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Card 3.1.1 · Root III — Ethics and Axiology

Moral Realism vs Anti-Realism

If everyone approved of torturing children, would it still be wrong?

This node asks whether moral facts exist independently of what anyone thinks or feels about them.

From The Coordinates of Thought by Syed Raheel Shahzad, card 3.1.1, page 130

On this card
  1. Where it sits
  2. The rival answers
  3. Key figures
  4. Connections
  5. On Coordinates of Thought

Where it sits

Under 3.1 Meta-ethics. Borders 1.1 Ontology, 2.2.2 Reason and intuition, 3.1.3.

The rival answers

PositionMoral factsMind-independent?
Non-natural realismExist, irreducible to natural factsYes
Naturalist realismExist, and are natural facts about welfare or functionYes
Divine command realismExist, grounded in the divineYes, relative to creation
ConstructivismExist as outputs of idealised rational procedurePartly
RelativismExist relative to a frameworkNo
Quasi-realismTalk as if; earn the right to realist-sounding language from anti-realist foundationsNo
Error theoryDo not exist; all moral claims are false—

Key figures

FigureDatesTraditionContribution
Menciustrad. c. 372–289 BCEChineseThe child at the well; moral response as universal
Mu'tazili theologians8th–early 11th c.IslamicMoral facts accessible to reason
G. E. Moore1873–1958AnalyticGood is simple and unanalysable
J. L. Mackie1917–1981AnalyticQueerness and relativity arguments for error theory
Simon Blackburnb. 1944AnalyticQuasi-realism
Philippa Foot1920–2010AnalyticNatural goodness; moral facts as facts about species-life
Friedrich Nietzsche1844–1900GermanWidely read as denying objective moral facts; the interpretation is contested, and the global anti-realist reading is now largely rejected

Connections

→ 3.1 · ↔ 1.1, 1.1.4, 3.1.3, 2.2.2, 3.2 · ◇ moral realism, error theory, quasi-realism, relativism · ○ Axial Age; Modern; Table 5

→ narrower questions · ↔ questions it borders · ◇ the positions, mapped in Part III of the book · ○ the eras and comparison tables (Parts IV and V)

The full card is in the book

In The Coordinates of Thought this card goes on to a worked example that sets the answers against one case, and to where the question touches daily life — page 130.

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