Moral Objectivity - Moral knowledge

You are still sticking with objectivism. Most objectivists defend themselves against Hume’s worry by rejecting the assumption that only what science can investigate is real.

For instance, they might argue that science investigates the physical world while insisting that we should not assume that all facts are physical. This is a consistent and defensible position. Nonetheless, it remains a challenge to objectivists to explain how we can acquire moral knowledge, if not through anything like scientific investigation.

 

To learn more about this topic, you might like to read ch.7 of Thomas Nagel’s What Does It All Mean?, chs.1-3 of James Rachels's The Elements of Moral Philosophy, or ch. 8 of Simon Blackburn’s Think. At Southampton, we run various modules that address these issues, including: Ethics, Moral Philosophy, Nietzsche, and Action, Reason, and Ethics. Many of our staff undertake research in this area, including Dr. Alex Gregory, Dr. Sasha Mudd, and Dr. Jonathan Way.