Kramer on Moral Realism as a Moral Doctrine

Matthew H. Kramer, Churchill College, Cambridge University; University of Cambridge - Faculty of Law, has published There's Nothing Quasi About Quasi-Realism: Moral Realism as a Moral Doctrine as University of Cambridge Faculty of Law Research Paper No. 42/2016. Here is the abstract.

This paper seeks to clarify and defend the proposition that moral realism is best elaborated as a moral doctrine. I begin by upholding Ronald Dworkin’s anti-Archimedean critique of the error theory against some strictures by Michael Smith, and I then briefly suggest how a proponent of moral realism as a moral doctrine would respond to Smith’s defense of the Archimedeanism of expressivism. Thereafter, this paper moves to its chief endeavor. By differentiating clearly between expressivism and quasi-realism (or moral realism as a moral doctrine), the paper highlights both their distinctness and their compatibility. In so doing, it underscores the affinities between Blackburnian quasi-realism and moral realism as a moral doctrine. Finally, this paper contends ─ in line with my earlier work on these matters ─ that moral realism as a moral doctrine points to the need for some reorienting of meta-ethical enquiries rather than for the abandoning of them.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.