Reply to Wilson Mendonça's "Supervenience arguments against robust moral realism"

In his “Supervenience arguments against robust moral realism”, Wilson Mendonça sets out to defend robust moral realism (the thesis that moral properties are not identical to natural properties) against the Explanatory Argument based on Supervenience. According to this argument, robust realism is una...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Filosofia Unisinos 2019-09, Vol.20 (3), p.285
Main Author: Vogelmann, Rafael Graebin
Format: Article
Language:Portuguese
Subjects:
Realism
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:In his “Supervenience arguments against robust moral realism”, Wilson Mendonça sets out to defend robust moral realism (the thesis that moral properties are not identical to natural properties) against the Explanatory Argument based on Supervenience. According to this argument, robust realism is unable to account for specific supervenience facts; given that the identification of moral and natural properties allows one to account for such facts, robust realism has an explanatory disadvantage vis-à-vis reductive realism. Mendonça’s answer consists in holding (i) that reductive realism has trouble accounting for the asymmetric character of specific supervenience facts and (ii) that the notion of reduction by analysis, which allows one to properly explain specific supervenience facts, supports only a weak form of reductionism that is compatible with robust realism. I argue that these claims are false and that, therefore, Mendonça fails to show that the Explanatory Argument is not a threat to robust realism.
ISSN:1519-5023
1984-8234