ABSTRACT
In this chapter I propose two necessary conditions that any metaethically objective theory of normative ethics must meet and a third condition that contributes to the first two, given my commitment to Worldview metaphilosophy and the intermediate-level methodological principles I endorsed in chapter 1. These requirements are Soundness, Completeness, and Integration. In section 1, I defend my selection of Soundness as necessary for any
account of normative ethics that purports to be metaethically objective. In section 2, I do the same for Completeness. Soundness and Completeness in a moral theory would describe a standard against which the satisfactoriness of all moral claims could be correctly measured, just as a true and complete physical theory would be the final measure of all claims about the physical world. Whereas a true physical theory contains no falsehoods, a sound moral theory has no clearly morally repugnant counter-examples. Important for the argument of this book, a sound moral theory contains no logical contradictions regarding obligation, value, or virtue. (If a moral theory is subjectivist, its ‘contradictions’ will be only apparent, whether it is a noncognitivist or an error theory. Strictly speaking, where there is no truth, there are no contradictions.) As a complete physical theory in principle allows us to figure out the
answer to any question about its subject-matter (if only we are clever enough), so a complete moral theory allows us to give correct moral answers to all moral questions, again, assuming we are clever enough to figure them out. So, if our best-considered moral intuitions suggest that there are no answers to some moral questions, we would have good reason to think that normative ethics is incomplete. Moreover, if our best-considered theories of normative ethics produce contradictorylooking or conflicting judgments, normative ethics would be shown to be incomplete, also. For example, if our best-considered judgments of moral obligation instructed us both that a is obligatory and that not a is permissible, we are left with a gap in our moral view. The case is likewise if we reach conflicting judgments in the theory of intrinsic value, character virtues, and in answering the question ‘What should we do, all things considered?’ In section 3, I discuss which varieties of moral
are Completeness and which are not. In section 4, I add Integration to the list of highly desirable
characteristics for any moral theory that aspires to metaethical objectivism because lack of integration counts against a moral theory’s Soundness and Completeness. I call the lack of integration ‘fragmentation,’ the state in which considerations from the theories of moral obligation, theory of intrinsic value, and character virtues defeat each other in such a haphazard way that the best explanation for the disorder is metaethical subjectivism.
