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WHAT MAKES MORAL VALUES QUEER? 687
According to the quoted passage, it is the base entities themselves that provide answers to
both questions. As a result, we may formulate Bennett’s conclusion as follows:
BASE EXP
Being G explains that it is metaphysically necessary that everything that is G is also F.
Her reasoning is this: Take an arbitrary grounding/necessitation fact, say the fact ‘A grounds
B’, i.e. ‘B exists in virtue of A’, i.e. ‘A necessitates B’. Bennett argues that if there is nothing in
virtue of which this fact is true (in her terms: if there is nothing that grounds this grounding
fact) then it is fundamental, i.e. it is not true in virtue of anything. However, this is
implausible because, if the fact that ‘B exists in virtue of A’ is fundamental, then so are the
objects that are involved in that fact. 18 Consider the fact, ‘Berlin exists in virtue of an
ensemble of buildings and people’. If this grounding fact were fundamental, so would be the
entities that compose that fact; hence, it would follow that Berlin is a fundamental object,
which is an absurd conclusion. Therefore, (at least some) necessitation facts cannot remain
unexplained. An explanation for ‘A grounds B’ invokes a new entity, e.g. X, thereby generating
a new fact ‘X grounds ‘A grounds B’’. 19 Since we have already decided that these grounding
facts are not fundamental, this new grounding fact would, on its part, needs something (say,
Y) in virtue of which it is true. This generates a regress. If these explainers (X, Y, …) are new
entities at each level of explanation, the regress is vicious, leading to an infinite series of novel
entities. In order to avoid this conclusion, Bennett assumes that the invoked explainers are
not new entities at each level. Rather, they are the base entities themselves. Hence, the fact
that ‘B exists in virtue of A’ would be true in virtue of A alone and the fact that ‘‘B exists in
virtue of A’ exists in virtue of A’ would also be true in virtue of A alone. In terms of the
Lynch/Glasgow framework, we might say that Bennett accepts (iia) – she believes that the
explainers are part of the base themselves.
The dialectical situation at this point is this: It might be the case that Lynch and Glasgow are
right, in which case supervenience could never be explained in a satisfying way. In this case,
the queer supervenience charge against the moral realist would be spurious. But it might also
be that Bennett is right, and explanations of supervenience have to take the form of BASE
EXP. In this case we could ask: Could the non-reductive normative realist embrace BASE EXP
or would she have to reject it? I can think of no argument that would successfully deny her
embracing it. I certainly want to say that, as a property dualist, she should not be allowed to
claim that the non-moral based facts explain the nature of the moral facts, and that the
necessitation relation holds. However, it is question-begging to employ her dualism to
support the idea that she cannot explain necessitation when, originally, the lack of
explanation was supposed to undermine her dualism. We cannot forge an argument against
dualism and, at the same time, support it with the assumption that dualism is false; this begs
the question.
6. Conclusion
Normative realists hold that moral properties (or facts) and non-moral properties (or facts)
are ontologically distinct. Furthermore, they hold that moral properties strongly supervene on
non-moral properties, which entails the view that the instantiation of some non-moral
properties necessitates the instantiation of moral properties. This view stokes uneasiness: if
non-moral properties and moral properties really are distinct, then the moral realist cannot
18
She supports this thought with a principle put forward by Ted Sider according to which “the
fundamental truths involve only fundamental notions” (Sider 2011, 126ff).
19
Alternatively, one could formulate ‘B exists in virtue of A’ and ‘’B exists in virtue of A’ exists in virtue
of X’.