First Name:
Tyler
Last Name:
Holbrook
Major Department:
Philosophy
Thesis Director:
Jesse Taylor
Date of Thesis:
May 2013
Positing the existence of objective moral facts often grounds moral discourse. Doing so allows the moral agent to maintain and explain the emphatic moral inescapability and categorical force required for any moral system. This sort of authoritative chutzpah is a necessary part of moralities that so often require us to act in ways that is not in our self-interest. I believe that this appeal to objective fact is both epistemically untenable and unnecessary, and instead I hope to present an alternative theory that does not require objective moral facts but still retains the insinuation of inescapability and categorical force that give morality its characteristic impetus.
I want to first address in detail the epistemic issues associated with objective moral fact. Chief in this aim will be the presentation of a moral error theory. This line of reasoning follows specifically from J.L. Mackie, whose arguments I believe cast long shadows of doubt on any moral realism that relies on objective moral facts. Second, I hope to present a positive alternative theory that will, I hope, allow for the preservation of morality’s apparent categorical force while accounting for epistemic irregularities in the commitments of many traditional moral positions, particularly those in something I will refer to as the ‘inescapability clause.’ This theory, which I will call non-cognitive moral instrumentalism, will draw from Jesse Prinz’s sensibility theory (the noncognitive part) and Richard Joyce’s moral fictionalism (the instrumentalist part).
Fundamental to this thesis will be the explication of the relevant foundational arguments as well as an adequate overview of the positions of my opponents, and the grounding of the discourse about moral realism and anti-realism in the relevant historical and theoretical context.