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Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 3: 209–211, 2000.

BOOK REVIEW

Peter Schaber, Moralischer Realismus. Freiburg/München: Alber, 1997,406pp.

Over the past two decades, issues in the metaphysics of ethics, valuetheory, moral psychology, moral epistemology and moral semanticshave received considerable attention in ethical theory. Moral realismhas regained a prominent place on the metaethical agenda. As themoral realist has it, moral judgments express beliefs apt to beobjectively true or false. Accordingly, if moral judgments are true, theyare true in virtue of their correctly mapping moral facts that areindependent of, or are not constituted by, our moral beliefs. Further,the realist believes that there are such moral facts, that is, some moralproperties are instantiated, and she claims that some moral judgmentsare true, that is, they correctly describe moral facts.

In his insightful and clearly written book, Schaber offers asystematic defense of moral realism. In his view, the nature of moraldeliberation and argument can most naturally be explained on theassumption that moral realism is correct. Noncognitivist and antirealisttheories, on the other hand, fail to give a plausible account of whatmay count as the right answer to moral questions. Now realism by itselfimplies little about the nature of moral facts or their relation to otherkinds of facts. Schaber defends a reductive naturalistic conception ofmoral facts. According to the reductive naturalist, moral facts andproperties are reducible to, and therefore identical with, natural (i.e.,natural and social scientific or other familiar empirical) facts andproperties. There is no special realm of moral facts above the naturalfacts, nor are moral properties supervenient properties. Therefore, thereductive naturalist need not be worried by common metaphysical andepistemological objections to nonnaturalism and intuitionism.

Moral realism is compatible with both objective and subjectivetheories of value. Rejecting objective conceptions of value, Schaberadvocates a sophisticated version of a desire-satisfaction theory ofvalue. On his account, something is valuable just in case and insofaras it contributes to the satisfaction of someone’s basic desires. Thespecific content of moral judgments should be spelled out by a

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consequentialist moral theory. Schaber makes a strong case forconsequentialism. Most importantly, against critics who claim thatconsequentialists adhere to a wrong conception of the moral agent’spsychology, he suggests that consequentialism should be construedas providing a criterion of moral rightness, rather than a decisionprocedure. In agreement with a large number of contemporary theorists,Schaber supports a coherentist moral epistemology.

How can the naturalistic realist account for the action-guidingcharacter of morality? Schaber admits that the practical character ofmorality presents a serious challenge to the realist. The realist claimsthat moral judgments express beliefs. However, according to theHumean theory of motivation, beliefs cannot motivate by themselves;to motivate an action, they must be combined with something havingthe functional role of a desire. Should the realist abandon the Humeantheory of motivation and claim that moral beliefs can motivate bythemselves, or should he dismiss the idea that there is a conceptuallink between moral beliefs and motivation? Pursuing the latter option,Schaber aims to show that a thoroughly externalist moral psychologycombined with realism can explain the practical nature of moralitybetter than any noncognitivist theory. On his account, there is noconceptual connection between moral facts and normative reasons foraction (morality/reasons ‘existence externalism’), nor are moral beliefsconceptually connected with motives for action (morality/motives‘judgment externalism’). Externalism, he argues, is plausible onindependent grounds. It is conceptually possible for someone, say, theamoralist, to believe that x is good without being motivated to attainx. Likewise, it is conceptually possible for someone to know that x ismorally good without having good reason to attain x. In this sense, itis an open question whether we should do, or have good reason todo, what is morally good or right. Schaber holds that the practicalnature of morality is contingent upon the agent’s desires and interests.Moral agents do have the relevant desires that motivate them to action,and supply them with normative reason for action, whereas amoralistslack the relevant desires and reasons even though they might still havetrue moral beliefs. The practical nature of morality is nothing but acontingent matter of fact. Schaber restricts his externalist moralpsychology to value judgments, however. He claims that an agentcannot correctly say that she ought to φ unless she desires to bemotivated to φ, and thus has good reason to φ. Therefore, accordingto Schaber, the fact that it is good for an agent to φ does not imply thatshe ought to φ. Moreover, it seems that we should withdraw our

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judgment that an agent ought to φ if we find out that she does not desireto be motivated to φ. This view, however, holds the scope of moralrequirements hostage to people’s contingent desires and inclinations.On Schaber’s account, morality turns out to be a system of hypotheticalimperatives.

Schaber argues that moral realism, a reductive naturalist metaphysics,a subjective theory of value, an instrumental conception of practicalreason, an externalist moral psychology, a coherentist account ofmoral justification and a consequentialist normative theory areindependently plausible and mutually compatible or even supporting.His book is a considerable achievement. Schaber raises numerousissues that deserve serious consideration. I shall confine myself to tworemarks. First, I believe that his theory does not do justice to the normativityof morality. Has the moral realist really gained a lot of mileage out ofclaiming that the correct application of value concepts is guided by the waythe world is if moral facts turn out to be such that it can be, and will oftenbe, rational to neglect them in practical deliberation? Objective criteria ofmoral goodness and rightness do not do much work as long as the rationalauthority of moral facts is a merely subjective and individual matter. Second,Schaber claims that his reductive naturalism does not depend on a viewabout meaning relations, such as synonymy, between moral and nonmoralterms. Rather, he suggests that the reduction of moral facts to natural factsis a substantial, empirical enterprise. Naturalistic identity claims (i.e.,statements identifying some moral property with some natural property)should be construed as expressing synthetic moral necessities. In adoptinga moral semantics according to which the reference of moral terms has tobe determined by empirical investigations, Schaber seems to follow thesemantic strategy outlined by Boyd and Brink. It should be noted, however,that it is incompatible with this approach to say, as Schaber does, that‘morally good’ is identical in meaning with, and translatable into, ‘furthersthe satisfaction of someone’s interests’ (138, 139, 140, 181) or that valuejudgments are deducible from nonmoral empirical judgments (25, 165).Nevertheless, much can be learned from this book.

TATJANA TARKIANDepartment of PhilosophyUniversity of GöttingenGermany

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