Abstract
According to an anti-realist argument, realist accounts of supervenience face the following dilemma: either they accept naturalistic reduction, an ontological claim about the nature of normative properties that is incoherent with their defining agenda, or they recognize that their agenda is based on a queer ontology, which is at risk of being unintelligible. In a recent defense of robust moral realism, David Enoch recognizes that this is a serious challenge but argues that it is not a conclusive argument against to moral realism because queerness is after all tolerable. His strategy is to minimize the costs of admitting queerness by focusing on the explanatory role of moral principles, in analogy with law. This is a promising approach to the problem of supervenience, but it is doubtful as strategy. I will show that in favor of moral realism. In fact, if all the explanatory work is done by normative principles, there is nothing for the realist account of supervenience to do.
In this paper, I argue that this debate about normative supervenience rests on a misunderstanding of the role of normative principles. As an alternative, I offer a constructivist explication of the epistemic and ontological role of normative principles, which proves the notion of supervenience to be redundant. The advantage of this constructivist approach to supervenience is that it directly addresses a legitimate demand for an explanation of the function of normative discourse, which is often kept in the background. In providing a response to this demand, this constructivist argument also shows – pace Enoch and others – that an account of practical reasoning is not only pertinent but also essential to successfully address the meta-ethical issue of supervenience.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See Enoch (2011). I deploy Enoch’s formulation because the ensuing discussion revolves around his account. A different formulation takes the subvenient bases to be descriptive properties, namely, properties picked out in purely descriptive terms. As Ridge observes this formulation does not beg any questions against descriptivists, unlike the formulation in terms of the (Moore 1998, Ridge 2007). The descriptivist agrees that the normative supervenes on the descriptive since he holds that the normative just is the descriptive.
- 2.
“The wrongness – Mackie writes – must somehow be consequential or supervenient. [An action] is wrong because it is a piece of deliberate cruelty. But just what in the world is signified by this ‘because’? And how do we know the relation that it signifies?” (Moore 1988: 38).
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
This is Williams’ well known objection to Kantian ethics, Williams 1985. Understood as a form of practical cognitivism, constructivism is not immediately vulnerable to this objection. On the contrary, it is sensitive to Williams’ worry against realist interpretations of Kant’s ethics, see e.g. Engstrom 2002, 2013, and Bagnoli 2013, 2017c.
- 6.
For a different debate about the problem of supervenience in Kantian ethics, see Forschler 2012.
- 7.
References
Bagnoli C. (2013) “Constructivism about Practical Knowledge”, in Constructivism in Ethics, Bagnoli ed., Cambridge University Press, 2013, 153–182.
Bagnoli C. (2017a) “Constructivism and the Moral Problem”, Philosophia 44/4: 1229–1246.
Bagnoli C. (2017b) “Constructivism in Meta-ethics”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta ed.
Bagnoli C. (2017c) “Kant in Metaethics: The Paradox of Moral Autonomy, Solved by Publicity”, Kant Handbook, Matthew Altman ed., London: Palgrave-Macmillan, chapter 14.
Blackburn, Simon (1971). Moral realism. In John Casey (ed.), Morality and Moral Reasoning. Methuen.
Blackburn, Simon W. (1984). Supervenience revisited. In Ian Hacking (ed.), Exercises in Analysis: Essays by Students of Casimir Lewy. Cambridge University Press, 59–74.
Blackburn, Simon (1985). “Errors and the Phenomenology of Value”. In Ted Honderich (ed.), Morality and Objectivity. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Copp, David (2013) Is constructivism an alternative to moral realism? in Constructivism in Ethics, Bagnoli ed., Cambridge University Press, 2013, 108-132.
Dreier, James (1992). The supervenience argument against moral realism. Southern Journal of Philosophy 30 (3):13–38.
Engstrom, S. (2002) “Kant’s Distinction Between Theoretical and Practical Knowledge”, The Harvard Review of Philosophy 10 (1): 49–63.
Engstrom, S. (2013) Constructivism and practical cognitivism, in C. Bagnoli ed., Constructivism in ethics, Cambridge University Press, 133–152.
Enoch, D. (2009) “Can There Be a Global, Interesting, Coherent Constructivism about Practical Reason?” Philosophical Explorations 12: 319–39.
Enoch, David (2010). The epistemological challenge to metanormative realism: how best to understand it, and how to cope with it. Philosophical Studies 148 (3): 413–438.
Enoch, David (2011). Taking Morality Seriously: A Defense of Robust Realism. Oxford University Press.
Forschler, Scott (2012). From Supervenience to “Universal Law”: How Kantian Ethics Become Heteronomous. In Dietmar Heidemann (ed.), Kant and Contemporary Moral Philosophy. De Gruyter.
Hussain, N., Shah, N. (2013) “Meta-Ethics And Its Discontents: A Case Study Of Korsgaard”, in Constructivism in Ethics, Bagnoli ed., Cambridge University Press.
Hare, R. M. (1952) The Language of Morals, Oxford: Clarendon Press. doi:10.1093/01988107 76.001.0001
Hare, R. M. (1984). “Supervenience”. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 58:1–16.
Hussain, Nadeem J. Z. & Nishi Shah, (2006) ”Misunderstanding Metaethics: Korsgaard’s Rejection of Realism”. Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 1: 265–294.
Korsgaard, C. M. (1996) The Sources of Normativity. Ed. O. O’Neill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mackie, J. L. (1977). Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. London: Penguin.
Moore, G. E. (1998). The Conception of Intrinsic Value. In James Rachels (ed.), Philosophical Studies. Oxford University Press.
O’Neill, O. (1989) Constructions of Reason: Exploration of Kant’s Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O’Neill, O. (1992) “Vindicating Reason,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kant, P. Guyer (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 280–308.
O’Neill, O. (1996) Toward Justice and Virtue. A constructive account of practical reasoning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Platts, Mark (1979). Ways of Meaning: An Introduction to a Phiosophy of Language. MIT Press.
Rawls John (1971) A Theory of Justice, 2nd edition 1999, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rawls John (1993) Political Liberalism, New York: Columbia University Press.
Rawls, J. (2000) Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, Ed. B. Herman and C. M. Korsgaard. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ridge, Michael (2007). Anti-reductionism and supervenience. Journal of Moral Philosophy 4 (3):330–348.
Street (2010) “What is Constructivism in Ethics and Metaethics?”, Philosophy Compass, 5(5): 363–384. doi: 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00280.x
Sturgeon, Nicholas L. (1986). Harman on moral explanations of natural facts. Southern Journal of Philosophy 24 (S1):69–78.
Sturgeon, Nicholas L. (2006). Moral Explanations Defended. In James Dreier (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory. Blackwell 241–262.
Williams, B. (1985). Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bagnoli, C. (2017). The Supervenience Dilemma Explained Away. In: Brożek, B., Rotolo, A., Stelmach, J. (eds) Supervenience and Normativity. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 120. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61046-7_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61046-7_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-61045-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-61046-7
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)