Quick questions on Moral realism and anti-realism explained: H2 Knowledge and Inquiry

Moral realism holds that there are objective moral facts, true independently of what any individual or culture believes, and that moral judgements aim to describe them. On this view "gratuitous cruelty is wrong" is true in much the way "the earth is round" is true: it reports a fact that does not depend on our attitudes. Realism comes in a naturalist version (moral facts are identical to or constituted by natural facts, such as facts about wellbeing or harm) and a non-naturalist version (moral facts are real but not reducible to natural ones).

Error theory, associated with Mackie, agrees with realism that moral judgements aim to state objective facts, but holds that there are no such facts, so all positive moral judgements are systematically false. It is a cognitivist but anti-realist view: moral discourse is a massive, well-intentioned error. Its appeal is metaphysical economy; its cost is that it makes every moral claim, including "torturing children for fun is wrong," literally false, which is deeply revisionary.

Constructivism offers a middle path. Moral truths are neither mind-independent facts nor mere expressions of feeling; they are constituted by what suitably idealised rational agents would agree to, or by the standards implicit in practical reasoning itself. This secures a kind of objectivity, the standards are not up to any individual, without positing queer mind-independent facts. Its challenge is to specify the relevant idealisation (which agents, under what conditions) without circularity or smuggling in the very values it is meant to ground.

The leading argument against realism is the argument from queerness. Objective moral facts would be metaphysically strange, intrinsically action-guiding in a way no natural fact is, and knowing them would seem to require a special faculty unlike ordinary perception; by parsimony we should deny them, which yields error theory. The leading argument for realism is the argument from moral experience: we experience some moral claims as simply true rather than as projections, and we reason about ethics as though seeking facts, revising our views in light of argument; realism best explains this moral phenomenology. Naturalist realists answer the queerness charge by identifying moral facts with natural ones, knowable by ordinary means, and non-naturalists reply that we accept non-natural truths elsewhere (in mathematics), so the charge proves too much.

Distinguish moral realism, error theory and expressivism. [6 marks]

Explain the argument from queerness and how a naturalist realist responds. [8 marks]

Explain how constructivism secures objectivity without mind-independent moral facts. [6 marks]