Evaluating Railton’s Ethical Naturalism through Loeb’s Criticism

In this essay, I’ll be talking about Peter Railton’s “Moral Realism” from The Philosophical Review, Vol. 95, №2 (April, 1986) pp. 163–207 and Don Loeb’s “Full-Information Theories of Individual Good” from Social Theory and Practice 21 (1995), pp. 1–30.

Ethical naturalism is a metaethical view that claims moral facts are facts of the natural world. According to the view, moral sentences are capable of having truth values independent of normative thoughts. This paper will first define ethical naturalism and explain the non-moral goodness discussed in section III of Peter Railton’s paper “Moral Realism.” I will then discuss attractions for this theory from Don Loeb’s and my point of view. I will continue with one of Loeb’s criticisms of full-information theories and how strong the objection is. I’ll finally evaluate how Railton responds and express my view on the criticism.

Peter Railton is a reductive ethical naturalist, so he believes that moral facts are natural facts that can have reductive definitions. He is a cognitivist and thinks moral judgments have the capability of being true or false. He is a moral realist; therefore, thinks moral facts have truth values independent of our thoughts. By being a reductive ethical naturalist, he thinks moral terms may be given reductive definitions in naturalistic terms. His paper “Moral Realism” argues for ethical naturalism.

There are two parts to Railton’s argument: non-moral goodness and moral rightness. He discusses non-moral goodness, which is what a person would want for themselves if they were fully and vividly informed about themselves and their circumstances, in section III of his paper. It is what is best for the person in a given situation.

To achieve this, Railton proposes a step-by-step account. First, we determine the person’s wants or desires that will bring something positive to the person. We then give a reductive basis for this subjective desire considering the perceiver’s qualities, object perceived, and surrounding contexts. The third step is imagining a version of oneself who has complete knowledge about oneself and one’s environment, which we call A+. This A+ version has perfect rationality and no cognitive errors. Then, A+ will combine all of one’s general knowledge with the reduced subjective interest in step 2 to arrive at A+’s views about what is good for A and what A should do were A+ was in A’s situation, which is called the reduction…