The Modal Status of Moral Principles

Abstract

Conventional wisdom holds that pure moral principles hold of metaphysical necessity, from which it follows that it is metaphysically impossible for the moral facts to vary independently of the descriptive facts. Moral contingentists deny this, holding that the moral laws are in some cases like the laws of nature: metaphysically contingent, but necessary in a weaker sense. The present chapter makes a preliminary case for moral contingentism and defends the view against recent objections due to Lange (2018) and Dreier (2019).

Topics & Concepts