This OP is about how moral facts can be justified from a Framework and System of Morality with empirical evidences and philosophical reasoning just like Science albeit of different efficiency.
The main point of the author:
- What I want to do in this essay is to explore the ways in which
-recent developments in realist philosophy of science,
-together with related “naturalistic” developments in epistemology and philosophy of language,
can be employed in the articulation and defense of Moral Realism.
I have merely provided the Introduction from the article from:
- HOW TO BE A MORAL REALIST
RICHARD N. BOYD
Essays on Moral Realism (Cornell Paperbacks) 1st Edition
by Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (Editor),
For the details, one will have to read the whole essay.
HOW TO BE A MORAL REALIST wrote:
Scientific Realism is the doctrineBy “Moral Realism” I intend the analogous doctrine [with Science] about moral judgments, Moral statements, and moral theories.
- • that scientific theories should be understood as putative descriptions of real phenomena,
• that ordinary scientific methods constitute a reliable procedure for obtaining and improving (approximate) knowledge of the real phenomena which scientific theories describe, and
• that the reality described by scientific theories is largely independent of our theorizing.
Scientific theories describe reality and reality is “prior to thought” (see Boyd 1982).
According to Moral Realism:It follows from Moral Realism that such moral terms as “good”, “fair”, “just”, “obligatory” usually correspond to real properties or relations
- 1 Moral statements are the sorts of statements which are (or which express propositions which are) true or false (or approximately true, largely false, etc.);
2 The truth or falsity (approximate truth…) of Moral statements is largely independent of our moral opinions, theories, etc.;
3 Ordinary canons of moral reasoning—together with ordinary canons of scientific and everyday factual reasoning—constitute, under many circumstances at least, a reliable method for obtaining and improving (approximate) moral knowledge.
and that our ordinary standards for moral reasoning and moral disputation
—together with reliable standards for scientific and everyday reasoning
—constitute a fairly reliable way of finding out which events, persons, policies, social arrangements, etc. have these properties and enter into these relations.
It is not a consequence of Moral Realism that our ordinary procedures are “best possible” for this purpose— just as it is not a consequence of Scientific Realism that our existing scientific methods are best possible.
In the scientific case, improvements in knowledge can be expected to produce improvements in method (Boyd 1980, 1982, 1983, 1985a, 1985b, 1985c), and there is no reason to exclude this possibility [improvements] in the moral case.
Scientific Realism contrasts with instrumentalism and its variants and with views like that of Kuhn (1970) according to which the reality which scientists study is largely constituted by the theories they adopt.
Moral Realism contrasts with non-cognitivist metaethical theories like emotivism and with [non-cogntivists’] views according to which moral principles are largely a reflection of social constructs or conventions.
What I want to do in this essay is to explore the ways in which
-recent developments in realist philosophy of science,
-together with related “naturalistic” developments in epistemology and philosophy of language,
can be employed in the articulation and defense of Moral Realism.
What I hope to demonstrate in the present essay is that
Moral Realism can be shown to be a more attractive and plausible philosophical position if recent developments in realist philosophy of science are brought to bear in its defense.
I intend the general defense of Moral Realism offered here as a proposal regarding the metaphysical, epistemological, and semantic framework within which arguments for Moral Realism are best formulated and best understood.