Ethical Objectivity and Rule Following

Abstract

Critics of ethical objectivity often make much of the claim that ethical facts and properties play no part in our best empirical explanations of how the world works (c.f. Mackie 1977, 1–49; Harman 1977, 3–10). In this respect, ethics is said to differ from other branches of thought, such as physics, chemistry, biology, or even psychology. Partly on these grounds, it has been argued that we should think of ethics as in the business of invention rather than discovery: morality is not to be discovered but to be made (Mackie 1977, 106). One response to this claim has been to argue that the concept of objectivity is misunderstood by those who seek to understand it exclusively in terms of facts and properties that feature essentially in empirical explanations. According to one line of thought in line with this response, there is an overlap between the domain of discovery and the domain of invention in many, if not all, objective areas of thought. To say that morality is made does not entail that it cannot also be discovered.