Arbitrariness Charges

Abstract

Abstract Intuitions about arbitrariness and non-arbitrariness play a key role in metaethical debate. It is an interesting feature of such debate that both realists and anti-realists face ‘arbitrariness charges.’ Roughly put, to issue an arbitrariness charge against a metaethical theory is to accuse that theory of failing to capture the normative non-arbitrariness of moral choice. The precise nature of these charges remains obscure, for the concept of arbitrariness itself has never been examined in depth. This chapter clarifies the notion of arbitrariness, and then outlines five distinct arbitrariness charges—the bruteness charge, the privilege charge, the normative deficit charge, the ownership charge, and the stability charge. This sets the scene for Chapters 2–5, which ask whether realist and anti-realist theories are able to capture all the ways in which moral choices are normatively non-arbitrary.