1 Truth in Ethics Michael P. Lynch International Encyclopedia of Ethics. 2012 Word count: 4262 The topic of truth in ethics can be divided into three main questions: Are moral judgments truth-apt? Are any moral judgments true? And, if some moral judgments are true, in virtue of what are they true? A judgment is “truth-apt” when it is capable of being true or false. There are at least three widely acknowledged reasons for thinking that moral judgments are truth-apt. None of these reasons are definitive. But they make a prima facie case—as indicated by the fact that those who deny that moral judgments are truth-apt typically expend considerable effort trying to explain these reasons away. The first reason moral judgments are truth-apt is that they have the logical features of truth-apt judgments. A judgment has then such features when it can be meaningfully negated, when it can figure in detachable conditionals, and generally be understood, for purposes of logic, as truth-functional. Moral judgments have all of these features. A second reason to think that moral judgments are truth-apt is that they are subjected to norms of epistemic appraisal. Moral judgment takes place in what Sellars called the ‘‘space of reasons’’. If I make a moral judgment about, e.g. the injustice of the death penalty, and you deny that judgment, then in the normal course of things I am committed to giving you a reason or some other evidence in favor of my judgment. If I cannot produce a reason or any other evidence—even a reason that is itself up for challenge—I should retract my judgment, or at least lower my confidence in it. This makes most moral judgments different from many judgments of taste. I need not retract my judgment that fettucine alfredo is delicious if you deny it. Nor am I committed to giving you a reason for why I made the judgment. But if I declare that it is sometimes right to torture prisoners, I am committed to giving you a reason if you deny that judgment. If I cannot produce one, I appear to incur an obligation to, at the very least, lower my confidence in that opinion. The third reason moral judgments seem truth-apt is that they have objective pretensions. That is, we normally take ourselves to be capable of making moral mistakes and being in moral ignorance. Indeed, we typically think of moral growth and maturity as a process that involves identifying and correcting past moral error and coming to appreciate morally relevant