Was sollen wir tun? Was dürfen wir glauben? - bei DuEPublico ...

What Makes Moral Values Queer?
Julius Schönherr
John Mackie’s argument from moral queerness has traditionally been taken to raise doubts
about the existence of moral properties, facts and values. This is based on Mackie’s claim
that, if moral properties existed, they would have to instantiate some property Q which
would have to be “utterly different from anything else in the universe” (Mackie 1977: 38).
Traditionally, Q has been taken to be the intrinsic reason-givingness of moral properties. In
this paper, I will consider the possibility that the problematic feature is the unexplainable
supervenience of moral properties on non-moral properties. Concerning this thesis, I will
do two things. First, I will give an argument for why it is advantageous to focus the
metaphysical argument for queerness on supervenience and not on moral properties’
reason-givingness. Second, I will consider whether there is a compelling account of
explanation that renders the queerness charge from supervenience true.
1. Introduction
John Mackie’s argument from moral queerness has been traditionally taken to raise doubts
about the existence of moral properties, facts and values. This argument is based on his claim
that, if moral properties existed, they would have to be non-natural entities, “different from
anything else in the universe” (Mackie 1977: 38). This standard take on the matter can be
expressed by the following thesis:
Queer properties
Moral properties would have to be non-natural entities. Therefore, they are
metaphysically queer.
In opposition to this traditional picture, I will, in this paper, provide an argument for why it is
advantageous to focus the charge of moral queerness on the supervenience of moral
properties on non-moral properties rather than on moral properties themselves. To do this, I
will examine a version of the following alternative thesis from Mackie:
Queer supervenience
Non-natural moral properties would have to supervene on non-moral properties.
Therefore, they are metaphysically queer.
But Queer supervenience alone, without further specification(s), can hardly count as an
accurate expression of moral queerness. Baldness supervenes on the number of hairs, density
supervenes on mass and volume, and, ideally, grades might even supervene on performance.
Clearly, there is nothing queer about these supervenient properties and many philosophers
have indeed employed supervenience as a distinct tool to render entities not queer. Therefore,
I will turn to a refined version of Queer supervenience: Queer unexplainable supervenience,
which is more promising version of the argument from moral queerness against the nonnatural
moral realist.
Queer unexplainable supervenience
Non-natural moral properties would have to unexplainably supervene on non-moral
properties. Therefore, they are metaphysically queer.