Date of Graduation

12-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Philosophy

Advisor/Mentor

Lee, Richard

Committee Member

Senor, Thomas D.

Keywords

Metaethics; Metaphysical Grounding; Moral Naturalism; Moral Non-naturalism; Normative Ethics; Supervenience

Abstract

Supervenience presents a problem for the moral non-naturalist. Supervenience states that one’s moral properties cannot differ without one’s natural properties differing. It, therefore, states a necessary connection between moral and natural properties. Moral properties for the moral non-naturalist are sui generis, which means they are not reducible to natural properties, but also they are utterly different in kind than natural properties and any other kind of property. How can these properties be necessarily connected? This requires an explanation. The challenge to the moral non-naturalist is to provide such an explanation. McPherson (2012) presents an explanatory challenge to the non-naturalist to explain this connection. He argues that no explanation is forthcoming, and the moral non-naturalist is saddled with an explanatory burden that is costly to her view while the moral naturalist is not. For the moral naturalist can explain the connection because moral properties are either reducible to natural properties, identical to them, or constituted by them. Thus, the moral naturalist is not saddled with any cost to her view.
The argument presented here challenges McPherson’s (2012) objection. In Chapter One, I lay out McPherson’s objection and clarify the assumptions involved in it. In Chapter Two, I motivate a different response to McPherson’s objection by showing that the main non-naturalist proposals that attempt to explain the necessary connection between moral and natural properties face a dilemma. The lesson learned from this is the moral non-naturalist can change course, and instead of trying to explain the necessary connection, show that the moral naturalist has a bruteness problem too. This, I argue, reduces the explanatory burden posed by McPherson’s argument. If the moral naturalist cannot make good on the claim that they can explain the connection too, this lessens the explanatory charge aimed at the moral non-naturalist. Chapter Three considers the main naturalist proposals for explaining moral supervenience and shows they too have a brute necessary connection between moral and natural properties. In Chapter Four, I respond to objections.

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