Moral Objectivity without Moral Facts

最近，非自然主义现实主义，即认为世界包含认识论上独立的、不可还原的道德事实的论点，显示出显著的复兴和增加的关注。这在很大程度上要归功于大卫·伊诺克颇具影响力的著作《认真对待道德》。在辩论的反现实主义方面，今天讨论的主要是非认知主义和相对主义理论。一种“中间立场”，即反实在论，既不是相对主义的，也不是非认知主义的，也不是一种错误理论，只是受到了极少的关注，尽管一位非常著名的哲学家克里斯平·赖特在几年前就将这一立场引入了这场辩论，并在此后的几篇文章中进一步发展了这一立场。然而，这种客观主义反实在论颇具吸引力：一方面，它避免了相对主义的臭名昭著的问题，以及非认知主义和错误理论的有问题的语义重构；另一方面，它分享了现实主义的关键优点，但没有抓住它的认识论问题。在目前的项目中，这种反现实主义的客观形态主要是通过与其强大的现实主义对手进行比较而得到证实的。伊诺克试图回答一个关键的认识论问题--我们的道德信念如何与认识论和因果关系上独立的事实相关？--已经被证明是完全有问题的。由于反现实主义没有面临这样的问题，本项目中倡导的客观主义反现实主义被证明是比现实主义更具优势的。尽管现实主义在从无懈可击的分歧中产生的进一步挑战--反实在论者必须采用非标准的真理概念并修正逻辑--方面略有优势，但总的来说，客观主义的反实在论是更可信的立场。然而，到目前为止，在该项目中，没有考虑到任何积极的论点，即它本身支持客观主义反现实主义。这一点将在项目的继续进行中予以弥补。基本的想法是这样的。《认真对待道德》中支持稳健现实主义的两个论点，对于客观主义反现实主义是有用的。无论如何，第一个论点“完全”支持客观主义，因此，只要它能够抵御其批评者，它就可以被客观主义反现实主义者直接采纳。关于第二个更重要的论点，旨在支持稳健的现实主义，应该争辩说，它没有表现出它应该表现的那么多，即。现实主义的似是而非，但它只是显示了客观主义的似是而非。如果令人信服，这一论点将提供支持客观主义反现实主义的充分理由。最后，为了完成整个项目，应将结果汇总在一起，出版成一本书，书名为《没有道德事实的道德客观性》。

Recently non-naturalist realism, i.e. the thesis that the world contains epistemically independent, irreducibly moral facts, shows a notable revival and increase in attention. To considerable extent this is due to David Enoch’s influential book “Taking Morality Seriously”. On the opposite, antirealist side of the debate, mostly non-cognitivist and relativist theories are discussed today. A position “in-between”, i.e. antirealism that is neither relativist nor non-cognitivist nor an error-theory, only gets marginal attention, although a very prominent philosopher, Crispin Wright, has introduced this position into the debate years ago and has further developed it since then in several articles. However, such objectivist antirealism is quite attractive: on the one side, it avoids the notorious problems of relativism and the problematic semantic reconstructions of non-cognitivism and error-theory; on the other side, it shares the crucial virtues of realism without catching its epistemological problems. In the current project, this objectivist shape of antirealism has been substantiated mostly in comparison to its robust realist rival. Enoch’s attempt to answer the crucial epistemological question – How are our moral beliefs correlated with the epistemically and causally independent facts? – has been shown to be utterly problematic. Since antirealism doesn’t face such kind of problem, the objectivist antirealism advocated in the current project turned out to have the edge over realism. Even though realism has a slight advantage as regards a further challenge that arises from the argument from faultless disagreement – antirealist have to adopt a non-standard conception of truth and to revise logic –, objectivist antirealism, on balance, is the much more plausible position. However, so far in the project, no positive argument has been taken into consideration that by itself speaks in favour of objectivist antirealism. This is to be made up for in the continuation of the project. The basic idea is this. The two arguments put forward in “Taking Morality Seriously” in favour of robust realism shall be made useful for objectivist antirealism. The first argument speaks “solely” in favour of objectivism, anyway, and, therefore, can be directly adopted by objectivist antirealists provided it can be defended against its critics. With respect to the second, more important argument that is intended to support robust realism it shall be argued that it doesn’t show so much as it is supposed to show, viz. the plausibility of realism, but rather that it solely shows the plausibility of objectivism. If compelling, this argument will offer good reasons that speak in favour of objectivist antirealism. Finally, for completing the overall project, the results shall be brought together and published in a book – working title “Moral Objectivity without Moral Facts”.