Wanderer above the Sea of Fog | Caspar David Friedrich, ca. 1818
Key Terms for this Section
Moral Facts · Moral Nihilism · Moral Skepticism
Cultural Relativism · Moral Subjectivism · The Grounding Problem of Ethics
2.1 | Proving Ethics
Central Question: How are ethical claims justified in philosophy?
Metaethics & the Question of “Proof”
A natural starting point for ethical inquiry is the set of questions known as metaethics. Metaethical inquiry steps back from particular moral claims and asks whether the ethical project itself is possible and, if so, what would count as a justified moral claim. Rather than asking what is right or wrong, metaethics asks whether moral reasoning can succeed at all.
One central metaethical question concerns proof. In the natural sciences, claims are typically established through observation, experimentation, and measurement. With sufficient evidence and the appropriate methods, it can be shown that the Earth orbits the Sun. However, ethical claims do not have this kind of experimental confirmation. They concern value rather than physical description.
This difference does not imply that ethical reasoning is arbitrary or irrational. Instead, it indicates that moral justification operates through philosophical argument rather than empirical testing. Ethical claims are evaluated by examining their coherence, consistency, explanatory power, and their fit with human experience. The central issue, then, is not whether ethics can be proven scientifically, but whether ethical claims can be objectively justified through reason.
Moral Facts & Competing Metaethical Positions
So, does ethics objectively exist?
There are essentially three different camps related to this question. Moral Objectivists (cf. Section 2.4) say, “Yes!” Morality objectively exists and is independent of our desires. The Moral Subjectivists (cf. Section 2.3) say “No,” because morality (while real) is an extension of the self or our culture. The third camp are the Moral Nihilists (cf. Section 2.2) who also say “No,” but they disagree because, to their thinking, morality doesn’t actually exist. It’s all just made up.
This brings us to the foundational Ethical concept of moral facts.
A Moral Fact is an ethical claim that can be proven to be true. For example, if someone says you can prove that murder is inherently wrong, then that person assumes moral facts exist. Moral Realists claim that moral facts, much like science, can be discovered. Both Moral Objectivists and Moral Subjectivists are Moral Realists (ie. they both believe moral facts exist). Opposed to them are the Moral Antirealists, who claim there are no moral facts — only mere opinions and traditions we made up. For the Moral Antirealist, while something may be considered wrong in our culture (eg. slavery or genocide), it’s still not ‘objectively’ or ‘inherently’ wrong. The wrongness of genocide, says the Moral Antirealist, is not a moral fact. It’s merely a useful, widely shared opinion.
Do Moral Facts Exist? Moral Realists Moral Antirealists (moral facts exist) (moral facts don’t exist) Moral Objectivism (Sec. 2.4) Moral Nihilism (Sec. 2.2) Moral Relativism (Sec. 2.3) Moral Particularism (Sec. 2.2)
Why Moral Facts Matter
The question of moral facts is not merely abstract. If moral facts exist, ethical disagreement involves competing attempts to understand moral reality. If they do not, ethical disagreement reduces to clashes of perspective, tradition, or preference. The possibility of ethical reasoning itself depends on how this issue is resolved.
Metaethics therefore sets the conditions for normative ethics. Before asking what one ought to do, it is necessary to determine what kind of claims moral judgments are and how they could be justified. Without clarity at this level, ethical theories risk talking past one another or relying on unexamined assumptions.
From here, Section 2 proceeds by examining these competing answers in turn. The following lessons will consider whether skepticism about moral knowledge is justified, whether moral truth is relative to individuals or cultures, and whether morality can be grounded objectively. For now, the task is simply to recognize that ethical reasoning presupposes some account of whether moral facts exist.
2.2 | Moral Nihilism
Central Question: What if morality wasn’t real?
Nihilism: A World without Moral Facts
Moral Nihilism, the view that moral facts do not exist, holds that claims such as “murder is wrong” or “stealing is unjust” do not describe any objective feature of the world. According to this position, moral judgments are not true or false in the way factual claims are; instead, they function as expressions, conventions, or misunderstandings rather than statements capable of accurately representing reality.
To adopt moral nihilism is to deny that morality exists in any robust or independent sense. When someone claims that “it is a fact that murder is wrong,” the moral nihilist rejects this assertion, not because of disagreement about murder itself, but because the concept of a moral fact is rejected outright. From this perspective, the claim fails before any evaluation of evidence or reasoning can occur. For the Nihilist, there is simply nothing in the world that could make the claim true.
Obviously, Moral Nihilism is a nonstarter for this course.
Ethical theories ordinarily attempt to explain why certain actions are right or wrong, justified or unjustified. Moral Nihilism undermines this project at its foundation. If moral facts do not exist, then ethical disagreement does not involve competing interpretations of moral reality, but instead merely reflects incompatible attitudes, preferences, or social practices. Moral language may persist, but it no longer refers to anything that exists independently of those who use it.
Moral Skepticism
A closely related position is Moral Skepticism, the view that even if moral facts do exist, human beings could not know them with sufficient certainty to justify moral knowledge. Unlike moral nihilism, moral skepticism does not necessarily deny the existence of moral facts. Instead, it raises doubts about human access to them.
Moral skeptics often emphasize persistent moral disagreement as evidence against moral knowledge. Across cultures, historical periods, and social contexts, people disagree deeply about what is right and wrong. If moral facts were accessible in the way many believe, the skeptic argues, such disagreement would be difficult to explain. The lack of reliable methods for testing moral claims further intensifies this concern.
From the skeptic’s perspective, strong moral conviction does not guarantee moral knowledge. People may feel certain about their moral beliefs, yet history repeatedly shows that widely held moral views can later be judged mistaken. This raises a troubling question: how can one distinguish genuine moral knowledge from deeply entrenched social norms or personal commitments? Moral skepticism presses this philosophical problem without necessarily concluding that morality itself is an illusion.
Answering Moral Skepticism
Taken together, moral nihilism and moral skepticism pose serious challenges to ethical theory. If moral nihilism is correct, then ethical theories fail because there is nothing for them to describe, explain, or justify. If moral skepticism is correct, ethical theories may exist in principle, but human beings lack reliable access to moral truth, rendering moral reasoning uncertain at best.
Some skeptics will argue that while good and bad do exist, all ethical problems are so utterly unique from one another that it makes no sense to try to discuss them systematically. This skeptical position is called Ethical Particularism. Such skeptics may claim that a scorned lover’s choice to seek revenge by killing with poison versus killing with a blade are such meaningfully different acts that we can’t possibly have a coherent ethical concept like “murder” to describe such actions. But if Ethical Particularism were true, it would mean that nothing is morally important. If the skeptic were right, we couldn’t make universal judgments, rules, or laws about anything. This would be the end of the Ethical project, the law, and any meaningful discussion of right and wrong.
There are good reasons to believe moral facts exist. Consider the problems that arise if we argue that morality isn’t important (ie. the skeptic) or isn’t real (ie. the nihilist). If moral facts don’t exist, then this opens the door for slavery and murder to be ok. Or, if your car gets stolen, it should be of no moral concern — this means you have no cause to be upset with the thief, and the car thief has no cause to feel any remorse. If moral facts don’t exist, then someone could rig all the traffic lights to sporadically flash green, turn off the power at the hospital, or poison the food at the grocery store — and none of this would be blameworthy. Ok, breathe. That’d be a rough world, huh? Well, it turns out that Ethics must exist for our society to survive. In fact, our very humanity is contingent on our ethical life.
...Ok, so we concede now that ethical theories are possible (I mean, that’s what this class is all about). We see the need for society to commit itself to seek and understand ‘the good.’ In this lesson, we’ve moved through the morass of Moral Nihilism (ie. morality doesn’t exist) and Moral Skepticism (ie. morality is so complex that we can’t talk about it meaningfully) and have decided that we want to commit ourselves to the idea that moral facts exist. Well, in our next lesson, we find a popular albeit problematic solution: Relativism.
2.3 | Moral Relativism
Central Question: What are the problems with moral relativism?
Relativism: Moral Subjectivism
Moral facts exist in Moral Relativism. That’s the good news.
How do we know what is and isn’t a moral fact here? The Moral Relativist claims that moral facts are correct if people are committed to them. See, like the Moral Nihilist, the Relativist doesn’t claim that morality exists objectively. But unlike the Moral Nihilist, the Relativist is still committed to the project of Moral Philosophy.
The two most important forms of Moral Relativism are Moral Subjectivism and Cultural Relativism.
In the Subjectivist version of Moral Relativism, moral facts are based on one’s personal feelings. In other words, something is right or wrong because of how it makes you feel. I’ll warn you, of all the theories out there, Subjectivism generally gets the most eye-rolling from Ethicists and scholars. Why? Because Subjectivism is so easy to dismiss. First, different people can feel differently in a shared moral dilemma. For instance, the food wasn’t great on Tuesday, so Alicia paid for her ticket, while Holly left the restaurant without paying. A Subjectivist would claim both women acted ethically if they were honest about their feelings.
In Moral Subjectivism, you are always right if you are acting on your own personal feelings. So here’s the problem: everyone is always right! All else being equal, how can Alicia pay while Holly stiffs the waiter and both of those choices be ethical? While people disagree about moral choices all the time, Subjectivism makes each of those disagreements a logical paradox (ie. it both “was” and “was not” ethical to leave without paying). In this mess of a theory, there is no “right” or “wrong” to which we may agree, because Subjectivism implies everyone is always right. And that’s a rather pointless standard for an Ethical theory.
Subjectivism doesn’t leave room for reasonable disagreement or ethical debate. Part of why Subjectivism is terrible is the very fact that it’s based in one’s aesthetic taste, rather than reason. Statements of taste (eg. I don’t like lima beans) don’t need reasons. I don’t have to give a logical reason why I don’t like lima beans — I simply don’t like them. But moral judgments (eg. It’s wrong that Akira lied to me) need reasons. Why? Because moral judgments belong to philosophical inquiry. What makes it wrong that Akira lied? Is it just because it hurt my feelings or is there something more to it?
We may now appreciate why Ethics has very little to do with personal taste or feelings.
Relativism: Cultural Relativism
Now, we may say, clearly morality isn’t up to the individual. But doesn’t one’s society decide what’s right and wrong? This leads us to the second most popular form of Moral Relativism: Cultural Relativism. In Cultural Relativism, morality is defined by one’s culture. The Cultural Relativist argues like this:
Different societies have different moral codes
Morality is determined by one’s own society (so there’s is no objective basis for Ethics)
Because no society is special, no society can rightfully judge another
Now, clearly the first point is accurate. Different societies do tend to have different codes of conduct.
The next two points speak to their Relativist commitments: that morality is determined by one’s society, for which there is no objective basis. The final two points thus conclude: that no society is special, and therefore no society ought to judge another. I’ll attempt to be charitable here...
First, under Cultural Relativism, morality has a source we can easily understand — us! In this way, ethics is a social construct, like money, bluegrass music, or the Internet. Secondly, we can learn ethics as part of an egalitarian society, since no one is any more special than the other, and we all live by the same rules.
However, because no one is any more special than the other, there are no moral experts arguing for justice. Why? Because how can one hero-outlier speak up if morality is dictated to us by our society? You see, under Cultural Relativism, society is the arbiter of morality, so it can do no wrong. What about the criticism of foreign governments? Well, remember that no society can judge another under this regime. If Culture A celebrates human rights and free speech, and Culture B does not — the citizens of Culture A have no right to criticize.
But then how can moral progress happen, if every revolutions begin with a small group of outcasts?
This is where Cultural Relativism loses out. There can be no moral progress in Cultural Relativism. If the culture tells me right from wrong, and the culture has spoken, who are we few to question it? For this reason Cultural Relativism is found lacking.
Beliefs, Values, & the Paradox of Respect
We’ve given Cultural Relativism a solid critique here. But before we move on, I want to offer a clarification. While it’s our task as Ethicists to criticize governments that don’t possess ethical values, we must not conflate values with beliefs. Often, when we think a foreign culture has distasteful values, we’re actually just noticing a difference in beliefs. For example, Culture A cremates their dead fathers, while Culture B buries them. Cultures A & B think the other to be immoral for this difference. But while cremation and burial represent a difference in cultural beliefs; both cultures still value their dead. Or, Culture A drinks sacramental wine, while Culture B shuns alcohol. Cultures A & B think the other to be morally incorrect for this difference. But drinking wine herein represents a mere difference in religious beliefs. Both cultures still value sobriety and religious commitments.
It’s perfectly fine (and enjoyable!) to explore different cultures. What’s not ok is to conflate beliefs/practice with ethical commitments.
While cultures may express their beliefs differently, ethics does not leave room for different cultures to behave unethically. For example, imagine traveling to a foreign country and seeing a slave. Would their enslavement be ok with you because you weren’t back home in the United States? Be careful with your moral judgment, and certainly travel cautiously, but never feel like you must accept evil out there in the world.
Some gain an interest in Cultural Relativism because they want to show respect for other cultures. But such respect is often an inconsistent logical paradox. Let me explain: some nations outside of the modern West do not look kindly on outsiders or our values of civil rights and universal suffrage. According to Cultural Relativism, it’s ok for their society to hate us or mistreat minorities when it’s their local custom. But herein, we reach the paradox: while respect motivates us to ‘politely approve’ their culture, their rules demote the value of our respect by not returning it in kind.
Put simply, if you think respecting other cultures is important, then it would be logically important to respect all cultures. But wait, this isn’t actually a relativist moral position! The claim that all people should be respected is an objective moral claim (ie. a moral expectation you have of everyone).
This brings us finally to Moral Objectivism.
2.4 | Moral Objectivism
Question: What is the Grounding Problem in Ethics?
From Skepticism to Objectivity
The history of ethics is in part the history of moral doubt. Philosophers have long debated whether we can say anything meaningful about right and wrong. We began this section by examining that skepticism directly. Moral Nihilism rejects the existence of any moral facts whatsoever. Closely related, Moral Skepticism argues that moral life is so complex that no ethical frameworks can be applied. Under this view, every moral judgment must be made in isolation, without appeal to consistency or universal rules.
From there, we turned to Moral Relativism, which accepts the existence of moral facts but treats them as culturally or emotionally grounded. Under relativism, ethics varies from one community to another, or from one person to another, with no universal standards to adjudicate between them. What one society calls “evil” might be celebrated by another. But if values are just local customs or personal preferences, there are no objective reasons to condemn genocide, oppression, or cruelty — only culturally specific reactions.
We turn now to Moral Objectivism — the view that moral truths are not just opinions or customs.
Ethicists argue that morality bears real features of the world — binding, discoverable, and universal. According to those who find Ethics to be objectively provable, it is not merely the case that slavery was wrong in a given place or time. It was always wrong, everywhere, no matter what people believed about it. Moral facts are not contingent on culture or feeling. They are grounded in logic and reason.
To say something is objectively true is to say that its truth does not depend on whether it is known, agreed upon, or enforced. For instance, the speed of light is roughly 671 million miles per hour. This is true regardless of whether anyone believes it or understands it. Its truth is not up for debate. Moral objectivists argue that ethics works the same way: certain moral truths are true even if no one yet knows or practices them.
What it Means to Be Objective
Objective truth has several key features. First, it does not depend on personal belief or cultural convention. Second, it does not change simply because opinions shift. Third, it can be known or discovered (if not immediately obvious). When philosophers argue for the objectivity of morality, they are claiming that ethics has these features. That is, morality can be studied and understood in the same way that mathematics or logic can be studied: with rigor, argument, and principled disagreement.
But this claim introduces a deeper challenge, known as The Grounding Problem — the philosophical challenge of explaining how moral claims can be universally true without being arbitrary, circular, or just made up. It asks: What is the source of moral authority? If morality is not just culture or preference, then what is it? Where do these objective facts come from? And how do we know them?
All of that to say, where Ethicists fail to answer the Grounding Problem, their claims lose force.
Saying “X is morally wrong” would amount to no more than “I think X is wrong” — a return to mere Subjectivism. On the other hand, if Objectivists can meet this challenge, they gain an enormously powerful framework for ethics — one that can explain why moral truth binds us even when we resist it. What kind of entities are moral facts? Do they resemble numbers, laws of logic, or something else? Are they reducible to empirical facts about human flourishing? Are they brute features of the universe? This course will delve into these questions.
Objectivity and Moral Theories
The remainder of this course will be devoted to evaluating a series of ethical theories that attempt to answer the Grounding Problem. Each framework offers a different account of where moral truth comes from, and how we might come to know it.
The following is a brief synopsis of examples we’ll cover throughout the course.
Natural Law Theory holds that moral truths are grounded in the rational structure of creation. We can know them through reason because they are woven into the fabric of the world.
Virtue Ethics locates moral truth in human character and excellence. Right action is what a virtuous person would do, and virtues are known through reflection on human flourishing.
Social Contract Theory grounds morality in mutual agreement. Moral rules are justified because they make peaceful and cooperative social life possible.
Deontology appeals to the structure of reason itself. We are bound by duties that can be universalized, regardless of consequences.
Utilitarianism measures morality by the outcomes of actions. Right acts are those that produce the greatest total happiness.
Care Ethics emphasizes relational duties rooted in vulnerability and interdependence. Morality is grounded in the lived reality of care, not abstract formulas.
Each theory takes a different approach to how we justify moral claims. Each promises to offer not just good advice, but a grounding. And each will be evaluated according to whether it succeeds in showing that its foundations are neither arbitrary nor subjective.
The task of moral philosophy, then, is not merely to express values or debate examples. It is to ask whether our ethical systems rest on something solid, and to find out what that something is.
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