Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)

By David O. Brink and George Albert Brown

This book is a systematic and constructive treatment of a number of traditional issues at the foundation of ethics, the possibility and nature of moral knowledge, the relationship between the moral point of view and a scientific or naturalistic world view, the nature of moral value and obligation, and the role of morality in a person's rational life plan. In striking contrast to many traditional authors and to other recent writers in the field, David Brink offers an integrated defense of the objectivity of ethics.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521359376
• ISBN13: 9780521359375
• Release Date: February 1989
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 356 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Important Large-Scale Defense of the Objectivity of Ethics

This book defends the objectivity of ethics. Brink argues that there are moral facts, and that these facts are (in some important sense) independent of human thought. He also argues that our moral claims purport to describe such facts, and that we are often successful in doing so. Finally, he argues that moral knowledge is possible, and that we possess a good deal of it. This is an important book in contemporary meta-ethics since it is the first and only book-length treatise on so-called "Cornell Realism." What is perhaps most distinctive of the Cornell Realists is that they draw on work in recent philosophy of science to argue that we have good reason to believe that moral inquiry is objective in much the same way that scientific inquiry is objective. They also adhere to a battery of views on specific meta-ethical issues, and this helps to distinguish them from other thinkers. At the center of their metaphysics of morality is the view that moral facts and properties are natural, though they cannot be reduced to the properties of physics, biology, chemistry, or any other discipline in the natural sciences. They favor a semantics of moral discourse according to which moral terms cannot be wholly analyzed into the language of other disciplines. They defend a coherentist moral epistemology, and they argue that the Rawlsian method of reflective equilibrium is a discovery procedure employed in both ethics and the sciences. Finally, they defend externalism about motivation and reasons for action. In his book Brink defends all of these positions. Since there's no point in trying to analyze Brink's arguments in a review of this length, I'll simply try to say something about the overall structure of the book and how it relates to Brink's project. He begins by distinguishing moral realism from its noncognitivist and constructivist competitors, and he argues that many of our common-sense beliefs about moral language and inquiry provide evidence for realism. Brink also argues that, pace certain anti-realists, the choice between realism and anti-realism does have some effect on our normative practices. These conclusions, he thinks, provide some prima facie evidence for moral realism. Unless the anti-realist can show that there is something seriously wrong with realism, there is good reason to accept realism. Brink then argues that his form of realism can provide a plausible account of morality, and that it isn't undermined by certain well-known objections to realism. He begins by developing his views on moral epistemology and the practical aspects of morality. He then considers some objections to moral realism. The first objection is one based on the is/ought thesis, the thesis that moral statements cannot be derived from non-moral ones. Brink argues that this thesis, even if it is true, does not undermine realism, as this sort of inferential gap is present in other areas as well. This is followed by a chapter on a posteriori objections

The best defense of moral realism

I recommend David O.Brink, _Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics_ (Cambridge UP, 1989). In my judgment it is the best defense of moral realism. Although it does not deal with religion directly it argues for an objective naturalistic ethics--just what theists say that atheists cannot have. Michael Martin