Metaethical subjectivism and metaethical objectivism - Ashgate

Chapter 1 

Metaethical Subjectivism and 

Metaethical Objectivism 

The mathematician John Allen Paulos (1988, pp. 124–25) provides a 

problem he credits to Pascal. Two men bet $100 on who will win six coin 

tosses first. The game is interrupted after eight tosses with the first man 

winning five times and the second man winning three times. The 

contestants had made no agreement as to what would be done if the 

game were interrupted. So, how much money should change hands? 

One view is that the first man should win the $100 because he was 

leading when the game ended. Another view is that no money should 

change hands because the game was not completed. A third view is that 

the second man should award the first man 5 = 8 of the wager, which 

represents the percentage of coin tosses the first man won. A fourth 

view, which Paulos claims that Pascal favors, is that the second man 

should award the first man 7 = 8 of the wager: Had the game not been 

interrupted, the probability that the first man would have won is 7 = 8 . 

(The second man needs to win three tosses in a row, which has the 

probability of 1 = 2 6 1 = 2 6 1 = 2 ¼ 1 = 8 , thereby making the first man 7 = 8 likely 

to win.) So, which of these four options is the most fair? I believe that 

there is no answer to this question, just as there are no objectively true 

answers to moral questions per se. 

I shall argue that if metaethical objectivism were true, there would be 

answers to all sorts of moral problems that we acknowledge to be not 

only unascertainable, but to lack answers altogether. Examples of such 

substantive moral claims include: 

. ‘In situation X, we should do a, all things considered.’ 

. ‘Reducing pain (to some specified degree) is more intrinsically 

valuable, ceteris paribus, than increasing pleasure (to some 

specified degree).’ 

. ‘Being merciful to a certain degree is a better character virtue than 

being just to a certain degree.’ 

. ‘It is worse (better) to deceive oneself than to deceive another.’ 

. ‘Preference act utilitarianism is a better moral theory overall than 

Kantian deontology.’ 

. It is a character flaw to be able to watch a sports event only if one 

roots for one of the teams or contestants.’ 

1

2 Metaethical Subjectivism 

. ‘S deserves blame in this instance for doing a.’ 

. ‘Famous minority athletes should speak out in issues concerning 

social injustices within their sports.’ 

. ‘One should not try to be all things to all people.’ 

. ‘One may never do evil, even if doing so is stipulated to prevent a 

greater amount of evil of the same kind.’ 

. ‘Prosperous nations have a greater moral obligation to help their 

least prosperous citizens than they do to help much needier 

persons in less prosperous nations.’ 

. ‘It is better (worse) for our children to be overly optimistic, poor 

epistemic agents, who are energized and happy than it is for them 

to be good epistemic agents, whose accurate cognitions make 

them depressed and unsuccessful’ (Seligman, 1998). 

These are examples of the many problems in normative ethics that I 

believe we can parlay into three strong arguments for metaethical 

subjectivism. 

In section 1 of this chapter, I preface what I mean by ‘metaethical 

subjectivism.’ In section 2, I define ‘subjectivism’ and ‘objectivism’ for 

the three main areas of morality that I emphasize in this book: theory of 

moral obligation, theory of intrinsic value, and theory of character 

virtues. In sections 3 and 4, I discuss two types of meta-level 

methodological principles – metaphilosophies and intermediate-level 

philosophical principles – which motivate my overall argument. In 

section 5, I make explicit the presuppositions underlying my main 

argument of the book. In section 6, I anticipate an objection to that 

argument. 

1 Metaethical subjectivism 

Given the meta-level assumptions I elaborate in this chapter, the rest of 

the relevant beliefs I think are justified, and our conflicted moral 

intuitions over a multitude of moral issues, it is plausible (more than 0.5 

per cent likely) to think that there are no objectively true answers to the 

main question for normative ethics, namely, ‘What should we do, all 

things considered (taking into account moral obligation, intrinsic value, 

virtue, and all other relevant considerations)?’ Although the familiar 

philosophical theories of moral obligation, intrinsic value, and character 

virtues have much, and sometimes decisive things, to say regarding the 

primary question, they speak in contradictory, conflicting, and 

incomplete voices, and, therefore, the most reasonable conclusion is 

metaethical subjectivism. 

If we look at the situation from far enough away (from Thomas 

Nagel’s view from nowhere), we see that the main components of

Metaethical Subjectivism and Metaethical Objectivism 3 

normative ethics – the theories of obligation, value, and virtue – are 

likely to be all objectively or all subjectively grounded. Questions about 

the reality of minds, personal identity, physical objects, abstract entities, 

and the existence of God are logically separate issues, which allow for 

creative metaphysicians to put together answers in various ways. The 

three major components of normative ethics, on the other hand, are 

intimately linked due to the contributions they make to the main moral 

question, ‘What should we do?’ Therefore, morality is more likely than 

nonmoral areas collectively to be entirely objective or entirely 

subjective. For example, if there were little reason to think that ‘What 

should we do?’ takes an objective answer, there would be little reason to 

think that the theories of moral obligation, value, and virtue are 

metaethically objective either. On the other hand, if obligation, value, 

and virtue were taken to be ontologically subjective, there would be 

little reason to think ‘What should we do?’ would take an objective 

answer. Even within the three components, it is difficult to see how, for 

example, two of the components might be objectively grounded and one 

of them subjective, or vice versa. The upshot is that if we can find some 

plausible reasons for subjectivizing any part of moral theory, we will 

thereby have a plausible reason to subjectivize the whole of moral 

metaphysics. 

Mine is not the first argument from normative ethics to metaethical 

subjectivism. 1 J. L. Mackie (1977) provides two well-known arguments: 

the argument from the multiplicity of theories of moral obligation (the 

relativity argument) and the argument that moral properties would have 

to exemplify the strange combination of existing, yet be essentially 

motivating, a combination we posit nowhere else in our ontologies (the 

argument from queerness). Unfortunately, most metaethical objectivists 

think they have adequate ripostes to Mackie’s arguments. My argument 

in this book is in the spirit of Mackie’s, but it differs. Because I believe 

that moral obligation contributes only a small part of the answer to the 

what-should-we-do question, to find a metaethically objective moral 

theory, we should also use considerations from the theories of intrinsic 

value, character virtues, and other sources. When we attempt this 

holistic project, I think it becomes evident that any theory that there are 

moral truths would have to be ‘queer,’ not because they must satisfy 

Mackie’s internalism, but because their disorderliness makes subjectivism 

a better explanation for them than objectivism. 

An obvious question to ask the author of any book such as this is 

how damaging to metaethical objectivism are the much-discussed 

standard objections to moral theories. (See Slote, 1992 for objections to 

commonsense, Kantian, and utilitarian theories; Mason, ed., 1996, for 

discussions of moral dilemmas; Stocker, 1990, for an extended 

consideration of moral pluralism.) I think such objections are strong 

reasons for adopting metaethical subjectivism. Nonetheless, I shall not


rely on that literature. First, such objections are almost always treated 

as threats to normative theory, not metaethical objectivism, which is my 

target. (Bernard Williams, 1973 offers some suggestions about the 

metaethics of ‘ought’ statements, but does not push very hard.) Second, 

such objections, when typically examined in narrow detail, inevitably 

invite the objectivists’ stock reply that the fact that we do not know what 

the correct answers are does not mean there are no correct answers – as 

if this truism rebuts the subjectivist challenge. Third, I propose three 

different challenges to metaethical objectivism that I believe are broader 

and more difficult to stalemate than are the more familiar subjectivist 

arguments, good as I think many of them are. 

2 Objectivism and subjectivism in three areas 

In order to pin down my talk about ‘objectively true,’ here is how I 

understand ‘metaethical objectivism’ when applied to the three main 

parts of normative ethics I consider in this book: 

. Objectivist Moral Obligation: ‘Actions may be permissible even if 

all persons believe them to be forbidden, and may be forbidden 

even if all persons believe them to be permissible.’ 

. Objectivist Intrinsic Value: ‘Actions (states of affairs and ways of 

life) may be intrinsically valuable even if all persons believe them 

not to be, and may lack intrinsic value even if all persons believe 

them to be intrinsically valuable.’ 

. Objectivist Character Virtue: ‘Character traits may be virtuous 

even if all persons believe them not to be, and may lack virtue 

even if all persons believe them to be virtuous.’ 

Metaethical subjectivism (moral nonrealism) 

As the logical contradictory of metaethical objectivism (moral realism), 

I also equate in a single view the separately labeled theories of 

metaethical subjectivism or moral nonrealism. For me, metaethical 

subjectivism is the ontological position expressed by John Steinbeck’s 

preacher in The Grapes of Wrath: ‘There ain’t no sin, and there ain’t no 

virtue. There’s just stuff people do,’ and by Hamlet: ‘There is nothing 

either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’ Nietzsche expressed 

metaethical subjectivism this way: ‘[T]here are altogether no moral facts. 

Moral judgments agree with religious ones in believing in realities which 

are no realities’ (Nietzsche, 1954, p. 501). My version of metaethical 

subjectivism proffers no account of what we mistakenly take moral facts 

to be, but simply denies that there are objective moral truths as defined 

above.


Metaethical subjectivism is different from noncognitivism, the 

philosophy of language thesis that moral judgments lack truth-values 

because they are, for example, expressions of emotion or approval of 

norms, attempts at persuasion, or prescriptions. Although all the 

noncognitivists I know turn out to be metaethical subjectivists in my 

sense, I view noncognitivism as a way to argue for subjectivism, to be 

distinguished from subjectivism-the-metaphysical-theory, which is my 

thesis. To see the difference we need only consider the two conceptual 

possibilities that each thesis is true and the other is false. First, 

subjectivism might be true, even if our best philosophy of language 

decides that most moral judgments (those other than pure emotive 

ejaculations) must be treated as indicative statements and, thus, all 

general noncognitive analyses fail. I think ‘X is wrong’ means ‘X is 

forbidden’ or ‘Not X is obligatory’ or some other real synonym – it 

means X is really wrong, just as common sense assumes. 

Moreover, although moral language is used to express feelings, to 

recommend, to alter attitudes, to make prescriptions, and to perform 

other illocutionary acts, the very multiplicity of these functions seems to 

me strong reason to think that the meaning of moral utterances cannot 

be reduced to just one of these various roles. (Recall the Wittgensteinian/Austinian 

point that language has many functions.) Thus, it 

seems to me implausible on the face of it to try to show that the body of 

ostensibly indicative moral judgments is really so many commands, 

prescriptions, and so on. To use a Wittgensteinianism, only someone 

deeply under the spell of a philosophical program (for example the 

remains of a logical positivist methodology) would believe this. 

The second conceptual possibility is that there might exist objective 

moral facts, even if some variety of noncognitivism fully accounts for 

the meanings of moral judgments. For example, it is conceivable that 

God might exist, even if some linguistic philosophers were (contrary to 

fact) correct in thinking that all apparently referential statements such 

as ‘God loves us’ really mean statements such as ‘I have confidence in 

the future.’ These two possibilities show that metaethical subjectivism, 

as I portray it, and noncognitivism are not equivalent and, indeed, do 

not belong in the same logical categories; subjectivism belongs to the 

metaphysics of ethics and noncognitivism belongs to the philosophy of 

language. 

Besides not being committed to any noncognitivist theory of moral 

language, metaethical subjectivists in my sense are not committed to any 

specific cognitivist account either. For anyone who distinguishes 

between the metaphysics of morals and the philosophy of language, 

J. L. Mackie was right to hold ‘The denial that there are objective values 

does not commit one to any particular view of what moral statements 

mean’ (1977, p. 18). Cautious metaethical subjectivists will resist being 

dragged into the latter issue. Thus, subjectivists need not hold that


moral claims mean the same thing as autobiographical or sociological 

claims, a point A. J. Ayer emphasized in Language, Truth, and Logic 

(1952, p. 107). For me, subjectivism does not claim that ‘X is wrong’ 

means or has the same truth condition as ‘I (or my society) disapprove 

of X.’ Nor, on my account, do moral judgments such as ‘X is wrong’ 

mean or even have the same truth conditions as more subtle claims such 

as ‘X has a feature that has the disposition to elicit the disapproval of 

normal humans’ or ‘Normal humans disapprove of X.’ Because 

metaethical subjectivism is the contradictory of metaethical objectivism, 

it simply denies that ‘X is wrong’ is capable of being objectively true. 

Regarding the distinction between noncognitivism and error theory, 

the former holds that moral judgments can be neither true nor false 

because they make no statements that are capable of being true or false. 

So, Ayer’s emotive account of moral language, though consistent with 

metaethical subjectivism in my sense, holds that moral judgments lack 

truth-values. A view such as Mackie’s, which offers an ontologically 

subjectivist metaethics but not a noncognitivist theory of moral 

judgment, holds that moral terms purport to refer but fail. This is an 

error theory, which holds that all moral judgments are false in the way 

that ‘God is merciful’ is false, according to the atheist. Although I 

accept some noncognitivist accounts of some moral language, I do not 

endorse noncognitivism, and, thus, am an error theorist. 

One may object: ‘If we accept subjectivism’s error theory, we see 

ourselves as speaking falsely when we seem to morally disagree; 

recognizing that this is the case, why do we continue to worry about 

moral disagreements?’ My answer is two-part. First, it is easy for even a 

subjectivist to get caught up in the heat of moral discourse and 

temporarily talk with the objectivists as if moral judgments are true. 

Subjectivists care passionately about moral issues, too. Second, despite 

our tendency to treat subjective judgments as objective, accepting 

subjectivism can help us to see that our passionate disagreements are 

not disputes over truth. Suppose a theist were deeply worried over how 

God, a morally perfect Being, could be both supremely just and 

supremely merciful? Here a subjectivist could reduce the passion by 

pointing out that the question presupposes metaethical objectivism: If 

we are subjectivists, then saying one of these qualities is morally better 

than the other must be an error. Although many persons prefer one trait 

to another, this preference is not grounded in moral facts about God, 

but rather in facts about the inquirers’ psychological constitutions. 

3 Metaphilosophies 

Philosophers try to accomplish different things by their moral 

theorizing. Some want to provide theoretical support for a moral


theory (Kagan, 1989). Others wish to provide theoretical support for 

moral institutions (Gauthier, 1986; Rawls, 1971). Others combine moral 

theory and practice, trying in their philosophical work to make 

audiences morally better persons (Bernstein, 1998; Noddings, 1974; 

Singer, 1972). Some want to find a place for reason in ethics (Rachels, 

1998). Some want to make sense out of their moral feelings by 

systematizing their moral intuitions, attitudes, and beliefs (Nagel, 1979, 

1986, 1991). Others want to contribute to the critical acumen of moral 

theorizing without promulgating any single normative theory (Williams, 

1981, 1997). Others, whose aim I share, want above all else to construct 

a picture of normative ethics and metaethics that integrates their vision 

of moral theory into the rest of their most plausible nonmoral theory 

(Harman, 1977; Mackie, 1977). 

I use ‘metaphilosophy’ to mean a view of what philosophy is and 

what it is used for (Double, 1996). Any view of the purpose of a complex 

human activity (art, science, Little League baseball) is normative, 

because it reveals not only what we believe the activity can do, but what 

we desire the activity to accomplish or what goals of the activity we 

value. Metaphilosophies underpin our philosophical theorizing. Different 

philosophers bring different metaphilosophical stances to the 

problem of metaethics. 

Although a larger taxonomy might be more useful, I limit my 

discussion to two. The metaphilosophy I endorse is Philosophy as 

Worldview Construction. Worldview metaphilosophy tries to construct 

an overall view of reality that is most likely to be accurate given our 

most reliable sources of evidence. The particular shape that Worldview 

metaphilosophy takes owes to the intermediate-level methodological 

principles we add to our metaphilosophies. Generally speaking, I take 

what I regard as the best truth-finding methods of non-positivist-science 

and enlightened common sense as the models for philosophical theory 

construction: letting entities into our worldview by inference to the best 

explanation and excluding them by Occam’s razor. Philosophy as 

Worldview Construction, however, need not be enamored of scientific 

methods. For example, Worldview thinkers might think that phenomenology, 

synthetic a priori intuition, careful attention to ordinary 

language, appeal to commonsense beliefs, or Divine revelation are 

better ways to reach the most accurate worldview. Worldview thinkers 

may or may not sympathize with the other motivations that drive other 

philosophers, but, by definition, Worldview thinkers never allow those 

other considerations to have any weight in their attempt to arrive at the 

most plausible worldview, however ennobling or dispiriting that view 

may be. 

The most important opponent to Worldview metaphilosophy, 

Philosophy as Praxis, sees philosophy as at least partly an instrument 

to make the world a better place, as exemplified in Marx’s claim in his


11th thesis against Feuerbach that the point of philosophy is not to 

interpret the world, but to change it (Feuer, 1959, p. 245). Some Praxis 

metaphilosophers value worldview-building more than others do, but, 

by definition, all Praxis thinkers weigh what they see as the practical 

benefits of philosophizing against the purely theoretical aims of 

Worldview metaphilosophers. 

A Praxis thinker might think that moral urgency justifies giving nonevidential, 

practical considerations an evidential role in the picture of 

the world we construct. For example, the metaethical objectivist David 

Brink argues: 

If . . . rejection of moral realism would undermine the nature of existing 

practices and beliefs, then the metaphysical queerness of moral realism may 

seem a small price to pay to preserve these practices and beliefs. I am not 

claiming that the presumption in favor of moral realism could not be 

overturned on a posteriori metaphysical grounds. I am claiming only that 

we could not determine the appropriate reaction to the success of this 

[Mackie’s, R.D.] metaphysical argument until we determined, among other 

things, the strength of the presumption in favor of moral realism. (Brink, 

1989, pp. 173–74) 

Here Brink considers counting the Praxis desirability of believing in 

moral realism (objectivism) against the argument from ontological 

simplicity provided by Mackie to claim that our overall ontological 

picture should contain objective moral truths. This reasoning is similar 

to the sort William James allowed regarding the existence of God and 

libertarian free will. I reject this kind of Praxis argument because it 

assigns weight in ontological theory construction to a factor that does 

not increase the probability of the hoped-for truths. Such wishful 

thinking violates Worldview scruples, although I admit that in dire 

enough cases it is permissible or, arguably, even morally obligatory to 

let down our guard against wishful thinking (Double, 1988). 

Here is another example of the difference between Worldview and 

Praxis metaphilosophers. In the Supplement to Macmillan’s Encyclopedia 

of Philosophy (1996), Simon Blackburn reports a familiar 

objection against Mackie’s argument from the queerness of moral 

properties. Critics say that Mackie suffers 

from an over simple, ‘scientistic’ conception of the kind of thing as moral 

fact would have to be. Perhaps more fundamentally, it is not clear what 

clean, error-free practice the error theorist would wish to substitute for the 

old, error-prone ethics. That is, assuming that people living together have a 

need for shared practical norms, then some way of expressing and discussing 

those norms seems to be needed, and this is all that ethics requires. 

(Blackburn, 1996, p. 145)


In my terms, Mackie approaches metaethics from a Worldview 

perspective. For Mackie and me, if one intends to build a picture of 

the place of morality in the world, why not use the same methods that 

work best in the rest of our philosophical and scientific theory 

construction? Some of Mackie’s critics, however, as expressed by 

Blackburn, evince an additional, Praxis, motivation. Notice the end of 

the quote in which ‘some way of expressing and discussing those (moral) 

norms’ is held to be ‘all that ethics requires.’ Notice also Blackburn’s 

implicit demand for a description of a ‘clean, error-free practice’ from 

Mackie – as if the plausibility of Mackie’s metaphysical account 

depends on what advantages it can provide for moral decision-making. I 

suggest that Mackie and those critics Blackburn characterizes are 

working at metaphilosophical cross-purposes. Mackie wants to 

construct a worldview, whereas those critics want ethics to ‘work.’ 2 

Because, in my view, subjectivism is probably better for normative 

theorizing and moral practice than is objectivism, Praxis-based defenses 

of objectivism are ill conceived. (See the final chapter of this book.) 

Nonetheless, some Praxis thinkers engage in metaethics not because 

they have a deep interest in ontology, but because they think that to call 

normative theories ‘subjective’ is to cast an aspersion upon normative 

theory. 

4 Intermediate-level methodological principles 

Metaphilosophies are combinations of beliefs and desires that 

characterize what philosophers think philosophy is and should be. 

Philosophers also differ due to the various strategic principles they use, 

which I call ‘intermediate-level methodological principles.’ Intermediate-level 

principles are characteristic of differing ways of approaching 

philosophy. To help clarify my motivation for accepting metaethical 

subjectivism, I clarify why I endorse the intermediate principles I do, but 

I do not pretend to provide much argument for them. For one thing, 

metaphilosophies largely drive intermediate principles, and metaphilosophies 

themselves are desire-driven, which means to me that the latter 

can be neither true nor false. For another, the intermediate principles 

that purport to be truth tracking are so broad that they are well 

removed from empirical support or disconfirmation. So, there is a lot of 

room for disagreement over which principles are better truth-trackers. 

Here are some of the most important ones for moral theory, which can 

be viewed as differing answers to the following questions. I endorse the 

‘a’ position in each case. 

(1) Shall we accept the same theory of truth for nonmoral and moral 

statements ? For the sake of methodological coherence, which is a


Worldview desideratum, I think it is a virtue of any philosophical 

worldview to be unified regarding its theory of truth. 

1a. We shall give a high priority to using the same theory of truth for 

nonmoral and moral statements. 

1b. We shall not give a high priority to using the same theory of truth 

for nonmoral and moral statements. 

(2) Shall we adopt a correspondence or non-correspondence theory of 

nonmoral truth ? This principle is driven primarily by one’s preference 

for realism or idealism (anti-realism). My reason for adopting the 

correspondence theory is that non-correspondence theories make sense 

to me only if we accept idealism, as with Berkeley, or in the pragmatist/ 

postmodernist conflation of epistemology and metaphysics. I think 

idealism is a worse explanation of our sensory stimulations than 

realism, but this is scarcely the place to try to prove the point. I have 

noticed in conversation that some critics of metaethical subjectivism 

take comfort from what they perceive as contemporary physics’s 

dalliance with idealism. Perhaps their thought is: ‘If everything is 

subjective, then morality is no worse than non-moral theory.’ This 

strikes me as Pyrrhic consolation. 

2a. We shall adopt a correspondence theory of truth in general. 

2b. We shall adopt a non-correspondence theory of truth in general. 

(3) Shall we use the same epistemological and other methodological tools 

in metaethical theory-construction as we do in nonmoral theoryconstruction 

? Many Worldview thinkers endorse it, but Aristotle and 

Thomas Nagel are renowned for thinking that philosophers should use 

different methodologies for moral than for nonmoral subject matters. I 

believe that the onus of proof is on theorists who believe that different 

methods are appropriate for the moral and nonmoral. Aristotle’s and 

Nagel’s claims would be acceptable if and only if we had antecedent 

reason to believe that objective moral theories were different from 

objective nonmoral theory. But that supposition is exactly what is in 

dispute, and it would be question-begging to use it as a methodological 

principle to resist metaethical subjectivism. 

3a. In lieu of strong reasons to the contrary, we shall use the same 

epistemological and other methodological tools in metaethical theory 

construction as we do in nonmoral theory construction. 

3b. Even without strong antecedent reasons to the contrary, we may use 

different epistemological and other methodological tools in metaethical 

theory construction than we do in nonmoral theory construction.


(4) Are desires incapable of being true or may desires be true ? I take 

desires in a Humean manner, that is, as logically incapable of being true. 

In John Searle’s terminology, a desire has a world-to-mind fit (condition 

of satisfaction): A desire is satisfied when the world gives us what we 

want. Desires may take evaluative predicates such as ‘good,’ ‘magnanimous,’ 

and ‘wicked,’ but none of these comes close to the notion of 

‘true.’ Accordingly, the only sense I can give to ‘true desires’ is ‘desires 

that some persons really have.’ Beliefs, on the other hand, have a mindto-world 

fit, which means that beliefs are satisfied when the world 

matches the way we think the world is. 

4a. Desires cannot be literally true. 

4b. Desires can be literally true. 

5 Presuppositions of the main argument 

Because one cannot argue without presuppositions, I might as well try 

to indicate what mine are and why I hold them. So far as I can discover 

them, the presuppositions driving the main thesis of this book are as 

follows. 

(1) We can distinguish between moral judgments and nonmoral 

judgments. We can do this in at least two ways. First, we may make 

the distinction according to the speech-acts made by asserting the two. 

Making moral judgments entails evaluating, not just describing, human 

behavior in terms of its connection to human well-being. Making 

nonmoral judgments does not involve performing evaluations. Using 

the speech-act criterion, there may be some borderline cases. Second, we 

could make the distinction by saying that moral judgments, unlike 

nonmoral judgments, predicate paradigmatically moral terms such as 

‘good,’ ‘bad,’ ‘right,’ ‘wrong,’ ‘intrinsically valuable,’ ‘wicked,’ ‘laudable,’ 

and so on. Here, too, there are borderline cases. Borderlines not 

withstanding, if we could not make out the difference between moral 

and nonmoral judgments, it is difficult to see how we could pose 

questions about moral practice, moral theories, or metaethics. 

(2) For any type of discourse, philosophically it is an open question: (a) 

whether that discourse is capable of being true or not, and (b) if we 

decide it is capable of being true, what factors could make that type of 

discourse true? 

(3) Consider nonmoral judgments that presume that nonlinguistic 

entities exist, for example, judgments that atoms, medium-sized physical 

objects, persons’ psychological states, and collective social practices


exist. Here lay open questions, to be decided on whatever grounds one 

uses in metaphysics generally. (My naturalistic view is that all four levels 

exist in a pyramid fashion, each layer being ontologically dependent on 

the previous layers, but that presupposition is not needed for the 

purpose of this book.) We can defend the existence of each of the four 

types of entities by appealing to principles of theory construction, such 

as explanatory power, predictive power, and parsimony. 

(4) Consider nonmoral judgments that we take to be capable of being 

true, but are unsure whether their truth requires nonlinguistically and 

nonconventional entities to make them true. Examples include 

mathematics, probability theory, logic, and the rules of games, social 

practices, laws, and etiquette. These areas may provide suggestive 

models for theories of objective moral judgments, but because the 

judgments they sanction (‘Bishops may move only diagonally’) are not 

moral judgments themselves, they provide no direct evidence that moral 

judgments are capable of being true. 

(5) Nonmoral judgments have an initially strong claim to being 

objectively true, and also to require nonlinguistically and nonconventional 

(‘realistic’) entities to provide their truth conditions. For example, 

postulating that Newton’s gravitational constant applies to objective 

spatio-temporal entities permits us to make disconfirmable, confirmed 

predictions of countless phenomena. Psychological postulations, though 

more controversial, function in a similar fashion. For example, the 

postulation of belief perseverance predicts that as we lose manual 

dexterity due to Parkinson’s disease we will tend to be late in meeting 

appointments (because we will tend to believe we can do things as 

quickly as we once could). 

(6) Moral judgments, although presumed to be true by common sense, 

less obviously require realistic truth conditions than do nonmoral 

judgments. As Hume and Mackie aver, it is easier to trip over a 

murdered body than to trip over the evil of the murder. 

(7) To make a great deal out of these apparent differences between 

nonmoral and moral theory would be to beg the central metaethical 

question. To someone undecided about the debate between the moral 

objectivists and subjectivists, the differences between nonmoral and 

moral theory seem only a matter of degree. Nonmoral theory is 

primary, both logically and historically, but that hardly proves much. 

Must nonmoral theory actually produce a true answer to each nonmoral 

question? No. So, in terms I shall use in chapter 2, nonmoral theory 

need be neither knowably sound (give only true answers to moral 

questions) nor knowably complete (give all the true answers there are to


moral questions). Must nonmoral theory in principle have a more 

inclusive body of entities within which the answers to moral questions 

reside? Yes. We assume there is a true nonmoral theory that could serve 

to provide true answers to all questions if only we were smart enough to 

fully understand the theory. So, we assume that there is a nonmoral 

theory that is in-principle sound and complete. 

(8) I do not believe that moral judgments possess the same degree of inprinciple 

soundness and completeness that nonmoral judgments enjoy. I 

try to show this assumption is well founded by providing the three 

arguments found in chapters 5–8. But soundness and completeness are 

necessary requirements of any metaphysically objective theory, nonmoral 

or moral. The more infrequent, fragmentary, and sporadic the 

answers a theory gives, the more reason we have to suppose we have 

gotten a hold of non-objective subject matter – feelings, attitudes, and 

false beliefs. This is why this book can be short. Because any moral 

theory that fails to meet soundness and completeness cannot be 

metaethically objective, that verdict holds irrespective of whether the 

moral theory is naturalistic, non-naturalistic, constructivist, relativist, 

egoistic, and so on. If my arguments are plausible, I do not have to 

attend to the objectivist opposition on a case-by-case (theory-by-theory) 

manner. 

(9) Assuming all this as a backdrop to the argument of this book, it does 

not follow that moral judgments cannot take nonlinguistic entities as 

truth conditions just like the judgments of realistic science. For example, 

so-called ‘new wave moral realism,’ could conceivably fit onto a 

naturalist picture by portraying moral properties as higher-level 

physical properties. Platonic-type views, other types of intuitionism, 

and even theological ethics are perhaps conceivable. 

(10) Nor does it follow that moral judgments cannot take conventional 

entities (social contracts, the structure of practical reasoning, moral 

constructions) to serve as truth conditions for moral judgments. 

(11) Nonetheless, presuppositions (1)–(6), if accepted, establish an 

uneven playing field against metaethical objectivism and for metaethical 

subjectivism. Not all of the objections that I pose against moral 

objectivism in this book would be as plausibly available to the 

subjectivist about nonmoral judgments. The reason is that the 

antecedent plausibility of the existence of a nonlinguistic, nonconventional 

world ensures that when we find conflicts and lack confidence 

about what to say regarding nonmoral judgments, we can justifiably 

assign the fault as lying in us.


On the contrary, lacking a comparable conviction in an objective 

moral world, we have two options, not one. One, dismiss the fault as 

lying in us, as we would do in the nonmoral case. Two, do what Kant 

did with the antinomies of pure reason: Claim that the purported 

phenomena (space and time) do not exist except in human sensibility. In 

sum, without the background assumptions contained in (1)–(6), the 

moral objectivist has a too-easy reply to the conflicts and infelicities I 

emphasize in this book: ‘There’s a truth; it’s just hard to know what it 

is.’ I respond that by assuming (1)–(6) we can weaken that response. 

Readers who accept (1)–(6) will take the difficulties for moral theories I 

raise more seriously than those who do not. 

6 An objection to the above subjectivist argument 

Consider the following objection: 

Setting aside the details of any particular objectivist account, let us 

assume that moral truth is as de facto sound and complete in its realm 

as nonmoral truth is in its realm. Suppose, for example, that there is an 

accurate and complete deterministic theory of macroscopic physical 

objects such that ideally knowledgeable physicists would be able to 

predict the outcome of every full-bore break shot in pool ever made, 

indicating the exact stopping locations of each of the 16 balls. Of course, 

no one is in fact able to make such predictions; the relatively minor 

complexities of the relevant variables far outstrips our ability to sort 

them out and ascertain the resting locations of the balls before they are 

struck. But, ex hypothesi, our predictional inadequacy casts no doubt 

on the truth of macroscopic physical theory. 

By analogy, we moral objectivists can accept Double’s three 

arguments emphasizing the disorderly way that disparate moral factors 

dictate different moral answers. Let us admit that sometimes 

impartiality seems to carry the day, and sometimes not; that 

aggregationist reasoning sometimes seem superior, although at other 

times aggregation loses; that sometimes moral obligation, but that other 

times intrinsic value, and still other times character virtue determine 

what we should do. Even allowing all this, we need not admit that moral 

truths do not exist, for the same reason that our inability to predict 

pool-breaks does not cast doubt upon the soundness and completeness 

of physical theory. In one type of case, if all the other relevant 

conditions remain equal, the velocity of the cue ball will be the 

determining factor in the outcome of the shot. In a different type of 

case, if only the texture of the tabletop varies, the outcomes will differ 

depending on texture. And so on. So, the dependence of our moral 

judgments on different factors may show simply that moral truths


depend on many factors, just as the movement of pool balls depends on 

the momentum of the cue impact, the surface of the table, the elasticity 

of the balls, and so on. But the multiplicity of factors does not count 

against the fact that all of the factors contribute to an ontologically 

objective outcome. 

Here is my reply. First, the degree of disagreement counts. Pool players 

may differ over whether one or more of the balls will end up in the 

pockets, but the disagreements will be minor compared to moral 

disputes over distributive justice, punishment, affirmative action, 

suicide, and other moral questions. I am tempted to say that the 

disagreement between advocates of impartiality in moral obligation and 

advocates of partiality for special others is categorical. This is evidence 

that things are far more disorderly at the deepest level. Second, in the 

nonmoral cases the range of dispute over relevant factors is much less. 

For example, if we are trying to predict the outcome of the break by 

relying on our understanding of physics, we will agree that the intention 

of the ball striker is irrelevant to predicting the outcome of the break. 

On the contrary, moralists perennially debate whether agents’ intentions 

are relevant to the assessment of the quality of their actions. Third, 

predictions in any part of physical theory will dovetail with predictions 

in the rest of physical theory much more than do moral judgments. For 

example, we may be impartialists between our two children, partialists 

when it comes to how we treat those two contrasted to strangers, but 

impartialists when we think of children in a global political context. We 

assume that the laws governing nonmoral phenomena, if not uniform 

throughout the cosmos, have nothing like this sort of variation. 

7 Overview of the book 

In chapter 2, I explicate and justify two requirements for moral theories 

that would purport to be metaethically objective: soundness (providing 

only true moral judgments) and completeness (answering the whatshould-we-do-question 

for the entire range of moral questions). I show 

how these requirements flow from Worldview metaphilosophy and the 

intermediate-level methodological principles that I endorse in this 

chapter. In chapter 3, I argue that subjectivist metaphysical theories 

need not provide semantic analyses of moral language nor try to ‘find a 

place for reason’ in moral disputes. In chapter 4, I defend the crucial 

role I assign to moral intuitions in this book. In chapter 5, I argue that 

any sound and complete theory of moral obligation must be committed 

to impartiality rather than partiality. In chapter 6, I argue against the 

claim of the previous chapter by citing many examples in which 

impartiality is not morally required. I thereby give reason to think that


our best-considered moral intuitions regarding impartiality contradict 

each other. In chapter 7, I argue that familiar deontological objections 

to consequentialist theories of moral obligation can be used, with 

considerable force, against any robust moral theory. Thus, deontological 

theories carry the seeds of their own demise, as well as those of all 

other moral theories. In chapter 8, I demonstrate the fragmentation that 

occurs when we try to decide what we should do, all things considered, if 

we holistically take into account theories of moral obligation, intrinsic 

value, and character virtues. I take this fragmentation as a third 

argument against thinking that moral theories can be sound and 

complete. In chapter 9, I conclude that adopting metaethical 

subjectivism can be preferable to adopting objectivism for the purposes 

of constructing (mostly) acceptable theories of normative ethics and 

from the standpoint of moral practice.

Metaethical subjectivism and metaethical objectivism - Ashgate

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?