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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 September 2015
In recent decades, the idea that moral facts are not discovered but constituted by some hypothetical procedure or the attitudes of rational agents has been gaining support inside and outside of religious ethics. Often referred to as constructivism, this metaethical view proposes that moral facts are constituted by the attitudes of agents, i.e., what people would agree under some rational or idealized procedures of construction, not by facts determined by independent moral reality.
1 Kraus, Oskar, “Introduction to the 1934 Edition,” in The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong, by Brentano, Franz Clemens (trans. Chisholm, Roderick M.; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969) 161–167Google Scholar, at 164–65. Analogously speaking, consider the properties of sound, such as speed, frequency, and loudness. Though these properties may not be thought of existing in a supersensible world of forms, they are fundamental characteristics of sound, which are epistemically accessible to us. Likewise, we can hold that moral properties are real and epistemically accessible to us.
2 Ethical naturalism is related to but not identical to philosophical naturalism and methodological naturalism. For more on the distinction, see Post, John F., “Naturalism,” in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (ed. Audi, Robert; Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995) 596–597Google Scholar, at 596.
3 Lovin, Robin W., Christian Realism and the New Realities (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008) 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 Ibid.
5 Lovin, Robin W., Reinhold Niebuhr and Christian Realism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995) 15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Ibid., 16.
7 Ibid., 13–14.
8 Ibid., 14. Italics in the original.
9 Strictly speaking, realism is primarily metaphysical, while fallibilism is epistemological. Realism does not entail fallibility, or vice versa.
10 Lovin, Christian Realism and the New Realities, 10.
11 Moore writes, “if a given thing possesses any kind of intrinsic value in a certain degree, then not only must that same thing possess it, under all circumstances, in the same degree, but also anything exactly like it, must, under all circumstances, possess it in exactly the same degree.” Moore, G. E., Philosophical Studies (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1922) 261Google Scholar.
12 Lovin, Reinhold Niebuhr and Christian Realism, 108.
13 In fact, Henry Sidgwick already addressed some of the popular misconceptions about ethical intuitionism in his classic text. See Sidgwick, Henry, Methods of Ethics (Hackett Publishing Company, 1981)Google Scholar.
14 Cornell realism is often associated with the work of David Brink, Richard Boyd, and Nicholas Sturgeon.
15 An inferential belief is always a belief inferred from another belief.
16 Intuitive beliefs should not be confused with infallible beliefs. Intuitive beliefs are prima facie correct, and thus they are defeasible on the basis of countervailing evidence grounded in the sources of non-inferential beliefs.
17 Cahill, Lisa Sowle, Sex, Gender, and Christian Ethics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996) 35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 Ibid., 2.
19 Ibid., 36.
20 Ibid., 2.
21 Ibid.
22 As an example of the latter, Cahill mentions a moral theology manual from the 1940’s. But I also think that the reading of natural law by John Finnis and Germain Grisez fits with this form of Thomism. Ibid., 48.
23 Ibid., 46.
24 Ibid., 76.
25 Ibid., 47–48.
26 On David Tracy's idea of “analogical imagination,” rooted in the Aristotelian and Thomistic tradition, Cahill agrees with Tracy that “[a]nalogy affirms similarity in difference, and true knowing without reduction.” Ibid., 71. Tracy writes, “The power of an analogical imagination as imagination was honored by Aristotle in his famous dictum ‘to spot the similar in the dissimilar is the mark of poetic genius.’” Tracy, David, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 1981) 410Google Scholar.
27 Cahill, Sex, Gender, and Christian Ethics, 50.
28 In a footnote, Cahill gives two examples of such thinkers: Joseph A. Di Noia and Fred Lawrence. Ibid., 280 (n. 72).
29 Ibid., 68. Italics in the original.
30 Ibid., 69.
31 Ibid. Italics in the original.
32 One should not confuse theological beliefs with moral beliefs, as the two kinds of beliefs may have different sources and different grounds for justification. From the fact that theological beliefs include moral beliefs, it does not follow that they must share the same epistemic sources or grounds for justification. For instance, in his response to Richard McCormick's critique of Hauerwas's ethics as being sectarian, Michael Banner defends Hauerwas. Banner writes, “Here McCormick simply misses the point that the universality of the Christian story, and thus the universality of the demands it makes on human action, are logically quite distinct from the universality of knowledge of that story and its demands; thus while denying the universality of the Gospel, we may still say with Bonhoeffer. . .that ‘the whole law and the whole Gospel belong equally to all men.’” Banner is correct in noting that the universality (i.e., universal scope) of the Christian Gospel is distinct from the universality (i.e., universal epistemic access) of knowledge of the Gospel. But he himself makes two mistakes. First, he fails to distinguish theological knowledge from moral knowledge. In McCormick's view, that basic moral knowledge and moral justifications do not exclusively belong to a community is part of the Christian story, which Hauerwas refuses to accept. Insofar as I can see, McCormick here is raising a question about the universal epistemic access to moral knowledge, not about theological knowledge. Banner, Michael C., Christian Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 33 (n.101)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
33 I think that it is important to clarify the use of the term “sectarian.” When this term was used by James Gustafson to refer to Hauerwas's ethics, he used it primarily in the sociological sense in the tradition of Ernst Troeltsch. When McCormick criticized Hauerwas (although McCormick himself did not use this term), McCormick was concerned with epistemic relativism, i.e., moral relativism with respect to justification. For Cahill's discussion on moral sectarianism, see Cahill, Sex, Gender, and Christian Ethics, 68.
34 Ibid., 57–58.
35 This is a difference between “being justified in believing that p” and “justifying a belief.” The latter is a process, not the epistemic ground of justification. See Alston, William P., “Two Types of Foundationalism,” The Journal of Philosophy 73 (1976) 165–185CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 173–78.
36 Schweiker, William, Responsibility and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) 40Google Scholar.
37 Ibid., 113.
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid.
40 Schweiker, William, Power, Value, and Conviction: Theological Ethics in the Postmodern Age (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1998) 69Google Scholar.
41 Schweiker, Responsibility and Christian Ethics, 114.
42 By internal realism, Schweiker is referring to the epistemological position once held by Hilary Putnam. According to internal realism, what makes something true is its warranted assertibility under ideal conditions which themselves we are able to determine in the course of inquiry. Internal realism holds that we cannot escape our own conceptual schemes in justifying a claim and knowing its truth. Putnam later gave up on internal realism in preference for a Wittgensteinian direct realism or what he calls commonsense realism. See Putnam, Hilary, Reason, Truth, and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and The Many Faces of Realism (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1987). Though Schweiker distinguishes internal realism and antirealism, I see the former as a species of the latter.
43 Schweiker, Responsibility and Christian Ethics, 108–9.
44 Ibid., 117–18.
45 Ibid., 118.
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid., 119.
48 Ibid., 110.
49 Ibid. Italics in the original.
50 Ibid., 111.
51 Ibid., 114.
52 Schweiker, Power, Value, and Conviction, 69.
53 Ibid. Italics in the original.
54 Ibid., 14.
55 Ibid., 76.
56 Schweiker, William, Theological Ethics and Global Dynamics: In the Time of Many Worlds (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004) 28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
57 I think that this is a Ricoeurian insight. See Ricoeur, Paul, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth: Texas Christian Univ. Press, 1976) 68Google Scholar.
58 Schweiker, Power, Value, and Conviction, 69. Italics in the original.
59 There are currently various formulations of moral realism in philosophy, and they may be organized around metaphysical, semantic, epistemic, explanatory, and other theses. See Miller, Christian B., “The Conditions of Moral Realism,” Journal of Philosophical Research 34 (2009) 123–155, at 124–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
60 Moral properties are attributes (e.g., right and wrong) that we ascribe to the (conscious) mental states of the moral agent as well as his/her/its actions. Note that we also ascribe moral properties to groups, institutions, and nations.
61 Dancy, Jonathan, “Two Conceptions of Moral Realism Part I,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 60 (1986) 167–187, at 167CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
62 For contemporary expressivist theories, see Gibbard, Allan, “Reasons of a Living Being,” in Foundations of Ethics: An Anthology (ed. Cuneo, Terence and Shafer-Landau; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007) 71–78Google Scholar; Blackburn, Simon, Ruling Passions: A Theory of Practical Reasoning (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.
63 For such proponents, see McDowell, John, “Values and Secondary Qualities,” in Foundations of Ethics: An Anthology (ed. Shafer-Landau, Russ and Cuneo, Terence; Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007) 137–44Google Scholar; Wiggins, David, “A Sensible Subjectivism,” in Foundations of Ethics: An Anthology (ed. Cuneo, Terence and Shafer-Landau, Russ; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007) 145–56Google Scholar.
64 This phrase is borrowed from John Mackie. See Mackie, J. L., Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (New York: Penguin, 1991)Google Scholar.
65 Blackburn, Simon, “How To Be an Ethical Realist,” in Foundations of Ethics: An Anthology (ed. Cuneo, Terence and Shafer-Landau, Russ; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007) 47–57, at 48Google Scholar.
66 The same view is also called quasi-realism.
67 Blackburn writes, “It is not as if the creature with a standing disposition to help those who have helped it does well because that is a virtue. Its being virtue is irrelevant to evolutionary biology.” Italics in the original. Blackburn, “How To Be an Ethical Realist,” 49.
68 Wiggins, “A Sensible Subjectivism,” 150.
69 Ibid.
70 For instance, if Gilbert Harman's view is correct, we have reason to doubt the objectivity of moral truth. See Harman, Gilbert, “Moral Relativism Defended,” in Foundations of Ethics: An Anthology (ed. Cuneo, Terence and Shafer-Landau, Russ; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007) 84–92Google Scholar.
71 Dancy, “Two Conceptions of Moral Realism Part I,” 168.
72 This is the view of Blackburn.
73 This is the view of Terry Horgan and Mark Timmons. See Horgan, Terry and Timmons, Mark, “New Wave Moral Realism Meets Moral Twin Earth,” in Foundations of Ethics: An Anthology (ed. Cuneo, Terence and Shafer-Landau, Russ; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007) 495–504Google Scholar.
74 Alston, William P., A Sensible Metaphysical Realism (Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 2001) 10Google Scholar.
75 Audi, Robert, Moral Knowledge and Ethical Character (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) 287Google Scholar.
76 Analytic reduction means that the meaning of any moral statement is synonymous with and thus reducible to that of a non-moral statement; their identicalness is analytically true, i.e., true in virtue of the meanings of their words. However, synthetic reduction means that, although moral terms and non-moral terms are not identical in meaning, their identifications are knowable only empirically.
77 See Railton, Peter, “Moral Realism,” in Foundations of Ethics: An Anthology (ed. Shafer-Landau, Russ and Cuneo, Terence; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007) 186–205Google Scholar.
78 I am borrowing and adapting an example from Linda Zagzebski's work on virtue epistemology. See Zagzebski, Linda, On Epistemology. (Belmont: CA: Wadsworth, 2009) 110.Google Scholar
79 Schweiker, Power, Value, and Conviction, 77.
80 Ibid., 78.