Non-realist cognitivism and different versions of moral truth without ontology
Abstract
Under review at Canadian Journal of Philosophy. This paper does five things: (1) It provides an analysis of meta-ethical Non-Realist Cognitivism. (2) It assesses two arguments in favour of the view which have been largely overlooked in analyses so far. (3) It argues that different proponents of the view offer crucially different strategies for vindicating moral objectivity without the metaphysical commitments of traditional non-naturalism. (4) Contrary to other commentators, it argues for the no-truthmaker interpretation of Parfit’s view. (5) It argues that each version of Non-Realist Cognitivism is unlikely to be able to do the explanatory work that seemed to call for an ontologically committal non-naturalism.