TY - JOUR
T1 - Non-naturalistic moral explanation
AU - Baron, Samuel
AU - Colyvan, Mark
AU - Miller, Kristie
AU - Rubin, Michael
PY - 2021/5
Y1 - 2021/5
N2 - It has seemed, to many, that there is an important connection between the ways in which some theoretical posits explain our observations, and our reasons for being ontologically committed to those posits. One way to spell out this connection is in terms of what has become known as the explanatory criterion of ontological commitment. This is, roughly, the view that we ought to posit only those entities that are indispensable to our best explanations. Our primary aim is to argue that the moral nonnaturalist places herself in an invidious position if she simply accepts that the nonnatural moral facts that she posits are not explanatory. Instead, we offer the nonnaturalist an alternative strategy for dealing with moral explanations. The strategy is to retain the explanatory criterion of ontological commitment and maintain that moral properties are, in fact, explanatory. The explanations they provide are not causal explanations; instead, moral properties make a non-causal difference to the physical facts.
AB - It has seemed, to many, that there is an important connection between the ways in which some theoretical posits explain our observations, and our reasons for being ontologically committed to those posits. One way to spell out this connection is in terms of what has become known as the explanatory criterion of ontological commitment. This is, roughly, the view that we ought to posit only those entities that are indispensable to our best explanations. Our primary aim is to argue that the moral nonnaturalist places herself in an invidious position if she simply accepts that the nonnatural moral facts that she posits are not explanatory. Instead, we offer the nonnaturalist an alternative strategy for dealing with moral explanations. The strategy is to retain the explanatory criterion of ontological commitment and maintain that moral properties are, in fact, explanatory. The explanations they provide are not causal explanations; instead, moral properties make a non-causal difference to the physical facts.
KW - Causal explanation
KW - Explanation
KW - Indispensability arguments
KW - Mathematical realism
KW - Moral naturalism
KW - Moral non-naturalism
KW - Non-causal explanation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85069868787&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s11229-019-02341-3
DO - 10.1007/s11229-019-02341-3
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85069868787
VL - 198
SP - 4273
EP - 4294
JO - Synthese: an international journal for epistemology, methodology and philosophy of science
JF - Synthese: an international journal for epistemology, methodology and philosophy of science
SN - 0039-7857
IS - 5
ER -