Philosophy of Religion Research

John McDowell and Ethical Realism

Document Type : Original Research

Author

Assistant professor in Department of Islamic Philosophy and Hikmah, Imam Khomeini International University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

This article discusses John McDowell’s ethical realism. It first gives a definition of realism in its broad sense and then gets to its particular meaning. Afterwards, Mackie’s view about the negation of the reality of values and ethical properties due to their not being involved in causal explanation is given. This is followed by McDowell’s response to the previous claim. McDowell, while rejecting Mackie’s understanding of secondary qualities, demonstrates that both secondary qualities and ethical properties are somehow introversive and depend on humans, but this dependency doesn’t contradict their reality. Ultimately, McDowell by giving a non-causal explanation of values and negating the exclusiveness of criteria for the reality of things in causal explanation, tries to expand the scope of the reality of things, and there fore to prove the reality of ethical properties.

Keywords

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Philosophy of Religion Research
Volume 3, Issue 2 - Serial Number 2
November 2005
Pages 5-20