Moral Realism and Anti-Realism vs. the Metaethics of Life
A Plea for Conceptual Clarity
A false alternative is stifling thought in metaethics.
Whereas normative ethics (or morality) addresses the question, Which values and principles should guide our choices and actions?—metaethics addresses a more fundamental question: What is the ultimate source of moral values and principles, and how do we know it?
In today’s academic circles and among popular philosophers, metaethical theories typically are classified under two general categories: realism and anti-realism.1
Moral realism captures theories claiming that moral values and principles exist as real things or properties—meaning facts independent of people’s interests, goals, or desires. Such facts are often said to be “stance independent,” “mind independent,” or “desire independent”—that is, unrelated to human perspectives, ideas, or aims.
Examples of this category include:
Plato’s theory, according to which the ultimate source of moral truth is the realm of Forms—known only by philosophers through mathematical study and higher reasoning—and that you should defer to the wisdom of those who know the moral truth, namely the philosopher-kings.
Religious theories to the effect that the ultimate source of moral truth is God’s will (or character), which is known by revelation or faith, and that you must obey God’s commands because his will is the moral law.2
Immanuel Kant’s theory, according to which the ultimate source of moral truth is “the moral law within,” which is known by reason apart from experience, and which commands you to act solely from respect for the law itself—and not at all for the purpose of sustaining life or pursuing happiness.
Ethical intuitionism and moral-sense theories, which hold that basic moral truths are self-evident facts, known through intuitive “seemings,” and that you should act in accordance with whatever seems right.
Moral anti-realism, in contrast, captures theories claiming that moral values and principles are not facts independent of human consciousness—but, rather, wholly fabrications of human consciousness, whether assertions, feelings, conventions, falsehoods, or emotional outbursts.
Examples here include:
Personal subjectivism, the notion that right and wrong stem solely from the mind of the individual, that they are merely matters of personal preference or desire—“Whatever I think or feel is right is right for me; I know this because I think or feel it.”
Cultural relativism, the idea that right and wrong are matters of group opinion or consensus—whatever a given culture regards as moral is moral for that culture; they know this because they agree on it.
Error theory, the idea that there are no moral truths because all moral claims are false—as demonstrated by the fact that no one has shown how a moral claim can be true.
Non-cognitivism, the idea that there are neither moral truths nor moral falsehoods because moral claims and judgments don’t rise to the level of having truth value; ultimately, they are nothing more than commands (e.g., “Be fair” or “Don’t lie”) or expressions of approval or disapproval (e.g., “Hooray” or “Boo”). Advocates of this theory claim it is true by virtue of the fact that no one has shown how a moral claim can be either true or false.
That, in a nutshell, is the lay of the meta-land.3
But this popular way of classifying metaethical theories—as either realist or anti-realist—fails to account for a theory holding that moral values and principles arise from a synthesis of knowledge, goals, desires, and mind-independent facts. In other words, it fails to capture the metaethics of objectivity.
Objectivity in metaethics, as Ayn Rand observed, involves the conceptual integration of certain facts of reality, including human nature and the requirements of human life and happiness—which can be discovered, verified, and codified via reason. Moral values and principles, in this view, are neither aspects of reality apart from human consciousness nor creations of our consciousness apart from reality. Rather, they are mental integrations—conceptualizations—of the factual requirements of our life and happiness, given the kinds of beings we are.
For instance, our faculty of reason—which operates by means of perceptual observation, conceptual integration, and the laws of logic—is objectively a value because it is our means of knowledge and thus our basic means of living. A corresponding principle is that if we want to live, we should act on our rational judgment. Likewise, our emotions—our experiences of joy, sorrow, pride, and the like—are objectively values because such experiences are crucial to our life and happiness; life wouldn’t be worth living without them. A corresponding principle here is that we should treat our emotions as what they are—automatic reactions to our thoughts or experiences in relation to our values—and never treat them as our means of knowledge, which they are not. Similarly, food, clothing, shelter, purpose, self-esteem, friendship, romantic love, individual rights, political freedom, and many other things are values—because they, too, are factual requirements of human life and happiness. The corresponding principles are that if we want to survive and thrive, we should act accordingly; we should be productive, choose life-serving goals, cultivate integrity, judge people rationally and treat them accordingly, respect individual rights, trade value for value voluntarily when we want things from others, advocate liberty, and so forth.
All such values are kinds of facts—facts in relation to the requirements of human life: That which supports and furthers our life given the kind of beings we are is the good; that which harms or destroys it is the bad (or evil). This is the metaethics of objectivity. And because neither moral realism nor moral anti-realism captures it, we need a third category that does: moral objectivism.
As Rand elaborated in “The Objectivist Ethics,” this metaethical view holds that the ultimate source of moral values and principles is the same fact that gives rise to our need for values and principles in the first place: the fact that we are alive and that, if we want to live, we must act in certain ways and not in others.
Although some philosophers try to define moral realism so loosely as to include theories holding that the correct metaethics involves a relationship between independent facts and human purposes, this creates a fallacious package-deal and causes confusion. Theories that are unrelated to human aims are fundamentally different from those that are derived from and in service of human aims. Likewise, some try to define moral anti-realism so broadly as to include any and all theories other than realism, but this, too, creates a package-deal and causes confusion. Theories that deny any objective foundation for morality are fundamentally different from those that affirm and purport to explain such a foundation.4
To unify the schools of thought that are essentially the same and separate those that are essentially different, we need categories that recognize the relevant similarities and differences. We need not two but three basic metaethical categories: realism, anti-realism, and objectivism. Or, to use Rand’s more precise terms: intrinsicism, subjectivism, and objectivism.
The intrinsic theory holds that the good is inherent in certain things or actions as such, regardless of their context and consequences, regardless of any benefit or injury they may cause to the actors and subjects involved. It is a theory that divorces the concept of “good” from beneficiaries, and the concept of “value” from valuer and purpose—claiming that the good is good in, by, and of itself.
The subjectivist theory holds that the good bears no relation to the facts of reality, that it is the product of a man’s consciousness, created by his feelings, desires, “intuitions,” or whims, and that it is merely an “arbitrary postulate” or an “emotional commitment.”
The intrinsic theory holds that the good resides in some sort of reality, independent of man’s consciousness; the subjectivist theory holds that the good resides in man’s consciousness, independent of reality.
The objective theory, by contrast, holds that the good is neither independent of man’s consciousness nor independent of reality “but an evaluation of the facts of reality by man’s consciousness according to a rational standard of value.”5 That standard, in this view, is human life—the fundamental fact that makes morality and values both possible and necessary.6
People can reasonably debate whether the terminology of realism, anti-realism, and objectivism is better than that of intrinsicism, subjectivism, and objectivism. But in order for metaethical categories to capture the essential similarities and differences among the various theories, we need three categories, not merely two.
When we think about metaethics or discuss the subject with others, we should look out for the assumption that the only options are realism or anti-realism. That is a false alternative. It causes much confusion. And it obscures the metaethics of life.
Metaethical theories sometimes are classified under cognitivism and non-cognitivism or naturalism and non-naturalism as the overarching categories, and there are several additional subdivisions under realism and anti-realism that I don’t discuss in this short essay. My concern here is not to provide a comprehensive taxonomy of metaethics, but to address the false alternative of moral realism vs. anti-realism, the main theories subsumed under those categories, and the vital need for a third category.
Divine-command theories can also be seen as instances of supernatural subjectivism, in that the alleged truths emanate from the consciousness of an alleged God. For more on this, see “Religion Is Super Subjectivism,” The Objective Standard 12, no. 2 (Summer 2017).
For illustrative discussions, see “Moral Realism” with Joe Schmid, Michael Huemer, and Don Loeb; “Is Moral Realism the Common Sense View?” with Joe Schmid and Lance Bush; “Moral Realism Is True” by Bentham’s Bulldog; and “Bentham’s Blunder” by Lance Bush. For more formal explorations of the commonly used categories and terminology in the field, see the entries on metaethics, moral realism, and moral anti-realism on Wikipedia or in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
If philosophers intend for these categories to be contradictories (i.e., A and non-A), they should label them accordingly—as realism and non-realism—to denote mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive alternatives. The term “anti-realism” is vague in this regard. If the categories were realism and non-realism, and if realism were defined to capture only theories in which moral values and principles are facts unrelated to human aims, then moral objectivity in the form I’m suggesting would fall under non-realism. Such clarity would be helpful as far as it goes. But it would not solve the problem of identifying the nature of metaethical objectivity, which is the ultimate goal if we want a moral foundation that integrates all the relevant facts. Clarity in classification is merely a means to that end.
Ayn Rand, “What Is Capitalism?” in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (New York: Signet, 1967), 21–22.
For a brief indication of how moral principles (“oughts”) are derived from reality (what “is”), see “Secular, Objective Morality: Look and See,” The Objective Standard 12, no. 2 (Summer 2017). For a more detailed treatment, see “The Is–Ought Gap: Subjectivism’s Technical Retreat” and “How Morality is Grounded in Reality,” The Objective Standard 4, no. 2 (Summer 2009) and 4, no. 3 (Fall 2009) respectively.
Excellent article.
“Rand writes in “The Objectivist Ethics” that the ultimate source of moral values and principles is the same fact that gives rise to our need for them—the fact that we are alive and that, if we wish to live, we must act in certain ways rather than others.”
But non-human animals are also alive, and they too must act in certain ways to sustain their lives. Yet these facts do not give rise to morality among them. This shows that life as such cannot be the true source of ethics. The missing element is volition.
It is our volitional nature—our capacity and necessity to choose—that makes morality both possible and necessary. In the absence of instinct, human beings must choose every action based on their knowledge. To choose among alternatives presupposes knowledge of the alternatives and their possible consequences, given the nature of the actions in question. Thus, the need for knowledge and evaluation arises from volition, not merely from the fact of being alive.
Volition, then, is the source of morality; life and human flourishing are its standard. Non-human animals, though they share with us the attributes of life and consciousness, lack volition. They cannot choose to act against their nature. Humans can. And it is precisely this freedom—to act in harmony with or in defiance of our nature—that gives rise to the realm of ethics.
I really appreciated your point that the realism vs. anti-realism debate often misses the deeper question: what actually grounds moral “ought” claims in reality?
Something I’ve been exploring recently: if we take Hume’s is/ought gap seriously and apply it to itself (a bit like a Gödel-style self-reference), the rule can only function as a description of reasoning, not as a moral command.
Once the gap is descriptive, something interesting happens, any universal “ought” requires an evaluator. If someone asserts a moral obligation, the very structure of the claim presupposes that the listener has agency (the ability to choose or refrain).
So instead of grounding morality in a cosmic rule or a moral law floating in the void, it seems morality only makes coherent sense relative to a living agent who must evaluate. In that way, agency becomes the minimal precondition for moral reasoning, not because it’s a value, but because the alternative collapses into contradiction.
This seems complementary to your argument about grounding ethics in the requirements of life. Just curious, do you see “agency as the minimal logical precondition” as compatible with grounding values in life’s objective needs?