One influential positive argument for moral realism is the Explanatory Indispensability Argument. A crucial premise of this argument is the explanatory relevance of moral properties. On this premise, moral properties, such as wrongness, rightness, courage, and cowardice, are explanatorily indispensable to some empirical phenomena. Although there has been a lively debate on this premise, one crucial challenge to this thesis, what I call the Scientific Standard Challenge, has not been properly discussed. After explaining this challenge and a related concern, I (...) argue that in response to this central challenge, the proponents of the argument should take what I call the localist turn to defend the explanatory indispensability of moral properties. The localist turn encourages the defenders of moral explanations to be more sensitive to the nature of each moral explanation. For instance, some moral explanations are explanations of social matters, so the standards they need to meet are provided by relevant branches of the social sciences. On the other hand, some other moral explanations are about our psychology, so the theoretical standards those explanations need to meet should come from psychology. I illustrate how this localist project can be conducted in the case of the moral explanation that appeals to injustice. I argue that the field of comparative politics provides the theoretical standards moral explanations of institutional change need to meet. I shall then illustrate how a sophisticated moral explanation can meet those theoretical standards and how this moral explanation can be strong evidence of injustice’s explanatory indispensability. (shrink)

Abstract“The wrongness of Albert's action causally explains why Jane judged that his action was wrong”. This type of causal moral explanation has been extensively discussed in the recent metaethical literature. This paper motivates the following claims about this type of moral explanation. First, a typical defence of this type of moral explanation suggested in the literature does not work because it predicts inaccurate modal information. Second, focusing on different aspects of the ways moral judgements are generated provides better chances for (...) the defender of this type of moral explanation. Third, the strategy mentioned in the previous point leads us to the following alternative evaluative explanation: The property of being a harmful action explains a recognisable pattern of moral judgements observed in the relevant empirical studies. One crucial implication the paper alludes to is a localist approach to the debates concerning moral realism: We should consider each moral property's ontological genuineness separately, referring to specific empirical findings that are particularly relevant to the target moral property in question. Such a localist approach can provide solid resources for realists to respond to various anti‐realist challenges, such as an influential evolutionary debunking argument. (shrink)

The study considers the implementation of one of the top trends in modern society development – defending the role of morality in society and the value paradigm, the centre of which is increased attention to the formation of the value-semantic sphere of personality, which influences their worldview formation. Scientific research focuses on the moral values formation of the growing individual from the perspective of their worldview development, revealed by interaction with the world, specifically in interpersonal relationships and directly with themselves. (...) The essence and features of the moral values formation, in the context of interconnections and interdependence of components in the structure of an individual, are substantiated using the methods of analysis and synthesis, abstraction and concretization through the study of the scientific heritage of foreign and Ukrainian scientists. The article specifies moral values as a mechanism of human social behaviour that performs several functions in their life and affects the worldview and the formation of a personal worldview. Based on the generalization of the presented scientific array findings, the author’s concept of moral values formation in the worldview of the individual is modelled, it is presented as a diagram of the interdependence of three chain lines: 1) social morality – self-awareness – worldview; 2) values – world perception; 3) moral values – individual’s worldview. The algorithm for the studied phenomenon of an individual is seen in the moral education providing, which ensures the moral values formation in the structure of moral self-awareness and the development of the worldview of a growing personality. The individual’s worldview is determined by several factors: the system of moral knowledge and beliefs formed resulting from the acceptance of the acknowledged in society moral values that become personal; accumulated moral experience and striving for moral self-improvement. The findings outlined the issues of further scientific research, which will involve clarifying the state of students’ moral development in the educational process and the levels of their moral values formation as well. (shrink)