Journal of Philosophical Research

Volume 25, 2000

Coherentist Naturalism in Ethics

After briefly arguing that neither (Kantian or utilitarian) rule-based ethics nor virtue ethics offers promise as a moral theory, I state that argument by analogy (i.e., deliberation within coherence constraints) is a satisfactory form of moral deliberation. I show that what is right must be whatever corresponds to the largest and most coherent set of a society’s moral values. Since we would not know how to interpret the claim that what is right might be repugnant to all our shared moral values, I argue that a definitional naturalist position passes Moore’s open question test. “X is right” just means “performing X satisfies the largest and most coherent set of our altruistic and self-interested desires.” On this view, moral properties are real relational properties. I raise and respond to several objections.