ethical naturalism essay

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7 Ethical Naturalism, Non-Naturalism, and In-Between

Ralph Wedgwood, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the School of Philosophy, University of Southern California

Published: 18 September 2023
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This chapter explores the issues surrounding ethical “naturalism” and “non-naturalism.” First, it seeks to clarify (a) the fundamental questions on the metaphysical side of metaethics, and (b) the most illuminating way (in this context) of conceiving of what is “natural.” Then the two dominant approaches in this debate are explained— reductive naturalism and primitivist non-naturalism . It is argued that each of these two paradigms is in a way an extreme view—and, indeed, that for much of the history of ethics philosophers defended views that were (in a sense that is explained here) intermediate between these two extremes. Admittedly, the intermediate views defended in ancient and medieval times cannot easily be endorsed today, given the development of modern natural science. Nonetheless, it is argued that there are some ways of making sense of such intermediate views—between reductive naturalism and primitivist non-naturalism—that it could still make sense to defend today. As it is argued in conclusion, some of the questions that such intermediate views could illuminate concern the nature of the metaphysical relations that hold between (a) moral properties, on the one hand, and (b) mental and social properties, on the other.

The central questions of metaethics are not the questions that are characteristic of ethical thought and discourse itself; instead, they are questions about ethical thought and discourse. Specifically, the questions of metaethics include the following.

There are questions belonging to both metaethics and the philosophy of mind, about the nature of ethical thought—the questions of moral psychology .

There are questions belonging to both metaethics and the philosophy of language, about the meaning of ethical statements—the questions of moral semantics .

There are questions belonging to both metaethics and the theory of knowledge, about the nature of ethical knowledge and rational ethical belief—the questions of moral epistemology .

In addition to these three kinds of questions, many metaethicists hold that there is also (d) a fourth group of questions. These are the questions belonging both to metaethics and to metaphysics , concerning how ethical thought and talk fit into reality as a whole.

In Section 1 below, I will give a brief introductory survey of these metaphysical questions. As I shall explain, the contemporary debate on the metaphysical side of metaethics is dominated by two paradigms—as I shall call them, reductive naturalism and primitivist non-naturalism . As I shall argue, these are both extreme views. In principle, it should be possible for there to be a host of intermediate views between these two extremes.

Section 2 will explore some of the views that were taken on these metaphysical questions by philosophers of ancient and medieval times. As we shall see, most of these views differed from both the two paradigms that dominate the contemporary debate—that is, these views differed from both reductive naturalism and primitivist non-naturalism. However, as I shall also explain, the metaphysical views of these past philosophers cannot easily be endorsed today. This is because our conception of the natural world has changed from that of these premodern thinkers, because of the development of modern natural science.

Nonetheless, in Section 3 , I shall try to explain how it is still possible to make sense of intermediate positions, lying between the two extremes of reductive naturalism and primitivist non-naturalism. Finally, in Section 4 , I shall close by arguing that these intermediate positions are prima facie promising, and deserve careful consideration from contemporary metaethicists.

1. Moral Metaphysics

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that seeks to develop a general conception of the nature of reality. The most important problem for our purposes seems to arise in the following way. Our thoughts concern many different kinds of phenomena—covering fields as diverse as astronomy and legal theory, zoology and social history, pharmacology and musicology, to name just a few. This raises the question: How can thoughts of all these different kinds be ways of representing a single world? How do the features of the world that these different kinds of thoughts concern themselves with fit together to constitute a single intelligible reality?

In this chapter, I shall restrict my attention to questions that only arise once certain assumptions are in place. These assumptions are the following: first, for a statement to count as an ethical or moral statement, it must contain an expression—such as a predicate like “ … is good” or “ … is better than …”—that, in the context of that statement, expresses a moral concept; secondly, each of these moral concepts has a straightforwardly truth-conditional semantics. 1 To fix ideas, I shall assume that any truth-conditional semantics for a concept that is expressed by a predicate implies that there is some property or relation that is determined by the nature of this concept as the semantic value of this concept—that is, as the contribution that this concept makes to the truth conditions of any proposition in which it appears. As we may put it, this property or relation is fixed by the nature of the concept as the property or relation that the concept stands for .

These properties and relations that are fixed by the nature of the moral concepts as the properties and relations that those concepts stand for may be called moral properties and relations . Thus, the assumptions that I am relying on imply that there are indeed, in this sense, moral properties and relations. For example, there are properties that can be picked out by terms like “goodness” and “rightness”; for every way in which one thing can be said to be “better than” another, there is a relation that holds between two items x and y if and only if x is better than y in that way. To keep things simple, however, from now on I shall mostly stop referring to relations: I shall simply assume that “moral properties” include both moral properties and moral relations. Finally, I shall also assume that these ethical or moral properties and relations are instantiated or exemplified in the actual world: that is, some propositions of the form “ x is good” or “ x is right” are true in the actual world. In other words, I shall assume this minimal version of moral realism .

I shall not distinguish here between “ethical” and “moral” properties. In many contexts, these two terms can be used so that they differ in sense; but here I shall use them interchangeably. Indeed, I shall understand the class of moral properties as broadly as possible. The goal is to include all properties that are, in their metaphysical character, of the same fundamental kind. According to many views, this category of properties does not just include “moral” properties in a narrow sense of the term, but also includes all evaluative and normative properties and relations of any kind.

For example, consider the relation of being a good reason for , which holds between a fact and an agent’s having an attitude, whenever the fact is a good reason for the agent to have the attitude. It seems that this relation holds, not only in cases that seem paradigmatically “moral” (as when your having made a promise is a good reason for you to intend to keep your promise), but also in cases that seem paradigmatically epistemic (as when your having certain evidence is a good reason for you to believe a certain conclusion). Admittedly, some philosophers might try to argue that the expression “is a good reason for” is used in different senses in these two contexts; but it seems preferable to avoid postulating hidden ambiguities if we can. If the term is used univocally in these two contexts, this makes it plausible that the relation that it stands for is a broadly normative or evaluative relation; and it seems that these normative or evaluative relations are, in their metaphysical character, of the same fundamental kind as the ethical or moral properties that we are concerned with here. 2 If that is right, then this relation is itself, in the broad sense that I intend here, an ethical or moral property.

If there are moral properties of this kind, then we face a version of the central metaphysical problem. Consider the properties that are correctly posited in the domains of thought that I listed above—in astronomy and legal theory, zoology and social history, pharmacology and musicology. How exactly do moral properties fit into a single intelligible reality that also includes these astrophysical, legal, zoological, social, pharmaceutical, and musical properties?

The contemporary debates on the metaphysical side of metaethics often invoke the notion of a natural property . With this notion in hand, we can ask about the metaphysical relations that hold between moral properties and natural properties. However, if we formulate these questions in terms of “natural properties,” we need to ensure that we understand what exactly the phrase “natural property” means in this context.

Some philosophers may be tempted to explain this distinction between the “natural” and the “non-natural” by giving a list : such things as stars and planets, plants and animals, are quintessentially “natural,” while God is “supernatural,” and abstract mathematical entities like numbers and the empty set are “non-natural.”

On further reflection, however, it is not clear that a list of this sort can provide an adequate understanding of this distinction. Stars, planets, plants, and animals are all particular objects —and so too, at least on most views, are God, numbers, and the empty set. What we need here is a distinction between two kinds of properties —not between two kinds of particular objects. Of course, if these particulars exist, they have various distinctive or characteristic properties, including properties that are essential to them—such as biological properties, like the property of being alive , or mathematical properties, like the property of being a set that has exactly one member , or theological properties, like the property of being omniscient . However, it is not clear what exactly it would mean to label any of these properties as “non-natural.” The property of being a set that has exactly one member is undeniably capable of playing an extensive role in explanations of phenomena involving animals, plants, and minerals, of the kind that are given by the natural sciences. (For example, biology might explain why a species died out at a particular point in time by appealing to the fact that the species reached a point where it had exactly one member. 3 ) It is also unclear what it means to say that the property of being omniscient is non-natural, since it seems definable in terms of the paradigmatically psychological relation of knowing . If knowing all truths is a non-natural property, how could knowing some truths be a natural property?

Moreover, this list clearly cannot define a coherent distinction unless some substantive assumptions are presupposed. For example, the property of being God clearly could not be accepted as paradigmatic of the “non-natural” by anyone who accepted Spinoza’s pantheistic view that the whole physical universe is a single divine being, aptly referred to by the term “ God-or-Nature .” But simply giving this list cannot by itself make it clear exactly what substantive assumptions are being presupposed here.

It is more promising, I believe, to start by inquiring into the relations between ethics and the natural sciences —above all, physics, chemistry, and biology. In particular, we can inquire into the following metaphysical question: What metaphysical relations hold between the properties that are centrally and characteristically discussed in ethics and those that are correctly posited by the natural sciences? 4 This question can be raised in terms of “natural properties” if we define natural properties as follows: a property is a natural property if and only if it is either (a) a paradigmatic natural property—that is, one of the properties that are correctly posited by the natural sciences, such as physics, chemistry, and biology, or (b) a property that is, in its metaphysical character, of the same fundamental kind as these paradigmatic natural properties.

This definition of “natural properties” involves the idea of a property that is, “in its metaphysical character, of the same fundamental kind as” the paradigmatic natural properties (that is, those that are correctly posited by the natural sciences). This idea can be clarified by invoking a proposal that is due to Tristram McPherson (2015) . According to this proposal, we can make sense of objective similarity relations between properties. Some properties are more similar to each other, while others are more dissimilar. For example, redness and orangeness are more similar to each other than are redness and the property of being unconstitutional in the United States ; being a square number and being a cubic number are more similar to each other than are being a square number and the property of being a talented movie actor ; and so on.

Invoking this idea of real similarities between properties, we may reformulate our definition of “natural properties” as follows: the natural properties include (a) the paradigmatic natural properties that are correctly posited by the paradigmatic natural sciences (such as physics, chemistry, and biology), and (b) any other properties that are, in the most important respects, at least as similar to these paradigmatic natural properties as these paradigmatic properties are to each other. 5

This definition of “natural properties” has two important corollaries. First, natural properties are defined in terms of their similarity to each other; but non-natural properties are not defined in terms of their similarity to each other—they are simply defined as properties that are not natural. Thus, this approach implies that, while all natural properties have a certain deep similarity to each other, non-natural properties may have virtually nothing in common, except for the fact that they are all non-natural. Secondly, in a way this approach allows us to make sense of the idea that among the non-natural properties, some may be “more non-natural” than others—in other words, non-naturalness is a matter of degree . Some non-natural properties may be more similar or more closely related to the natural properties than others.

The questions that concern us, then, focus on the “metaphysical relations” between moral properties and natural properties. What sort of “metaphysical relations” are in question here?

The simplest metaphysical relation of all is identity . What I shall call “full-blooded naturalism” is the view that moral properties simply are natural properties. If this full-blooded naturalism is combined with my definition of natural properties, it has the following implication. Take any moral property—for example, the property of moral goodness; and take two paradigmatically natural properties that are as dissimilar to each other as any two such properties are—for example, a property that is correctly posited by quantum mechanics (like the property of being a charm quark ) and a property that is correctly posited by evolutionary biology (like the property of evolutionary fitness ). Then full-blooded naturalism entails that there is no natural property P such that the property of moral goodness is more dissimilar to P than these maximally dissimilar paradigmatically natural properties are to each other. 6 As I shall argue in the following section, this kind of full-blooded naturalism faces a serious problem.

A second crucial metaphysical relation is the relation of being reducible to . According to what I shall call reductive ethical naturalism , all moral properties are reducible to natural properties. What is it for a property to be “reducible” in this way? A property is reducible just in case there is a true reductive account of it. Some reductive accounts of some properties may be conceptual analyses or analytic truths, but there may also reductive accounts that are not conceptual or analytic truths. 7

The crucial point is that any such a reductive account is in effect a “real definition” of the property. 8 For example, a real definition of what is good would give an account of what it is for something to be good. Such an account would take the form: “To be good is to be G ”—where, at least if this is a nontrivial real definition, it articulates an essential or constitutive feature of what it is to be good. Admittedly, there may be true nontrivial statements of the form “To be F is to be G ” that do not count as real definitions; there seems to be a true reading of the sentence “To be red is to not be green.” A nontrivial statement of this form counts as a real definition only if it in some sense identifies being F with being G . 9 Moreover, not every true identity statement counts as a real definition. The identity statement “The property of being good = what was actually Plato’s favorite property” might be true, but it is not a real definition of being good. Plausibly, it is not a real definition because it does not articulate an essential or constitutive truth about this property.

Crucially, however, not all real definitions are reductive. Reductions must be in a strong sense noncircular ; real definitions, by contrast, do not have to be noncircular in this way. For example, consider the following proposed definition: “To be red = to be disposed to look red under normal conditions.” This proposed definition is certainly nontrivial: it is clearly not a logical truth. However, it also appears to be circular: the term “red” appears, in the very same sense, on the right-hand side of this definition. Still, this might be a correct real definition of the property of being red, even if its circularity prevents it from being a genuine reduction.

What exactly does this kind of “circularity” amount to? If the real definition “To be F is to be G ” counts as a reduction , then “ G ” must be a complex predicate such that all the simple predicates appearing inside this complex predicate “ G ” pick out properties that are metaphysically more fundamental than the property of being F that is being reduced. These properties would be “metaphysically more fundamental” in the sense that neither the property of being F nor any other property of essentially the same kind need be mentioned in any real definition of what it is for anything to have any of these “more fundamental” properties. 10 For example, suppose that the following is a correct real definition of the property of being admirable: “For x to be admirable = for it to be correct to admire x .” This would fail to be a reductive account of what it is for something to be admirable if the property of being correct is not metaphysically more fundamental than the property of being admirable .

On the other hand, suppose that it is possible to give a wholly nonethical, nonevaluative, and non-normative account of what it is for you to have a higher balance of pleasure over pain in one world than in another. Then the following real definition, if true, would be reductive: “For a world w 1 to be better for you than a world w 2 = for you to have a higher balance of pleasure over pain in w 1 than in w 2 .” This hedonistic definition would succeed in giving an account of what it is for one world to be better for you than another in metaphysically more fundamental terms.

As this example makes clear, a correct reductive definition of this kind would be a powerful explanatory principle. This principle would make it possible in principle to give an explanation of every truth concerning the property that it reductively defines. For example, the hedonistic definition that I have just considered implies that, whenever one world is better for you than another, its being better for you can be explained by its being a world in which you have a higher balance of pleasure over pain, and whenever one world is not better for you than another, its not being better can be explained by its not being a world in which you have such a higher balance of pleasure over pain. If this is a genuine reductive account, then in each of these explanations, a fact about whether or not one world is better for you than another is explained by a fact that is metaphysically more fundamental—in the sense that this more fundamental fact can be explained in wholly nonethical, nonevaluative, and non-normative terms.

These, then, are two forms that ethical naturalism can take: full-blooded naturalism, which claims that moral properties are themselves natural properties; and reductive naturalism, which claims that moral properties are reducible to natural properties. With the interpretation of “natural properties” that I have proposed here, this gives us two clear and interesting versions of naturalism for us to discuss.

There are admittedly other views that have been called “ethical naturalism” in recent philosophical literature. For example, Nicholas Sturgeon (1998 , Section 1 ) explains “ethical naturalism” in the following way. First, he states that a “naturalistic worldview” is “one that takes the emerging scientific picture of the world as approximately accurate and that rejects belief in the supernatural.” Then he gives the following definitions of ethical nihilism and ethical naturalism: “Ethical nihilists deny that real values can fit into such a picture. Cognitivist naturalists reply that they can, and that we can learn about them by methods similar to those by which we learn of other natural facts.”

Unfortunately, however, it is doubtful whether Sturgeon’s explanation of ethical naturalism gives us a position that is clear enough to warrant extensive discussion. This is because it is not clear what Sturgeon means by his asking whether real values “fit into” the “emerging scientific picture of the world”. If the only facts that “fit into” this scientific picture are those that logically follow from this picture, then it seems doubtful whether “real values” can possibly “fit into” this picture. If all facts that are logically consistent with this picture “fit into” this picture, then real values clearly will “fit into” the picture—but so too would any domain of abstract mathematical entities, no matter how ontologically extravagant it may be. Thus, it seems that Sturgeon has in mind some condition that is stronger than being logically consistent with the scientific picture, but weaker than logically following from the scientific picture. But he never explains exactly what this condition is. 11 For this reason, it is perhaps not surprising that the most prominent versions of ethical naturalism in the contemporary metaethical debate are what I have called full-blooded naturalism and reductive naturalism.

The most prominent alternative to this kind of reductive ethical naturalism is known as non-naturalism . On this view, moral properties are not themselves natural properties, and cannot be reduced to natural properties. However, the best-known form of non-naturalism goes beyond simply denying the two forms of naturalism that I have identified above. Instead, it adds a number of additional claims as well:

They typically add that moral properties are just “ too different ” from natural properties for it to be even conceivable that reductive naturalism is true. 12

In particular, they often add that moral properties differ from natural properties in the following crucial respect: unlike natural properties, moral properties are causally inefficacious .

They typically also add that the most fundamental moral properties are not only irreducible to natural properties, but also have no nontrivial real definition of any kind.

According to this third claim (c), the most fundamental moral properties are utterly primitive and unanalyzable . As G. E. Moore (1903 , 6) put it:

If I am asked ‘What is good?’ my answer is that good is good, and that is the end of the matter. Or if I am asked ‘How is good to be defined?’ my answer is that it cannot be defined, and that is all I have to say about it.

In other words, even if some nonfundamental moral properties may be defined in terms of other more fundamental moral properties, there is no nontrivial real definition of the most fundamental moral properties. For this reason, we may characterize this view as “ primitivist non-naturalism.” It is important to see that this kind of “primitivism” does not follow from the mere claim that moral properties are not reducible. According to primitivism, the fundamental moral properties are not just irreducible, but have no nontrivial real definition at all (not even a circular nonreductive definition).

These three claims—(a), (b), and (c)—seem to cohere tightly with each other. Arguably, if there were any essential connections between the fundamental moral properties and any nonmoral properties, these essential connections would be reflected in the real definition of each fundamental moral property, making the definition nontrivial. So, it seems that the primitivist non-naturalist who accepts (c) must also accept that there are no essential connections between the fundamental moral properties and any nonmoral properties. This makes it seem plausible that (a) is also true: the fundamental moral properties form a special class of properties, completely unlike and distinct from all nonmoral properties (which in their view include all natural properties). On this view, in effect, these fundamental moral properties stand in a kind of splendid isolation from all other properties whatsoever. 13

Adherents of this sort of primitivist non-naturalism may also have a reason to accept the second claim (b), that moral properties are causally inefficacious . There are a number of reasons why this might be thought to follow from the doctrine that the fundamental moral properties lack nontrivial real definitions. First, if these properties were causally efficacious, there would be nomological regularities—in a sense, laws of nature—explaining the way in which they were causally efficacious; and it is arguable that these nomological regularities would somehow follow from, or be implicit in, the real definitions of these properties. 14 But if the only real definitions that the fundamental moral properties have are trivial, then no such nomological regularities could follow them—since any real definitions from which such nomological regularities followed would clearly be nontrivial. Secondly, it may be thought that the natural facts form a causally complete domain of facts, so that nothing outside the domain of natural facts could ever causally explain any natural fact. 15 Thirdly, some philosophers have thought that it was just obvious that moral properties must be causally inefficacious. Thus, R. M. Dworkin (1996 , 104) has no compunction about mocking the view that moral properties are causally efficacious as the absurd claim that physics needs to postulate special moral particles—“morons”—even though he never offers any argument for interpreting the view as committed to anything so absurd.

Among those who accept that moral properties exist and are exemplified in the actual world, this kind of primitivist non-naturalism is widely viewed as the leading theoretical alternative to the two forms of naturalism that I have discussed above. 16 However, it should be clear that primitivist non-naturalism is far from being the only possible alternative to these two forms of naturalism. There could in principle be intermediate positions, between the extremes of reductive naturalism and primitivist non-naturalism that dominate the contemporary debate.

First, even if moral properties are reducible, they might not be reducible to natural properties. For example, some views in the philosophy of mind might deny that mental properties are strictly natural properties—that is, these views might insist that mental properties are different in kind from the distinctive properties of physics, chemistry, and biology—while it could be true that moral properties are reducible to mental properties (for example, the reductive form of hedonism mentioned above might be true).

In general, moral properties might not be primitive, in the way that primitivist non-naturalists believe, even if they are also not naturalistically reducible, in the way that reductive naturalists believe. As I have characterized it, for a property to be primitive is for it to have no nontrivial real definition; and as I have argued, a real definition does not have to be reductive in order to be nontrivial.

If a property has a nontrivial real definition, this definition should be capable of providing explanations of many of the property’s metaphysical features. For example, as I have already mentioned, a nontrivial real definition of a moral property should provide an account of the causal or cosmological role that the property plays in the world. 17 But it also seems plausible that these real definitions—even if they are nonreductive—can provide explanations of many other metaphysical phenomena as well.

For example, another set of metaphysical questions that a real definition of moral properties should illuminate concerns the degree to which moral properties “carve” the world “at its joints,” as Plato put it ( Phaedrus 265e). Properties that “carve at the joints” mark real objective similarities among the objects that exemplify them, and in that respect differ from more gruesomely disjunctive or gerrymandered properties. 18 Moreover, as we have seen, Tristram McPherson (2015) has argued that we can also make sense of real objective similarity relations between properties: some properties are more similar to each other, while others are more dissimilar. Thus, a further set of questions concern which properties the moral properties are more similar to, and which they are less similar to. If properties can be located on a map of their proximity and distance from each other in a real similarity space, these questions concern where the moral properties are located on this map. The answers to these questions would also be illuminated by correct real definitions of these properties.

A final group of questions concern the application to moral properties of a range of broadly modal notions. Are fundamental moral principles metaphysically necessary, or necessary in some other way, and if so, why? What explains why moral properties supervene on other properties in the way that they do? 19 Are moral facts “grounded” in facts of some other kind, and what is the relation between this kind of “grounding” and notions such as supervenience and the like? Answers to these questions too could be provided—or at least constrained—by correct real definitions of the moral properties.

These reflections already indicate the broad outlines of an argument for such an intermediate position on the metaphysics of moral properties. On the one hand, primitivist non-naturalists are incapable of providing explanations for the answers that they give to these metaphysical questions. On the other hand, the naturalist is committed to making an extremely bold claim about every moral property—specifically, that the moral property is either itself a natural property or else reducible to natural properties. By contrast, the intermediate positions can provide these metaphysical explanations without making any such bold claims. I shall develop this sort of argument for an intermediate position in Sections 3 and 4 below. In the next section, however, I shall comment on the historical background of this debate. An understanding of this historical background will enhance our understanding of what exactly is at stake.

2. Moral Metaphysics in the History of Philosophy

Most of the ancient Greek philosophers—including the Platonists, Aristotelians, and Stoics—accepted a teleological conception of the world. According to such teleological conceptions, the events of the natural world normally happen for the sake of some end or purpose; and according to many versions of this teleological conception, this is interpreted as meaning that these natural events occur precisely because it is good for them to occur. 20

Plato gives us a striking idea of what a teleological conception of the universe would be like ( Phaedo 97d–98a, my translation):

[The ideal natural philosopher] would tell us first whether the earth was flat or round, and, when he had done so, would also explain the cause that necessitated it, saying what was better about it—better, that is, that the earth should be like this. And if he said that it was in the center of the universe, he would also explain how it was better that it should be in the center….

This passage makes it clear that according to Plato, a complete explanation of why the earth is at the center of the universe will imply that the earth has to be at the center because it is better for it to be so. In general, it is a basic tendency of the natural world for states of affairs to obtain in the natural world precisely when and because it is better for them to obtain. 21 It is presumably for this reason that Plato seems to describe the Form of the Good as the “unhypothetical first principle of everything” ( Republic 511b5). In some way, the Form of the Good is an essential part of the ultimate explanation of everything whatsoever.

Aristotle rejects Plato’s idea of the Form of the Good ( Nicomachean Ethics I.6, 1096a11–1097a14)—in some way, Aristotle believes that it is a mistake to “separate” universals from the world of particular things—but Aristotle’s conception of the world is also teleological, in a way that has some crucial similarities to Plato’s. Admittedly, there are many interpretative controversies about what exactly Aristotle’s teleology amounts to; but, on at least one defensible interpretation, for Aristotle too, there are conditions that obtain in the natural world precisely because it is in the relevant way “ best ” for these conditions to obtain. 22 The difference between Plato and Aristotle may come down to this: according to Plato, the kind of goodness that explains natural phenomena is an absolute and nonrelative kind of goodness, while for Aristotle, the kind of goodness that explains natural phenomena is a relative kind of goodness—what is good for the natural organism in question. Still, for both Plato and Aristotle, it appears that broadly ethical or evaluative properties—properties of being good in some way or other—play a crucial role in explaining the phenomena of the natural world.

This ancient idea of the explanatory role of goodness within the cosmos seems to lie behind the notorious claim of Thomas Aquinas that “being and goodness are really the same” ( Summa Theologica , Ia, 5.1). Aquinas concedes that the idea of “goodness” and the idea of “being” are distinct ideas: these two ideas present the property that they stand for under different aspects or guises. However, he argues that goodness and being both fundamentally consist in what he calls “perfection.” For something to be “actualized” is for it to have made at least some progress towards perfection—that is, fulfilling its natural purpose; as Aquinas argues, “everything is perfect so far as it is actual,” and “it is being that makes all things actual”.

In this way, many ancient and medieval philosophers give an utterly central explanatory role within the whole cosmos to certain moral properties—specifically, to certain varieties of goodness. In their view, these properties appear in explanations of a huge range of natural phenomena. This is not because these properties are reducible to any metaphysically more fundamental properties. On the contrary, they constitute an utterly irreducible family of properties, which play a fundamental role in the natural world.

It is clear that this ancient view of moral properties differs sharply from the view of the reductive naturalists. On this ancient view, goodness is not reducible to any more fundamental properties of any kind—and so, a fortiori , it is not reducible to natural properties. On reflection, it is also clear that this traditional view differs from contemporary primitivist non-naturalism as well. First, this view is as far removed as possible from the idea that moral properties are causally inefficacious. On the contrary, on this view, moral properties like goodness are involved in the causal explanation of countless different natural phenomena. Secondly, in this way this traditional view does not conceive of moral properties as existing in splendid isolation from the natural world, but as properties that play a profound and pervasive role throughout the natural world. Finally, this traditional view does at least implicitly point towards an illuminating real definition of at least some moral properties. Roughly, it is implicit within most versions of this traditional view that the real definition of goodness is precisely that it is the property that plays this fundamental cosmological role in the world.

Thus, this traditional view of the metaphysics of goodness seems to be a version of what in the previous section I called “full-blooded naturalism.” This is because, on this view, moral properties like goodness are an inextricable part of nature. They are among the properties that must be appealed to in any adequate version of the natural sciences: specifically, these moral properties must be appealed to in either physics or biology or both.

As I shall now argue, however, it is quite doubtful whether this premodern conception of the metaphysics of goodness is still available to us. Many contemporary metaphysicians and philosophers of science would view this premodern conception as having been swept away by the development of modern natural science. Even in ancient times, there was an alternative conception of nature—the fundamentally nonteleological conception that was articulated by the Atomists and by their followers the Epicureans. One way to sum up the scientific developments that are of most importance for us here is to state that modern science has shown that the nonteleological conception of the Epicureans and Atomists is fundamentally correct, while the rival teleological conception is mistaken. 23

These crucial scientific developments took place in two stages—which I shall call the “Galilean” and the “Darwinian” revolutions respectively. First, the new science that was pioneered by Galileo and his contemporaries transformed the study of physics. According to the Aristotelian conception of the motion of material bodies, each of the different forms of matter had a fundamental tendency towards its natural place in the universe. This conception was replaced by a mathematically precise account of the forces that act on bodies, and of the laws that describe the operation of those forces. The teleological notion of the end or purpose for the sake of which natural events occur ceased to play any role. 24

Even though Galileo revolutionized physics in this way, it was not obvious to all thinkers at that time that teleological explanations had to be banished from nature altogether. In particular, it was not obvious that the new physics described absolutely all the motions of bodies. Many thinkers thought that biological phenomena, in particular, might involve distinctive “vital forces,” and that in consequence teleological explanations would still have a safe home in biology. 25 Thus, a number of moral philosophers of the early modern period were still happy to appeal to the idea of natural purposes. 26

Moreover, in the early modern period, moral properties were often viewed as having great explanatory relevance within the natural world—though this view was widely interpreted as having a theistic basis. It was still widely held, for example, that animals normally have eyes precisely because it is good for them to have eyes. But this is explained, not by appealing directly to the ancient idea that natural events tend to happen precisely because it is good for them to happen, but rather because the universe is rationally designed by God, who is supremely good. Nonetheless, it is still supposed that the goodness of some state of affairs is causally efficacious in explaining why the state of affairs obtains, because the will of an omnipotent Creator lies behind all natural phenomena, and if the Creator wills a state of affairs this is always because the state of affairs is good in some way. 27

Following the Galilean revolution, the Darwinian revolution transformed our understanding of biological phenomena. Admittedly, there are many philosophical controversies about the best interpretation of Darwinian biology. Some philosophers argue that the great discovery of Darwin (1859) was to show how all teleological notions invoked in biology can be reduced to the theory of natural selection, which can ultimately be understood without any appeal to natural purposes. Others argue that irreducible teleological notions are indispensable in biology. However, virtually all philosophers would agree that, whatever else is true of the kind of teleology that is consistent with contemporary biology, it does not give a central explanatory role in biology to the moral properties that are most centrally discussed in ethical theory. In this way, Darwinism seems to leave no room for the kind of biological teleology that could serve as a foundation for ethics. Bernard Williams (1995 , 110) gives voice to this interpretation of Darwinian biology when he says: “The first and hardest lesson of Darwinism” is “that there is no such teleology at all”. 28

Thus, it is doubtful whether the contemporary natural sciences need to make any appeal either to natural purposes or to the purposes of a divine Creator. For this reason, it is also doubtful whether there is any need for these natural sciences to make any explanatory appeal to goodness or any other moral property whatsoever. Indeed, it is widely held that the explanations of contemporary physics, chemistry, and biology—and of all the contemporary special natural sciences, such as astrophysics and biochemistry and ethology—are all couched in austerely secular and value-neutral terms.

Suppose that this view is correct—that is, suppose that it is true that contemporary natural science makes absolutely no appeal to any moral properties (even in the broad sense of “moral properties” that I am using here). Then it follows that moral properties are not among the paradigmatic natural properties—they are not themselves among the properties that are correctly posited by the natural sciences, such as physics and biology. Moreover, unless these moral properties are naturalistically reducible, it also seems doubtful whether they can belong to the set of properties that are most objectively similar to these paradigmatic natural properties that are correctly posited by the natural sciences. If they did belong to this set of properties, then they would be objectively at least as similar to each of these paradigmatic properties as any two paradigmatic properties are to each other. But consider a moral property, and two paradigmatic natural properties that are objectively as dissimilar from each other as possible—for example, a property that is posited by quantum mechanics and a property that is posited by evolutionary biology. As dissimilar as these two paradigmatic natural properties are from each other, it seems plausible that the moral property will be even more dissimilar from the quantum-physical property than the evolutionary biological property is.

If this is correct, then our post-Darwinian worldview makes it hard for contemporary philosophers to accept any nonreductive form of the full-blooded naturalist view that moral properties are themselves natural properties (at least given the strict interpretation of “natural properties” that I am working with here). The most promising option for any metaethicists who believe in the existence of moral properties, but also wish to defend an austerely naturalistic worldview, seems to be some form of reductive naturalism.

3. Between Naturalism and Non-Naturalism

As I claimed at the end of Section 1 , there is room for a range of metaphysical accounts of moral properties that occupy intermediate positions, between the extremes of reductive naturalism and primitivist non-naturalism that dominate the contemporary debate. In Section 2 , we saw that many premodern thinkers embraced a kind of nonreductive naturalism; but we also saw that it is doubtful whether the position of these premodern thinkers is still a live option, in light of the development of modern natural science.

As I characterized it, primitivist non-naturalism, of the kind that is prominent in contemporary metaethical discussions, claims that the basic moral properties are wholly primitive and unanalyzable, lacking any illuminating real definition. So, to find such intermediate positions, between primitivist non-naturalism and reductive naturalism, we will need to identify ways of giving such an illuminating real definition of moral properties, without relapsing into either reductive naturalism or into the premodern nonreductive naturalism that has arguably been superseded by modern science.

Suppose that there is an illuminating real definition of a moral property—say, a real definition of the form “To be good is to be G .” If this is an illuminating nontrivial definition, then it seems plausible that some nonmoral property—say, the property of being F —will be mentioned somehow with this complex predicate “ G .” In this way, this definition posits an essential link between the property of goodness that is being defined and the nonmoral property of being F . For most philosophers, the most plausible essential link of this kind between moral and nonmoral properties would be some connection between moral properties and the properties of psychology and social science . 29 These intermediate positions that I propose to consider in this section all understand moral properties in terms of their relations to the properties of psychology and social science—as I shall call them, mental and social properties.

Now, given certain widely held assumptions, an account of moral properties in terms of their connections to mental and social properties would count as a naturalistic reduction of the moral properties. The relevant assumptions are: (a) that mental and social properties are themselves entirely natural properties, and (b) the simple predicates that appear in this account of moral properties all refer either to mental and social properties, or to metaphysically fundamental natural properties.

This is in fact the commonest kind of naturalistic reduction that philosophers have tried to devise. For example, David Lewis (1989) offers a reductive account of what it is for a property or a state of affairs to be “a value” in terms of what we are disposed to desire to desire under ideal conditions. Then, in the philosophy of mind, Lewis (1980) develops a reductive form of functionalism that explains how mental properties are reducible to metaphysically more fundamental natural properties.

Lewis’s version of reductive naturalism incorporates both a reduction of moral properties to mental properties, and also a reduction of mental properties to more fundamental natural properties. Some philosophers will be tempted to claim that, even if mental properties are irreducible, they are nonetheless fully natural properties. Given the way in which I am using the term “natural property” here, this claim can be explained in terms the paradigmatic natural properties—the properties correctly posited by physics, chemistry, and biology. Specifically, the claim is equivalent to the thesis that mental properties are objectively no more dissimilar from any of these paradigmatic properties than these paradigmatic properties are from each other. For example, according to this interpretation of the claim, mental properties are no more dissimilar from quantum-physical properties than biological properties are. (In the previous section, I argued that it would be implausible to claim that irreducible moral properties are natural properties in this way, but perhaps it is less implausible to make this claim about mental properties.) If it can be argued that mental properties are natural in this way, then a reduction of moral properties to mental properties would count as a naturalistic reduction.

By contrast, if it cannot be argued that mental properties are themselves natural properties in this way, and if mental properties are also not reducible to more fundamental natural properties, then mental properties are not fully natural properties. On this view, psychology and the social sciences belong to a significantly different branch of rational inquiry from the natural sciences. On this view of mental properties, the thesis that moral properties are reducible to mental properties would not count as a form of reductive ethical naturalism, as I am using the term. (For example, the reductive form of ethical hedonism considered in Section 1 would not be a form of reductive naturalism if pleasure and pain are not themselves strictly natural properties.) In general, to give an account of how moral properties fit into the world that is revealed by the natural sciences, it would be not enough just to explain how moral properties reduce to mental properties; one would also have to explain how mental properties fit into the world that is revealed by the natural sciences.

At all events, if there are any illuminating real definitions of moral properties, it seems plausible that these real definitions will imply that there are certain essential connections between moral properties and mental properties. The reason for thinking that there is an intimate link between moral and mental properties arises from the primary roles that moral properties seem to play in the world. First, some moral properties seem to be primarily instantiated by distinctively mental phenomena—such as by attitudes like choices or decisions, or by voluntary or intentional actions, or the like. Secondly, some other moral properties are exemplified by other items—such as states of affairs that could be the outcomes of actions, or the objects of attitudes—but in a way that has immediate implications for the evaluation of mental phenomena like actions or attitudes. (For example, the admirableness of a person’s achieving something has the immediate implication that it is appropriate or fitting to have an attitude of admiration towards that person’s achievement, and so on.)

In this way, it is plausible that, unless moral properties are wholly primitive and unanalyzable, their metaphysical fate is intimately tied to that of mental properties. A full metaphysical account of moral properties will have to address the following two questions. First, what are the moral properties’ relations to mental properties? Secondly, what is the correct account of the metaphysics of these mental properties themselves?

On the first question, as we have seen, one possibility is that moral properties are reducible in some way to mental properties. If moral properties are not reducible, there are two ways in which this could be the case. One way is that it might be that, for some moral property, it is simply impossible to give necessary and sufficient conditions for the instantiation of the moral property using simple predicates that stand only for mental and nonmoral properties.

However, there is a reason for thinking that it must be possible, at least in principle, to give such necessary and sufficient conditions. This reason arises from the plausible principle that moral properties strongly supervene on mental and nonmoral properties. Given certain plausible assumptions, it can be proved that every strongly supervening property is necessarily coextensive with the disjunction of the subvening properties that necessitate that supervening property. The significance of this proof is open to question, but it at least raises a problem that will have to be surmounted somehow by any philosopher who denies that it is possible, even in principle, to give necessary and sufficient conditions for the instantiation of any moral property in entirely mental and nonmoral terms. 30

Even if it is possible to give such necessary and sufficient conditions for the instantiation of a moral property, using no simple predicates except for those that stand for mental and nonmoral properties, this statement of necessary and sufficient conditions need not count as a reduction . In particular, such a statement will fail to count as a reduction if it mentions certain mental properties that are not themselves metaphysically more fundamental than that moral property. This is the second way in which a moral property might fail to be reducible to mental and other nonmoral properties—if the relevant mental properties are not metaphysically more fundamental than the moral property.

The relevant mental properties—I shall assume—are those that are ascribed and appealed to in folk psychology, the kind of psychology that we all have at least some intuitive grasp of. Why might these mental properties fail to be metaphysically more fundamental than the moral properties? This would be the case if a certain view of these properties were correct: specifically, the view that moral properties—or some closely related properties, such as normative or evaluative properties—have to be mentioned in any adequate real definition of these mental properties.

This is the view that is sometimes called “normativism” about the mental—the view that the essential nature of each of these folk-psychological properties is given, at least in part, by certain normative principles that apply to them. On one version of this view, for example, part of what it is for a state to be the mental state of belief is that it is a state that (a) counts as correct if and only if its propositional content is true, and (b) counts as rational at a given time if and only if it is adequately supported by the evidence that the thinker has at that time.

According to this sort of normativism about the mental, then, the mental properties distinctive of folk psychology are not located at a metaphysically more fundamental level than normative and evaluative properties. On the contrary, these two families of properties are metaphysically on a par—essentially interconnected with each other, and neither of them more fundamental than the other. As I noted in Section 1 , I am using the term “moral property” broadly, so that it includes all normative and evaluative properties as well as the more narrowly moral properties. This is why this kind of normativism about the mental entails that no specification of necessary and sufficient conditions for the instantiation of a moral property that employs simple predicates that stand for these mental properties can count as a reductive account of the moral property.

One example of this sort of normativism about the mental is the kind of philosophy of mind that was developed by Donald Davidson. According to Davidson (1980 , 222), we must have some disposition for “believing the truth and loving the good”, if we are to be correctly interpretable as having the attitudes of belief or desire at all. 31 According to a philosophy of mind of this sort, it is essential to each of the relevant types of mental state that there is a correct or proper role that this type of mental state should play in our thinking and reasoning, and in every thinking agent, these mental states must have at least some disposition to play this correct or proper role, if the agent is to be capable of mental states of that type at all. 32

In effect, this kind of philosophy of mind adopts a restricted kind of teleology—a teleological conception of the mind . The various types of mental states are defined, at least in part, by some of the good or right or proper ways for them to function; and a thinker’s states must have some disposition to function in these ways if they are to count as instances of these types at all. Unlike the kind of teleology that was undermined by the Galilean and Darwinian revolutions, however, this kind of teleology is restricted to a narrow range of phenomena—just to the realm of mental states of the kind that is distinctive of folk psychology. There is no claim to a more general teleological conception of the natural world. (Indeed, arguably the central error of premodern natural teleology was that it involved taking a kind of explanation that is only applicable within the sphere of folk psychology and applying it generally to the natural world as a whole.)

Strictly speaking, this kind of normativism about the mental is consistent with claiming that both moral properties and mental properties are reducible. Even if normativism about the mental is true, there could still be a simultaneous reduction of the whole family of mental, normative, and moral properties to some metaphysically more fundamental set of properties. Presumably the most plausible version of such a grand simultaneous reduction of this big family of properties would be some kind of functionalism—or perhaps the kind of biological or “teleofunctional” reduction that is advocated by philosophers like Ruth Millikan (1984) . Nonetheless, it may be that the problems that philosophers have raised for such functionalist or teleofunctional reductions of the mind would reappear in an even more acute form for a functionalist or teleofunctional attempt to give a grand simultaneous reduction of both the mental and the normative properties.

Moreover, even if this kind of normativism about the mental is consistent with claiming that mental, normative, and moral properties are reducible, it also seems consistent with the view that they are irreducible. If these properties are not naturalistically reducible, this raises a question about what form a correct real definition of these properties would take. The answer may be that these normativist principles linking these mental properties with various normative and evaluative properties may form the core of the real definitions of both kinds of properties. We are not left without any way of explaining the nature of these properties, even though our account of these properties does not involve reducing them to any more metaphysically fundamental level.

The fact that this sort of normativism is a limited kind of teleology makes it clear that it is controversial. It seems to imply that psychology—or at least the kind of psychology that is continuous with everyday folk psychology—differs from the paradigmatic natural sciences in some important ways. For example, whereas our knowledge of the real definitions of the paradigmatic properties of physics, chemistry, and biology is empirical through-and-through, on this approach our knowledge of the real definitions of the mental properties that are characteristically appealed to in folk psychology is at least in part a priori, since these real definitions consist at least in part in normative principles that apply to these mental properties.

Nonetheless, this sort of normativism about the mental still allows for many sorts of empirical psychology. One good question is whether it can be reconciled with everything that we have learned from empirical psychology over the last century or so. If not, then this kind of normativism about the mental should be discarded, just as the more general premodern teleology about the natural world was discarded as a result of the Galilean and Darwinian revolutions. But if it can be reconciled with what we have learned in empirical psychology, then this sort of normativism may be great significance to the metaphysical side of metaethics.

4. The Virtues of Moderation

These intermediate positions on the metaphysics of moral properties have certain advantages over both of the more extreme positions. They can provide explanations of puzzling metaphysical phenomena, which primitivist non-naturalism cannot explain; but they are not open to the objections that have been raised against the reductive forms of naturalism.

A number of objections can be raised against the reductive form of ethical naturalism. Reductive naturalism is committed to the claim that there is a reductive account of every moral property; it is also committed to the claim that every simple predicate that appears in this reductive account stands for a genuinely natural property—or at least for a property that is ultimately reducible in terms that stand only for such natural properties. No one has ever produced such a reductive account that has commanded the assent of more than a small minority of philosophers. For this reason, many reductive naturalists have not in fact offered any such account, but contented themselves with providing grounds for optimism that such an account can in principle be found.

Many of these grounds for optimism rely on the assumption that only a reductive account can explain all the phenomena that need to be explained. However, this assumption is undercut by the arguments that I shall now give about the explanatory virtues of the intermediate positions. If my arguments are sound, then these intermediate positions can also explain all the phenomena that clearly need to be explained—and it is debatable whether there are any further phenomena that these intermediate positions cannot explain. For this reason, these grounds for optimism are not strong arguments for the conclusion that some true reductive account can in principle be found.

On the other hand, the reasons against primitivist non-naturalism are clear. This non-naturalist position provides no explanation for a host of phenomena that seem to call for explanation. In the remainder of this discussion, I shall canvas a range of these phenomena, and I shall argue that whereas they cannot be explained by the primitivist non-naturalist, the intermediate positions sketched in the previous section should be able to explain them.

First, if there is a nontrivial real definition of moral properties, it will be able to explain the causal role that these properties play in the world. Of course, if—as many primitivist non-naturalists believe—moral properties play no causal role in the world, then this could be explained by the primitivist approach. However, it seems plausible that moral properties do play some nontrivial causal role. Rational agents often make the choices that they make precisely because they have good reasons for those choices. Indeed, arguably this is precisely what it is to choose rationally, or in a rational manner. We cannot capture this point by saying that rational agents make the choices that they do because they believe that they have good reasons for doing so. Making a choice merely because you believe that you have good reasons for making it is not sufficient for choosing rationally—since even if you believe that you have good reasons, you might in fact not have any such good reasons at all. Moreover, making a choice because you believe that you have good reasons for doing so is also not necessary for choosing rationally—since an agent can often make a quick and unreflective choice, in an entirely rational manner, without having any higher-order attitudes towards the proposition that they have good reasons for this particular choice.

On the other hand, the causal role of moral properties certainly appears to be restricted to explaining events, like choices, that involve mental properties. As modern physics has shown, Plato was wrong to think that the sun moves through space as it does because it is “best” for it to do so. A real definition of moral properties would be able to explain why moral properties have this restricted kind of cosmological role—causally efficacious in relation to mental events, but inefficacious in relation to the motions of the stars. 33

At the end of Section 1 , I gestured towards the idea of real objective similarities between properties, and the idea of a similarity space in which different properties can be located, depending on how similar or dissimilar they are to each other. Primitivist non-naturalists view moral properties as maximally dissimilar from the natural properties—as we might picture it, in a region of this similarity space that is as far as possible from the region that contains the natural properties. Full-blooded naturalists and reductive naturalists locate moral properties as squarely within the same region as the natural properties. But as explained in Section 1 above, the definition of “natural properties” that I have proposed here allows that some non-natural properties are more similar to the natural properties than others. In this way, it is open to these intermediate positions to locate the moral properties as occupying a region that is outside that of the strictly natural properties, but still relatively close to the natural properties—and presumably especially close to the region that contains the mental and social properties. In this way, these intermediate positions are capable of giving a more nuanced account of where the moral properties are located in this similarity space.

A further set of questions where an explanation seems to be called for concerns supervenience. It seems plausible that moral properties supervene on other nonmoral properties. But if this is so, it seems that it should be explicable why it is so. Moreover, if moral properties “strongly supervene” on other properties, then it follows that there will be principles to the effect that certain nonmoral properties necessitate certain moral properties. For example, if wrongness strongly supervenes on nonmoral properties, then for every actual instance of wrongness, it is not just true but necessary that anything that has exactly the same nonmoral properties as that instance of wrongness has in the actual world is likewise an instance of wrongness. But if this is necessary, why is it necessary? Is there simply an infinite assortment of such nonmoral-to-moral necessitations, or is there some way of unifying and explaining them?

The primitivist seems to have no way of giving any explanation here. The primitivist may resort to stating that the truth about wrongness must be capable of being captured by a set of such necessary principles; but this is simply to restate the phenomenon that needs to be explained, not to offer any explanation of it. 34 By contrast, a constraint that any real definition of a moral property must meet is that it must be capable of explaining these phenomena. It seems that a real definition would not have to be reductive in order to provide these explanations. So, it looks as if a nonreductive real definition—unlike primitivist non-naturalism—should be able to provide the needed explanations here.

Finally, another range of phenomena that seem to call for explanation are the facts about what grounds the truth of propositions involving moral properties. It seems that moral truths—or at least, contingent moral truths, such as the true proposition that Socrates was wise, or that the Athenian jury committed a grave injustice in convicting him—seem to be grounded in other truths about the world. 35 But why are moral truths grounded in just this way (rather than being wholly ungrounded, or grounded in other different facts about the world)? Again, an illuminating real definition of moral properties should be able to provide an explanation.

This notion of grounding can be used to formulate a sense in which, even if reductive naturalism is rejected, intermediate positions of the kind that I have been exploring here are consistent with a kind of moderate naturalism. Even if moral properties are not themselves natural properties, and are irreducible, it could still be that natural facts are fundamental in a different way. Specifically, it could still be that all contingent truths about the world whatsoever are grounded in facts that can be stated using no simple predicates other than those that stand for natural properties. This idea—of irreducible moral facts that are nonetheless wholly grounded in these wholly natural facts—could be one way of making sense of the idea that moral facts are “emergent” features of the world, emerging from the world’s natural features without being reducible to them.

To conclude: if moral realism is true, then a series of metaphysical questions arise about the nature of moral properties. There are more questions here than just the one that has dominated the attention of metaethicists for the last few decades—the question of whether moral properties are naturalistically reducible or not. If moral properties are naturalistically reducible, then the correct reductive account of these moral properties would provide an answer to these metaphysical questions; but as I have argued, it is not the only way of answering these questions. The primitivist non-naturalists seem not to have any clear way of addressing these questions, but the intermediate metaphysical views—between the two extremes of reductive naturalism and primitivist non-naturalism—seem more likely to be able to address these questions. Finally, it seems plausible that any attempt to tackle these metaphysical questions about moral properties will also have to come to grips with the parallel questions about mental properties. As Aristotle said ( Nicomachean Ethics I.13, 1102a23), “The student of politics must study the soul.”

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For a discussion of these assumptions, see Chaps. 9 and 22 in this volume.

For an extended defense of the parallel between moral and epistemic properties, see Cuneo (2007 , Chap. 2).

Even the property of being a prime number seems capable of playing an explanatory role in biology. The periodical cicadas have a developmental cycle of either thirteen or seventeen years— apparently because living underground for a prime number of years makes it easier for them to evade predators.

As I understand it, this question does not presuppose an epistemological conception of the natural sciences: it presupposes an understanding of the natural sciences as defined by their subject-matter (not by the methods that can be used to investigate that subject-matter). Thus, on this understanding, there is no difficulty in supposing that some physical or biological facts may be wholly unknowable.

Compare how McPherson (2015 , 130) suggests defining a “basic natural property” as “a property that is a member of the narrowest real similarity class that is partially constituted by the real properties correctly postulated by paradigmatic natural sciences”.

One philosopher who seems aware of this implication of the view, and still takes the view seriously, is McPherson (2015 , 131).

For an example of a naturalistic reduction of moral properties that is presented as an analytic or semantic thesis, see Finlay (2014) ; for a naturalistic reduction that is presented as a synthetic nonconceptual thesis, see Schroeder (2007) .

I have argued elsewhere that reductive accounts must be real definitions, and that these real definitions are also what are sometimes called “constitutive accounts” of properties (see Wedgwood 2007 , Chap. 6).

The interpretation of these real definitions as “identifications” is developed in Dorr (2016) ; for a rival view, see Rosen (2015) . One interesting account of these “identifications” is given by Elgin (2021) , who argues that it is true that to be F is to be G just in case the states of affairs that make it the case that something is F are identical to the states of affairs that make it the case that it is G ; according to Elgin, a proposition of the form “To be F is to be G ” counts as a real definition just in case the complex predicate “ G ” reveals the mereological structure of the states of affairs that make an object F in a way that the predicate “ F ” does not.

Strictly, we can allow that the right-hand side of this reductive definition may contain complex expressions that refer to the property that it reductively defines. However, the simple terms that these complex expressions are built up out of must not refer to this reduced property, and the real definitions of the properties that these simple terms refer to must also be able to avoid referring to this reduced property or to any other property of essentially the same kind.

Another interesting conception of naturalism is David Copp’s (2007 , 39) proposal that “a property is natural if and only if any synthetic proposition about its instantiation that can be known could only be known empirically.” My concern about this is that it makes ethical naturalism into an epistemological doctrine—effectively, a doctrine to the effect that no synthetic ethical proposition can be known a priori. But on the face of it, both this doctrine and its negation are compatible with a very wide range of different views about the metaphysical character of moral properties. Since our concern here is with the metaphysical side of metaethics, it is doubtful whether Copp’s proposal is suitable for our purposes.

For example, Derek Parfit (1997 , 121) writes, in discussing reductive views on which normative facts are reducible to natural facts, that “These two kinds of fact are as different as … chairs and propositions … ”; Michael Huemer (2005 , 94) claims that “value properties are radically different from natural properties”; David Enoch (2011 , 4) writes that “Normative facts are just too different from natural ones to be a subset thereof.”

Some primitivist non-naturalists—such as T. M. Scanlon (2014 , 72–6)—appear to compare moral properties with mathematical properties. On the face of it, however, moral properties and mathematical properties are strikingly dissimilar. Moral properties are instantiated or exemplified by such items as agents, actions, and choices, and by states of affairs that can be the outcomes of actions and the like—but they are not instantiated by purely abstract items (like the empty set), or by sets of inanimate natural objects (like specks of interstellar dust). Mathematical properties are primarily instantiated by abstract objects like pure sets and numbers, and derivatively by any set of objects whatever. A charitable reading of Scanlon would interpret him as claiming, not that ethical and mathematical properties are intrinsically similar in their role in the world, but that they are similar merely to the extent of both being knowable non-natural properties.

For this view that a property’s causal role is essential to it, see Shoemaker (2003 , Essay 11), and Bird (2007) .

For a discussion of the analogous idea of the causal completeness of physics, see Papineau (2001) .

Thus, for example, Parfit (2011 , Chap. 31) seems to hold that something like primitivist non-naturalism is the only realist alternative to reductive naturalism; something similar seems to be true of Enoch (2011) .

On the idea of a property’s cosmological role, see Wright (1992 , 191–99).

The idea of properties that “carve the world at its joints” was famously explored by Lewis (1983) .

I have explored this question in more detail elsewhere ( Wedgwood 2007 , Chap. 9).

The Stoics would deny that it is always strictly speaking “good” when natural events fulfill their natural purposes (in their view, only the virtue of a rational agent is genuinely good)—but they do believe that these natural purposes are intended by the divine world-mind, which is supremely good and rational. Unfortunately, however, it will not be possible to discuss the Stoics in more detail here.

Compare the interpretation of teleological explanation that is given by Bedau (1992) .

See Aristotle’s account of what it is for something to be the “final cause” of a phenomenon ( Physics 195b4), and his defense of such “final causes”—which seems to involve arguing that animals develop the kinds of teeth that they have precisely because it is good for them to have such teeth ( Physics II.8, 198b29–32).

For an account of the early modern period’s revival of interest in the Epicureans’ atomistic conception of the world, see Greenblatt (2011) .

On Galileo, see Machamer (2017) .

This aspect of the historical picture is well described by Papineau (2001) .

For example, there are unmistakable appeals to natural teleology in the ethical writings of Lord Shaftesbury and Bishop Butler; see Raphael (1969 , §197 and §376).

See, for example, William Paley (1802 , Chap. 1).

For the contemporary debates about teleological notions in biology, see Allen and Neal (2020) . The only contemporary philosophers who seem to think that some kind of biology could serve as a foundation for ethical theory are those who follow the theory of “natural goodness” that was devised in the late works of Philippa Foot (2001) . In my judgment, these ethical theorists are attempting to swim against an overwhelmingly powerful tide in contemporary biology.

Another such link that some philosophers would be drawn to would be a connection between moral properties and the broadly divine or theistic properties of God. For this sort of approach, see Adams (1999) .

This argument seems to be originally due to Kim (1993 , 151–52), but it was redeployed by Jackson (1998 , 122–3). Strictly speaking, as I have pointed out ( Wedgwood 2007 , Chap. 9), the argument requires S5 modal logic—or at least the truth of all the relevant instances of the S5 axiom. But this is something that most philosophers are willing to grant.

This view need not imply that every desire that we ever have arises from this disposition for “loving the good”—there can be irrational desires on this view—but it implies that a being who wholly lacked this disposition to “love the good” would not count as having desires at all.

I have offered a defense of this approach to the philosophy of mind elsewhere (see Wedgwood 2007 , Chap. 7).

The view that evaluative and normative properties are causally efficacious in relation to mental events of these kinds is defended by Oddie (2005) and by me ( Wedgwood 2007 , Chap. 8).

This, as I read it, is the approach taken by Scanlon (2014 , 41).

For an argument for the centrality of grounding to normative theorizing, see Berker (2018) .

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What is Ethical Naturalism

There are two questions one might ask about moral naturalism. Of the two, the more discussed question is: why should one accept (or reject) it? But the less discussed, second question is prior: what is ethical naturalism? Appeals to naturalism are often taken to play an important role in assessing the plausibility the metaethical theories. So, it is perhaps surprising that there is so little agreement about just what ethical naturalism is. Here I consider an opinionated overview of the various proposals on offer and then briefly defend one of my own.

Related papers

Metaethics has long explored the question of how ethical thought and discourse fit into reality as a whole. The question is particularly pressing for those theorists who accept that there are ethical facts (that is, facts that make ethical statements and judgments true). Among these broadly realist theorists, reductive naturalists claim that ethical facts are of essentially the same kind as the facts of paradigmatic natural sciences like contemporary physics and biology. On the other hand, extreme non-naturalists, like G.E. Moore, claim that ethical facts are entirely primitive sui generis facts, radically different in kind from all other facts whatsoever. It is argued that these are both extreme positions, and that there should be a range of intermediate positions in between these two extremes. In fact, many pre-modern philosophers – including most ancient and medieval thinkers – adopted such an intermediate position. But the kind of intermediate position is no longer a live option for us today, since it is conflicts with what we have learnt from contemporary natural science. Nonetheless, a range of intermediate positions are possible, and it is argued that these intermediate positions are prima facie promising and deserve careful consideration from contemporary metaethicists.

philosophie.ch

translation of a paper published in: Etica & Politica \ Ethics & Politics, 2007

I discuss first the various meanings of naturalism in philosophy and then in ethics: that of American Naturalism, that of Dewey’s pragmatism, the sense of negation of Moore’s negation of naturalism, the neo-Aristotelian, and that of external realists. I will argue a fundamental heterogeneity of these meanings and add that the reasons for the apparent unity of a naturalist front in recent philosophical debates depend more on factors studied by the sociology of knowledge than philosophical reasons. I suggest one plausible naturalism, Aristotle’s and Dewey’s claim that moral good is not specifically moral. Finally, I add that scientific exploration programs into the biological bases of behaviour and coordination of behaviour within groups are promising but hardly ‘naturalistic’ and compatible with ethical intuitionism or Kantian ethics.

This dissertation is a critique of synthetic ethical naturalism (SEN). SEN is a view in metaethics that comprises three key theses: first, there are moral properties and facts that are independent of the beliefs and attitudes of moral appraisers (moral realism); second, moral properties and facts are identical to (or constituted only by) natural properties and facts (ethical naturalism); and third, sentences used to assert identity or constitution relations between moral and natural properties are expressions of synthetic, a posteriori necessities. The last of these theses, which distinguishes SEN from other forms of ethical naturalism, is supported by a fourth: the semantic contents of the central moral predicates such as 'morally right' and 'morally good' are fixed in part by features external to the minds of speakers (moral semantic externalism). Chapter 1 introduces SEN and discusses the most common motivations for accepting it. The next three chapters discuss the influential "Moral Twin Earth" argument against moral semantic externalism. In Chapter 2, I defend this argument from the charge that the thought experiment upon which it depends is defective. In Chapters 3 and 4, I consider two attempts to amend SEN so as to render it immune to the Moral Twin Earth argument. I show that each of these proposed amendments amounts to an abandonment of SEN. Chapter Five explores Richard Boyd's proposal that moral goodness is a "homeostatic property cluster." If true, Boyd's hypothesis could be used to support several metaphysical, epistemological, and semantic claims made on behalf of SEN. I advance three arguments against this account of moral goodness. In the sixth chapter, I argue that moral facts are not needed in the best a posteriori explanations of our moral beliefs and moral sensibility. Because of this, those who accept a metaphysical naturalism ought to deny the existence of such facts or else accept skepticism about moral knowledge. In Chapter 7, I consider a counterargument on behalf of SEN to the effect that moral facts are needed in order to explain the predictive success of our best moral theories. I show that this argument fails

Perhaps the two main contemporary formulations of ethical naturalism - Synthetic Ethical Naturalism (SEN) and Analytical Descriptivism – seem to conflict with plausible views about cases where moral debate and disagreement is possible. Both lack safeguards to avoid divergence of reference across different communities, which can scupper the prospects for genuine moral disagreement. I explore the prospects for supplementing both views with Lewis’s notion of eligibility, arguing that this can solve the problem for a modified form of analytical descriptivism, and for a modified form of SEN too (though perhaps more controversially). I close by considering the appropriateness of using the notions of eligibility and joint-carving in ethics.

Ethics in Progress, 2019

Modern ethics has to face the problem of how to accommodate the requirement for intersubjectively justified and accepted (valid) moral norms and values with the high-paced development of science and knowledge-based societies. This highly discussed opposition between what is morally eligible and what is scientifically correct may lead to stating that modern ethics is – rhetorically speaking – a dying figure. For it is impossible – after the Kantian-Copernican turn in epistemology and ethics – to defend the theological view that there exist certain universal and objective moral obligations. Yet, due to the rapid development of experimental sciences and the accomplishments of analytic philosophy, modern ethics are faced with the threat of either being reduced to a descriptive field of knowledge or becoming a shadow of its own past glory with no significance. Under these conditions, an attempt to defend ethics in its naturalistic form seems out of question. Still, the ethical naturalism may prove that – in the given state of social, scientific, and philosophical development – it is possible to successfully defend the view that ethical sentences express a certain type of proposition that may be proven true due to some objective natural features, independent of human opinions.

Blackwell Companion to Naturalism, ed. by Kelly James Clark, 2016

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Why Naturalism?

Published: June 2003
Volume 6 , pages 179–200, ( 2003 )

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David Copp 1

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My goal in this paper is to explain what ethical naturalism is, to locate the pivotal issue between naturalists and non-naturalists, and to motivate taking naturalism seriously. I do not aim to establish the truth of naturalism nor to answer the various familiar objections to it. But I do aim to motivate naturalism sufficiently that the attempt to deal with the objections will seem worthwhile. I propose that naturalism is best understood as the view that the moral properties are natural in the sense that they are empirical. I pursue certain issues in the understanding of the empirical. The crux of the matter is whether any synthetic proposition about the instantiation of a moral property is strongly a priori in that it does not admit of empirical evidence against it. I propose an argument from epistemic defeaters that, I believe, undermines the plausibility of a priorism in ethics and supports the plausibility of naturalism.

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Copp, D. Why Naturalism?. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 6 , 179–200 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024420725408

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The Basic Position Of Ethical Naturalism Philosophy Essay
Naturalism is the view that ethical sentences express propositions and that they can be reduced to non-ethical sentences. Non-reductive ethical naturalism holds that moral properties are not reducible to non-moral properties, but are supervenient upon those properties.
Ethical Naturalism | The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory ...
I have defined ethical naturalism primarily as a metaphysical doctrine (about what kind of facts moral facts are), though with an unsurprising epistemological corollary (that since moral facts are natural facts, we can know about them pretty much as we know about other natural facts).
Ethical naturalism - Wikipedia
Ethical naturalism (also called moral naturalism or naturalistic cognitivistic definism) [1] is the meta-ethical view which claims that: Ethical sentences express propositions. Some such propositions are true. Those propositions are made true by objective features of the world.
Why Naturalism? (Chapter 1) - Morality in a Natural World
My goal in this chapter is to explain what ethical naturalism is, to locate the pivotal issue between naturalists and nonnaturalists, and to motivate taking naturalism seriously. It is no part of my goal to establish the truth of naturalism.
Ethical Naturalism: Problems and Prospects | The Oxford ...
This chapter discusses fundamental problems and prospects for ethical naturalism. Section 1 explains what is meant by “ethical naturalism” and surveys different versions of the view. Section 2 discusses the central philosophical challenge to ethical naturalism, viz., the “Normativity Objection.”
Ethical Naturalism - Cambridge University Press & Assessment
This volume brings together twelve new essays which make it clear that, in light of recent developments in analytic philosophy and the social sciences, there are novel grounds for reassessing the doctrines at stake in these debates.
Ethical Naturalism, Non-Naturalism, and In-Between | The ...
This chapter explores the issues surrounding ethical “naturalism” and “non-naturalism.” First, it seeks to clarify (a) the fundamental questions on the metaphysical side of metaethics, and (b) the most illuminating way (in this context) of conceiving of what is “natural.”
(PDF) What is Ethical Naturalism | Janice Dowell - Academia.edu
I discuss first the various meanings of naturalism in philosophy and then in ethics: that of American Naturalism, that of Dewey’s pragmatism, the sense of negation of Moore’s negation of naturalism, the neo-Aristotelian, and that of external realists.
ETHICAL NATURALISM - rsrevision.com
Ethical Naturalism argues that actions have objective moral properties which we can experience or observe empirically. These properties may be reduced to entirely non-ethical or natural properties, such as desires or pleasures. Ethical naturalists include Natural Law and Utilitarian theorists.
Why Naturalism? | Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - Springer
My goal in this paper is to explain what ethical naturalism is, to locate the pivotal issue between naturalists and non-naturalists, and to motivate taking naturalism seriously. I do not aim to establish the truth of naturalism nor to answer the various familiar objections to it.