from Part III - Skepticism and a New Metaethical Position
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
Chapter 7 discussesa novel position in metaethics that the skeptical argument might give rise to: constructive deonticism. This position is structurally analogous to one of the most discussed anti-realist positions in science, Bas van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism. I start with an overview of van Fraassen’s view, discussing both its most important features and how it relates to its main rivals, scientific realism and logical positivism. Next, I flesh out the new position in ethics, focussing on the pragmatic understanding of moral explanation that it entails. Following this, I discuss how constructive deonticism should be classified as a metaethical position. I show that it is clearly not part of the expressivist family and at most half error theory (or fictionalism). However, the position is arguably not what realists are looking for either, instead prompting us to rethink how the metaethical realism debate has been framed. Finally, I point out what I consider to be the two most important challenges, i.e., whether we can draw such a sharp distinction bewteen deontic and explanatory claims and whether the position is a stable one.
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