ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how best to understand the claims of dependence and independence. It considers the expressions 'mind-dependence' and 'mind-independence' to cover all of the various claimed kinds of dependence and independence, except where it is necessary to distinguish between them. The chapter proposes that mind-independence characterizations of moral realism are best understood as excluding from the category of moral realism metaethical views according to which all moral facts are either identical to or fully grounded in nonmoral facts of a certain type. Not all self-described moral realists regard mind-independence as a critical feature of moral realism. The existence of some mind-dependent moral facts is thus compatible with moral realism, even when moral realism is understood as limited to nonnaturalist realism. Constructivism is commonly taken to be a mind-dependent, antirealist position in opposition to nonnaturalist realism, but in fact, the metaethical status of constructivism is a matter of dispute.
