In this major new book, Matthew Kramer seeks to establish two main conclusions. On the one hand, moral requirements and other elements of ethics are strongly objective in a number of senses that that Kramer elaborates. On the other hand, the objectivity of ethics is itself an ethical matter that rests primarily on ethical considerations. Moral realism ? the doctrine that morality is indeed objective in the various respects which Kramer expounds ? is a moral doctrine. This volume therefore fights battles on two complicatedly criss-crossing fronts. Many philosophers who deny the objectivity of ethics have sought to base their arguments on non-ethical considerations. They take themselves to be impugning the intellectual solidity of ethical claims and values without advancing any such claims or endorsing any such values in the course of their reflections. Quite a few champions of ethical objectivity have responded in kind by seeking to adduce alternative non-ethical considerations. Kramer, while aiming to dispel doubts about ethical objectivity, goes against both the doubters and their realist opponents by insisting that the key questions concerning ethical objectivity are not only about the domain of ethics but also within it. Distinguished by its originality, ambition and quality of scholarship, “Moral Realism as a Moral Doctrine” will be of interest to a wide range of readers in metaethics and moral philosophy more broadly.

Moral Realism as a Moral Doctrine