Abstract

During the recent surge of activity in the moral realism debate, relatively little attention has been paid to the possibility of developing a moderate alternative to moral realism and anti-realism. I present a case, however, for the claim that the project of developing such an alternative is a promising one. The case includes an attempt to show that there has in fact been significant, though largely unrecognized, movement away from the extremes of moral realism and anti-realism in recent years, and that movement has produced very positive results. More specifically, I argue that the movement towards a middle ground has made it possible to develop positions which are free of some of the major problems which have confronted moral realists and anti-realists, have considerable explanatory power, and can be plausibly defended against a number of objections