Is Peter Railton a moral realist?

This study is a critical examination of American philosopher Peter Railton’s moral realism. He holds that there are moral propositions which can be true or false; moral facts and properties are natural facts and properties; we can come to know or justify moral judgments through wide reflective equilibrium.

What is moral realism philosophy?

Moral realism is the view that there are facts of the matter about which actions are right and which wrong, and about which things are good and which bad. Second, realists hold that moral facts are independent of any beliefs or thoughts we might have about them.

Why is there such a thing as anti-realism?

Putting aside the arguments that appeal to moral disagreement, a significant motivation for anti-realism about morality is found in worries about the metaphysics of moral realism and especially worries about whether moral realism might be reconciled with (what has come to be called) naturalism.

What is the common ground of moral realism?

That much is the common and more or less defining ground of moral realism (although some accounts of moral realism see it as involving additional commitments, say to the independence of the moral facts from human thought and practice, or to those facts being objective in some specified way).

What’s the difference between moral realism and Error theorists?

Moral realists answer ‘yes’ to both, non-cognitivists answer ‘no’ to the first (and, by default, ‘no’ to the second) while error theorists answer ‘yes’ to the first and ‘no’ to the second. (With the introduction of “minimalism” about truth and facts, things become a bit more complicated.

Who are the people who reject moral realism?

As a result, those who reject moral realism are usefully divided into (i) those who think moral claims do not purport to report facts in light of which they are true or false (noncognitivists) and (ii) those who think that moral claims do carry this purport but deny that any moral claims are actually true (error theorists).