Paul Bloomfield

Morality seems to play a special role in human life distinct from conventional norms, like those of etiquette, or simple preferences based on subjective tastes. There are various theories of the foundations of morality, some of which treat morality as 'subjective' in an important way. 'Moral realism' is however a family of theories that take morality to have an objective factual basis, such that morality is not 'up to us' and is not 'under our control'. The contributions in this handbook explore the central ideas and themes constituting moral realism and defend particular views about it.

There is little more common in ethics than to think pain is intrinsically bad and pleasure is intrinsically good. A Humean-style error theory of the axiology of pain and pleasure is developed against these commonsense claims. We defend the thesis that the value of pain and pleasure is always contingent and only instrumental. We survey prominent theories of both intrinsic value and pain/pleasure, all of which assume that pain and pleasure are intrinsically valuable. We base our error theory on counterexamples to this assumption, upon which these theories falter, and a theory of pain and pleasure which derives their value solely from their evolutionary function.

The property of physical health is presented as a model for moral goodness, and a primer on being healthy follows. Healthiness is understood in terms of proper biological function. Conventionalism and relativism, two bugbears of moral realism, are discussed in relation to healthiness and found not to arouse suspicion about the reality of physical health. By analogy, these can be accommodated by moral realism. A discussion of the supervenience and reduction of goodness and health follows, and the chapter ends with a discussion of S. Blackburn's challenge to moral realism based on supervenience.

It is absurd to be a motivational internalist about the property of health; there is no magnetism or queerness in tofu despite it being healthy, and the same tack should be taken with regard to the property of moral goodness. Intuitions behind internalism are found to be confused, and problems are discussed with regard to Hume and Williams on the one hand and Kant, Nagel, and Korsgaard on the other. Externalism is defended: each of us is not as responsive to goodness as we might be, and it is contingent whether or not we motivationally respond to what we recognize is good.

The epistemology of medical practice is investigated and the notion of a skill is found to be central to learning about health. This is followed by a discussion of skills, based on the Greek understanding of a skill, as well as the Greek understanding of moral virtue as a skill. Virtue theory, deontology, and consequentialism are articulated by the structure of the epistemology. The argument from disagreement against moral realism is discussed and refuted. Finally, Aristotle's arguments against virtues as skills receive an extended discussion, and responses to them are given.

The semantics of “health” are discussed by way of Aquinas’ theory of analogical predication: “health” and “good” have the tripartite semantic structure in terms of a base use, causes, and signs. This tripartite structure is mapped back onto the discussion of virtue theory, deontology, and consequentialism. T. Horgan and M.Timmon's Moral Twin Earth problem for moral realism is discussed and found not to apply to the present theory. The syntax of biological function statements is explicated and found to have the same underlying structure as prescriptions. A sketch of a theory of the normativity is proffered.

An extended transcendental argument for moral realism is given cast in terms of an “argument from error”. This is distinguished from an argument from moral phenomenology because the errors under consideration are those that go undetected despite our confidence of their existence. First person error is focused upon in particular as is the human condition in general. The argument establishes a presumption in favor of moral realism, not a conclusive proof. A theory of moral goodness is needed, and a sketch of the ontological, epistemological, semantic, and psychological questions any such theory must answer is given.

While emotions can play positive, contributory roles in our cognition and our lives, they frequently have the opposite effect. Michael Brady’s otherwise excellent introduction to the topic of emotion is unbalanced because he does not attend to harms emotions cause. The basic problem is that emotions have a normative aspect: they can be justified or unjustified and Brady does not attend to this. An example of this is Brady’s discussion of curiosity as the emotional motivation for knowledge. More importantly, while emotions can and sometimes do reveal to us what we value, it is far less frequent that emotions reveal objective value.

Perhaps the most familiar understanding of “naturalism” derives from Quine, understanding it as a continuity of empirical theories of the world as described through the scientific method. So, it might be surprising that one of the most important naturalistic moral realists, Philippa Foot, rejects standard evolutionary biology in her justly lauded _Natural Goodness_. One of her main reasons for this is the true claim that humans can flourish (eudaimonia) without reproducing, which she claims cannot be squared with evolutionary theory and biology more generally. The present argument concludes that Foot was wrong to reject evolutionary theory as the empirical foundation of naturalized eudaimonist moral realism. This is based on contemporary discussion of _biological function_ and _evolutionary fitness_, from which a definition of “eudaimonia” is constructed. This gives eudaimonist moral realism an empirically respectable foundation.

One of the few points of unquestioned agreement in virtue theory is that the virtues are supposed to be excellences. The best way to understand the project of "virtue ethics" is to understand this claim as the idea that the virtues always yield correct moral action and, therefore, that we cannot be “too virtuous”. In other words, the virtues cannot be had in excess or “to a fault”. If we take this seriously, however, it yields the surprising conclusion that many traits which have been traditionally thought of as “virtues” fail to make the grade. The most prominent solution to the problem, reminiscent of Aristotle's view, is found to generate more problems than it solves. Ratio, Volume 35, Issue 1, Page 49-60, March 2022.

The idea of epistemic temperance is introduced and explicated through a discussion of Plato's understanding of it. A variety of psychological and epistemic phenomena are presented which arise due to epistemic intemperance, or the inappropriate influence of conations on cognition. Two cases familiar to philosophers, self-deception and racial prejudice, are discussed as the result of epistemic intemperance though they are not typically seen as having a common cause. Finally, epistemic temperance is distinguished from epistemic justice, as these have been conflated.

A basic challenge to naturalistic moral realism is that, even if moral properties existed, there would be no way to naturalistically represent or track them. Here, the basic structure for a tracking account of moral epistemology is given in empirically respectable terms, based on a eudaimonist conception of morality. The goal is to show how this form of moral realism can be seen as consistent with the details of evolutionary biology as well as being amenable to the most current understanding of representationalist or correspondence theories of truth.

The ancient Greeks almost universally accepted the thesis that virtues are skills. Skills have an underlying intellectual structure (logos), and having a particular skill entails understanding the relevant logos. possessing a general ability to diagnose and solve problems (phronesis). as well as having appropriate experience. Two implications of accepting this thesis for moral epistemology and epistemology in general are considered. Thinking of virtues as skills yields a viable virtue epistemology in which moral knowledge is a species of a general kind of knowledge that is not philosophically suspect. Also, the debate between internalists and externalists in epistemology is subversively resolved as moot by adopting this strategy: the locus of justification for a belief is in the nature of skill. Thus, the contingent fact that some skills allow Homo Sapiens an ‘internal access’. while others do not, is theoretically neutral when considering the nature of justification per se.

A central problem in moral theory is how it is to be defended against those who think that there is no harm in being immoral, and that immorality can be in one's self-interest, assuming the perpetrator is not caught and punished. The argument presented here defends the idea that being immoral prevents one from having self-respect. If it makes sense to think that one cannot be happy without self-respect, then the conclusion follows that one cannot be both immoral and happy. Immorality is harmful because its self-disrespecting nature keeps immoralists from being happy. This is the harm of immorality.