Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - 2005 - Volume 28, Issue 06  


Open Peer Commentary

Moral realism and cross-cultural normative diversity

Edouard Machery a1, Daniel Kelly a2 and Stephen P. Stich a3
a1 Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 machery@pitt.edu http://www.pitt.edu/~machery/
a2 Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-2882 dankelly@rci.rutgers.edu
a3 Department of Philosophy and Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-2882 stich@ruccs.rutgers.edu http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~stich/

Abstract

We discuss the implications of the findings reported in the target article for moral theory, and argue that they represent a clear and genuine case of fundamental moral disagreement. As such, the findings support a moderate form of moral anti-realism – the position that, for some moral issues, there is no fact of the matter about what is right and wrong.