Benjamin Sachs - Explaining Right and Wrong: A New Moral Pluralism and Its Implications

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34 The Intrinsic Value of Endangered Species

Ian A. Smith

35 Ethics and Social Survival

Milton Fisk

36 Love, Reason and Morality

Edited by Esther Engels Kroeker and Katrien Scaubroeck

37 Virtues Reasons

New Essays on Virtue, Character, and Reasons

Edited by Noell Birondo and S. Stewart Braun

38 In Defense of Moral Luck

Why Luck Often Affects Praiseworthiness and Blameworthiness

Robert J. Hartman

39 Risk, Technology, and Moral Emotions

Sabine Roeser

40 Wittgensteins Moral Theory

Edited by Rashef Agam-Segal and Edmund Dain

41 Welfare, Meaning and Worth

Aaron Smuts

42 Moral Skepticism

New Essays

Edited by Diego E. Machuca

43 Explaining Right and Wrong

A New Moral Pluralism and Its Implications

Benjamin Sachs

I begin by reproducing the table that appears in 2 of :

This table lays out a common sense and an alternative interpretation of each of three main varieties of moral monism. Under the alternative interpretations, the key non-normative fact around which each variety of moral monism is constructed is construed not as an explainer of verdictive facts but rather as a meta-explainerthat is, as a fact whose instantiation or lack thereof explains why other facts can explain the verdictive facts.

The main attraction of having a theory of meta-explainers is that it gives us the ability to explain why enabling and disabling happen, when they happen, which are phenomena that cry out for explanation. Suppose, for instance, that Jones tells a lie, and that we think that the fact that an utterance is a lie can explain the impermissibility of that utterance, but in this case Joness lie actually wasnt impermissible, and there was no other factor in the case that could have overridden the moral force of the fact that Jones lied. Here we have a case in which something must have disabled the explanatory power of the fact that Joness action was the telling of a lie. A meta-explanatory theory would not only identify the disabler but also explain why it can do its disabling work. For instance, if Joness lie was about the strength of the poker hand he was holding, the act-consequentialist can say, plausibly, that the telling of that lie did not lead to lesser overall good as compared to Joness alternative courses of action. This fact is a disabler for act-consequentialism as we are now understanding it, and the act-consequentialist can explain why it does its disabling work, namely because the explanatory force of the fact of lie-telling is explained by the explanatory force of reducing the overall good.

I admit that we should want an explanation of why certain facts can do enabling and disabling work and that this speaks in favor of adopting a theory of moral meta-explanation (i.e., a theory of the type that appears in the right-hand column of ), but I insist nevertheless that we should not adopt any such theory. The trouble is this: Any plausible moral meta-explanation is likely to strike us as an even more plausible moral explanation. To take up the poker example again, suppose that telling a lie in the context of a poker game doesnt reduce the overall good as compared to other possible courses of action. Now the question becomes, what explanatory role, if any, does such a fact play? One possibility is to assign it the meta-explanatory role. But another possibility is to assign it the explanatory role, by which I mean saying that the fact that an action doesnt reduce the overall good as compared to other possible actions can ground the permissibility of that action, and then pointing out that in the poker case Joness lie has that feature. I doubt anyone will want to take former course once they recognize the availability of the latter course.