Moral Reasoning and our Values—a Concluding Remark

Abstract

Early in the book I distinguished between the moral judgements we make and the moral values in which we believe (p. 27). I held to this distinction all through the book: Our judgements are subject to reasoning and reflection. The values in which we believe underlie the possibility of such reasoning. It is they which give us a particular perspective on things and endow them with a moral significance which makes them attractive or repulsive to us given our regard for these values and the way we have assimilated them. But if the significance we find in things presupposes our allegiance to certain values, we cannot without circularity base our allegiance on the moral significance of things, or rest our values on anything more fundamental.