausibly initiated this honour culture

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cannot explain why Southerners continue to prize honour. But this is far too hasty, for we can combine an appeal to their initial interests with an account of how values tend to persist over time through a process of moral education and enculturation. Once a value is internalised by a culture’s inhabitants, it passes from one generation to the next until something or someone forces a reevaluation. I won’t try to show that this in fact applies to the North/South disagreement, but it is a promising explanation that Doris and Plakias do not seem to see. More important, though, is that this North/South disagreement cannot be considered fundamental without being put to the dialogical test. There are two elements to this—the first involves the fact that, for all we now know, a North/ South dialogue will lead to convergence. The second involves the more contentious claim that the very possibility of moral dialogue between these parties requires that their disagreement is in principle resolvable. On the first point, whilst there obviously has been moral dialogue here, it will rarely have been reliably inclusive and cooperative. As we saw in Chapter 7, inclusion and cooperation require social infrastructure rarely seen in the contemporary USA, so it seems premature to assume that better dialogue would not lead to agreement. This isn’t to say that it would lead to agreement—my point is just that, at this stage, we cannot make definitive claims about what would result from it. It will be a complex undertaking that may not have a clear end (cf. Moody-Adams 1999). It must include inquirers with very different perspectives and experiences, and given the sheer numbers involved it will probably require a long-term back and forth across many levels of society. We therefore cannot conclude that disagreement as to the value of honour is fundamental. What we can do is create spaces for inclusive and cooperative dialogue, and follow it where it leads. This applies to other cases offered as candidates for fundamental disagreement, for at present we lack the social infrastructure required for genuine inclusion and cooperation.² Creating that infrastructure is feasible but also hard, so we are a long way from being able to know the outcome of dialogues that centre on disputes at the frontiers of moral inquiry. The empirical plausibility of (1) thus remains unclear—even if we allow that the idea of fundamental moral disagreement is coherent, we cannot yet assess how much of it there is. A possible way around this can be drawn from Rowland (2017). He argues that, even if we have insufficient reason to think that there is fundamental moral disagreement, problems arise so long it is a salient possibility that there is such disagreement. That is, doubt is cast on realism if there is nontrivial positive reason to believe that there is fundamental moral disagreement,

² Note that this doesn’t undermine moral beliefs generally—as I said in Chapter 6, many moral beliefs can be justified without dialogue. It is at the frontiers of moral inquiry, when we are unsure or persistently disagree, that dialogue is needed.

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even if this reason isn’t sufficient for belief, and even if we also have other reasons to deny that there is fundamental disagreement. Rowland appeals here to a view on the role of salient possibilities in theory evaluation. He thinks that we should reduce confidence in a theory T, and that T is less plausible than it would otherwise be, if p is a salient possibility and if p’s truth would undermine T. Since it is a salient possibility that there is fundamental moral disagreement, and since realist theories would (if (2) is correct) be undermined by the existence of such disagreement, realist theories become less plausible and our confidence in them should be therefore reduced. This is a far more modest conclusion than (3). Still, it may be a cause for concern depending on just how much realism’s plausibility is reduced by the fact that (a lot of) fundamental disagreement is a salient possibility. Rowland doesn’t tell us how much less plausible a theory T becomes when it is a salient possibility that p, and when the truth of p would undermine T. However, it is natural to suppose that this will be a matter of degree, and will depend on just how salient a possibility p is. So one possible way to reply to Rowland would be to maintain that, whilst we don’t yet have enough evidence to decide the issue, there are more reasons to predict convergence than a perpetual impasse (e.g. we might make a historical or inductive case for the claim that we actually are converging—see e.g. Huemer 2016). In which case, our confidence in realism might only suffer a small reduction, allowing us to maintain that it is more plausible than its rivals. Any humble inquirer can accept this. However, realists can go further than this, for there is reason to deny that fundamental moral disagreement is possible at all. I will say more to back this up in due course, but the suggestion is that the very idea of fundamental moral disagreement is incoherent because for two parties to disagree on a moral issue— such that they don’t simply talk past each other—there must be some basic background agreements in their psychologies and beliefs. This is because one can only recognise another agent’s belief as a moral belief if it is part of a system of beliefs that is somewhat akin to one’s own system of moral beliefs (cf. Cooper 1978 and Moody-Adams 1997; 1999). The beliefs of the disagreeing parties may differ in various ways, but they would be speaking at crosspurposes (rather than truly disagreeing) if they did not have enough in common to ensure that they are engaging with the same subject matter (cf. Davidson 1973). I appealed to a version of this point in Chapter 2, when I argued that we needn’t worry about the views and reasons of a truly alien moral species. I will have more to say about it in §8.2.1, and in Chapter 9. The key point in the present context is that, if this is right, then (1) in the metaphysical argument from disagreement is just false. All moral disagreements are in principle resolvable. As Moody-Adams puts it, “[c]ross-cultural moral disagreement is possible only because ‘fundamental’ moral disagreement across cultures is not” (1999: 172–3).

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I have offered a two-part answer to the metaphysical argument from disagreement, focusing on its first premise. At best this premise is empirically under-supported, for we don’t know how an ideal moral dialogue will end. At worst it is false, for the idea of fundamental moral disagreement is incoherent. I said more to support the empirical claim, even though the coherence claim is stronger, for I’ll be returning to the coherence claim. First, however, I’ll respond to another disagreement argument.

8.1.2 The Epistemological Argument Epistemological arguments from disagreement do not directly target a metaphysical conclusion. Rather than aiming to show that there are no stance-independent moral truths, such arguments instead aim to show that, even if there are such truths, our beliefs about them are rarely (if ever) justified, or rarely (if ever) constitute knowledge. Of course, this gives indirect support to an anti-realist outlook—if realist intuitionists are committed to this sceptical result this might be a great enough cost for us to reject the view. But here I’ll focus on the argument’s main aim, which is to show that the justification for your moral belief is defeated if an inquirer in a relevantly similar epistemic position disagrees with you. Applied to realist intuitionism, the idea is that, in many cases of substantive moral disagreement, there is no discernible difference in the intuitional credentials of each party’s incompatible moral beliefs.³ In other words, there is no discernible difference in the competence of the disagreeing parties, in the strength or clarity of their intuitions, in the quality of their reasoning about the moral issue in question, and so on. Thus, before and during the disagreement itself there is no reason to think that one party is more likely than the other to make a mistake. For intuitionists have nothing to look to here apart from intuition and general rational competence. This doesn’t mean that the disagreement is irresolvable, or fundamental. But we cannot find a way to resolve it, and we cannot see a case for thinking that one party is more likely than the other to have it right on this occasion. Now, the problem for realist intuitionism arises when we apply a popular (but not uncontroversial) epistemic norm to situations of this kind. The norm can be formulated in various ways, but the general idea is that the (epistemically) rational response to this kind of persistent disagreement (in which there is no discernible difference in the justificatory credentials of the disagreeing parties’ beliefs) is to suspend judgement, for one’s belief is defeated by the

³ I claim only that there is no discernible difference in order to sidestep issues facing the most demanding versions of this argument, e.g. where the disagreeing parties are fully-fledged epistemic peers. For discussion of such issues see e.g. King (2012).

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disagreement. In other words, one cannot justifiably continue with one’s belief because the disagreement provides higher-order evidence for the claim that there is just as much reason to hold an incompatible belief. This is often thought to show that many moral beliefs—perhaps the vast majority of them—lack adequate justification. For supporters of the epistemological argument from disagreement tend to think that the relevant form of disagreement (in which the intuitional credentials of the disagreeing parties’ moral beliefs are not discernibly different) is widespread. For instance, Sarah McGrath sees disagreement of this sort in both philosophical and wider cultural debates concerning “the circumstances (if any) in which it is morally permissible to administer the death penalty, or to have an abortion, or to eat meat, or about how much money we are morally obligated to donate to those in dire need, and so on” (2008: 92–3). Others, including Crisp (2011) and Besong (2014), note longstanding disagreements among moral philosophers. If the correct response here is to suspend belief, then we have little or no moral knowledge, and we lack a secure starting point for dialogical inquiry. One answer to this is that the prevalence of moral disagreement is not so clear. For there are also cases of widespread moral agreement in philosophy and in public life—most of us agree that all humans have equal status, that slavery is unjust, that it is deeply wrong for adults to have sex with children, etc. (cf. Brink 1989: 208).⁴ Such agreement is often hard-earned, and the fact that we agree on these points does not mean that we do enough to put them into practice. But even if we ought to suspend judgement on certain moral issues because they are subject to disagreement, many moral beliefs remain intact, for they are subject to agreement. This perhaps limits the extent to which a realist view has sceptical consequences, and strengthens our shared starting point for dialogical inquiry into more hotly contested moral issues. We still face the question, of course, of how to respond to those issues. I think that focusing on the importance of moral dialogue can help us here. As we’ll see, the standard way of framing the debate about the epistemic import of disagreement is flawed, and, once we recognise the need to reframe it, reflecting on the role of dialogue enables us to do so in a productive way. The flaw in the standard framing concerns the fact that, in most cases, we have little or no direct control over how disagreement affects our beliefs. This is due to the more general truth that belief is (largely) involuntary—we cannot choose what to believe.⁵ Catherine Elgin puts this point nicely: “I may find myself with a belief ⁴ I don’t deny that some disagree with these claims, but I do deny that their epistemic positions are enough like ours that, prior to disagreement, we can think of them as being about as likely as us to get things right. Their perspective must be very different to ours if it says that slavery is not unjust, etc. This needn’t make them aliens, but it does mean that we cannot think of them as being as likely as us to get things right. ⁵ This isn’t uncontroversial (see e.g. Ginet 2001), but it is the majority view. I’m open to the idea that sometimes one can directly choose what to believe, but I take it that these cases involve exceptional circumstances.

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suspended as a result of evidence, argument, testimony, or disagreement; or I may find my belief unmoved by evidence, argument, testimony, or disagreement. But my response is not under my control” (2010: 61). If this is correct, and I cannot help but believe that it is, then the idea that ‘intuitionism plus disagreement equals scepticism’ is mistaken. It is an error to think that the rational response to disagreement is suspension of belief, for what one believes in response to disagreement isn’t under one’s control, and thus cannot sensibly be evaluated as rational or irrational (at least not in the sense that matters here, where an epistemic norm is intended to give substantive epistemic guidance to us, such that a violation of the norm counts as a criticisable epistemic failure on the part of the agent). There are more or less regrettable doxastic responses to disagreement, but for such a response to be rational or irrational (again, in the sense that is of interest here) it would have to be under our control. Which it isn’t. From this perspective, the question is not ‘what is it rational to believe in cases of disagreement?’ but ‘what is it rational to do in cases of disagreement?’ In answering this latter question, we must be guided not just by practical concerns, but by an epistemic concern to know the moral truth (for its own sake, but also so that our practices are guided by accurate moral beliefs). My no doubt predictable answer is that the rational thing to do in response to disagreement is to engage in moral dialogue. The rational inquirer will care less about whether her current belief is defeated by disagreement, and more about what she can learn from an intellectual partner whose belief is incompatible with her own. In essence, it doesn’t much matter whether you suspend or retain your belief in cases of moral disagreement, for this is usually something that happens to you. It isn’t under your control. What matters more is how dialogical inquiry should be conducted when this sort of disagreement occurs. To answer this question it will be helpful to draw on L. Jonathan Cohen’s distinction between ‘belief ’ and ‘acceptance.’⁶ Here is Cohen: [B]elief that p is a disposition, when one is attending to issues raised, or items referred to, by the proposition that p, normally to feel it true that p and false that not-p, whether or not one is willing to act, speak, or reason accordingly . . . to accept that p is to have or adopt a policy of deeming, positing, or postulating that p – i.e. of including that proposition or rule among one’s premises for deciding what to do or think in a particular context, whether or not one feels it to be true that p. (1992: 4)

This is only Cohen’s initial statement of the distinction, but for present purposes we needn’t make it more precise—what matters here is that, unlike belief, ⁶ I’m following Elgin (2010: 64–5) here, who proposes that we reorient the debate about peer disagreement in terms of what it is rational to ‘accept’ in Cohen’s sense.

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acceptance is a choice. We could be guided by many kinds of reason when choosing what to accept, but since our aim is successful moral inquiry it seems wisest to base our choices about what to accept on what is likeliest to lead us to the moral truth. So, debates about the epistemic import of persistent moral disagreement are best framed as being about what it is rational for you to accept (given that your aim is moral truth) when you engage in dialogue with someone who disagrees with you despite there being no discernible difference in your epistemic positions. For instance, would it be rational for you to suspend acceptance such that, however the disagreement affected your (pre-disagreement) belief that p, your contributions to the dialogue are built on a decision to neither avow nor disavow p? Or would it rather be rational to accept that p (again, whatever the effect on your pre-disagreement belief has been), and put the case for p to your interlocutor? There is unlikely to be one answer that applies to all cases here, for contextual factors will affect what best serves our epistemic aims in a given situation. Having said that, there are reasons to think that it is often sensible for at least one party to accept what they believed prior to the disagreement, for if both parties suspend acceptance then the dialogue is likely to stall. But if at least one party accepts and defends a view then there is a starting point for dialogical inquiry. Anyway, what matters most for now is not what it is in fact rational to accept when in dialogue with a disagreeing party. What matters is that this is the central epistemic question raised by moral disagreement, not whether such disagreement has sceptical results. Of course, engaging in a cooperative dialogical inquiry based on what it is rational for one to accept, rather than what one cannot help but believe, may well lead to a change in belief. For the purpose of such inquiry is still to open one up to a broader range of experiences and insights, and to refine one’s cognitive position. It’s just that the journey to improved cognition involves dialogical reasoning based on what one accepts rather than what one believes. But we might wonder where this leaves us at the end of dialogue—what if we still diverge in our beliefs? Does this lead us to scepticism? Although we cannot choose to suspend belief, we might still conclude that such beliefs fall short of knowledge. Consider first that, if the dialogue is ideally inclusive and cooperative, then lack of convergence might be viewed as evidence of fundamental disagreement (assuming, against what I think, that such disagreement is possible). If there are enough cases like this then there is a problem, but it is the metaphysical problem discussed in §8.1.1. In other words, if we continue to disagree even after engaging in ideal moral dialogue, then we may just have a direct reason to question our commitment to realism—we need not concern ourselves with disagreement’s sceptical results. What about when we engage in dialogue that is less than ideal? Although the ideal is complete inclusion and perfect cooperation, most actual moral dialogues

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should be seen as contributing to this over the long-term, given that it is rare for us to engage with everyone affected by the issue in question, and given that (as fallible humans) we are not always going to engage perfectly cooperatively. So, what is the rational response to a disagreement that persists following imperfect dialogue? Consider first those cases in which this persisting disagreement has led you (involuntarily) to suspend your belief. From an epistemic point of view this is not so bad. It would have been better to have resolved the disagreement in a way that led you to form a justified moral belief, but failure to achieve this will often help to spur one on to additional moral inquiry or dialogue, so has benefits as well as costs. But a lack of moral belief seems more regrettable from a practical perspective. After all, if you must choose whether or not to Φ, and have no belief about whether to Φ, then it is unclear what you should do. This is an interesting issue, but it is not specific to realist intuitionism. It is the substantive ethical question of what one morally ought to do in cases of moral uncertainty or ignorance. We can defuse anti-realist concerns here: a lack of belief needn’t become paralysing once we have a decisionprocedure for such cases, but providing such a decision-procedure is a task for normative ethics. What about cases in which one cannot help but continue with a belief after imperfect moral dialogue? Is involuntarily continuing with one’s belief a regrettable response to persistent disagreement? I do not think so, at least not if the inquirer remains sensitive to the fact of their unresolved disagreement. If their subsequent moral thought, dialogue, and activity is informed by recognition of this disagreement, then that they have involuntarily retained their belief seems fine. This awareness will inform their moral reasoning—they will continue reflecting on the issue after the dialogue, and they will use it to inform future dialogues on related moral issues. For instance, if the unresolved disagreement concerns the morality of abortion, then in subsequent dialogue about (e.g.) the grounds of moral status, the oppression of women and girls, and the sanctity of life, the inquirer will recall the earlier disagreement about abortion, note how their views on it might influence their views on the matter now under discussion, and use this to inform how they contribute to that discussion. At least, this is the ideal—it is a part of being an empathically cooperative agent. It thus needn’t be regrettable to retain a moral belief in the face of unresolved disagreement, at least if you have the virtue of empathic cooperation, or are guided by related norms. In sum, once we correctly frame the way in which disagreement has epistemic import, epistemological arguments from disagreement fail to bite against the realist intuitionist. There is, however, another epistemic objection that we must discuss, one that also alleges that the realist intuitionist view has sceptical consequences. This is the ‘debunking’ argument, and it will be my focus for the remainder of this chapter.

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8.2 Debunking There are many debunking arguments against realism, but the key idea in each of them is that, given the causal history of our moral beliefs, it is not plausible that such beliefs reflect stance-independent moral truths. This claim is influentially defended by Street (2006) and Joyce (2006), who focus on the evolutionary history of our moral beliefs. This approach has been popular with realism’s critics, although there is no consensus on precisely how to formulate the argument.⁷ Fortunately, my preferred way of answering evolutionary debunking claims can be pitched at a fairly general level, so I won’t need to go into that ongoing debate. I’ll start by responding to the standard evolutionary debunking argument (§8.2.1). I’ll then consider a more modest (but in some ways more troubling) spin-off argument developed by Max Hayward (2018) (§8.2.2).

8.2.1 Third Factors The standard and most ambitious debunking argument starts with the idea that our moral beliefs have been influenced to a significant degree by evolutionary forces. There is debate about the precise details of this claim (see e.g. De Waal 2006, Joyce 2006, Kitcher 2011, Hanson 2017, and Isserow 2019) and about how other factors (such as culture) have shaped our moral beliefs. But this won’t matter here, and I’m happy to grant that evolutionary forces have influenced our moral thinking to a significant degree. The idea is not that our specific moral beliefs (about abortion, euthanasia, or freedom of speech, etc.) were directly selected for. Instead the claim is that we have inherited very general evaluative tendencies from our ancestors, for whom they were fitness-enhancing. Street (2006: 119) views these evaluative tendencies as pre-reflective, non-linguistic, and motivationally charged dispositions to experience something as being ‘demanded’ in itself, or to experience one thing as ‘counting in favour’ of something else. Examples include a tendency to experience a demand to act in ways that promote the survival of one’s kin, and a tendency to experience your having helped me in the past as counting in favour of me helping you now and in the future. It is these broad tendencies that were selected for, but they help to shape specific beliefs. The next move in the argument is the claim that, since evolution (metaphorically) aims at survival and fitness rather than truth, evolved mechanisms for belief-formation will only be reliably truth-conducive if their being so in some way promoted the evolutionary fitness of our ancestors. Sometimes this exonerates a ⁷ Street (2015; 2016) and Joyce (2016) update and clarify their arguments. The main formulation question concerns the epistemic norm that is needed to reach a sceptical conclusion—see Vavova (2014) and Clarke-Doane (2012; 2015a) for discussion.

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belief-forming mechanism—it was plausibly in the evolutionary interest of our ancestors to form true beliefs about their physical surroundings, and it is thus plausible that selective pressure led to the development of perceptual beliefforming mechanisms that deliver mostly accurate information about the world around us. One might hope to extend this to our moral belief-forming mechanisms (cf. Parfit 2011), but this is less plausible. In this case the debunker can argue that there are many logically possible moral belief systems that differ (often dramatically) from our own. Yet evolutionary forces would have led to us forming the very same moral belief system that we now have whichever of these logically possible systems reflects the stance-independent moral facts. It would thus be an extraordinary coincidence if evolution has led us to the one and only true moral belief system. The final move in the debunking argument is the claim that this is epistemically problematic. After all, in the (unlikely) event that our moral belief system does actually reflect the stance-independent moral truth, it will only do so by luck—by an extraordinary and inexplicable coincidence. And beliefs that are true by luck or coincidence generally do not count as knowledge. There are many ways to interpret this point (see e.g. Vavova 2014 and Clarke-Doane 2012; 2015a), but we needn’t discuss them here. For our purposes it suffices to say that the presence of this sort of luck defeats the justification for our whole moral belief system. The upshot is that realism has sceptical implications, which is a reductio of the view. A reply to this argument thus needs to show that at least some moral beliefs are non-coincidentally correlated with the moral facts. And if realists cannot appeal to direct selection for reliable moral belief-forming mechanisms, they must explain it in some other way.⁸

Pain The most promising way of doing this involves identifying what Enoch (2010; 2011a) calls a ‘third factor’—something that is responsible both for one’s moral belief that p and the moral fact that p.⁹ Enoch’s view is that, given the first-order normative claim that survival is good, the correlation between my moral belief that Φ-ing is good and the moral fact that Φ-ing is good can be explained by a third factor—namely, that Φ-ing aids survival. This will not give a perfect correlation between our moral beliefs and the stance-independent moral facts, but we need not expect such a correlation. What matters is that the third factor gives us a secure starting point for reliable moral reasoning. (One can question how much such reasoning would achieve here, but I’ll return to that in §8.2.2.) The natural ⁸ It is plausible that there was direct selection for some general rational capacities, which can be trained for specific domains (like morality—cf. FitzPatrick 2015: 886). I’ll return to this, but it won’t do on its own, for our evaluative tendencies will shape our application of general rational capacities to the moral case. ⁹ This strategy is also pursued by Wielenberg (2010; 2014) and Skarsaune (2011).

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rejoinder from debunkers is that this sort of third factor reply begs the question. It relies on a first-order normative claim (in this case that survival is good), and this is exactly the sort of claim whose epistemic status is at issue. I’ll return to this, but first it will be useful to consider another third factor reply, one offered by Skarsaune (2011). Skarsaune observes that evolution plausibly selected for human beings who get pleasure from fitness-enhancing activities (eating food, having sex, raising offspring, etc.) and who are caused pain by fitness-decreasing activities (injuring oneself or one’s offspring, etc.). After all, finding an activity pleasurable will usually encourage one to pursue it, whilst finding it painful will usually encourage one to avoid it. It is also plausible that, in the course of selecting for reciprocal altruistic traits, evolution selected for a disposition to prevent and alleviate the pain of others—in the long-term this is fitness-enhancing. In short, evolution has endowed us with a tendency to experience the prospect of pleasure (whether one’s own or another’s) as counting in favour of some course of action, and the prospect of pain as counting against it. This will have started as a non-linguistic, prereflective motivational disposition, but with the development of more refined conceptual capacities it has led us to the following beliefs: P. Pleasure is usually good for those who experience it. P. Pain is usually bad for those who experience it.¹⁰ Skarsaune’s claim is that, since pleasure is usually good for those who experience it, and pain usually bad for those who experience it, we can explain the nonaccidental relationship between our system of moral beliefs and the realist moral facts by appeal to the third fact that an act (or whatever) produces pleasure or pain. For example, given the truth of P, the correlation between my belief that Φ-ing is good and the fact that Φ-ing is good can be explained by the third fact that Φ-ing causes pleasure. The question is whether we can get P and P on the table in a dialectically acceptable way, for it seems question-begging to invoke substantive evaluative beliefs in response to an argument that aims to cast doubt on just this kind of belief (cf. Shafer-Landau 2012, Vavova 2014, Street 2016, and Morton 2019). Those sympathetic to a third factor reply have answered this charge in different ways (see e.g. Wielenberg 2010; 2014: 159–64, Enoch 2011a: 175, Behrends 2013, and Copp 2019). I am going to offer an answer according to

¹⁰ The claim here is that pleasure is intrinsically good, and pain intrinsically bad, for those who experience it. As Skarsaune (2011: n.3) observes, this avoids the objection that there are moral views on which pleasure is bad or pain is good. E.g. in Buddhist ethics pleasure is only bad insofar as it leads to a problematic form of desiring, which in turn leads to suffering. And in ascetic forms of Christian morality, pain is taken to be good only insofar as it improves the soul.

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which we can vindicate P using the following argument (which leaves implicit the specification that pain is usually bad ‘for those who experience it’): (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

If anything is ever bad, then pain is usually bad. If moral realism is true, then some things are sometimes bad. Therefore, if moral realism is true, then pain is usually bad. Moral realism is true. Therefore, pain is usually bad.

A similar argument could be run for P, but I will focus on P. If this argument succeeds, then moral realists are entitled to appeal to P as a third factor—they get P on the table without begging the question. So does the argument succeed? Note first that, in this dialectical context, we are entitled to assume that realism is true. The debunking argument operates as a reductio—it assumes realism in order to argue that this view has untenably sceptical results. We can therefore assume that realism is true in response to the debunking argument in order to argue that it avoids such results.¹¹ That is, we can take (4) for granted here. The important task is thus to establish (3). (3) is entailed by (1) and (2), and (2) is fairly uncontroversial. One might quibble about the concept of ‘badness,’ but the argument can be reframed in the language of reasons (or whatever) easily enough. So, the crucial premise is (1). I claim that (1) is a conceptual truth. This is why I base my third factor reply on P, and not Enoch’s claim about survival—it is plausible, I think, that there is a conceptual connection between pain and badness. It is less plausible that there is such a connection between survival and goodness. To be clear, I am not saying that P itself is a conceptual truth. P is a substantive moral or evaluative claim, and I doubt that such claims hold as a matter of conceptual necessity.¹² As Evers and Streumer (2016) emphasise in another context, it is not a conceptual truth that the property of badness is instantiated, so it cannot be a conceptual truth that pain is usually bad. What can be a conceptual truth is (1), given its conditional form. But why think that (1) is a conceptual truth? Why think that someone makes a conceptual mistake if they deny that pain is usually bad if anything is ever bad? Part of my answer is that I don’t think that thin concepts (e.g.  and ) are wholly devoid of descriptive content, even though they do not reduce to that content. They have

¹¹ Some, e.g. Wielenberg (2010: 447), think that this is enough to avoid begging the question—in assuming realism, we assume that there are moral truths, and can thus use such truths as a third factor. However, the assumption that there are moral truths doesn’t in itself entitle us to the specific moral claims needed in third factor replies. ¹² This isn’t only because I reject analytic naturalist views (e.g. that of Jackson 1998), but also because I reject the form of non-naturalistic realism defended by Cuneo and Shafer-Landau (2014)— see Ingram (2015b; 2018b).

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less descriptive content than thick concepts (e.g.  and ), but actual thin concepts are ‘a little bit thick,’ as Smith (2013b) puts it (cf. Foot 1958; 1959; 1970 and Chappell 2013). I don’t need this general point to back up (1), but it is the background to the argument that I want to make. The following pre-empts what I will say about reference in Chapter 9, so I am going to delay certain questions until then. My present goal is simply to argue that (1) is a conceptual truth.

Ellians Consider a hypothetical linguistic community—call it ‘L’—that speaks a language orthographically identical to English. Like us, inhabitants of L—call them ‘Ellians’—have a term ‘bad’ that they use for negative evaluation. But, unlike us, the Ellians never use ‘bad’ for any instance of pain, and are actually disposed to deny that pain is intrinsically bad for those who experience it.¹³ Is the concept that Ellians express when they use their term ‘bad’ the same as our concept of badness? I do not think so. Their concept plays the same conceptual role as our concept, and I do think that conceptual roles play a part in fixing a moral term’s reference. (More on this in Chapter 9.) However, we and the Ellians talk past one another, and do not disagree, when we believe that pain is usually bad and they deny it.¹⁴ This is because the possibility of our being in a genuine moral disagreement requires that we belong to the same moral species. We saw this with the idealised Caligula (in §2.4). The point there was that an idealised agent who aims to maximise the suffering of others would be so unlike us psychologically that he would be more ‘alien’ than human, a member of a distinct moral species (see §2.4.2). It is fine that he has reasons to maximise suffering, for he has reasons an alien might have. We don’t actually disagree with him about what is worth aiming for, for whilst there is a sense in which his beliefs are incompatible with ours, this is because they are not even an option for us. Put another way, this version of Caligula is so unlike us that his normative belief cannot be meaningfully compared with ours. His and our beliefs are not rival possibilities for beings like us—if we were to adopt his beliefs whilst remaining ideally coherent we would have to undergo a psychological transformation that would make us radically different creatures. We could in principle have a physical conflict with this idealised Caligula, but not a doxastic one. His beliefs are part of a distinct (albeit functionally related) subject matter, for they implicitly concern his moral species and not ours. The lesson here is that, in a disagreement, the ¹³ There are echoes here of the Moral Twin Earth case (Horgan and Timmons 1991; 1992a; 1992b), but we and the Ellians differ significantly more than Earthlings and Moral Twin Earthlings. I’ll return to this in §9.3. ¹⁴ This implies that conceptual role semantics, which is usually taken to be the robust realist’s best way of accounting for moral reference (see e.g. Wedgwood 2001; 2007, Enoch 2011a, and Eklund 2017), cannot be the whole story. I’ll get to meta-semantic questions in Chapter 9.

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disagreeing parties must have enough in common for their beliefs to intelligibly be considered rivals. Their perspectives or belief systems must overlap in some basic ways in order for them to be engaging with the same subject matter—their beliefs can only really disagree if they are rival options in a subject matter. Thus, for genuine disagreement to occur, the disagreeing parties must belong to a single moral species, and must share some basic values and moral/normative beliefs. This is why I deny that moral disagreement can be fundamental (cf. §8.1.1). There are certainly disagreements that are hard to resolve, and there may be disagreements that we will never in fact resolve, but the possibility of our disagreeing (rather than simply talking past each other), requires a significant degree of convergence in our basic values or psychologies, and this background similarity will guarantee that the disagreement could in principle be resolved (or dissolved). That is, the idea of moral disagreement presupposes that there is an overlap in the basic values and psychologies of the disagreeing parties. These shared values and psychologies partially define the subject matter with which each party is concerned, and it is only within a shared subject matter that distinct views can become genuine rivals. This is why the strongest case against the metaphysical argument from disagreement is that the very idea of fundamental moral disagreement is incoherent. Returning to the Ellians, the lesson is that we can only have the same concept of badness as them if we are sufficiently alike in our fundamental values, beliefs, and psychologies for our differing judgements about pain to be intelligibly understood as rival options within a single, shared subject matter. And, in my view, their failure to believe that pain is usually bad (if anything ever is) indicates a dramatic difference between us and the Ellians—in particular, it is a difference that renders us distinct moral species. To see this consider that, as with the idealised Caligula, we must flesh out Ellian psychology in a way that makes sense of their views on pain. One way to understand the Ellians’ disposition to deny that pain is bad (if anything ever is) involves their lacking any aversion to it. Pain might feel the same for them as it does for us, but whereas we want to avoid this feeling they might be indifferent to it, or they might want to have it. This is possible, but it immediately makes the Ellians radically unlike us psychologically. Aversion to pain seems a centrally important aspect of human psychology (human masochists generally desire pain only in certain contexts and for pleasurable ends). Creatures who have no such aversion will thus be more alien than human. Alternatively, we might imagine that the Ellians do have an aversion to pain, which they override when making judgements about its badness. But a being who can do this systematically still seems more alien than human. Humans can override the aversion to pain in particular cases, judging that it is necessary (perhaps even intrinsically good) in some situations, but the willingness to override one’s aversion to pain systematically (such that one denies that it is usually bad if anything ever is) is itself indicative of an alien psychology (this is so whether it involves a disposition or is

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done on a case by case basis). In sum, if the Ellians are sincere in their denial that pain is usually bad if anything ever is, then we are just too different for our beliefs to be rival options concerning the same subject matter. The first lesson here is that, although the Ellians’ use of the term ‘bad’ is related to ours insofar as it plays the same conceptual role, it does not make sense to think of us and the Ellians as having the very same concepts of badness. For we are speaking past one another, rather than actually disagreeing, when we assert and they deny that pain is usually bad if anything ever is. As we’ve seen, their claims about what is and is not bad only make sense if they concern a subject matter that is (maybe subtly) distinct from the one we are engaged with. Their subject matter is defined in part by a focus on beings like them rather than beings like us. The concept expressed by their term ‘bad’ is thus not equivalent to the concept expressed by our term ‘bad.’ I’ll have more to say about the meta-semantics of this in Chapter 9, but for now the main point is that our concept of badness is partly defined by the claim that, if anything is ever bad, then pain is usually bad. This conditional is built into the content of our badness concept and is needed for competence with this concept. Returning to the debunking argument, we can now get P on the table without begging the question. Recall the argument for P: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

If anything is ever bad, then pain is usually bad. If moral realism is true, then some things are sometimes bad. Therefore, if moral realism is true, then pain is usually bad. Moral realism is true. Therefore, pain is usually bad.

I have argued that (1) is a conceptual truth, that (2) is uncontroversial, and that the dialectical context permits us to take (4) for granted. This gives us (5), which (if we add the implicit ‘for those who experience it’) is P. This establishes a non-coincidental link between our system of moral beliefs and the realist moral facts. The correlation between my belief that Φ-ing is bad and the fact that Φ-ing is bad is due to the third fact that Φ-ing causes pain, which (given P) is usually bad. This is not the whole of morality, of course. Not everything that is bad is bad because it causes pain, and there is more to morality than what is good and bad. But this third factor is a starting point for inquiry. However, this brings us to a spin-off argument that raises further questions for realism.

8.2.2 Reliable Reflection Even if you agree that realists can secure a partial correlation between our moral beliefs and moral reality, you might still think that they leave us in an

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impoverished epistemic position. For this correlation is quite limited, and you might doubt that there is a reliable way to build on it. Max Hayward, for example, suggests that if (non-naturalist) realism is true then “rational reflection shouldn’t be expected to guide us to truth in ethics, even from somewhat correct starting points” (2018: 725). I will explain why he thinks this in a moment, but note first that if he is right then realists are in bad shape epistemically. For even if P gives us a basis for moral inquiry, we cannot legitimately expect such inquiry to reveal which other moral beliefs are true. Realists fail to ensure that we can add to and correct our system of moral beliefs through rational reflection. This isn’t a charge of total scepticism, but may be even more troubling. Why doubt that rational reflection is reliable as a way of getting to the moral truth (robustly understood)? Hayward’s claim is that such reflection involves using some beliefs to assess other beliefs, and using theoretical virtues (consistency, coherence, parsimony, systematicity, etc.) to assess broader belief systems. However, realists have no reason to believe that moral truths (as they understand them) will be revealed by this kind of reasoning. For instance, evaluating some moral beliefs from the perspective of other moral beliefs does little to sort out which of these are true and which are false: [T]here’s no reason to assume that all true value judgments will look good from the perspective of all other true value judgments . . . even within the evaluative sphere, we can see instances of values that we accept as true, but that look unpleasant when viewed from other values. It’s true that liberty is important, but insistence on liberty looks unsavoury when viewed from a perspective that judges in terms of equality. It’s true that partiality towards our spouses and children is good, but this seems regrettable when viewed from the more universalistic perspective of justice. (Hayward 2018: 731)

Nor do the standard theoretical virtues provide much help. The realist can expect that moral truths will be logically consistent, but Hayward notes that it is rare for moral claims to logically contradict one another. After all, even if our final duties cannot conflict, there can be conflicts in our prima facie duties. These conflicts rarely involve strictly logical contradiction (for discussion see Hayward 2018: 732–3). Aiming for consistency will therefore do little to sort between true and false moral beliefs. Similar points can be made about the other standard criteria for theoryselection. There is no obvious reason for realists to assume that the moral truth (as they understand it) will be parsimonious, coherent, and systematic. It could just as easily be extravagantly complex, deeply conflict-ridden, and unsystematically pluralistic. In short, if realism is true then there is no reason to think that we can add to and correct our system of moral beliefs through the usual forms of

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rational reflection.¹⁵ According to Hayward, realists thus have no reliable way to build upon starting points like P such that our moral beliefs come to more fully and accurately represent the moral facts. This is a bad result for moral realism. I think, however, that realists can appeal to a richer conception of moral inquiry than Hayward allows. In particular, a conception that gives a key role to inclusive and cooperative moral dialogue. Let’s first consider an important insight from Mark Platts: Moral concepts exhibit the characteristic of semantic depth. Starting from our grasp upon them through our knowledge of the austere truth-conditions of sentences containing them, we have to struggle to improve our sensitivity to particular instantiations of them. This process proceeds without limit; at no point, for the realist, can we rest content with our present sensitivity in the application of these concepts. (1988: 287)

It is worth emphasising that Platts’ claim about the ‘semantic depth’ of moral concepts is not just about moral concepts themselves. It is about the complexity of the moral world that such concepts pick out—Platts goes on to say that such concepts “are designed to pick out features of the world of indefinite complexity in ways that transcend our practical understanding” (1988: 299). This is the basis for Moody-Adams’ claim that we make progress in our moral beliefs not by ‘discovering’ brand new moral facts or principles, but by “coming to appreciate more fully the richness and the range of application of a particular moral concept (or a linked set of concepts)” (1999: 169). In this light, moral inquiry that takes P and P as its starting point will involve an effort to deepen our understanding of the range of objects to which our ideas of goodness and badness apply, given their connection to pleasure and pain. To give a toy version of how such inquiry could unfold, suppose that we initially view the concept of badness as applying only to those situations in which someone is in physical pain. We judge that this is a bad thing for that person. Then we notice that, in some cases, physical pain is the result of one person directly injuring another. We judge that this is bad too—that is, we build on our initial views about the badness of being in physical pain and expand them to include actions that cause physical pain. We come to view such behaviour as bad, and those who regularly engage in it as bad people. Then, after learning that an action can cause physical pain indirectly and from a distance, we broaden our application of this concept to include various other kinds of situation (e.g. we come to believe that it is bad if a company profits from the use of overseas sweatshops in which

¹⁵ Hayward (2018: 735–6) maintains that it is usually better for moral beliefs to be more coherent and conflict-free, but that this is best understood in anti-realist terms involving practical usefulness rather than their truth-conduciveness.

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workers earn a meagre living through hard toil). And after learning that there is emotional pain as well as the pain of physical injury, we further broaden our idea of badness to cover the fact that insulting and humiliating someone is bad. In this way we transition from our crude understanding of badness to a more refined understanding of it, as we learn about how the factors that underwrite our initial judgements about badness are present in a broader range of contexts. As I say, this is just a toy version of a far more complex process. But it gets to a point that is missed in Hayward’s description of rational reflection. Goals such as coherence and consistency needn’t be geared primarily at conflicts between distinct areas of moral belief (e.g. liberty vs. equality, partiality vs. global justice, etc.). They can be geared at our application of a specific moral concept. A key goal of rational reflection is to ensure that we use moral concepts consistently, especially in new and unfamiliar situations. We have reliable starting beliefs— P and P—with which to approach such situations, and we can reliably form true moral beliefs about them by determining whether they share the kinds of property that make P and P applicable in more familiar cases. (Realists can expect that P and P will apply in relevantly similar contexts—this follows from even the most formal versions of the principle that moral facts are universalisable.) So, even if we start with the simple belief that pain is usually bad for those who experience it, we can correct and add to our moral belief system—we do this by applying this initial grasp of badness in a crosssituationally consistent way. Note too that the moral knowledge that we gain by this process won’t be trivial or obvious—as we’ve seen, it often takes careful dialogue to deepen our grasp of a moral concept’s range of application. But the key idea is that realists have at least one way of explaining how rational reflection from a reliable starting point can improve our moral beliefs. And there is more that realists can say here. Consider: although we can use P and P as a starting point for inquiry, it may be that there are deeper moral truths that underpin these ones—perhaps pain is usually bad because harm is usually bad (where the concept of harm is broader than that of pain, involving the frustration of desires, the thwarting of goals, and so on). Or it may be that pain is usually bad because it hinders the capacity for autonomous action, and it is usually bad for this capacity to be hindered. Understanding what, if anything, lies beneath P and P requires rational reflection. In the first instance this reflective work will involve an interpretation of ourselves—a collective effort to identify those features of pleasure and pain that underwrite the judgements that pleasure is usually good and that pain is usually bad. But consistency and coherence have a role to play here too. Having clarified what is bad about pain (and good about pleasure), we can then explore whether those bad-making features are present in situations that do not involve pain. Consistency and coherence require that the concept of badness apply in these situations too. For instance, if what is bad about pain is that we have a desire to not be in pain, then

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there is a link between desires and values. And this is a basis for inquiry into the role of desires in situations that do not involve pain. So, from reliable starting points like P and P we can deploy standard methods of rational reflection not only by deepening our understanding of them, but also by identifying additional starting points for moral inquiry. Rational reflection can also help in inquiry into how our moral concepts relate to one another. Many philosophers hope to unify these concepts such that they are all understood in terms of one normative primitive. Some see reasons as primitive, some appeal to value (or ‘the good’), and others to fittingness (and these are just the most popular options). The suggestion that normativity is unified can be questioned (see Wodak 2020), but what matters here is that we can expect strong relations between our normative concepts. It might turn out that there is no one normative primitive, but it would be rather surprising if our concepts of rightness and goodness were entirely unconnected, and it would be strange if there were no relationship at all between what we have reason to do and what is good. There is therefore important work for rational reflection to do in explaining how normative concepts are related. The importance of this is that, although this is an area in which rational reflection mainly involves conceptual inquiry, the conclusions at which we arrive could have substantive import when combined with the claims— like P and P—that we adopt as starting points. For instance, suppose that an act is right if and only if it produces more good than any other act that one could perform (cf. Moore 1903). The link between ‘right’ and ‘good’ is doubtless more complicated than this (cf. Moore 1912), but what matters here is that, if there is some way to understand ‘right’ in terms of ‘good,’ then we get new moral knowledge and new jumping off points for inquiry when we combine this with our starting beliefs about what is good. Thus, from the belief that pleasure is good and a view that understands rightness in terms of goodness, we learn something about the rightness and wrongness of actual acts. We do not learn everything from it, for we cannot assume that the good is exhausted by the pleasurable. We thus cannot infer that right acts are those which create the most pleasure. But we can say that beliefs about the rightness of Φ-ing have to be informed by beliefs about how much pleasure is created by Φ-ing, and this is a further jumping off point for inquiry. The final thing to note is that we do not have to hang everything on what we can learn when we take P and P as our starting points. We can make a more general case for the reliability of our moral intuitions. Hayward is sceptical about realist appeals to intuition—he suggests that debunking arguments for the claim that our moral beliefs are unjustified “are equally arguments that our intuitive assessments of plausibility are probably unreliable” (2018: 730). This is meant to apply not just to our pre-reflective intuitions, but also to intuitions that have been subject to reflective scrutiny. I think that we can defend the reliability of our (dialogically refined) moral intuitions, but to see why we must first discuss the

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reliability of our general cognitive capacities. It is plausible that, even if evolution selected for specialised cognitive capacities that handle just one kind of input, it also selected for certain general cognitive capacities that can adapt and apply across different domains.¹⁶ The obvious examples include working memory, inhibitory control, attentional control, and cognitive flexibility, but we can focus here on our general reasoning capacities (e.g. for deduction, induction, abduction, etc.). These domain-general capacities for reasoning can be trained for use in more specific domains, and were plausibly selected for their reliability. After all, it was presumably fitness-enhancing for our ancestors to have reliable reasoning capacities that can be adapted to new contexts. So, unless there is reason to deny the reliability of our general reasoning capacities as applied to a domain, we can rely upon them. (That they are subject to cognitive biases is one such reason, and this might defeat justification for belief in certain contexts, but having debiasing strategies in place can defeat that defeat—for discussion see §7.2.2.) The point here is that successful inquiry is possible in a specific area of inquiry even if we did not evolve a specific capacity for detecting its truths. Consider the following from William FitzPatrick: [D]espite the irrelevance of obscure metaphysical facts to the natural selection etiology of our basic mental capacities, we’re able to deploy those capacities, in the cultural context of philosophical training, to think intelligently and often accurately about things like metaphysical necessity or countless other arcane topics . . . the facts of which are equally irrelevant to the etiology of the capacities we use in thinking about them. (2015: 886)

In itself this doesn’t ensure the reliability of our moral intuitions, for evolution may have skewed how we use our general reasoning abilities in moral cases in a way that it hasn’t for other arcane topics. Debunkers may thus doubt that our generally reliable cognitive capacities remain reliable in moral inquiry. However, the basis for these doubts dissolves once we see how our general rational capacities are trained for specific domains. Such training requires, firstly, that we have a grip on the subject matter of the domain in question, and, secondly, that we have at least one true starting belief within that subject matter. This starting belief is not, in this case, going to serve as the foundation from which we infer other truths within the domain. It is a resource that we use to improve our cognitive sensitivity to such truths. It affords our general cognitive capacities some purchase in a specific area of inquiry, such that we can practise using them in ways that latch onto that area’s subject matter. By identifying the justificatory credentials of our starting belief we can learn to ¹⁶ This is compatible with modest versions of the ‘modularity of mind’ thesis, though not the (more controversial) ‘massive modularity’ thesis of Carruthers (2006).

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identify other justified beliefs in the domain, even if they don’t trace back to the starting belief, for we can assess whether these other beliefs have a similar form of justificatory credential. And by reasoning on the basis of our starting belief, we can improve our sense of how to reason within the domain. This starting belief is the initial signal that we use to more clearly tune ourselves into the frequency of a domain. In the mathematical case we most likely start with simple beliefs about addition and subtraction. We cannot expect to derive all mathematical truths from such beliefs, but we can use them to determine conditions that have to be met for a mathematical belief to count as justified. We can then use our general reasoning abilities to build on such conditions in other more complex areas of mathematics. And this in turn may lead us to identify new and more complex conditions that must be met for more complex mathematical beliefs to be justified. Thus, over time, as we employ our general reasoning capacities in this specific domain, we train ourselves to be more and more effective at mathematical inquiry. In this way we slowly but surely tune ourselves into the mathematical domain. We can extend this to the moral case, where P and P will be our starting beliefs. By identifying their justificatory credentials we can learn to identify—ideally in dialogical collaboration with others—which other moral beliefs have such credentials. Moreover, by using our general rational capacities to build directly on P and P, we not only arrive at other justified moral beliefs by rational inference, but also adapt the general capacities for the specifically moral domain. We tune ourselves into moral reality. Thus, even if evolved evaluative tendencies affect how our general rational capacities are applied in the moral domain, we have ways to sort between our true and false moral beliefs. The sorting process is complex and ongoing, but we can rely on our (refined) intuitions even when those intuitions do not derive from P or P. Thus, despite starting with only a partial correlation between our moral beliefs and the moral facts, realists can capture the possibility of our adding to and refining our moral belief system, and can therefore answer Hayward’s spin-off from the standard debunking argument.

8.3 Conclusion In this chapter I have argued that robust realists can avoid what I take to be the three most important sceptical challenges to their view. Many of the points that I have made could be adopted by non-robust realists as well, but the key lesson for me is that robust realists can answer the metaphysical and epistemological arguments from disagreement, and the debunking argument. In the next (and final) chapter I will reply to another objection facing realism, one involving the reference of moral terms.

9 Moral Reference My goal in this chapter is to answer the major meta-semantic question facing robust realists—namely, the question of semantic access. I start by introducing this question (§9.1). I then discuss a prominent answer that I am inclined to reject—Wedgwood’s (2007) appeal to conceptual role semantics (§9.2).¹ In the rest of the chapter I develop and defend my preferred view, which appeals to the notion of a ‘mental file’ (§9.3). I argue that, in addition to being plausible in itself, the theory of moral mental files has two payoffs: it provides us with resources that can link moral judgement to moral motivation, and affords a nuanced reply to Eklund’s (2017) ‘alternative normative concepts’ challenge. I conclude that robust realists are in a better meta-semantic position than critics allege.

9.1 Semantic Access The major meta-semantic question facing robust realists concerns how ordinary moral terms—like ‘right’ and ‘good’ in English—can refer to robust moral properties. It is a question about how we attain semantic access to moral reality. To see what this question amounts to, consider the following from Enoch: [T]he word “good” (to pick one example) refers – at least in some of its occurrences – to the property goodness. And this property is, on Robust Realism, causally inert and response-independent. How is it, then, that our word manages to latch onto that property – rather than some other property, or perhaps no property at all? Is it some kind of referential magic? (2011a: 177)

Note that the issue here is meta-semantic. The robust realist’s concern is not to identify the precise semantic values of moral terms, but rather to explain how moral terms can pick out moral properties when these are understood as robustly stance-independent and non-natural. Note too that the question of semantic ¹ Another option, which I will not discuss here, is reference magnetism. As an answer to the question of semantic access, this view is developed in most detail by Dunaway (2020). I consider it a live option for robust realists, but it is not my preferred answer. My preferred answer has payoffs (see §9.3) that (as far as I can see) are not afforded by reference magnetism, so I focus here on developing that answer.

Robust Realism in Ethics: Normative Arbitrariness, Interpersonal Dialogue, and Moral Objectivity. Stephen Ingram, Oxford University Press. © Stephen Ingram 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198886488.003.0010

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access is especially serious for robust realists, for it seems that rival metaethical theories can offer their own, comparatively straightforward theories of how moral terms are able to refer. For instance, analytic naturalists like Jackson (1998) appeal to a functionalist view of reductive conceptual analysis, which they use to suggest that the reference of a moral term is ultimately a matter of its having a fully descriptive definition. Synthetic naturalists like Richard Boyd (1988) can look to the causal theory of reference in order to argue that ‘good’ refers to those natural properties that causally regulate our use of ‘good.’² In short, in answer to the question of how ‘good’ refers to the property being good (and not being green, or being metallic, or being a cup of tea, etc.), moral naturalists can look to well-established theories of reference. Expressivistic quasi-realists also avoid semantic access worries. By offering an ideationalist theory of meaning, they can say that the meaning of a term or sentence is ultimately a function of the mental state that it serves to express, and in the case of moral terms and sentences these will be certain conative mental states.³ So, robust realists have a special problem here. My aim is to develop a solution to it.

9.2 Conceptual Role Semantics Robust realists might try answering the question of semantic access by appealing to conceptual role semantics. This approach is developed in detail by Wedgwood (2001; 2007), and is thought by some (e.g. Enoch 2011a and Eklund 2017) to be the best way forward for robust realists. I believe that the conceptual role of a moral term does contribute to its reference, but that more than this is needed to account for certain facts about moral dialogue and disagreement. In this section I’ll first outline Wedgwood’s influential account of the meaning of ‘ought,’ and I’ll then explain why it does not offer everything that we need from a theory of reference.

9.2.1 ‘Ought’ Wedgwood develops a version of conceptual role semantics according to which “the meaning of a term is given by the basic rules of rationality governing its use” (2001: 6).⁴ The idea here is that some uses of a term are rational whilst other uses ² Others, e.g. Brink (2001) and van Roojen (2006), offer non-causal versions of this direct reference view. For compelling criticism see Rubin (2015). ³ This is the most natural framework for expressivists (see e.g. Ridge 2014: 107–11), but others are available (see e.g. Blackburn 2006, Gibbard 2012, and Charlow 2015). ⁴ There are many forms of conceptual role semantics, as Wedgwood acknowledges. For an overview that gives special consideration to metaethics see Chrisman (2017).

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are irrational, and the term’s meaning is determined by the rules that govern how it is and is not rational to use it (where rationality is understood in terms of coherence relations that hold among a thinker’s mental states). Wedgwood’s claim is that these rules of rationality can explain what it is for someone to be competent with a term, as well as why that term has its particular semantic value. He focuses on the practical ‘ought,’ which he treats as a propositional operator that is (often implicitly) indexed to a specific agent and time. We can represent this practical ‘ought’ concept as ‘O (p),’ where A is an agent, t is a time, and p is a plan. Wedgwood argues that the role of the practical ‘ought’-operator is as follows: Acceptance of the first-person proposition ‘O (p)’ – where ‘t’ refers to some time in the present or near future – commits one to making p part of one’s ideal plan about what to do at t. (2007: 97)

As a cognitivist, Wedgwood holds that to ‘accept’ that ‘O (p)’ is just to believe it. This belief ‘commits’ one to making p part of one’s ideal plan (the plan one would make after eliminating all relevant ignorance and uncertainty) in the sense that, if it is rational for one to hold this belief, then this makes it irrational for one not to make p part of one’s ideal plan. This, Wedgwood argues, is the rule of rationality governing ‘ought.’ I’ll hereafter use ‘W’ O’ for the practical ‘ought’ as Wedgwood understands it. Competence with W’ O consists in the disposition or ability to use ‘ought’ in line with this rule. It is a further step, of course, to say this gives us the semantic value of ‘ought,’ but Wedgwood (2007: 99–100) has a story for this. We needn’t worry about the details here—the key idea is that the truth-conditions of the ‘ought’-operator ‘O’ are determined by the term’s conceptual role.⁵ More specifically, Wedgwood offers the following account of the semantic value of ‘ought’: [F]or any proposition p, ‘O (p)’ is true just in case there are fully correct plans for A to have about what to do at t that logically entail p, and no such fully correct plan that logically entails the negation of p. (2007: 102)

Wedgwood fleshes out the notion of a ‘fully correct’ plan by suggesting that plans are subject to justificatory norms generated by the ‘goal’ that is constitutive of practical reasoning. This goal consists in having “a set of intentions that one will actually execute in such a way that as a result one will act in a manner that is genuinely choiceworthy” (2007: 101). Thus, a fully correct plan is simply an ideal plan that achieves this goal. That’s just a quick sketch of Wedgwood’s position, but ⁵ Conceptual role semantics has sometimes been cast as a rival to truth-conditional semantics (see e.g. Harman 1999), but Wedgwood (2001: n.11; 2006: n.3) does not interpret the view in this way.

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what matters in the present context is that, on his account, moral terms can refer even though their referents—such as the property of being what A ought to do— are causally inert.⁶ Uses of ‘ought’ refer to this property by virtue of their role in practical deliberation, so conceptual role semantics can supply the robust realist with a way to answer the question of semantic access.

9.2.2 Ellians Again This is not, however, the answer that I think we should accept. Various questions can be raised about it, but the issue that I want to focus on concerns dialogue and disagreement between linguistic communities that use ‘ought’ as W’ O characterises it, but that differ radically in their substantive moral views. I’m going to suggest that, in certain cases of this kind, the communities in question are talking past one another, rather than genuinely disagreeing, when they make their different claims about what one ought to do. The upshot of this is that the conceptual role of ‘ought’ is insufficient to account for what these communities mean by ‘ought.’⁷ I made a similar point in §8.2.1—there I argued that it is a conceptual truth that, if anything is ever bad, then pain is usually bad for those who experience it. I will build on this point below, but note first that the theory that I will offer is not one on which moral terms exhibit a high degree of semantic instability.⁸ It’s not just any old difference in how two communities use ‘ought’ that can lead to differences in what they mean by ‘ought.’ In fact, my view is compatible with the idea that disagreement is possible between communities who differ significantly in their moral beliefs and theories, and thus in their uses of ‘ought.’ I only claim that there is a limit to this: in certain cases, communities for whom ‘ought’ plays the same role end up talking past each other in their claims about what one ‘ought’ to do. So, an answer to the question of semantic access has to look beyond the resources of conceptual role semantics, but it also has to explain why moral terms exhibit a high level of semantic stability. I’ll argue that my own view—the theory of moral mental files—can explain this, but first I’ll consider a case that highlights one important limit to the semantic stability of ‘ought.’

⁶ Wedgwood (2007: ch. 8) has an idiosyncratic view on how realists should interpret the causal efficacy of the normative, but his conceptual role semantics is available to robust realists regardless of their view on this issue. ⁷ A different approach, taken by Dunaway (2020: 65–77), involves cases in which one community uses ‘ought’ with additional roles not present in the other community. I am sympathetic to this, but I appeal to a different sort of case below. ⁸ The notion of ‘semantic (in)stability’ should not be confused with that of normative (in)stability. The latter underpins an important arbitrariness charge (see §1.6), and has metaphysical rather than (meta-)semantic import.

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In particular, let’s return to the case of the Ellians—inhabitants of the hypothetical linguistic community L. When discussing this case in §8.2.1, my focus was on the term ‘bad.’ The idea was that the Ellians have a term ‘bad,’ and that it plays the same conceptual role (e.g. in negative evaluation) as our English term ‘bad.’ However, the Ellians are disposed to deny, even after ideal reflection, that if anything is ever bad then pain is usually bad for those who experience it. I argued that, to make sense of this, we have to understand Ellian psychology in such a way that they count as a different moral species than us. We thus talk past one another, and do not disagree, in our beliefs about the badness of pain. I now intend to extend this line of thought to the term ‘ought.’ Let’s first assume that W’ O is the right account of the conceptual role that ‘ought’ plays both in English and in the language of the Ellians (which is orthographically identical to English). There is a difference, however, in how English and Ellian speakers apply ‘ought’—that is, they have radically different beliefs about what one ought to do. Specifically, the Ellians believe (even after ideal reflection) that one ought to cause as much pain to others as one can, and this underwrites their more specific ought-beliefs. Note, though, that Ellians do not like being in pain. They seek to avoid it for themselves, but their ideal plans include a commitment to producing as much of it as possible for others—they are sadists.⁹ I suggest that this raises issues for conceptual role semantics. To clarify, the issue is not that this approach is committed to the idea that Ellians actually ought to cause pain to others. Wedgwood has the resources to say that Ellians have erroneous beliefs about what one ought to do, for the referent of W’ O is not just an ideal plan but a fully correct plan, where this is the ideal plan that leads to genuinely choiceworthy action when executed. It is open to Wedgwood to insist that the Ellians have (ideal) plans that are not fully correct and do not lead to genuinely choiceworthy action. As I see it, the real issue is that conceptual role semantics is committed to saying that we and the Ellians express the same concept by our uses of ‘ought.’ And we do not. If we and the Ellians were to attempt to engage in dialogue about whether one ought to cause pain to others, then we would be talking past one another rather than disagreeing. This is because, when Ellian psychology is fleshed out in a way that makes sense of their believing (without relevant ignorance or uncertainty) that one ought to cause as much pain to others as possible, Ellians turn out to be more alien than human. Consider: for a human to have an ideal plan that commits them to causing as much pain to others as possible, they would have to have eliminated or drastically demoted core human attitudes and emotions like empathy and compassion. They would be unable to make and keep friendships, or indeed any real relationship, for creatures that can feel pain tend to avoid or withdraw from things that cause them ⁹ This case is similar to one used by Lenman (2010b), but I’ll put it to a different use so I’ve avoided Lenman’s framing.

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pain. This human would be a social outcast, living in isolation and without traits that are central in human psychology. Now imagine an entire species like this. Members of this species will systematically lack empathy and compassion, and presumably won’t see anything strange or regrettable about this. They will be isolated from one another—they will not form friendships, and will not want to. They might form temporary alliances if this makes them more effective at finding and causing pain to others (perhaps this is how they came to share a language), but these alliances will break down when the most effective way to cause pain to others is to cause pain to those with whom one is allied. This is what the Ellians would have to be like. Seen this way, they are not at all like us. Anything we have in common pales in comparison to our differences. Ellians do have a language that, like English, includes a term with the conceptual role outlined by W’ O. But they use it to say things like ‘one ought to cause as much pain to others as possible’ and ‘we ought to form an alliance so as to cause pain to more people.’ Given just how unalike we and the Ellians are, it is implausible that we disagree about what one ought to do. To disagree we would need to be similar enough for our beliefs to be rival options in a single subject matter. As distinct moral species, we and the Ellians do not have enough in common to disagree. I gave an initial defence of this basic point in §8.2.1, but we can strengthen it by comparing the case of the Ellians to that of Moral Twin Earth, which Terry Horgan and Mark Timmons (1991; 1992a; 1992b) use against Richard Boyd’s (1988) version of naturalism (according to which moral terms refer to the natural properties that causally regulate our uses of them). They ask us to imagine that Earth and Moral Twin Earth are nearly identical—they diverge only in ways that follow from the fact that Earthling uses of ‘right’ are regulated by consequentialist considerations, whereas Twin Earthling uses of ‘right’ are regulated by deontological considerations. Horgan and Timmons maintain that, on Boyd’s account, Earthlings and Twin Earthlings mean different things in their uses of ‘right.’ They must be talking past one another when one group says ‘Φ-ing is right’ and the other says ‘Φ-ing is not right.’ And this is implausible. Earthlings and Twin Earthlings are not talking past one another—intuitively, they are disagreeing about whether Φ-ing is right. I’m happy to go along with the idea that this is an issue for Boyd. What matters here is just that, for this case to work against Boyd, there must be a high level of similarity in the psychologies of Earthlings and Twin Earthlings. Horgan and Timmons do assert that we can attribute the differences in what regulates Earthling and Twin Earthling uses of ‘right’ to “species-wide differences in psychological temperament . . . Twin Earthlings tend to experience the sentiment of guilt more readily and more intensively, and tend to experience sympathy less readily and less intensively, than do Earthlings” (1992a: 165). However, these differences are quite subtle in nature, and they presumably have to be. After all, Horgan and Timmons also stipulate that there is “significant, though not perfect, agreement between Earthlings’ moral beliefs and Twin-Earthlings’ twin-moral

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beliefs” (1992b: 246). If we posited huge differences between Earthling and Twin Earthling psychologies, then there would be much less overlap in their beliefs. And it would be much less clear that they are engaging in the same discourse. For instance, if Twin Earthlings had no concern at all about consequences, and felt no sympathy at all for others, then we could plausibly deny that they are subject to the same constraints as Earthlings—it would make sense for Boyd to say that Earthlings and Twin Earthlings use different concepts and talk past one another, given the differences in how they approach practical issues. In short, the greater the difference between Earthlings and Twin Earthlings, the more believable it is that we can be semantic relativists about them without this forcing us into a problematic moral relativism.¹⁰ If we and the Ellians were the subjects of the Moral Twin Earth thought experiment, then naturalists would have no real problem here. For it would be clear that we are speaking past one another rather than disagreeing. That is, the obvious answer would be that, given our deep psychological differences, the correct diagnosis of our different ‘ought’ claims involves a semantic relativism that does not result in a form of moral relativism. We and the Ellians are engaging in different subject matters when we make our different claims about what one ‘ought’ to do.¹¹ The subject matters in question are clearly similar in some ways— both are concerned with making plans, for example. (This is why the ‘ought’ claims made by Ellians do not appear to us as literal nonsense.) But the subject matter with which the Ellians are concerned is defined in part by its applicability to beings like them. And vice versa. In short, a meta-semantic theory that appeals exclusively to a term’s conceptual role fails to explain why we and the Ellians talk past one another. Our terms play the same conceptual role but have subtly distinct meanings, so there must be more to meaning than conceptual role. I thus suggest that robust realists need a different answer to the question of semantic access.

9.3 Moral Mental Files The answer that I propose to defend is the theory of ‘moral mental files.’ I’ll begin this section by outlining the theory of mental files in general, and the theory of

¹⁰ Cf. Laurence, Margolis, and Dawson (1999: 159–61), who suggest that Earthlings and Twin Earthlings are unlikely to be as similar as Horgan and Timmons suggest. ¹¹ Wedgwood might reply that we and the Ellians are both governed by the same goal of practical reasoning—the goal of forming intentions that, if properly executed, lead to genuinely choiceworthy acts. Perhaps, then, we and the Ellians disagree about what is genuinely choiceworthy when making our ‘ought’ claims. But my argument can extend to claims about what is genuinely choiceworthy. If we are distinct moral species, then what the Ellians mean by ‘genuinely choiceworthy’ is not equivalent to what we mean by it. For our concept of what it is to be genuinely choiceworthy cannot aptly be applied to acts of causing as much pain to others as one can. In contrast the Ellian concept is such that it can be used for such acts.

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moral mental files in particular (§9.3.1). As we’ll see, the key idea is that the reference of moral terms is underpinned by certain kinds of acquaintance relation between us and moral reality. I’ll argue that this theory is appealing in its own right, and that it has additional payoffs in helping to answer two other challenges facing robust realism (§9.3.2).

9.3.1 The Theory The idea of a mental file will be familiar to those who have been paying attention to philosophy of language over the last few decades. It occurs (in some form) in the work of Evans (1973), Perry (1980; 2001), Bach (1987), Recanati (1993; 2012), Jeshion (2002; 2010), and Schroeter (2013), among others. In metaethics, Schroeter and Schroeter (2014) have appealed to the notion of a mental file, though not in the context of a defence of robust realism. Let’s start with the basic idea of a mental file and its place in a theory of reference and conceptidentity. I should stress that fully defending the general theory of mental files is beyond what I can hope to achieve here—there are numerous questions about it that I will have to set aside for now. I will, however, suggest that it is a promising account of how certain terms refer. Note also that, for ease of exposition, I will mainly make use of Recanati’s (2012) framework, but the theory of moral mental files could be developed in a number of ways.

Mental Files and Reference A mental file is a cognitive structure that stores information regarding a given topic. In paradigm cases this information comes from a subject being suitably acquainted with an object. This acquaintance relation is often perceptual, but other forms of acquaintance are possible. (I will appeal below to the claim that a priori and a posteriori moral intuition acquaint moral agents with moral reality.) The key point is that mental files are about the object for which they store information. They refer to these objects, but their reference is determined relationally rather than satisfactionally (cf. Bach 1987). That is, a mental file’s referent is not simply the object that in fact satisfies the information stored in that file. Instead it is the object with which the subject is acquainted—it is this acquaintance relation that determines reference, rather than the fact that there is an object matching the descriptive information in the file. The primary theoretical justification for positing mental files is that they provide a non-descriptive way of handling Frege cases—they allow us to capture what is plausible in Fregean descriptivism without taking on its faults. Frege (1892) sought to explain certain facts about language by claiming that, as well as having a reference, certain of our linguistic expressions express a ‘sense’—a mode of presentation. For instance, although ‘Cicero’ and ‘Tully’ have the same referent

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they can express distinct senses—they present their referent in different ways. Frege understood senses as descriptive modes of presentation, and he thus held that, in a given use of ‘Cicero,’ the entity to which this refers is presented as having certain properties—like the property of being a skilled Roman orator. That is, ‘Cicero’ presents its referent as matching this description. And since ‘Cicero’ and ‘Tully’ differ in their descriptive presentation, Frege can tell us why ‘Cicero is Tully’ is informative when ‘Cicero is Cicero’ isn’t. However, despite this attraction, the traditional Fregean view fails. The biggest difficulties with it concern the fact that, if sense fixes reference, then for reference to occur there must be some unique entity with the features that the referent is presented as having. And there are cases (e.g. reference by communicative chains) in which it is outlandish to suggest that subjects have a reference-fixing definite description in mind. Much could be said about this, but I won’t get into the back and forth between descriptivists and their critics—that was a major part of twentieth-century analytic philosophy of language and I cannot hope to do it justice here (for an overview see Lycan 2019: chs. 2–4). I mention it because the theory of mental files takes a leaf out of Frege’s book by claiming that modes of presentation are vital for reference, but it departs from Frege by interpreting them as having a non-descriptive nature. In other words, it is not information concerning the descriptive properties of an object that determines reference on this sort of theory. Reference is instead determined by acquaintance relations between a subject and a (type of) object— this is what it means to say that, on this view, reference is determined relationally rather than satisfactionally, and it is the sense in which mental files are nondescriptive modes of presentation. There can of course be descriptive information in a given file—mental files serve to store such information. But this is not what fixes the file’s reference. As this suggests, files should be distinguished from their content—mental files contain information, but they are not to be equated with the information that they contain. Relatedly, what distinguishes one file from another is not the descriptive information they contain. Instead, different files are individuated by the sources of the information they contain, and the way the subject is related to that source. I’ll follow Recanati in suggesting that, for reference to occur, the acquaintance relation must be ‘epistemically rewarding.’ That is, it has to be a relation that “enable[s] the subject to gain information from the object” (Recanati 2012: 37). Perceptual acquaintance relations are the most obvious case. For instance, I have a mental file for dogs, and it is based on my perceptual acquaintance with dogs. Of course, a subject might perceive an object imperfectly or incompletely. In such cases the relation between subject and object can still obtain, but the subject will most likely gain at least some misinformation from the object. This is because, whilst there is still an epistemic channel going from the object to the subject, the subject is unable, ill-equipped, or even unwilling to fully recognise, understand, or interpret the information presented to them.

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I will also follow Recanati in suggesting that certain mental files are concepts—that is, some files are the constituents of thoughts. Not all mental files count as concepts, for concepts must meet what Gareth Evans (1982: 104) terms ‘The Generality Constraint.’ Roughly, this is the claim that, in order for a subject to have thoughts involving a given concept F, she has to be able to entertain thoughts in which F is applied to any object for which she has an individual concept. Not all mental files are general in this sense. Recanati thus distinguishes ‘proto-files’ and ‘conceptual files,’ where the former lack the generality of the latter. This is because a proto-file “can only host information gained in virtue of the ER [epistemically rewarding] relation to the referent” (Recanati 2012: 64). A conceptual file, in contrast, can play host to two kinds of information: “information gained in the special way that goes with that relation . . . and information not gained in this way but concerning the same individual as information gained in that way” (Recanati 2012: 65–6). To illustrate, I can get information about myself by first-person introspection and proprioception or through the testimony of others. The former is a special way of getting information about myself—it is a matter of being acquainted with myself. It thus forms the basis of my  file, and individuates it from other mental files. However, my  file also contains the information that I was born in 1990. I could not have learnt this by introspection or proprioception, but it is in my  file because I take the individual it concerns (me) to be the individual for which I also gain information by introspection and proprioception. Conceptual files therefore expand on proto-files. They are built upon the information gained by acquaintance relations distinctive to the file, but they meet The Generality Constraint because they can also include any information regarding the individual in question. This, in outline, is how reference and concept-identity work according to the mental files theory. The major attraction of this theory is that, by treating reference and conceptidentity relationally rather than satisfactionally, it is able to handle cases that cause problems for descriptivism. To offer just one such case, consider Donnellan’s influential example in which “[o]ne is at a party and, seeing an interesting-looking person holding a martini glass, one asks, ‘Who is the man drinking a martini?’ If it should turn out that there is only water in the glass, one has nevertheless asked a question about a particular person, a question that it is possible for someone to answer” (1966: 48). Traditional descriptivist views imply that one refers to whoever uniquely satisfies the description being the man drinking a martini. The theory of mental files correctly says that one refers to the man drinking water, for one is acquainted with him even though one’s information about him (gained by perception) is not fully accurate. Of course, this is not the only way to handle such cases, and descriptivists have their own approaches to them. Nevertheless, it is a benefit of the mental files theory that it offers a simple explanation of how reference works in this and similar cases (such as those made famous by Kripke

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1980). Of course, there are details that need fleshing out (e.g. far more could be said about the link between proto-files and conceptual files—cf. Recanati 2012: ch. 4), and a complete defence of the view would need to answer various objections (e.g. Sainsbury 2020 offers an instructive critique). But that’s the general idea, and the basic attraction. Before considering how this idea can be applied to the case of moral concepts, and to the question of semantic access, it will be useful first to explore how the notion of a mental file relates to interpersonal dialogue.

Mental Files and Dialogue Consider that speakers can think or talk about a single topic even when they differ significantly in their grasp of it, or even if one of them knows almost nothing about it. Schroeter and Schroeter (2014: 254) illustrate this with an example of anaphora in public language: : ‘Julia Gillard was an efficient leader.’ : ‘Sorry, but who is she?’ Kenan and Lucia are discussing the same topic here—Julia Gillard—but Kenan’s grasp of it is much richer than Lucia’s, for Lucia seemingly knows only that Julia Gillard was the person to whom Kenan has just referred. Thus, in the anaphora case, the fact that Kenan and Lucia can both refer to Julia Gillard is not due to there being some sort of match between the descriptions that they take to be applicable to the entity under discussion. Some other linguistic norm or mechanism must be at work. This extends beyond the case of anaphora, to cases in which speakers all know something of their topic, but diverge significantly in what they know. Consider, for example, a conversation among three speakers who have each separately watched different parts of the same David Bowie documentary: : ‘Bowie’s alter ego was The Thin White Duke.’ : ‘I think you mean Major Tom.’ : ‘No you’re both confused, it was Ziggy Stardust.’ Each of these was an alter ego of David Bowie’s at one time or another, but the conversation suggests that the speakers do not realise this. We might suppose that they want to look as if they know lots about Bowie, even though their only knowledge of him comes from what they saw in the different segments of the documentary. There is consequently little overlap in what Masood, Nigel, and Oona know about Bowie, but they are obviously speaking about the same person here, and they also seem to know this. They are confused, and they disagree on the descriptions that are applicable to him, but their uses of ‘Bowie’ do refer to the same object. Thus, to explain how co-reference in such a dialogue is possible, we

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cannot rely on the idea that there is some (non-trivial) match in the descriptions that the speakers are disposed to apply the object of their discussion.¹² The theory of mental files offers a neat way to handle such cases. (This is another of its attractions, though I don’t suggest that it is alone in being able to handle these cases.) This isn’t because different people can literally possess the same mental file. Rather, a person’s linguistic and cognitive capacities are such that she connects one of her own files to certain publicly available linguistic expressions, and this mental file is activated if she hears another person using one of those expressions. (The process of connecting a mental file to a linguistic expression could occur reflectively, but will typically involve pre-reflective psychological mechanisms.) Interpersonal communication is possible when the file to which I connect a term and the file to which you connect that same term are based on the same sort of acquaintance relation (cf. Schroeter and Schroeter 2014: 254–5). In the Bowie case, Masood, Nigel, and Oona have their own Bowie files based on an acquaintance with Bowie (here it is perceptual acquaintance—they see and hear him on screen). Their files differ in content, and belong to different minds, but each is consistently connected to a linguistic expression—‘Bowie’— that exists in their shared language. This is how they can communicate about the same topic despite their different views of the descriptions satisfied by it. Note, however, that this doesn’t mean that anything goes when it comes to the descriptions associated with an object. Some may be so off-target that they are not merely false, but suggestive of confusion or conceptual error (cf. Schroeter and Schroeter 2014: 255–6). In such cases, the speaker will usually fail to refer to the item under discussion. In the Bowie case, for instance, suppose that a fourth speaker chips in: : ‘Bowie is the youngest living chess Grandmaster.’ The most charitable interpretation of this is one on which Perry is not talking about the same thing as Masood, Nigel, and Oona. It is possible that he is thinking about the same individual, and just has very strange (and false) beliefs about him, but it is more likely that he has someone else in mind, and is not on the same page as the others. The theory of mental files can account for this by allowing that, although a file cannot be equated with the descriptive information that it contains, there are some descriptive constraints on the identity of a conceptual file—some facts about the item in question must be included within the file of any subject who is suitably acquainted with that item. These facts serve as conceptual fixed ¹² One might reply that Masood, Nigel, and Oona do each share a unique description for Bowie— e.g. ‘the figure on the screen’ or ‘the subject of the documentary.’ But this doesn’t deal with the deeper point—we can just stipulate that Bowie was never alone on screen, or that the documentary was about 1970s music. It isn’t hard to generate cases in which there is no unique description of Bowie shared by the three speakers.

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points. Schroeter and Schroeter thus suggest that two thought-tokens can only pick out the same concept if the “substantive understanding directly associated with the tokens does not diverge so radically as to preclude a univocal interpretation” (2014: 256). This is going to become relevant below as I outline the theory of moral mental files.

Moral Files For the theory of mental files to apply in the moral case there will need to be an epistemically rewarding acquaintance relation that can obtain between an agent and a moral property. On the basis of my arguments in Chapters 6–8, I suggest that moral intuitions acquaint us with moral reality. Those intuitions can be a priori or a posteriori, and there are times when they must result from (or be tested against) inclusive and cooperative dialogue to count as reliable. But we can trust dialogically refined intuitions to put us in touch with moral reality. Through these intuitions we acquire information about what is right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust, virtuous and vicious, and so on. In short, we can become acquainted with moral reality in epistemically rewarding ways.¹³ This affords a simple answer to the question of semantic access. My concept  latches onto the stance-independent, causally inert property of wrongness because that concept is a mental file that is built on my intuitional acquaintance with wrongness—through my intuitions about what is and isn’t wrong I have developed a mental file that stores information about what is and isn’t wrong, and that groups this information together because it concerns the topic of wrongness.¹⁴ This grouping occurs because I (consciously or unconsciously) identify similarities between cases. And, crucially, this file is about wrongness. It refers to wrongness, and its reference is fixed relationally rather than satisfactionally—it is not through my understanding of the extension of ‘wrong’ that my  file refers, but through my intuitional acquaintance with what is and is not wrong. I may only be imperfectly acquainted with what is and is not wrong, but so long as I acquire some such information through my intuitive acquaintance, reference can be secured. Note too that, as a speaker of English, I connect my  file to the English predicate ‘. . . is wrong.’ Other competent speakers of English, and competent speakers of languages into which ‘. . . is wrong’ is translatable, will have different  files than mine—partly because we have different minds, ¹³ As this suggests, acquaintance relations need not be causal. The key idea is that of an epistemically rewarding relation between subject and object, and I have argued that intuitions can be epistemically rewarding even if moral reality is causally inert. ¹⁴ I said that, although mental files are non-descriptive modes of presentation, they contain descriptive information. Metaethicists often contrast the descriptive and the normative, but the information in a mental file is descriptive in a sense that is clearly compatible with moral properties being irreducibly normative. For ‘lying is wrong’ is descriptive insofar as it describes an act-kind as having a property, and we can claim that the property in question—wrongness—is irreducibly normative.

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but also because our files will usually contain different beliefs. But so long as they have the same source and are based upon intuitive acquaintance, we share a  concept that we can use to communicate with each other by connecting it to an expression in a language. This also makes it possible for us to disagree about what is and is not wrong. In moral disagreement, the disagreeing parties differ in the content of their  files (your file contains the belief that lying is always wrong, and mine contains the belief that it is not always wrong, etc.), but both mental files are based on intuitive acquaintance with wrongness. One or both parties must be imperfectly acquainted with that property, but if their conceptual  files have the same source and are based on the same sort of acquaintance relation, then they are getting at the same property. They just disagree about which things have it, or the conditions in which something has it. Appealing to moral mental files also helps with disagreement—or the lack thereof—in the Ellian case. I have said that, when we and the Ellians make claims about what one ‘ought’ to do, we talk past each other and do not genuinely disagree. This is because, psychologically, we simply don’t have enough in common to either agree or disagree on the question of what one ought to do. This was an issue for conceptual role semantics, but the theory of moral mental files can tell us why we and the Ellians end up talking past one another. Recall that, although the reference of a file is not determined by the descriptive information it contains, there can be descriptive constraints on a conceptual file—a subject’s substantive views about the object with which their file is concerned must not be so far off-target as to preclude reference. This was why Masood, Nigel, and Oona were all referring to Bowie, in spite of their different beliefs about the descriptions applicable to him, but Perry was not given how far off-target his claim was. The key idea here is that certain facts about the item under discussion must be included in the file of anyone acquainted with it in an epistemically rewarding way. In the case of  one such fact is that, if anyone ever ought to do anything, then we all ought to avoid causing pain to others when possible. This conditional claim is a conceptual fixed point for ‘ought.’ Since it is a claim that the Ellians will reject, their term ‘ought’ is not synonymous with our term ‘ought.’ We thus end up speaking past one another. One thing to emphasise here is that the substantive constraints on a file’s reference are best interpreted in conditional terms. It might initially seem as though a conceptually competent subject’s  file has to include the unconditional belief that one ought to avoid causing others pain when possible, but this is not so. For one can lack this belief without thereby lacking competence with ‘ought.’ An error theorist, for example, might deny that one ought to do anything, and consequently that one ought to avoid causing pain to others. But this does not imply that they lack competence with ‘ought.’¹⁵ However, if they denied the ¹⁵ For discussion see Ingram (2015b; 2018b) and Evers and Streumer (2016) against Cuneo and Shafer-Landau (2014).

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conditional claim that, if anyone ever ought to do anything, then we all ought to avoid causing others pain when possible, then they have made a conceptual error. For whilst a great deal about what one ought to do is left open by the meaning of ‘ought,’ this isn’t. Or so I have argued, at least. There may be other substantive constraints on the  file’s reference, but such constraints needn’t be limited to substantive moral beliefs. In particular, beliefs about the conceptual role of ‘ought’ might also be included in the  file of anyone who is acquainted with the property of being what one ought to do—if Wedgwood is correct about the rules of rationality governing our uses of ‘ought,’ then the defender of moral mental files can maintain that commitment to these rules is a constraint on acquiring an  file. The theory of moral mental files can therefore explain the importance of conceptual role in shaping the reference of a moral term. This clarifies what we and the Ellians share. We have practices of deliberation, evaluation, and direction that draw on concepts that play the same role. However, the theory of moral files avoids the flaws of conceptual role semantics by denying that reference is entirely a matter of satisfying a conceptual role. This is why I favour the theory of moral mental files in response to the question of semantic access.

9.3.2 Two Payoffs In this section I’ll outline the two payoffs that I take the theory of moral mental files to have for robust realists. One concerns the link between moral judgement and motivation. The other concerns the challenge of ‘alternative normative concepts,’ and humanity’s connection to moral reality.

Motivation The link between moral judgement and motivation is often thought to be problematic for realism (see e.g. Darwall 2002). The idea is that, if moral judgements are beliefs about robust moral properties, then one can make a moral judgement without being motivated to act on it. For beliefs alone, it is assumed, cannot motivate us—a desire-like state is needed to provide a psychological ‘push.’ But it is not clear how desire can enter the realist’s picture of moral judgement. The theory of moral mental files can help here, but first let’s clarify what realists are meant to be explaining. I take it to be something like the following: M I. As a matter of conceptual necessity, if one sincerely judges that one ought to Φ at t, but one does not intend to Φ at t, then one is not fully practically rational. (Similar things can be said for moral judgements involving other central moral concepts.)

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This formulation of ‘motivational judgement internalism’ is modest in that it allows that those who are not fully rational (in a sense that needs explaining, but will count those who are depressed, weak-willed, or ill-informed as less than fully rational) can lack the motivation to act on moral judgements. Debate can be had even about this modest form of internalism, but I confess that I do not have strong intuitions about the link between moral judgement and motivation. I am not even sure that we should prefer an internalist theory to an externalist one (i.e. one on which there is only a contingent connection between moral judgement and motivation). But M I is at least plausible, and it raises questions for realists. It is thus worth showing that realists can answer these questions. Positing moral mental files offers a way to do this. The first thing to note here is that mental files are not limited to storing beliefs. This might be how they are initiated, given that a file is based on epistemically rewarding acquaintance with some object, but a conceptual file can accommodate any attitude concerning the object with which the file is concerned. This includes the subject’s desires and emotional dispositions regarding that object—my S file stores not only the beliefs that she is a dog, that she is five years old, and that she is 6 kg, but also my disposition to feel love and joy when she is around. In the moral case a subject’s  file is likely to store many desires and emotional dispositions. Some of these will only feature in the file contingently—they are not among its conceptual fixed points, and just happen to be stored in it for some (perhaps many, and conceivably all) people. For instance, it is not unusual for us to want to do what certain other people (e.g. the cool kids) say that we ought to do, and this desire may contingently be reflected in a certain agent’s  file (such that when he hears the cool kids say ‘you ought to Φ,’ he finds that he wants to Φ). However, other desires and desire-like states could play a more significant role in the  file, by serving among its conceptual fixed points. In particular, a defender of M I could suggest that one can only possess a fully realised  file if that file includes a disposition to intend to Φ when one sincerely judges that one ought to Φ.¹⁶ Agents who deploy their  file when sincerely judging that one ought to Φ, but who at the same time do not intend to Φ, will then be practically irrational because their specific occurrent intentions are at odds with one of their general dispositional intentions. This internal conflict in their planning states renders them practically irrational. Of course, whether the  file is actually governed by a motivational constraint is a further question. This is a question that I won’t attempt to answer, however, for what matters to me is that robust realists can make space for the truth of M I, ¹⁶ I say ‘fully realised’ to allow for the fact that one’s grasp of a concept can be limited or partial. E.g. an amoralist might be acquainted with moral reality, and might thus develop an  file containing information about what one ought to do, but if they lack the disposition to intend to Φ when they judge that they ought to Φ then they do not have a fully realised  file (assuming that M I is true).

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rather than whether M I is in fact true. And we have seen that the theory of moral files offers a natural way for realists to capture the conceptual link between moral judgement and motivation, if such a link genuinely exists.

Alternative Concepts The second payoff that I’ll consider involves the ‘alternative normative concepts’ challenge that Eklund (2017) puts to ‘ardent’ realist theories (including robust realism). Consider the following scenario: Alternative. There is a linguistic community speaking a language much like English, except for the following differences (and whatever differences are directly entailed). While their words ‘good,’ ‘right,’ and ‘ought’ are associated with the same normative roles as our words ‘good,’ ‘right,’ and ‘ought,’ their words aren’t coextensive with our ‘good,’ ‘right,’ and ‘ought.’ So even if they are exactly right about what is ‘good’ and ‘right’ and what ‘ought’ to be done, in their sense, and they seek to promote what is ‘good’ and ‘right’ and what ‘ought’ to be done in their sense, they do not seek to promote what is good and right and what ought to be done. (Eklund 2017: 18)

Eklund notes that Alternative is either possible or it isn’t, and if it isn’t possible this must be because the conceptual role of a normative term somehow fixes its extension (such that two normative terms with the same role are coextensive). But if it is possible then, as Eklund puts it, there appears to be “some sort of live issue as to whether we or the alternative community get things right” (2017: 22). Theories that take Alternative to be possible are ‘Alternative-friendly,’ and theories that deny its possibility are ‘Alternative-unfriendly.’ Eklund thinks that the realist should adopt an Alternative-unfriendly view such as conceptual role semantics—if reference is fixed by conceptual role alone, then we and our Alternative counterparts possess the same moral concepts and just apply them to different things. However, this option is unavailable to the defender of moral mental files, for although the files theory can recognise the meta-semantic importance of a moral term’s conceptual role, it denies that such roles are sufficient to fix reference. Moreover, given my use of the Ellian case, I am committed to Alternative’s being possible. This creates a challenge, for Alternative-friendly views face a dilemma. Consider that, if Alternative is possible, then it raises a question put by Eklund as follows: “whose normative terms is it that, as it were, limn the normative structure of reality?” (2017: 22). This looks like a privilege charge (it is a ‘privileged concepts’ charge). We need but have no clear basis on which to privilege one set of normative concepts over others. Of course, it is hard to state this point without relying on our own concepts. As Eklund suggests, if “the issue concerns which actions it really is right to perform, those falling under our ‘right’ or those falling under its normative counterpart . . . [then obviously!] the right actions are the ones

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that fall under our ‘right’ ” (2017: 23). But this just trivially settles the issue in our favour, and since our counterparts can say the same for their concepts, it doesn’t really engage with the issue. This brings us to the dilemma. On the first horn, there is something at issue between us and our counterparts, but it is ineffable. I agree with Eklund that this line is unattractive, so I won’t go into it here.¹⁷ On the second horn, there is nothing genuinely at issue between us and our counterparts—as Eklund puts it, “[t]here’s what’s ‘right’ in our sense and what’s ‘right’ in their sense, and that is that” (2017: 25)—but this just serves to deflate normative truths in a way that should trouble the robust realist. It looks more like relativism than realism, and leaves us with no fitting way to morally criticise those who fail to meet our moral standards. However, the situation is more nuanced than this—differences in how Alternative is fleshed out make a difference to whether and how it is an issue. Suppose, for instance, that our Alternative counterparts are the Ellians. As we’ve seen, the Ellians are like aliens to us. They are a distinct moral species, with radically different moral psychologies. If we replaced our ‘ought’ with their ‘ought,’ adopting and internalising their conceptual architecture for our moral deliberation and dialogue, then ‘we’ would cease to exist. We would have become a distinct moral species. Of course, we can ask whether there is reason for us to become like the Ellians, and they can ask whether there is reason* (i.e. ‘reason’ in their sense) to become more like us. But to my mind there is nothing problematic in answering such questions from the standpoint of one’s own moral species. One cannot escape this standpoint when choosing what to do. We thus have reasons to avoid becoming like the Ellians, and they have reasons* to avoid becoming like us, and that is all there is to it. In short, if Alternative is fleshed out such that our counterparts are Ellians, then being Alternative-friendly is the correct—indeed only—option. And this doesn’t undermine the commitment to realism. The relevance of a moral fact may be indexed to our moral species, but this does not imply that the existence or authority of this fact is dependent solely on our attitudes and conventions, etc. (This fits with what I have said about stanceindependence throughout this book.) There may just be moral facts that don’t apply to us, but that do apply to Ellians, given the natures of our moral species.¹⁸ Robust realists can consistently say, in short, that moral reality includes different regions for distinct moral species. ¹⁷ There is another way to embrace the first horn, on which the question of what is at issue between us and our counterparts can be asked and answered in realist-friendly terms. Eklund (2017: 28–32) rejects this possibility, but it is ably defended by Leary (2020) and McPherson (2020). ¹⁸ This lets me avoid an issue raised by Clarke-Doane (2015b; 2020). He identifies a version of pluralism on which there are many sets of normative truths, each of which issues different practical guidance, and all of which are ‘on a par’ in their authority. Clarke-Doane worries that this picture leaves us unable to deliberate, for there is no unique set of truths that settles what to do. My claim is that a deliberating agent need not and cannot take all of these sets of truths as being on a par, for their relevance is determined in part by the agent’s moral species.

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This is part of an answer to Eklund’s challenge—the dilemma’s second horn is unproblematic when our Alternative counterparts are a distinct moral species. But what about cases in which our counterparts are beings like us? On this way of fleshing out Alternative, we and our counterparts belong to the same moral species. Their ‘ought’ not only plays the same role as our ‘ought,’ but is also applied in similar (albeit non-identical) ways. (This might not entail that they are beings like us, but it does let us stipulate that they are—something we cannot do with the Ellians, who apply ‘ought’ so differently that we must treat them as an alien moral species.) The case of Moral Twin Earth is a nice example here. Recall that, although there is a difference in how Earthlings and Twin Earthlings apply moral terms, and although there is a difference in their psychologies, these differences are minor. Earthlings and Twin Earthlings are similar enough to disagree with one another, despite the fact that their differences have led Earthlings to consequentialism and Twin Earthlings to deontology. They belong to the same moral species, and are engaging in the same subject matter (concerning what is right and wrong for beings like them). They simply disagree as to what is the correct theory of that subject matter. Alternative-friendliness seems to be implausible in this case—Earthlings and Twin Earthlings have the same moral concepts with the same actual extension, but they disagree on what exactly that extension is. If the theory of moral mental files is committed to Alternativefriendliness here, then that is a problem for it. Fortunately, it can avoid this result. Earthlings and Twin Earthlings share moral concepts so long as their respective conceptual  files are based on the same sort of acquaintance relation with a single topic, and so long as those files are governed by the same (often conditional) conceptual fixed points. The theory of moral mental files can thus offer an Alternative-unfriendly account of the Earthling and Twin Earthling case. The more general lesson here is that it is a mistake to think that robust realists are forced to choose between being Alternative-friendly and Alternativeunfriendly. The former option is right for those cases in which we and our counterparts are distinct moral species, whilst the latter option is right for those cases in which we are all members of the same moral species. It is an attraction of my view that it can illuminate and accommodate this. We should thus take a more nuanced approach to the Alternative scenario, for what we say about it will depend on how our counterparts are fleshed out. The theory of moral mental files gives us a way to navigate such nuances, and this is another attraction of the view. This point also sheds light on humanity’s relationship to moral reality. Throughout this book (see e.g. §0.2 and §4.1) I have said that stance-independence requires only that the moral facts do not depend solely on us for their existence and authority. I have stressed that our attitudes and conventions (etc.) can affect how a moral fact applies to us. And our moral species can affect whether or not a specific region of moral reality applies to us. What we are like, and what we are

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capable of, affects what is stance-independently right and good for us. We don’t make moral reality, including the specific region of it that governs our moral species, but it matters for us given the type of rational being we are.

9.4 Conclusion We have now seen that robust realists have the resources to answer the question of semantic access. Much more could be said in defence of the general theory of mental files, but it is a promising theory that offers a new way forward for robust realism. The theory of moral mental files can explain our semantic access to moral properties consistently with intuitions about when certain linguistic communities are and are not in disagreement. And it also offers further payoffs by giving us new resources to deal with certain other challenges facing robust realism. It is thus a promising way for robust realists to deal with the question of semantic access.

10 Conclusion This book has offered a near enough comprehensive defence of robust realism. I have argued that robust moral facts are needed to secure the non-arbitrariness of moral choice, and I have responded to objections that, were they sound, would undermine robust realism. Furthermore, by exploring how we can, do, and should talk to each other about moral questions, I have developed theories of moral knowledge, thought, and language that fit with robust realism. In particular, I have defended a dualistic version of intuitionism on which moral beliefs can be justified by either a priori or a posteriori intuitions, and I have developed the theory of moral mental files to vindicate our semantic access to moral reality. I call my defence of robust realism near enough comprehensive, for, although I have considered the major issues in this debate, several of my arguments have been programmatic or in some way limited. For instance, my explanation of moral supervenience relies on background metaphysical claims that I didn’t fully defend, and I didn’t fully defend the general theory of mental files. These are areas in which more work (outside of metaethics proper) needs doing. Moreover, I don’t claim to have given any ‘blockbuster’ arguments—arguments that aim to bring down all possible formulations of some type of theory or claim in one fell swoop. For instance, I do not take the arbitrariness charges that I made against nonrobust metaethical positions to refute every possible rival to robust realism. I simply take these charges to show that, given the problems confronting the best non-robust theories, and given what it will take to deal with those problems, the prospects of a non-robust moral ontology seem dim. However, as new versions of those theories are proposed, more work will need to be done to see whether they can avoid arbitrariness. So, there is good reason to believe robust realism, but I do not doubt that much more could be said. Still, you have to stop somewhere.

Robust Realism in Ethics: Normative Arbitrariness, Interpersonal Dialogue, and Moral Objectivity. Stephen Ingram, Oxford University Press. © Stephen Ingram 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198886488.003.0011

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Index For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. Acceptance vs. belief 179–81 Adequate understanding (see Intuitionism) Agency (see Constitutivism) Agent-neutrality 4–6, 29–31, 35, 37, 42–5, 50, 58–9, 62–4, 126 ‘Alien moral species’ 35–43, 48–9, 51, 57–8, 176, 178n.4, 186–8, 199, 212–13 Alternative normative concepts 7, 195, 209, 211–14 Anderson, Elizabeth 126, 154–5, 159, 165–6 Arbitrariness charge 5–7, 11‒12, 14, 17–18, 27, 198n.8 (see also Bruteness charge, Normative deficit charge, Ownership charge, Privilege charge, and Stability charge) Archimedeanism 95, 112–15 Assimilation 155 Audi, Robert 5n.10, 125nn.1, 2, 129, 134–5 Barnes, Elizabeth 132n.6 Barry, Brian 85–6 Battaly, Heather 158n.4, 160–1 ‘Beings like us’ (see Our moral species) Berenstain, Nora 167 Berker, Selim 45, 117n.24 Besong, Brian 178 Blackburn, Simon 4n.6, 94n.2, 95, 115n.22, 134n.9, 136n.11, 196n.3 Boyd, Richard 4n.6, 80, 196, 200–1 Brandt, Richard 35–6, 35n.6 Broome, John 74n.1, 75 Bruteness charge 6–7, 14–18, 27, 29, 58n.8, 71 Against anti-realism 15–17, 31–2 Against realism 15, 77–85, 91–2 Burge, Tyler 132–3 Care ethics 129–31, 134–6, 136n.11 Carnap, Rudolf 111 Categoricity 3, 6–7, 15, 29–30, 53–6, 66, 71, 77–81, 83, 85–91, 93, 96, 111–15, 120 Chrisman, Matthew 196n.4 Clarke-Doane, Justin 212n.18

Cognitive bias 41, 126–7, 144–6, 159, 164–7, 192–3 Cohen, G.A. 32–3 Cohen, L. Jonathan 179–80, 179n.6 Coherentism 16, 31–2, 101–2, 101n.11 Collins, Patricia Hill 126–7, 148n.1, 169–70 Companions in innocence 6–7, 15n.4, 71, 77, 84–5, 87–91 Conceptual fixed points 208, 210–11, 213 Conceptual role semantics 186n.14, 195–201, 208–9, 211 Conservative method of metaethical theorising 26–7, 31n.3, 37–8, 44, 47 Constitutivism 4, 15n.3, 16, 19–22, 35, 50, 58–70, 100–1, 107–8 Contractualism 101n.10, 103–6, 151–2 Cooperation 2, 7, 128, 130–2, 135–8, 140, 144–5, 148, 155–70, 175–6, 180–1, 190, 207 Virtue of empathic cooperation (see Empathy) Coordination 23n.11, 54, 59–60, 99–107 Cowie, Christopher 26–7, 31n.3, 85 Crisp, Roger 178 Cuneo, Terence 15n.4, 40, 85, 125–6, 185n.12, 208n.15 Debunking arguments 7, 84–5, 91, 114, 144, 146–8, 170–1, 182–94 Dennett, Daniel 53–4 Disagreement 7, 106–7, 106n.16, 144, 147–8, 157, 164–5, 171–81, 186–8, 196, 198–201, 205–8, 213 Fundamental 171–8, 172n.1, 180 Epistemological argument from 177–81 Metaphysical argument from 171–7 Domain ontology 18–19, 95–6, 108–14 Donnellan, Keith 204–5 Doris, John 171–5 Dotson, Kristie 126, 167–8 Dowell, Janice 78n.5 Dreier, Jamie 19, 52–3, 115n.22, 116 Dunaway, Billy 115n.23, 195n.1, 198n.7 Dworkin, Ronald 4n.6, 93n.1, 96, 96n.3, 108–9, 112–13

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Eklund, Matti 7, 186n.14, 195–6, 211–13, 212n.17 Elgin, Catherine Z. 178–9, 179n.6 Ellians 186–8, 198–201, 208–9, 211–13 Empathy 7, 40–1, 131n.5, 136–44, 148–58, 164, 166–9, 181, 199–200 As an intellectual skill 158n.4, 160–3 Vice of empathic obtuseness 162–3 Vice of empathic hypervigilance 163 Virtue of empathic cooperation 160–4, 181 Enoch, David 4n.6, 12n.2, 15n.3, 58n.8, 63–5, 79–80, 83n.8, 97, 106–10, 111n.19, 116–17, 117n.24, 172n.1, 183–5, 186n.14, 195–6 Epistemic exploitation 164, 167–70 Erdur, Melis 13, 81–2 Evans, Gareth 202, 204 Evers, Daan 185–6, 208n.15 Ewing, A.C. 125n.1 Expressivistic quasi-realism (see also Normative deficit charge) 3–4, 3n.5, 4n.6, 6–7, 15n.3, 20n.7, 22n.10, 23n.11, 72, 74–5, 80n.6, 93–108, 112–14, 116, 196, 196n.3 Hybrid expressivism 107–8 Extensional inadequacy charge 26–7, 33, 37–9, 47–8 External metaphysical commitments 94–6, 112–14 Feminist views on objective inquiry 126–8 Fine, Kit 115n.22, 118n.27 Finlay, Stephen 54–6, 54n.2, 55n.3, 66 FitzPatrick, William J. 4n.6, 83n.8, 182–3, 183n.8 Fletcher, Guy 85, 86n.12 Foot, Philippa 51–2, 66, 185–6 Foundationalism 14–17, 24n.13, 31–2, 78 Frankfurt, Harry 18, 21n.8, 85–6 Frege, Gottlob 202–3 Fricker, Miranda 126, 159–60, 162, 165–6 ‘Frontiers of moral inquiry’ 7, 125–6, 129–32, 135–6, 152, 154, 175–6, 175n.2 Garner, Richard 54n.1, 64–5 Gibbard, Allan 4n.6, 32–3, 40, 80, 80n.6, 95, 96n.4, 99n.9, 101nn.10, 11, 103–6, 125, 196n.3 Goldman, Alan H. 16, 22n.10, 33n.4, 35–8, 35n.6 Hampton, Jean 51, 85 Hare, R.M. 33n.4, 99n.9, 101n.10, 115n.22, 137–8, 153 Harrison, Gerald 115n.22 Hayward, Max Khan 81–3, 182, 188–94 Hicks, Daniel 150 Honour culture 174–6

Hooker, Brad 103n.13, 105 Hopster, Jeroen 26n.14, 33n.4, 36–8 Horgan, Terry 186n.13, 200–1 Hubin, Donald C. 33n.4, 36n.8 Huemer, Michael 5n.10, 17–18, 125n.1, 144–5, 176 Hume, David 32–3, 113 Humean theories 4–5, 17–18, 22, 22n.10, 23n.11, 36n.8, 66–7, 72–3 Humility 131–2, 135–6, 158–9, 161–2, 161n.5 Hursthouse, Rosalind 80 Hybrid expressivism (see Expressivistic quasi-realism) Idealised attitudes/agency 2–4, 29, 32–3, 35–43, 45–9, 51, 61–2, 71–2 Ideally Coherent Eccentrics (ICEs) 32–4, 37–40, 42, 48, 51, 186–7 Inclusion 2, 7, 128, 130–2, 135–8, 148–56, 159–61, 163–4, 167–8, 170, 175–6, 207 I 149–50, 152–3, 155–6 Inescapability (see Categoricity) Inglish agents/values 32–4, 37, 40–63, 58n.6, 82–3, 95, 106–7, 112–14 Ingram, Stephen 1n.2, 83n.8, 125n.1, 185n.12, 208n.15 Internal/external perspective on morality 93–6, 98‒9, 107–9, 111–15, 120 Intuitionism 5, 5n.10, 7, 125, 148, 170, 177–81, 215 Adequate understanding of self-evident propositions 7, 132, 134–7, 142–3 A priori vs. a posteriori 5, 7, 125–6, 132–44, 146–7, 202, 207, 215 Moral emotions 140–4, 146–7 Jackson, Frank 19, 52–3, 97n.5, 115n.23, 196 Jaggar, Alison 56n.4, 128, 130, 148n.1 Joyce, Richard 53–6, 83–4, 182, 182n.7 J 11–14, 16–17, 19–20, 22–3, 27 Just-too-different intuition 79–80 Kant, Immanuel 66–9 Kantian constitutivism (see Constitutivism) Kaspar, David 117n.24, 125n.1, 128–9 Kawall, Jason 78n.4, 160 Kenyon, Tim 165–6 Kidd, Ian James 158–9 Kinds 117–20, 134n.9 Kittay, Eva Feder 129n.4, 130, 132n.6 Kolodny, Niko 74n.1 Korsgaard, C.M. 5n.9, 16, 19–23, 60–1, 63–4, 66–70, 72, 74–8

 Kramer, Matthew H. 4n.6, 26n.14, 108–9, 113, 116 Kripke, Saul 52–3, 204–5 Leary, Stephanie 117n.24, 212n.17 Lenman, James 13, 15–16, 15n.3, 22n.10, 23n.11, 33n.4, 38, 81n.7, 99n.9, 101nn.10, 11, 103–6, 103n.12, 199n.9 Lewis, David 5n.9, 30–1, 43–5, 52–3, 146n.15 Longino, Helen 126–8, 148n.1, 150–1 Lorde, Audre 167, 169 Lowe, E.J. 89n.14, 118nn.26–28 Mackie, J.L. 45, 83–4, 171–2 Manne, Kate 5n.9, 18, 22n.10, 30–1, 34, 35n.6, 36–7, 42–7, 84n.10 McBrayer, Jack 125n.2, 146–7 Mental files 7, 195, 198, 201–14 McGrath, Sarah 5n.10, 95–6, 125n.2, 178 Mill, John Stuart 157 McLeod, Stephen 85–6, 85n.11, 88–9 M I (see also Moral motivation) 209–11 Moody-Adams, Michele 24n.13, 143–4, 155, 175–6, 190 Moore, G.E. 125n.1, 129, 192 Moral criticism 44–7, 54–5, 57, 149–54 Moral error theory 2–7, 29–31, 31n.3, 43–9, 73, 77, 80–1, 83–5, 91, 114, 208–9 Moral emotions (see Intuitionism) Moral grammar 56–8, 66 Moral motivation 7, 50–1, 54, 73, 84n.9, 195, 209–11 Moral perception 5n.10, 125, 146 Moral properties 2–3, 3n.3, 80, 93, 96, 111–20, 115n.23, 117n.24, 118n.26, 195–6, 207–9, 207n.14 As causally inert 116, 125, 146, 195, 197–8, 207, 207n.13 Moral twin earth 186n.13, 200–1, 201n.10, 213 McPherson, Tristram 108–10, 111n.19, 115n.22, 116, 212n.17 Nagel, Thomas 4n.6, 127n.3 Naturalism/non-naturalism 1, 3–4, 4n.6, 6–7, 15n.3, 19, 71, 77–85, 83n.8, 90–1, 111, 115n.22, 125, 185n.12, 188–9, 196, 200–1 As promises not propositions 78–9 In relation to needs 88–91 Normative concept strategy 79–80, 90n.15, 96n.4 Nazi problem 139, 150–3, 167 Needs (see Companions in innocence and Naturalism/non-naturalism)

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Normative deficit charge 19–20, 27, 50, 58, 58n.8, 72, 79, 91–2 Applied to constitutivism 62–70 Applied to expressivistic quasi-realism 72, 93, 97–8, 100–8 Normative significance 13–14, 16–18, 25–7, 37–8, 42, 47–9, 78n.4, 110 Nowell-Smith, P.H. 12–13, 15n.3 Objectivity (see also Stance-independence) In a metaphysical sense 1–2, 4, 4n.7, 29–31, 44–5, 44n.10, 94–5, 112 In an epistemological sense 126–8, 150 O’Connor, Peg 24n.13, 56–8, 66, 128 Olson, Jonas 83–5, 84n.9 O’Neill, Onora 19, 21–2, 23n.11, 66 Open-mindedness 35–6, 131–2, 135–6, 158–9, 161–2, 161n.5 O’Shea, Tom 20, 66–8 ‘Our moral species’ 38–43, 39n.9, 48–9, 51–2, 57–8, 71–2, 212–14 Ownership charge 6–7, 20–3, 27, 29n.1, 71–8, 91–2 Parfit, Derek 4n.6, 12n.2, 15n.3, 26n.14, 32–3, 45–6, 82–3, 96n.3, 108–9, 182–3 Plakias, Alexandra 171–5 Platts, Mark 190 Practical necessity 50–1 Privilege charge 16–19, 27, 29, 31–2, 58n.8, 78n.4, 93, 108, 110–11, 211–12 Quasi-realism (see Expressivistic quasi-realism) Queerness arguments 77, 83–5, 91, 112, 114–15 Quinn, Warren 32–3 Ratcliffe, Matthew 138–9, 142–3 Rawls, John 20–2, 32–3, 72, 103n.12, 148n.1 Realism General gloss 2–3 Naturalistic vs. non-naturalistic (see Naturalism/non-naturalism) Moral arguments against 81–3 Relaxed realism 3–4, 4n.6, 6–7, 91–6, 96n.3, 96n.4, 108–14, 116 Quasi-realism (see Expressivistic quasi-realism) Recanati, François 202–5 Reference (see also Conceptual role semantics, Mental files, and Semantic access) 2, 5, 7, 35n.7, 52–3, 112, 186, 186n.14 Reference magnetism 195n.1 Regan, Donald 20, 66–8 Relativism 54n.2, 60n.10, 200–1, 211–12

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Ridge, Michael 45, 75, 107–8, 115n.22, 196n.3 Rigidification 35n.7, 52–3 Roberts, Debbie 115n.22 Rosen, Gideon 115n.22 Ross, W.D. 125n.1, 128–30, 133n.7, 134 Rowland, Richard 15n.4, 85, 175–6 Sainsbury, Mark 204–5 Scanlon, T.M. 4n.6, 45–6, 82–3, 96, 96nn.3, 4, 103–5, 103nn.12, 13, 105n.15, 108–10, 111n.19 Schroeder, Mark 4, 22n.10, 29–30, 80, 97–8, 97n.5, 115n.23 Schroeter, François 202, 205–7 Schroeter, Laura 202, 205–7 Semantic access 7, 195–8, 201, 204–5, 207, 209, 214 Semantic depth 190 Shafer-Landau, Russ 2–3, 4n.6, 5n.10, 12‒15, 12nn.1, 2, 15n.4, 26n.14, 40, 78n.5, 117n.24, 125–6, 125n.1, 184–5, 185n.12, 208n.15 Shemmer, Yonatan 5n.9, 18, 22, 22n.10, 30–1, 36–7, 36n.8, 43–5 Sidgwick, Henry 125n.1, 127n.3, 128–9 S (see Normative Significance) Sinclair, Neil 4n.6, 16, 54, 98–102, 99n.9, 116 Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter 145 Skarsaune, Knut Olav 117n.24, 183–4, 183n.9, 184n.10 Smith, Michael 5n.9, 23–4, 35n.6, 61–5, 185–6 Sobel, David 73–4 Stability charge 23–7, 29, 32–4, 37–40, 42–5, 47–53, 55–63, 69–70, 72, 79, 91–2, 95, 198n.8 Stance-independence General gloss 2–3, 71–2 As violating the ownership intuition 22–3, 72–7 As leading to non-naturalism 78, 81 Internal vs. external status 94–6, 99–100, 111–12 Conceptual status 98–100, 98n.7 Stern, Robert 12n.2 Stevenson, C.L. 99n.9, 106n.16 Stratton-Lake, Philip 5n.10, 125n.1 Street, Sharon 5n.9, 16, 22, 22n.10, 23n.11, 26n.14, 30–3, 33n.4, 35–9, 35n.6, 45–8, 69–70, 182, 182n.7, 184–5 Streumer, Bart 84n.9, 115n.23, 185–6, 208n.15

Stroud, Barry 58n.6 Sturgeon, Nicholas 4n.6, 80, 115n.22 Suikkanen, Jussi 97n.5 Supervenience 6–7, 77n.3, 84n.9, 93, 95, 114–20, 146–7, 215 Not a moral commitment 116–17 Explanatory objection 116–17, 119–20 Reductive argument 115n.23 Theory of moral kinds 117–20 Thagard, Paul 141–2 Third factor replies (see Debunking arguments) Thomson, Garrett 85–6, 85n.11, 88–9 Tiberius, Valerie 22n.10, 24n.13, 35–6 Timmons, Mark 186n.13, 200–1 Tobin, Theresa 56n.4, 128, 148n.1 Toppinen, Teemu 108n.18 Tropman, Elizabeth 3n.4, 5n.10, 71–2, 125n.1 Universals 117–20 Urbinati, Nadia 155–6 van Roojen, Mark 196n.2 Väyrynen, Pekka 115n.22, 116–17 Velleman, David 5n.9, 59–60, 60n.10 Virtue of empathic cooperation (see Empathy) Walker, Margaret Urban 128, 130, 137–8 Wedgwood, Ralph 117n.24, 186n.14, 195–9, 201n.11, 209 W’ O 197–200 Wielenberg, Erik J. 4n.6, 117n.24, 183n.9, 184–5, 185n.11 Wiggins, David 52–3, 85–6, 88n.13 Wiland, Eric 136n.11 Williams, Bernard 22n.10, 30–1, 35–6, 35n.6, 38–9, 45‒6, 45n.11, 46n.12, 50–1, 73, 127n.3 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 56–7, 58n.6 Wodak, Daniel 192 Woods, Jack 98n.6 Wrong kind of reason 46–7, 55–6, 55n.3 Wylie, Alison 126–7 Young, Iris Marion 137–8, 148n.1, 149–50, 155–6 Zagzebski, Linda 158 Zangwill, Nick 98–100