Moral Progress Without Moral Realism

Philosophical Papers 39 (1):97-116 (2010)
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Abstract

This paper argues that we can acknowledge the existence of moral truths and moral progress without being committed to moral realism. Rather than defending this claim through the more familiar route of the attempted analysis of the ontological commitments of moral claims, I show how moral belief change for the better shares certain features with theoretical progress in the natural sciences. Proponents of the better theory are able to convince their peers that it is formally and empirically superior to its rivals, and the better theory may be promoted to the status of the truth. Yet there is no 'decision-procedure' for ethics any more than there is for molecular biology. The betterness of true theories can be grasped through what I term 'undirectional narratives' of progress. And while there are true moral claims and perhaps numerous moral truths yet to be discovered, we should reject currently popular forms of moral realism with bivalence. Some moral claims lend themselves to the construction of fully reversible, bi-directional narratives and are likely neither true nor false

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Catherine Wilson
CUNY Graduate Center

Citations of this work

The dynamics of moral progress.Julia Hermann - 2019 - Ratio 32 (4):300-311.
Slavery, Carbon, and Moral Progress.Dale Jamieson - 2017 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 20 (1):169-183.
Moral Progress and Evolution: Knowledge Versus Understanding.Eleonora Severini - 2021 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 24 (1):87-105.

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References found in this work

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas S. Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Ian Hacking.
Truth and objectivity.Crispin Wright - 1992 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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