![]() Money is real in the sense that it’s “out there” independent of any particular individual’s mental state. Given the combination of money’s ontological subjectivity and epistemological objectivity, it makes it very difficult to sensibly deny the reality of that money. Money, like all social entities, is ontologically subjective since its existence depends on mental states, but epistemologically objective since the standards that determine the truth or falsity of claims about it are independent of any particular individual’s mental state. John Searle introduces a helpful distinction between ontological objectivity/subjectivity and epistemological objectivity/subjectivity. Money’s existence, therefore, is dependent on a collection of mental states but independent from the mental states of any particular individual. I can’t just will a million dollars into my bank account. This kind of objectivity, in turn, reveals a sense in which money is quite mind- independent too. ![]() ![]() It is objectively true that I currently have $1,000 in my bank account but sadly false that I have $1 million. Despite this mind-dependency there are, nonetheless, objective facts about money. Therefore, the US dollar is mind-dependent in the sense that its existence depends on specific human beliefs, actions, expectations, and practices. And unlike bridges or buildings, the US dollar will cease to exist once humans are extinct (if not before). Without a doubt, the US dollar did not exist prior to humans existing. To demonstrate how this can be the case, let’s begin by considering the case of money. I maintain that some types of mind-dependency do not disqualify things from being real, and the distinction between reality and objectivity dissolves at certain levels of description. In this essay, I attempt to: 1) demonstrate how some popular arguments against moral realism fail and 2) provide a positive account of what a naturalistic moral realism could look like.Īrguments against moral realism often invoke morality’s apparent mind-dependency and a distinction between objectivity and reality. The metaphysics of morality, therefore, are closer to that of the metaphysics of money or nation-states than to that of tables, quarks, or genes. Yet, distinct from medium-sized furniture, morality exists as part of the social world. Like tables and chairs, morality is part of the Manifest Image. The non-reductionist, naturalistic moral realist asserts that just as tables and chairs are real and objective, despite not playing any role in fundamental physics or in any of the special sciences, moral principles are also real and objective. Less metaphorically, moral realism emerges into view once we embrace the anti-reductionist, realist lessons of post-positivist philosophy of science and apply them to insights from Kant and Wittgenstein. ![]() The resultant image will be lost on those who cannot see the forest for the trees, and on those who can’t see the trees for the forest, but it allows the rest of us to reclaim a world in which both trees and forests exist. Such vision takes insight from both the scientific and the manifest images of the world. Maybe moral realism occupies that rare philosophical space that requires what Wilfrid Sellars calls “stereoscopic vision” in order to properly comprehend. But then again, maybe the multi-front assaults indicate an inner strength that merits the attention. Uniting erstwhile enemies such as these is quite the feat and is undoubtedly symptomatic of deep conceptual flaws. It carries the notable distinction of drawing the opprobrium of both hard-nose naturalists and libertine relativists. Moral realism occupies a precarious position in contemporary philosophy.
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