Misunderstanding Metaethics: Korsgaard’s Rejection of Realism

Abstract

Abstract Contemporary Kantianism in ethics is often thought of not just as a position within normative ethics but also as an alternative to moral realism. We argue that it is in fact not at all clear how contemporary Kantianism can distinguish itself from moral realism. There are of course many Kantian positions. For reasons of space we have chosen to focus here on the position of one of the most prominent, contemporary Kantians, Christine Korsgaard. Officially our discussion is restricted to her version of Kantianism, though we suspect that the lessons learnt here apply elsewhere. In our experience, it immediately strikes some as implausible that Korsgaard is actually engaged in metaethics. We grant that there are strains in Korsgaard that suggest an attempt to, so to speak, go ‘‘beyond’’ metaethics. We take up such a reading of Korsgaard elsewhere (Hussain and Shah, 2005b). Here we simply accept at face value the way in which she repeatedly introduces the Kantian view as an alternative to realism. Crucially, she emphasizes that the realism of concern to her is, as she puts it, ‘‘substantive moral realism’’— that is, a view with specific metaphysical, epistemological, and semantic commitments.

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