Abstract

What is it for a realist metaethical theory to be agent-focused? Is Huang’s metaethical realism agent-focused, as he claims? After dismissing as unviable some other ways of making sense of distinctively metaethical (rather than first-order) agent-focused-ness, this commentary explores the thought that for a realist metaethical theory to be agent-focused is for it to ground the realist metaphysical and semantic status of moral evaluations of actions in the realist metaphysical and semantic status of moral evaluations of agents. I argue that Huang’s theory is not—and, given his motivations, need not be—one of this kind, but rather is simply the conjunction of an agent-focused first-order ethical theory with a realist metaethical theory that isn’t distinctively metaethically agent-focused in any interesting way.