ABSTRACT
I began this investigation by posing a question: given that we want a moral claim to be both true and normatively powerful, are our desires likely to be met? I used the example of terrorism to illustrate the implications of the question: commonsense wants to be able to say to the putative terrorist that there is a moral reason not to do what he does, and that therefore he ought to stop it. However, as the last couple of chapters have shown, it is not easy to show how moral statements can be true and normatively powerful at the same time. Those that stand a chance of being compelling – the independentist theories – are too metaphysically demanding to be able to provide believable moral claims, because they either rely on there being intrinsically and irreducibly moral characteristics that would endure in a universe denuded of sentient life, or else on the supposition that all agents think in the same way and do so necessarily. Neither of these suppositions is without its problems. On the other hand, dependentist theories are better at providing truth for their moral claims, but lose normative power in the process. As things stand, commonsense morality looks to be lacking in foundation. Roughly speaking, while each theory can provide a little of what we want from morality on a commonsense level, none is able to do enough.
