Moral Supervenience: The Phenomenon and its Analyses

Friday November 7, 3:30 pm

Dr. Brian Zamulinski, Department of Philosophy

ESB 12

None of the supervenience analyses succeeds as an analysis of the fact that there can be no moral difference without a non-moral difference. They are undermined by a pair of counter-examples. One points out that there can be no difference in descriptions without differences in the things described but that no supervenience analysis captures the impossibility. The other makes the same point in connection with statutes that establish acts as crimes. Using the counter-examples to undercut the analyses in the case of morality is like using different arguments of the same form to show that a particular argument is invalid. The issue is important because understanding why there can be no moral difference without a non-moral difference is essential to understanding the nature of morality and to resolving issues such as moral standing and, despite their widespread acceptance, the supervenience analyses fail to provide that understanding or that resolution.