Abstract
Metaethical constructivists have proposed many arguments against mind-independence moral realism. In this paper I resume the constructivist critique against realism on the grounds of considerations stemming from moral phenomenology. My claim is that constructivism, in contrast to moral mind-independence theories such as moral realism or quasi-realism, fares better in accounting for the phenomenology of moral practice and discourse. Given the importance of phenomenological investigation for metaethical theorizing as such, my argument shows that there is good reason to prefer constructivism over any kind of theory that endorses the mind-independence of morality.
Zusammenfassung
Innerhalb der konstruktivistischen Debatte in der Metaethik sind viele Argumente gegen den moralischen Realismus vorgestellt worden, nach welchem moralische Urteile durch die Existenz eines bewusstseinsunabhängigen Sets moralischer Tatsachen wahrgemacht werden. In vorliegendem Artikel greife ich die konstruktivistische Kritik am moralischen Realismus auf, indem ich ein neues Argument gegen den Realismus anführe, das sich auf die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung der moralischen Phänomenologie stützt. Genauer argumentiere ich dafür, dass der Konstruktivismus, gegenüber der realistischen Positionen, besser in der Lage ist, der moralischen Phänomenologie Rechnung zu tragen. Gegeben der Wichtigkeit der Frage, ob und wie eine metaethische Position in der Lage ist, der Phänomenologie Rechnung zu tragen, zeigt mein Argument, dass es gute Gründe gibt, den Konstruktivismus jedweder Position den Vorzug zu geben, die für die Eigenschaft der Bewusstseinsunabhängigkeit moralischer Tatsachen argumentiert.
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Notes
Note, however, that this differentiation is not sufficient in the sense that it aims to capture all the ways in which scholars refer to the term “realism”. There are surely even more ways (Sayre-McCord 1988) that I cannot discuss here.
I thank an anonymous reviewer for pressing me on this point.
It is thus important to note that my claim is not that merely because people in ordinary moral practice often deal with moral matters in whatever way that metaethical theories automatically have reason to account for these dealings. For instance, one may want to object that agents may have dealt with moral matters as if divine command theories were true. Now, it seems absurd that metaethical theories have any reason to make sense of these dealings. In the case of the relativist interpretation of morality, however, things are different because this interpretation can indeed be explained and supported by scientific inquiry stemming from philosophy, anthropology and psychology. The same is arguably not true in the case of agents dealing with morality as if moral matters were commanded by god.
It needs to be highlighted that this argument regarding agents’ dealings with morality in a relativist sense is not directed against moral realism but rather against MI-theories. Thus, I do not mean to imply that agents’ thinking of morality in relativist terms implies the truth of anti-realism, for this would clearly be a problematic claim. After all, as mentioned above, it is possible to understand moral relativism in realist terms.
By focusing on the dispute between Kantianism and Humeanism I want to imply neither that Humeanism is the only brand of relativism nor that Kantianism is the only form of objectivism in the constructivist camp (cf. Brink 1989).
There are constructivists who reject any relativist interpretation of moral truth-conditions from the outset, though. James, for instance, claims that constructivism offers an alternative to both moral realism and skepticism, where the latter includes the relativist position (2013). The problem with this proposal, however, is that it leaves totally unclear what to do with constructivist positions that openly endorse relativism. Taking the objection seriously, one would be forced to accept that any constructivist position that accepts relativism cannot be understood as a constructivist position. But this seems absurd for not only do such constructivist relativist positions exist, but moreover there seems nothing genuinely anti-constructivist about them.
I thank Monika Betzler for pointing this out to me.
I thank Jan-Christoph Heilinger for this objection.
I thank an anonymous reviewer for this objection.
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Kalde, D. Against Moral Mind-Independence: Metaethical Constructivism and the Argument from Moral Phenomenology. ZEMO 2, 59–74 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42048-019-00034-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42048-019-00034-7