MMaM 2026 Moral Metaphysics at Maryland

Do normative explanations chain with metaphysical explanations to form larger normative explanations? That is, if A normatively explains B and C metaphysically explains A, does C also normatively explain B? I argue that the answer is often no. Facts about quarks may metaphysically ground the facts that normatively explain why an action is right, but quarks don't themselves normatively explain its rightness — they aren't reasons for action, they don't figure in first-order ethical theorizing, and learning about them doesn't yield normative understanding. I then argue that this failure of chaining has important and underappreciated theoretical consequences. It allows normative explanation to "bottom out" above the metaphysically fundamental level, creating space for a distinctive theoretical maneuver: taking part of a normative theory's explanatory structure and construing it as merely metaphysical — a metaphysical explanation that is not also a normative one. I illustrate this with two case studies. Firstly, I distinguish Metaphysical from Normative rule consequentialism. On the metaphysical version, the rule-consequentialist principle that the optimific rules are the correct ones metaphysically explains why certain moral principles hold, but does not normatively explain particular moral facts. Metaphysical rule consequentialism is a very revisionary form of rule consequentialism -- it's a metaphysical theory that is consistent with, for example, deontological and Kantian normative theories. I argue that, nevertheless, the theory has attractive explanatory and modal consequences. Secondly, I develop an analogous distinction for subjectivism about reasons. I conclude by arguing that the failure of chaining provides a natural, though partial, way of drawing the border between first-order ethics and metaethics.

This talk examines the implications of the metaphysical relationship between the strength of reasons, favoring, and deontic statuses for the literature on moral worth. First, I argue that on the most plausible specification of Markovits' influential "right-making feature" view, an action has moral worth to the degree that the strength of the agent's motivating reasons for performing it is not only coincident with but also proportional to the strength of their normative reasons for performing it. Non-fetishistic deliberation can thus involve attending to the strength of moral reasons. Second, I argue that whether this view collapses the distinction between "right-making feature" and "rightness itself" views of moral worth depends on the metaphysics of the strength of reasons. If the strength of a reason is identical to the degree to which it pushes an option toward some deontic status, then attending to the strength of a moral reason in deliberation involves attending to deontic statuses ("rightness") under another guise. However, if the strength of a reason is identical to the degree to which the reason favors an option—and it therefore bears a different metaphysical relationship, such as grounding, to the reason's pushing an option toward some deontic status—then attending to the strength of a moral reason needn't involve attending to deontic statuses under another guise.

We argue that several prominent metaphysical debates—including debates over physicalism in the philosophy of mind, naturalism in metaethics, and positivism in the philosophy of law—are of a kind: they are each debates about the correct metaphysical classification of various kinds of entities. We argue that this suggests that we should expect metaphysical accounts of what physicalism, naturalism, and positivism consist in to have the same generic structure. Second, we argue that there are strong reasons to favor an account of that generic structure that appeals to the idea of a metaphysical similarity class, where this contrasts strikingly with prominent accounts in terms of modal and grounding relations.

The Overridingness Theorist (OT) accepts The Overridingness Claim (OC), according to which moral requirements always override reasons or requirements of other kinds. This paper develops a critique of this position. I set out by articulating some difficulties that arise for OT when it comes to adjudicating conflicts between moral requirements and reasons arising from our personal commitments. Although there are different methods of adjudication available, I argue that the most promising of these commit OT to either (i) questionable normative claims or (ii) questionable moral ones. I then show that both outcomes are symptomatic of a deeper problem—one that comes into view once we conduct a closer examination of the wider philosophical paradigms in which OC is typically nested. These paradigms, I argue, either mischaracterize morality or misplace it in our normative lives. We can avoid all such problems by acknowledging, contra OT, that morality is limited in both its practical authority and its practical guidance. Doing so is not so much a setback as it is an opportunity; for it is not morality's job to tell us how to live, but ours.

Principia Ethica set the terms of modern meta-ethical debate. Moore was allegedly a ‘Moorean’, holding that there are sui generis non-natural moral facts, properties, and relations inconsistent with a naturalistic picture of reality. In that sense, all subsequent meta-ethics amount to footnotes to Moore. It is surprising, then, that Moore has been, I argue, badly misread. The Moore of Principia Ethica was not a Moorean. There is substantial textual evidence, and evidence from his other contemporaneous work, that Moore was then committed to a form of Meinongianism applied to morality that is virtually absent from contemporary meta-ethics. Further, I argue that misreading Moore is the original cause of much confusion. For, first, this misreading has caused a dramatic reduction in the space of live options in meta-ethics. Second, it has forced so-called ‘non-naturalist’ theories to be formulated in a specific, very strong way largely generated by talk of goodness (and other moral properties) as ‘sui generis.’ Third, it has led to a form of meta-metaphysical complacency where various assumptions are inherited without argument, built into this misreading of Moore, where such debates – such as those over ontological commitment, existence, and truthmaking – are, in fact, heavily contested in ways that should matter to moral metaphysics today.

In the first half of the 20th century, Moore, Ross, and others argued for their versions of normative non-naturalism by arguing that at least one normative concept cannot be analyzed entirely in terms of natural concepts. These days, many non-naturalists defend their view by arguing that at least one normative property's essence cannot be analyzed entirely in terms of natural properties. This talk explores the striking parallels between these phases of metaethics.