Introduction: Ethics with Ontology. A Debate on Ethical Non-naturalism

“Ethics With Ontology” both alludes to and contrasts with Hilary Putnam’s book Ethics Without Ontology (2004). In this book, Putnam proposes that there can be moral objectivity without objects, or moral truth without any description of a moral realm. Since then, many others (for instance, T. Scanlon, R. Dworkin, C. Korsgaard, and D. Parfit) have claimed that the view that there are moral truths has no ontological implications. They opt instead for a metaethical cognitivism without moral realism. On the other hand, one of the most striking developments in the metaethical debate of the past 15 years has been the renewal of nonnaturalist moral realism the view which (at least in its socalled “robust” versions) presents the strongest ontological and metaphysical commitments, namely commitments to the existence of non-natural properties and facts. The papers collected in this special issue both illuminate and take various positions on the topic of the ontological and metaphysical commitments of non-naturalist moral realism, as well as on some of the various puzzles related to it.