Moral Naturalism

Moral Naturalism Overview

• Definition: Moral naturalism is a version of moral realism asserting that moral facts are natural facts.

• Historical Context: Originated from Aristotelian and Confucian ethics; G.E. Moore's "Principia Ethica" (1903) articulated moral naturalism as a metaethical doctrine, rejecting it as a distinct theory for nearly a century.

• Evolution: Since the 1980s, moral naturalism gained support, becoming a prominent view in metaethics that emphasizes the connection between ethics and natural facts.

Structure of the Entry

• Sections:

  • 1. What is Moral Naturalism?

  • 2. Descriptivism and Reductivism

  • 3. Why Be a Moral Naturalist?

  • 4. Objections to Naturalism

  • 5. Neo-Aristotelian Naturalism

  • 6. Cornell Realism

  • 7. Jackson’s Analytic Functionalism

1. What is Moral Naturalism?

• Concept: Moral naturalism posits that moral properties are natural properties, and all moral facts are natural.

• Fact Naturalism: Asserts that moral facts are natural.

• Property Naturalism: Affirms that moral properties are natural properties.

• Standards: Facts are stance-independent; they exist regardless of beliefs or attitudes.

• Opposition: Challenges moral supernaturalism (divine moral facts) and moral non-naturalism (moral facts as a separate category).

2. Descriptivism and Reductivism

• Descriptivism: Moral terms reference moral properties and some descriptive terms may refer to moral properties.

  • Analytic Naturalism: If moral claims are synonymous with scientific claims, they refer to moral properties.

  • Synthetic Naturalism: Some descriptive terms refer to moral properties without analytic relationships.

• Reductivism: Moral properties are reducible to non-moral properties.

  • Key Example: Hedonic reduction, where goodness is equated with pleasure.

3. Why be a Moral Naturalist?

• Core Argument: Naturalism (everything exists as natural) and moral realism (existence of moral facts) combine to support moral naturalism.

• Supervenience: No two metaphysically possible worlds can have the same natural facts but different moral facts. This relates to how moral properties depend on natural properties.

  • Direct Argument: If moral properties supervene on natural properties, they are identical.

  • Explanatory Argument: Naturalism provides an explanation for supervenience that non-naturalists struggle to justify.

4. Objections to Naturalism

• Open Question Argument (OQA): Argues that if moral properties are identical to natural properties, questions about their identity remain open, implying they are distinct.

• Normativity Objection: Moral facts are normative and involve moral obligations, differing from natural facts.

• Triviality Objection: Claims that if moral claims are equivalent to natural claims, they become trivial and lose substantive content.

5. Neo-Aristotelian Naturalism

• Core Ideas:

  • No single property of goodness; context matters (e.g., good toaster vs. good human).

  • Goodness derived from the nature of the kind of thing it is, emphasizing biological and rational functions.

  • Human Ends: Goodness relates to survival, reproduction, enjoyment, and societal functioning.

6. Cornell Realism

• Nature: View asserts that moral properties are complex natural properties identifiable through empirical investigation akin to scientific methods.

• Causal Explanation: Goodness has a causal profile that can be studied similarly to healthiness.

• Non-reductive Stance: Goodness may be realized across various contexts without requiring rigid definitions.

7. Jackson’s Analytic Functionalism

• Key Ideas: Jackson argues moral properties supervene on descriptive properties and can be analyzed through conceptual analysis.

• Location Problem: Identifying the 'natural features' that correspond to moral facts involves conceptual analysis followed by empirical investigation.

• Consensus and Disagreement: Addresses how moral terms function within a community's language and the implications of moral disagreement on identifying moral facts.

References

• Entry from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Moral Naturalism by Matthew Lutz, Summer 2024 Edition.