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This chapter contains the second stage of argument for the core argument's first premise. The strategy employed is to point out that that there is a class of standard objections ordinarily leveled against the claim that moral facts exist. These objections purport to establish that were moral facts to exist, then they would display what are called the ‘objectionable features’ — properties such as being intrinsically motivating, being categorically reason-giving, being explanatorily idle, and so forth. Were the standard objections to establish this, the claim is that when suitably modified, they would also establish that were epistemic facts to exist, then they too would exhibit the objectionable features. These two claims allow us to formulate the following direct argument for the core argument's first premise: if moral facts do not exist, then this is simply because they would display the objectionable features. But there is nothing about moral facts in particular that makes their having these features objectionable; it is the character of the features themselves that renders moral facts problematic. Accordingly, we can affirm: if moral facts do not exist, then nothing has the objectionable features. However, if epistemic facts exist, then there is something that has the objectionable features. Or, otherwise put: if nothing has the objectionable features, then epistemic facts do not exist. From this it follows that the core argument's first premise is true: (1) if moral facts do not exist, then epistemic facts do not exist.

The argument for the core argument's first premise comes in two stages. This chapter presents the first stage of the argument. Its aim is threefold: first, to identify the character of epistemic realism of a paradigmatic sort; second, to point out four relevant similarities between epistemic and moral facts; and, third, to reply to several objections to the effect that there are important and deep dissimilarities between epistemic and moral facts.

This chapter lays out the core argument of the book, which runs as follows: (1) if moral facts do not exist, then epistemic facts do not exist; (2) epistemic facts exist; (3) so, moral facts exist; (4) if moral facts exist, then moral realism is true; (5) so, moral realism is true. Having done this, the introduction engages in two other tasks: first, it discusses the structure of the arguments for key premises of the core argument, such as premises (1) and (2) and second, it highlights a series of assumptions that are made in the book's discussion.

This chapter addresses three objections that might be raised against what is argued in the preceding chapters. The first objection is directed toward the core argument's first premise. It maintains that the existence of epistemic facts should lead us to believe not that moral facts exist, but that the first premise of the core argument is false. The second objection concerns the core argument's second premise. It states that, even if the arguments in chapters four through seven are sound, we do not have better reason than not to believe that epistemic facts exist. Finally, the third objection rejects the core argument's fourth premise. It asserts that even if it is true that moral facts exist, we cannot conclude that moral realism is true, for the latter position is also composed of claims regarding the nature of moral discourse and truth. The chapter contends that these objections can be answered. In particular, it is argued that the price of accepting moral and epistemic realism is lower than that of accepting moral and epistemic antirealism.

This chapter examines the debate about moral realism which can be found in current analytic philosophy and outlines the position of moral realism and anti-realism and the main arguments raised by proponents of both sides. It seems that a rational solution of the conflict between these very different perspectives is not possible, since realists and anti-realists not only disagree heavily about whether moral facts are ‘real’ in any meaningful sense, but also about the criteria for deciding upon this question. Moral realism has the burden of proof in this debate, and can only make a proper claim to be right if it can provide a rational justification of moral judgements. Traditional methodologies for such a justification of normative notions are considered and rejected as inappropriate to the task, including deduction, induction, and intuition.

A chapter on moral epistemology. Asks what, for the particularist, will count as a basic moral fact. Considers the modal status of such facts, arguing that they are contingent, but known a priori. Claims that this position is neither foundationalist nor coherentist. Ends by considering various suggestions that particularism cannot avoid some form of general scepticism in ethics.

This chapter outlines the chapter’s views on three fundamental substantive questions in jurisprudence regarding the relationship between law and political morality. These are: (1) What are the existence conditions of the criteria of legality in any community? (2) What are the constraints, if any, on the content of those criteria? (3) How do we construct the content of the law of any community? It is argued that conceptual analysis reveals that the existence conditions of the criteria of legality are social, not moral facts; that morality can be, but need not be, a criterion of legality; and that determining the content of law in any community is not an exercise in political morality.

If the argument up to Chapter 5 succeeds, we should accept not only that normative features are ingredient in the count-generation of speech, but also that some of these features are moral. So far, however, the argument does not imply that these facts are as realists say. Should we also accept this further claim? This chapter address this question by drawing out the implications of the argument offered in the previous chapters for three prominent types of antirealist position: the error theory, expressivism, and constructivism. The chapter attempts to anticipate some of the maneuvers available to friends of these views, considering the resources upon which they might draw to account for the normative dimensions of speech or, alternatively, to deny that we speak at all. The chapter concludes that we have compelling reasons to reject these views and to accept a realist understanding of moral facts.

Just as different sciences deal with different facts—say, physics versus biology—so we may ask a similar question about normative theories. Is normative political theory concerned with the same normative facts as moral theory or different ones? By developing an analogy with the sciences, this chapter argues that the normative facts of political theory belong to a higher—more coarse-grained—level than those of moral theory. The latter are multiply realizable by the former: competing facts at the moral level can underpin the same facts at the political one. Consequently, some questions that moral theories answer are indeterminate at the political level. This proposal offers a novel interpretation of John Rawls’s idea that, in public reasoning, we should abstract away from comprehensive moral doctrines. The chapter contrasts its distinction between facts at different levels with the distinction between admissible and inadmissible evidence, and discusses some implications for the practice of political theory.

Philosophers accept the deflationary package when they maintain that moral propositional content, properties, facts, and truth admit of a deflationary (or minimalist) treatment. Expressivists often present their position as if it were tailor made for the appropriation of the deflationary package, maintaining that adopting it would allow them to say just about everything that moral realists do without compromising their expressivism. It is not, however, easy to know whether this is true, as expressivists have said very little about what a deflationary account of moral properties would be. The project of this essay is to articulate such an account, which takes its inspiration from recent discussions about deflationism about truth, and to argue that expressivism does not fit well with it. The overall conclusion is that combining expressivism with deflationism is more challenging than many have assumed.

This chapter discusses the nature of moral realism, identifying desiderata that the view defended here (Compassionate Moral Realism) needs to meet. First, the general idea behind the moral realism/anti-realism distinction is described, drawing on Geoffrey Sayre-McCord’s work: the issue of whether morality lives up to its apparent importance and objectivity. Several approaches to defining the distinction are described and clarified. These approaches concern paradigmatic views, the literal truth of moral claims, stance-independent moral facts, and (drawing on Sharon Street’s work) an epistemic asymmetry between virtuous and vicious agents. It is claimed that it is sufficient for moral realism to hold if these semantic, metaphysical, and epistemic criteria are jointly satisfied. Certain robust metaphysical criteria such as metaphysical fundamentality are also considered, but are rejected as necessary conditions for moral realism.

The Usability Demand requires all moral theories to be usable for decision-making, arguably by each agent and on every occasion for decision-making. Chapter 3 first examines the ways in which common human epistemic deficiencies can cause a moral theory to fail the Usability Demand (lack of understanding; error, uncertainty, and ignorance [lack of belief] about relevant nonmoral facts; cognitive computational constraints; error, uncertainty, or ignorance about moral facts; and meta-moral error and uncertainty). Among these problems the book will focus on error and uncertainty about nonmoral facts. The chapter then describes the three salient responses to these problems: the Pragmatic, Austere, and Hybrid Responses. Finally, it lays out both conceptual rationales (such as the claim that the concept of morality requires usability) and goal-oriented rationales (such as the claim that a moral system must enhance social welfare) for accepting the Usability Demand.

Do irreducible moral and epistemic facts stand or fall together? In his critical engagement with Cuneo’s The Normative Web, Chris Heathwood maintains that they do not. Appealing to a version of the Open Question Argument, Heathwood argues that while reductionism in the moral domain is not feasible, it is so in the epistemic domain. Heathwood presents non-reductive realists with what appears to be a difficult choice: give up on either The Normative Web’s argument for non-reductive realism or the Open Question Argument. In this chapter, it is contended that non-reductive realists do not face this difficult choice. Central to the case is the claim that, while analyzing epistemic concepts in terms of descriptive ones has its attractions, it is considerably more challenging than Heathwood maintains. Some wider lessons are drawn by identifying the difficulties that face those who wish to defend a broadly reductive view of the epistemic domain.

Moral realism is sometimes defended by arguing that “moral facts” provide the best explanation for events or situations in the world. Sometimes the events and situations that are allegedly explained in this way are beliefs about value or moral beliefs. These arguments pose special problems. But there is also a more general difficulty. The argument that moral facts sometimes provide the best explanation for other facts in the world is undercut by the logic of supervenience. Moral properties apply, when they do, by virtue of other properties on which they supervene. But in every case where the instantiation of a moral property is supposed to explain something, the explanandum is equally well accounted for by the state of affairs upon which the alleged moral explanans is supervenenient. Or, leaving supervenience aside, any moral statement that we make is (among other things) a way of drawing attention to the explanatory power of a non-moral proposition.