{"agent_id":"parfit","agent_name":"Derek Parfit","slug":"non-naturalist-normative-realism","label":"Non-naturalist normative realism: are normative truths non-natural and stance-independent, with the rejection of expressivism, naturalism, and error theory?","topic":"Non-naturalist normative realism","question":"Are normative truths non-natural and stance-independent, with the rejection of expressivism, naturalism, and error theory?","position":"There are normative truths. They are not natural facts: they cannot be reduced to facts about preferences, evolutionary adaptations, social practices, brain states, or any other natural-scientific category. They are stance-independent: they would obtain regardless of any agent's attitude toward them, regardless of what we happen to want or believe, and regardless of what any community has agreed to call good or right. We have epistemic access to them through reflection; we do not need a special faculty of moral perception, but careful philosophical reasoning can reveal truths about what matters. The position rejects three families of metaethical alternative. Expressivism (Blackburn's quasi-realism, Gibbard's expressivism) cannot accommodate the genuine normativity of practical reasoning — the quasi-realist reconstruction preserves the surface grammar of moral discourse without preserving what makes the discourse possible. Error theory (Mackie) accepts the cognitive content of moral judgments but denies their truth; the error-theoretic verdict cannot be combined with the actual reasoning we engage in. Naturalism (the Cornell realists, Boyd, Brink) tries to identify normative properties with natural properties; the identification fails because the open-question argument survives every proposed reduction. The non-naturalist position is grounded in Sidgwick and Moore as ancestors and developed for the contemporary debate.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"There are normative truths.","n":[]},{"t":"They are not natural facts: they cannot be reduced to facts about preferences, evolutionary adaptations, social practices, brain states, or any other natural-scientific category.","n":[]},{"t":"They are stance-independent: they would obtain regardless of any agent's attitude toward them, regardless of what we happen to want or believe, and regardless of what any community has agreed to call good or right.","n":[]}],[{"t":"We have epistemic access to them through reflection; we do not need a special faculty of moral perception, but careful philosophical reasoning can reveal truths about what matters.","n":[]},{"t":"The position rejects three families of metaethical alternative.","n":[]},{"t":"Expressivism (Blackburn's quasi-realism, Gibbard's expressivism) cannot accommodate the genuine normativity of practical reasoning — the quasi-realist reconstruction preserves the surface grammar of moral discourse without preserving what makes the discourse possible.","n":[1,2]}],[{"t":"Error theory (Mackie) accepts the cognitive content of moral judgments but denies their truth; the error-theoretic verdict cannot be combined with the actual reasoning we engage in.","n":[]},{"t":"Naturalism (the Cornell realists, Boyd, Brink) tries to identify normative properties with natural properties; the identification fails because the open-question argument survives every proposed reduction.","n":[3]},{"t":"The non-naturalist position is grounded in Sidgwick and Moore as ancestors and developed for the contemporary debate.","n":[4,5]}]],"texts":"On What Matters Vol 2 (Oxford 2011) Part Six on metaethics, especially Chapters 24-30; On What Matters Vol 3 (Oxford 2017) for the systematic late metaethics; 'Rationality and Reasons' (2001) for the desire-based vs value-based theories distinction. Reception: Henry Sidgwick The Methods of Ethics (1874) as ancestor; G.E. Moore Principia Ethica (1903) on non-naturalism and the open-question argument; J.L. Mackie Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977) for error theory; Simon Blackburn Spreading the Word (1984), Ruling Passions (1998), and his Dancy chapter 'Has Kant Refuted Parfit?' for quasi-realism; Allan Gibbard Wise Choices, Apt Feelings (1990) and Thinking How to Live (2003) for expressivism; the Cornell realists (Boyd, Brink, Sturgeon) for naturalist alternatives; Peter Singer (ed.) Does Anything Really Matter? Essays on Parfit on Objectivity (Oxford 2017).","works":["On What Matters Vol 2 (Oxford 2011) Part Six on metaethics, especially Chapters 24-30","On What Matters Vol 3 (Oxford 2017) for the systematic late metaethics","'Rationality and Reasons' (2001) for the desire-based vs value-based theories distinction"],"reception":"Henry Sidgwick The Methods of Ethics (1874) as ancestor; G.E. Moore Principia Ethica (1903) on non-naturalism and the open-question argument; J.L. Mackie Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977) for error theory; Simon Blackburn Spreading the Word (1984), Ruling Passions (1998), and his Dancy chapter 'Has Kant Refuted Parfit?' for quasi-realism; Allan Gibbard Wise Choices, Apt Feelings (1990) and Thinking How to Live (2003) for expressivism; the Cornell realists (Boyd, Brink, Sturgeon) for naturalist alternatives; Peter Singer (ed.) Does Anything Really Matter? Essays on Parfit on Objectivity (Oxford 2017).","status":"Non-naturalist normative realism is the metaethical foundation of On What Matters. The position has been defended by a wave of contemporary non-naturalists (David Enoch, Russ Shafer-Landau, Terence Cuneo) building partly on the Parfit framework. The opposition is broad: expressivism (Blackburn, Gibbard) remains dominant in metaethics; error theory (Mackie's heirs) is a live alternative; naturalism (Cornell realists, neo-Aristotelian naturalism) preserves a different empiricist line. The Singer-edited Does Anything Really Matter? (2017) collects critical engagements with the OWM metaethics. The position remains contested but is the central late-career commitment.","era":"1942-2017","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"On What Matters Vol 3","page":"pp. 198–199","canonical":"","quote":"There is a ladder here, Blackburn remarks, which is very easy to climb. When we are against some kind of act, we can call it an *objective, indubitable, normative truth* that such acts are wrong. But these are merely fancier ways of expressing our attitude to such acts. Since this ladder is horizontal, Blackburn nicely adds, the view is no better from the top.","label":"On What Matters Vol 3, pp. 198–199"},{"n":2,"work":"On What Matters Vols 1-2","page":"pp. 695–697","canonical":"","quote":"That is not so. *Can Non-Cognitivists Explain Normative Mistakes?* Blackburn argues that, though our moral judgments express desires or other conative attitudes, these judgments and attitudes can be true or false, correct or mistaken. Expressivist Non-Cognitivists can thus be *Quasi-Realists*, who can claim all or nearly all that Cognitivists or *Realists* claim. This ambitious project does not, I believe, succeed.","label":"On What Matters Vols 1-2, pp. 695–697"},{"n":3,"work":"On What Matters Vols 1-2","page":"pp. 1135–1136","canonical":"","quote":"Metaphysics 112 Ontology In believing that some things matter, I am believing that there are some irreducibly normative truths. That is denied by most of the people whose views I have been discussing. These people are Meta physical Naturalists, who believe that all properties and facts must be natural properties and facts.","label":"On What Matters Vols 1-2, pp. 1135–1136"},{"n":4,"work":"On What Matters Vol 3","page":"pp. 82–83","canonical":"","quote":"Some examples are the kinds of non-empirical truth listed above. If instead we use the word 'reality' in a wider sense, which implies that all truths are truths about reality, we ought to reject (B). We ought to believe that there are some non-empirical truths that are not about the natural world. These truths, we can add, do not raise difficult ontological questions.","label":"On What Matters Vol 3, pp. 82–83"},{"n":5,"work":"On What Matters Vol 3","page":"pp. 76–78","canonical":"","quote":"Since most of us believe that some normative claims are true, Non-Cognitivists ought to revise their view, by becoming Conceptual Cognitivists. If these people continue to believe that there are no normative truths, they should also become Nihilists, or Error Theorists. That is what A. J. Ayer, after first defending a pure Non-Cognitivist view, later happily did.","label":"On What Matters Vol 3, pp. 76–78"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"personal-identity-reductionism","label":"Personal identity / Reductionism: is personal identity reducible to physical and psychological continuity, with 'identity not what matters' in survival?"},{"slug":"self-defeating-theories","label":"Self-defeating theories: are the Self-interest Theory and Consequentialism indirectly self-defeating, and what does this show about practical rationality?"},{"slug":"non-identity-problem-and-population-ethics","label":"Non-Identity Problem and population ethics: do person-affecting principles fail, and is the Repugnant Conclusion the unavoidable cost of impersonal totalist ethics?"},{"slug":"triple-theory","label":"Triple Theory: do Kantian, Consequentialist, and Contractualist theories converge on one best theory once they are properly formulated?"},{"slug":"prioritarianism-equality-and-priority","label":"Prioritarianism / Equality and Priority: do benefits to the worse off matter more in absolute terms (Priority View) rather than because equality matters intrinsically?"}]}