Ethical Realism and Robust Normativity

Abstract

Abstract The chief objection to ethical realism is its purported inability to account for “robust normativity.” Ethical realism postulates facts, such as the fact that torture is wrong, which it takes to be states of affairs partly constituted by ethical properties, such as wrongness. The objection is that ethical realism, so understood, is unable to explain the “robust normativity” of these facts. This chapter explores strategies for addressing the objection, and argues that it is important to respond directly to it. The chapter argues that ethical naturalism is better positioned than non-naturalism to answer the objection. It distinguishes three relevantly different views an ethical realist might have about the normativity of ethics: “normative formalism,” “normative conceptualism,” and “normative objectualism.” Normative objectualism is the best candidate for a realist theory of normativity, but is the most vulnerable to the normativity objection.