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. (shrink)

The history of the thesis of the guise of the good between Kant and Anscombe is not well understood. This article examines a notable disagreement over the thesis during this period, between Green and Sidgwick. It shows that Green accepts versions of the thesis concerning action and desire in one sense of 'desire', and that Sidgwick rejects the thesis concerning both action and desire. It then considers why Green accepts the thesis, and assesses Sidgwick's criticism of Green. Despite the appearance (...) of a mere clash of intuitions, an interesting rationale for the thesis can be found in Green’s theory of free will and moral responsibility, of which I defend a broadly compatibilist interpretation. (shrink)

De Clercq (2012) proposes a strategy for denying purported graph-theoretic counterexamples to the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII), by assuming that any vertex is contained by multiple graphs. Duguid (2016) objects that De Clercq fails to show that the relevant vertices are discernible. Duguid is right, but De Clercq’s strategy can be rescued. This note clarifies what assumptions about graph ontology are needed by De Clercq, and shows that, given those assumptions, any two vertices are weakly discernible, and (...) so are not counterexamples to the version of PII that requires only weak discernibility. (shrink)