Abstract

This dissertation gives serious consideration to the challenge of ethical scepticism and to philosophers' efforts to identify objective reasons to be moral. After discussing classical attempts to identify an objective standard of goodness and rightness by which the question 'Why should I be moral?' can be answered, I examine the claims to moral objectivity that are made by the Judeo-Christian tradition, Plato, Aristotle, and Kant. After showing why each of these cases for the objectivity of morality is unsuccessful, I consider some contemporary attempts to identify objective reasons to be moral. The arguments addressed include those that have been advanced by Thomas Nagel, Alan Gewirth, and Stephen Darwall. My discussion leads to conclusions about the nature of both practical reason and morality. I conclude that although there are no objective values and no objective reasons for action, there is still a significant sense in which we can affirm the claim that there is a necessary connection between morality and practical reason.