The meta-ethics of normative ethics

This thesis is an attempt to answer the following question: Do our moral commitments commit us to constraints on what meta-ethical theories we find attractive? In order to answer this question, I first demonstrate that meta-ethical theories can be criticised on moral grounds. I then argue that correctness conditions for moral claims imply the thesis of explanatory moral realism. I do not claim that this is an argument for the truth of explanatory moral realism. Rather, I claim that this is an argument that moral realism is a moral commitment. I then look at two objections to the claim that moral claims can have built in commitments to a meta-ethical theory that takes a stand on the issue of moral realism. The first of these is a set of arguments that Simon Blackburn gives for quasi-realism. The second objection is a set of arguments given by Ronald Dworkin that attack the presuppositions of debates about realism in meta-ethics