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Making Sense of Moral Realism
Author(s) -
Norman Richard
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
philosophical investigations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.172
H-Index - 14
eISSN - 1467-9205
pISSN - 0190-0536
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9205.00034
Subject(s) - externalism , moral realism , internalism and externalism , epistemology , moral disengagement , action (physics) , realism , metaphysics , philosophy , expressivism , ontology , moral philosophy , social cognitive theory of morality , moral psychology , moral reasoning , sociology , physics , quantum mechanics
The article begins by surveying defences of moral realism and noting the revival of an ontology of ‘moral properties’. Such a position tends either to invite accusations of espousing metaphysically ‘queer’ properties, or to fall back on a weak (e.g. externalist) version of moral realism. Norman attempts to find a way through these difficulties by exploring the idea of ‘moral vision’, suggesting that this is best understood not as the intuiting of special moral properties but as a matter of ‘seeing patterns’ in our lives and experiences. Such an account of moral vision can explain how it can be both cognitive and action‐guiding.