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A Deflationary Metaphysics of Morality

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Abstract

The metaphysical dispute between moral realists and antirealists is cast in terms of properties: the realist holds that moral properties exist, the antirealist denies this claim. There is a longstanding philosophical dispute over the nature of properties, and the obscurity of properties may make the realist/antirealist dispute even more obscure. In the spirit of deflationary theories of truth, we can turn to a deflationary theory of properties in order to clarify this issue. One might reasonably worry that such an account of properties would not be capable of properly characterizing disputes regarding the existence or nonexistence of genuine moral properties. In this paper, I will show that, within this framework, the traditional disputes over the existence of moral properties can be characterized in a far clearer fashion than is usually the case. A deflationary account of properties, along with an explanatory hierarchy of properties, makes the dispute in ontology clear.

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Notes

  1. Dreier 2006 attempts to offer an account of what Moore had in mind in his discussion of the nature of good. I have doubts about Dreier's attempts to distinguish between Moore's views and other metaethical theories, doubts that are explained later in this essay.

  2. A similar account of properties is discussed by Stephen Schiffer in his book The Things We Mean. According to Schiffer, ‘It is a conceptual truth that if Lassie is a dog, then Lassie has the property of being a dog’ (2003, p. 61). I find Schiffer's characterization of properties as ‘pleonastic entities’ secured by ‘something-from-nothing’ transitions a bit misleading. The point is not that properties are created or brought into existence by appeal to the minimalist property schema. Rather, as with truth, the point is that it is a mistake to say anything about the ontological status of properties over and above what is stated by this schema.

  3. It is important to note here that Blackburn's denial of the existence of moral facts and properties, cited above, places the terms ‘fact’ and ‘property’ in scare quotes. Perhaps this reflects Blackburn's own suspicion of the traditional discussion of these two notions.

  4. The considerations raised by Hardin (1988) should at least raise a concern as to whether color is a naturalistic property.

  5. Given that I am just using this notion of a physical property to explain the idea of an explanatory hierarchy, there is no need here to give a full account of what is and what is not a physical property. There may be no clear definition of what exactly a physical property is.

  6. I am using the term ‘explanatory moral realism 2’ here to keep the points regarding the explanatory role of moral properties distinct. A philosopher could, for example, hold explanatory realism 1 without holding explanatory realism 2, if she thinks that moral properties explain observations but not actions.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to my fellow graduate students at the CUNY Graduate Center and colleagues at SUNY New Paltz and Oakland University for encouragement and discussion of this work. Special thanks are due to Michael Devitt, James Dreier, Keota Fields, Virginia Held, Paul Horwich, Steve Ross, Catherine Wilson, and an anonymous referee for Acta Analytica for comments on earlier versions of the article. I am most grateful to Susan J. Cronin for her support of my work and for her critiques of several drafts of the article.

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Correspondence to Fritz J. McDonald.

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McDonald, F.J. A Deflationary Metaphysics of Morality. Acta Anal 25, 285–298 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-009-0063-3

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