Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T06:13:38.101Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Are naturalism and moral realism incompatible?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2013

RIK PEELS
RIK PEELS*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In a recent paper, Alvin Plantinga has argued that there is good reason to think that naturalism and moral realism are incompatible. He has done so by arguing that the most important argument for the compatibility of these two theses, which has been provided by Frank Jackson, fails and that any other argument that serves the same purpose is likely to fail for the same reason. His argument against the compatibility of naturalism and moral realism, then, is indirect: he argues against it by refuting the most important argument for it. In this article, I argue that Plantinga's argument is unconvincing for at least two reasons. First, Jackson's argument can be revised in such a way that it meets Plantinga's worry. Second, there is another way of arguing for the compatibility of two propositions which Plantinga does not consider. If the naturalist takes this alternative route, she does not face the problem identified by Plantinga. I thus show not only that Plantinga's argument does not count against the compatibility of naturalism and moral realism, but that there is even good reason to think that naturalism and moral realism are in fact compatible.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 77 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Forrest, P. (1996) God without the Supernatural: A Defense of Scientific Theism (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Jackson, F. (1998) From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defence of Conceptual Analysis (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Krakauer, B. (2013) ‘Counterpossibles’, Philosophical Studies, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. K. (2001) Counterfactuals (Malden MA: Blackwell, 2001).Google Scholar
Nolan, D. (1998) ‘Impossible worlds: a modest approach’, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 38, 535–573.Google Scholar
Plantinga, A. (2010) ‘Naturalism, theism, obligation, and supervenience’, Faith and Philosophy, 27, 247–272.Google Scholar
Plantinga, A. (2011) Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Rea, M. (2006) ‘Naturalism and Moral Realism’, in Crisp, T. M., Davidson, M., and Vander Laan, D. (eds) Knowledge and Reality: Essays in Honor of Alvin Plantinga (Dordrecht: Springer), 215–241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stalnaker, R. C. (1968) ‘A theory of conditionals’, in Rescher, N. (ed.) Studies in Logical Theory (Oxford: Blackwell), 98–112.Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (1993) The Coherence of Theism, rev. edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Zagzebski, L. T. (1990) ‘What if the impossible had been actual?’, in Beaty, M. D. (ed.) Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press), 165–183.Google Scholar