Philosophy Compass 2/1 (2007): 1–15, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2006.00049.

Moral Explanation
Brad Majors
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Abstract
This article surveys recent work on the problem of moral explanation and moral
causation, including Harman’s original challenge, together with responses to it, and
the counterfactual test for explanatory relevance and its limitations. It advances as
well a novel argument for the explanatory indispensability of moral properties, and
contends that non-naturalistic moral realists ought to remain open to the possibility
that moral properties play a genuine causal-explanatory role.

In chapter forty-six of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Wickham runs

away with Lydia Bennett, and they proceed to take up residence together
out of wedlock. Naturally everyone who hears of the event is scandalized.
Observers unite in judging the elopement immoral; and after a hastily
arranged marriage, the two are banished to the North, never again to enjoy
the comforts of Longbourn.
Whether this is in fact a case of morally wrong behavior is perhaps subject
to doubt. But assume that it is. One may then ask what explains the judgment,
on the part of an observer, that the two young people acted immorally.
Certainly one sort of explanation would include mention of their (natura-
listically characterized) behavior, together with the observer’s beliefs about
it. But it is equally natural, one might suppose, to maintain that their actions
were judged to be immoral in part because they were immoral. After all, if
they had not acted immorally, they would not have been judged so to act.
To appeal to the moral properties or features of an agent or situation, in
explaining (for example) the formation of a judgment, is to offer a moral
explanation.
There are three prominent and interrelated reasons that the debate over
moral explanation is important. First, it was common at one point, late in
the previous century, to hold some version of the causal theory of knowledge.
Such a theory maintains that knowledge consists in some sort of causal
relation to its object. It follows from this that moral knowledge requires a
causal relation to the subject matter of moral discourse, which in turn appears
to imply that moral properties or facts must cause our beliefs about them,
insofar as those beliefs amount to knowledge. If this is so, however, then
the possibility of genuine causal explanation of moral beliefs is a necessary

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condition upon the possibility of moral knowledge. This line of argument

was discussed in Tolhurst and Lycan.
Second, a central tenet of one prominent naturalistic form of contemporary
moral realism – sometimes called “Cornell realism” – is that moral properties
are to be assimilated to the properties of special sciences such as psychology
or biology. Since these latter properties undoubtedly play an indispensable
causal-explanatory role (and since this may plausibly be held to be central
to their nature) such ethical naturalists seem committed to the possibility of
an explanatory, or causal-explanatory, role for moral properties. Classic
naturalistic defenses of moral explanation are to be found in Sturgeon (“Moral
Explanations”), Railton (“Moral Realism”), and Brink (182–97).
Finally, many contemporary philosophers are committed to a strong
general version of naturalism (or physicalism), according to which all genuine
and legitimate properties and facts are naturalistic (or physical). Since
paradigmatic naturalistic and physical facts are at least partly individuated by
a causal-explanatory role, it appears to follow that moral properties and facts
too – insofar as they are genuine and legitimate – must be fitted for playing
such a role. Thus, as we will see in some detail below, the alleged impossi-
bility of moral explanation is a key weapon in certain naturalistic attacks on
moral realism. On the other hand, if it could somehow be demonstrated
that moral explanation is in fact both possible and actual, this would provide
moral realists of all stripes with a powerful way of arguing for their position.
This short article provides an overview of what I take to be the most
central lines of argument concerning the topic of moral explanation. As I
hope the discussion makes clear, the debate has relatively little to do with
morality. It primarily concerns the topics of explanation and causation.

1. Challenge
As noted, some have questioned whether in fact moral properties are capable
of playing a genuinely explanatory role. These thinkers tend to view the
ability of its members to play such a role as a necessary condition upon the
legitimacy of a class of properties. The first to press this line in a fairly
sustained fashion was Gilbert Harman (Nature of Morality ch. 1; “Moral
Explanations”; “Responses to Critics”). (The summary below follows the
careful discussion in Nicholas Sturgeon’s article, “Moral Explanations.” See
also Harman’s contribution to Moral Relativism.) Harman considered a
different example of immorality. He imagined a group of street hoodlums
pouring gasoline on a neighborhood cat, and setting fire to it. An onlooker
judges, or comes to believe, that what is being done to the cat is wrong. The
question Harman sets is what explains this.1 Certainly the actions of the
young people in question are relevant. Relevant too, perhaps, is the belief
on the part of the onlooker that such actions are wrong. But Harman denies
that the actual wrongness of the action – assuming provisionally that there is
such a thing – has any role whatever to play in explaining the judgment of
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 Moral Explanation . 3

the onlooker. And, in large part because of his allegiance to the sort of

naturalism characterized above, he believes that this fact casts serious doubt
on the plausibility and integrity of any non-reductive form of moral realism.
Harman contrasts this case with one involving a physical scientist. A vapor
trail is observed in a cloud chamber, which the scientist knows to be a
reliable indication of the presence of a proton. She judges that a proton was
lately in the chamber. Once again, we may ask what explains this judgment.
Unlike the case of the burning cat, Harman maintains that here we must
appeal to the extra-psychological reality of the phenomenon observed. It is
the actual presence of the proton which explains the scientist’s judgment.
It is true that we have in this case as well the makings of a psychological
explanation. The scientist does believe, by hypothesis, that the presence of
the vapor trail is a good indicator of the presence of the proton, and she did
observe such a trail. Nevertheless, Harman insists that it is the proton, rather
than the belief and observation pair, (reference to) which provides the correct
explanation of the scientist’s judgment. Furthermore, the fact that this sort
of reference to a physical reality underlying the judgment is necessary to the
relevant range of explanations is the primary reason to admit it into our
ontology.
In the example with which we began, Harman’s claim would be that the
explanation of the negative moral judgment on the part of polite society
must advert merely to the character of Wickham’s and Lydia’s (neutrally
characterized) behavior, together with relevant beliefs about that
behavior. The fact, if it is a fact, that they behaved immorally, can play no
explanatory role whatever. The result seems to generalize: Harman thinks
that no moral property instance ever explains the formation of a judgment
ostensibly about it. And if they are explanatorily impotent in this sense, it
would certainly seem to follow that they are incapable of playing an
explanatory role with respect to other non-moral phenomena.
It should be noted, before we proceed, that not all explananda, where
moral explanation is concerned, are judgments or belief-formations. Some
proponents of moral explanation hold that moral property instances can
cause, or explain, non-psychological events. A popular example is the claim
that injustice causes societal revolt. Nevertheless, in order to simplify the
discussion I am concentrating on the explanation of judgments concerning
immorality. (I will also occasionally employ, for ease of discussion, the ugly
terms “explanationist” and “anti-explanationist,” to designate those who
favor, and those who disfavor, appeal to moral properties in explaining
natural phenomena.)
Harman twice weakened his thesis, in the face of criticism. The initial
claim was that there are no moral explanations. This was obviously untenable,
particularly given Harman’s theory-laden notion of observation. He then
came to emphasize the claim that moral properties do not explain in all of
the ways that the properties of the natural sciences do; part of what he meant
here is that they are not causally efficacious. These claims were disputed,
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with arguments Harman never satisfactorily answered. Finally, he ended by

insisting merely that there is a confirmation problem for moral theories.
Both Sturgeon (“Nonmoral Explanations” 99) and Railton (“Moral
Explanation” 182) point out that this is manifestly at odds with Harman’s
implicit contention that his own relativistic moral theory is confirmed by
the evidence. Most of the discussion concerns Harman’s second charge
against moral explanation, which is our object here.

2. Response
Sturgeon and others were quick to point out that Harman’s argument
threatens to prove too much (see Sturgeon,“Moral Explanations”;“Harman
on Moral Explanations”;“Contents and Causes”;“Nonmoral Explanations”;
“Moral Explanations Defended”; Kleiman; Railton, “Moral Explanation”;
Majors). The properties of non-basic sciences such as geology, biology, and
psychology are put into as much jeopardy, if the argument is sound, as are
moral properties. Take any explanandum that might appear to admit of a
psychological explanation, say Darcy’s reaching for a glass of wine. One
might seek to explain this action by making reference to Darcy’s desire for
wine, together with his belief that the glass before him contains wine. This
is as paradigmatic an example of common-sense psychological explanation
as one could hope to find. Yet notice that it seems possible to explain the
behavior without making reference to psychological properties or states.2
For example, there will without question be a neurophysiological explanation
for why Darcy’s hand moved as it did. Similar points could be made for
explanations in any of the other non-basic sciences. Therefore if we take it
that explanations of these sorts always compete with lower-level explanations,
we will end up with the absurd result that the properties of the non-basic
sciences play no explanatory role.
The point is easy to see with reference to Harman’s own example. We
could explain the scientist’s verbal judgment by alluding to the presence of
a proton in the chamber. We could also explain it, however, by making
appeal to physiological states of her vocal chords. Again, we might, as noted
above, explain it in purely psychological terms: The scientist believed that
there was a proton, on the basis of her perceptual experience, and so she
judged that there was one. Here the term “proton” occurs only obliquely,
and no commitment concerning physical reality is incurred. Harman has
provided no reason to think that any one of these explanations is better than
the others. We are no more licensed, therefore, to discount the apparent
explanatory role of moral properties than we are to question the explanatory
integrity of non-basic sciences such as geology or psychology.
In fact a stronger conclusion seems warranted. Because no asymmetry has
been established, so far as the argument itself is concerned, between basic
physical science and the so-called “special sciences,” there is so far no reason
to privilege the status of explanations in physics. We might therefore
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 Moral Explanation . 5

conclude, if the argument is sound, that the entities and properties postulated
by physics are fictional, or at least of questionable ontological status, since
any judgment about an ostensible physical reality can be explained in
physiological or psychological terms. This result shows that something has
gone wrong.3
Note also that sometimes the question is posed, not whether there are
moral explanations, but whether moral explanations are the best explanations
of the phenomena at issue (see, for example, Leiter). But as we have seen,
many explananda admit of multiple, non-competing explanations, and the
question which of these is best has no clear sense. In addition, there are
some non-moral phenomena which can arguably only be explained in moral
terms. This point is argued in section 5 below.

3. The Counterfactual Test

The points made in the previous section are mostly defensive in character.
But it is possible to mount a direct attack on Harman’s argument, one which
begins with reflection on the ways in which we ordinarily test for explanatory
relevance. To say that one event is explanatorily relevant to another is
intuitively to say that the former “made a difference” with respect to the
latter. This, in turn, means roughly – and with significant qualifications,
mentioned below – that without the former, the latter would not have
occurred. We have, therefore, at least a prima facie reasonable test for
explanatory relevance, which we can apply to the debate over moral
explanation. One event or property-instance is explanatorily relevant to
another if the latter depends counterfactually upon the former.
It is of course important that context be held fixed, in some way or other,
in applying the counterfactual test to purported explanantia. The striking of
a match surely counts as explanatorily relevant to the match’s lighting, in a
normal sort of context. Yet it is easy to imagine circumstances in which the
match would still have ignited, even though one did not strike it. The
standard semantics for counterfactuals deals with this problem by relativizing
to a certain range of possible worlds, called “close possible worlds” (Lewis).
Intuitively, these are worlds which differ in only relatively insignificant ways
from the actual world. Thus the striking of a match counts as explanatorily
relevant to the lighting of a match, in normal cases, because the closest
possible worlds in which the match is not struck are worlds in which it does
not ignite.
Our proposed test, therefore, says the following: One event is explanatorily
relevant to another if, in the worlds closest to the actual world in which the
former does not occur, the latter does not occur either. When we apply the
test to our examples involving moral properties we find that they appear to
pass it. If Wickham and Lydia had not engaged in wicked or immoral
behavior, they would not have been judged to be immoral. We can see that
this is true by noting that the closest possible worlds in which they were
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not wicked, or immoral, are worlds in which they did not elope. Given
standard views in normative ethical theory, there is no possible world in
which they eloped, and in which other factors are held constant, but in
which they were not immoral. This necessary connection between the
relevant moral property, or properties, and their naturalistic “bases” appears
to guarantee explanatory relevance for the former. The naturalistic base is
what made their action immoral – one might say, which “constitutes” its
immorality – and the moral property in question would not be instantiated
if this base were not present.
The same goes for Harman’s own example. The closest possible world
in which the hoodlums were not engaging in immoral behavior is a world
in which they were not setting fire to the unfortunate cat. It follows that if
they had not had the property of being immoral, the observer would not
have judged them immoral. Both the wickedness of Wickham and Lydia,
and the moral depravity of the street hoodlums, therefore, appear to pass
the test for explanatory relevance.

4. Problems with the Counterfactual Test

The problem is that counterfactual dependence is actually insufficient for
causal-explanatory relevance.4 Good causal explanations track, and illuminate
the nature of, causal chains. If striking the match causes it to light, then
adverting to the striking provides partial explanation of the lighting of the
match. If one had not struck the match, it would not have ignited.
But causation is only one of the relations that give rise to counterfactual
dependence. Another is the relation of determination, or supervenience. The
length of a pole’s shadow is determined by the length of the pole, together
with its angle relative to the position of the sun. Suppose a particular pole’s
shadow is 9 meters in length. If the length of the pole, or its angle relative
to the sun, had been different, the length of the shadow would have been
different.
Of course, appeal to the determination- or supervenience-base of a
particular property can provide a perfectly good explanation of the
instantiation, or features of the instantiation, of the property. But this is not
causal explanation. And it is causal explanation which is primarily at issue in
the debate over moral explanation. All of the examples explanationists have
given of moral explanations involve causation – whether it is the (alleged)
causation of a moral judgment by a moral property instantiation, or cases
involving non-psychological explananda, such as the apparent fact that
injustice caused the society to revolt. More generally, it is scientific
explanation, broadly construed, which is at issue both in Harman’s original
challenge, and in subsequent defenses of moral explanation. And scientific
explanation is paradigmatically causal explanation.
The counterfactual dependence of one property upon another can also
result from each being an effect of a common cause. The firing of a gun
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 Moral Explanation . 7

causes both muzzle flash and the death of Sir William Lucas. Because the
closest possible worlds in which the muzzle does not flash are worlds in
which the gun is not fired, we may say that had the muzzle not flashed, Sir
William would not have died. Nevertheless, the flash is not explanatorily
relevant to the death.5
The upshot is that counterfactual dependence is insufficient for
causal-explanatory relevance, because only some of the relations which yield
counterfactual dependence between their relata are such as to contribute in
a positive way to the relevant sort of explanation. Anti-explanationists, such
as Judith Jarvis Thomson (in Harman and Thomson) and Nick Zangwill,
have seized upon this fact, and (correctly) insisted that the mere counter-
factual dependencies that obtain between moral property instances and the
formation of moral judgments do not in themselves show that the former
are explanatorily relevant. In fact, however, this point was clear from the
beginning of the debate. In his original response to Harman, in which he
makes use of a version of the counterfactual test, Sturgeon is quite explicit
that the test needs to be qualified in order not to be disconfirmed by cases
of the sort we have just mentioned (see Sturgeon, “Moral Explanations”
75). His critics have uniformly ignored this.
Nevertheless, the proponent of moral explanations does need to say
something in response to the criticism. There is arguably no principled and
useful way of restricting the counterfactual test to allow for the fact that
counterfactual dependence, as such, is insufficient for causal relevance. Of
course, one could insist that in the kinds of cases that have been put forward
as illustrating the explanatory relevance of moral properties, the relationship
of the moral property instances to the relevant explananda is not that of
non-causal determination, and the two are not effects of a common cause.
Since there is a counterfactual dependence between the two, then, the moral
property instance must cause the explanandum. But if it causes it, then
manifestly it is explanatorily relevant to it.
There is surely something correct about this line of argument. But it may
be viewed as question-begging by the opposition. One who insists that
moral properties are always and everywhere epiphenomenal is unlikely to
grant its key premise. The fact remains, however, that the counterfactual
test is quite useful (arguably indispensable) if applied with care.
After arguing against the counterfactual test,Thomson comes up with a
test of her own, and argues that moral properties do not pass it. This test is
insightfully criticised by Loeb (2005). The test has little evident connection
to ordinary explanatory practice, and in fact seems designed specifically to
exclude moral explanations. Zangwill goes so far as to call for an end to the
use of the counterfactual test, but cannot help using it himself subsequently
(270).
Now there are in the philosophy of mind literature several attempts to
distinguish from causation a distinct notion of causal relevance. These
include Kim’s (“Epiphenomenal and Supervenient Causation”) notion of
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“supervenient causation,” LePore and Loewer’s “causal relevance,” Jackson

and Pettit’s notion of “program explanation,” and Dretske’s notion of
“structuring” (as opposed to triggering) causes. I believe that none of these
attempts survives recognition of the fact that counterfactual dependence is
insufficient for causal relevance, because each requires for such relevance
(in effect) merely counterfactual dependence.
Blackburn appeals to Jackson and Pettit’s model of program explanation
in an attempt to explain how projectivists can account for apparent moral
explanations. Sturgeon (“Contents and Causes”) provides a response.
Compare also with Tolhurst and Lycan, each of whom adopts something
similar to Kim’s notion of supervenient causation, in the moral case.
The issue of moral causation, as opposed merely to moral explanation, has
received disappointingly little discussion. I think it is crucially important to
be clear whether a given theorist believes that (instances of ) moral properties
are actually causally efficacious, or merely causally (or explanatorily) relevant.
It is very far from obvious what causal, or explanatory, relevance can consist
in, in this context, if not causal efficacy itself.
The most sustained discussion of the notion of moral causation is provided
by Pietroski (“Prima Facie Obligations”; “Moral Causation”). Pietroski
makes a number of salutary points. He notes, contra Leiter, that genuine
causal generalizations need not be exceptionless, and that truly causal
properties may supervene upon other properties. Pietroski’s extended analogy
between prima facie moral rules and ceteris paribus special-science laws is
illuminating. But he takes the analogy too far, in suggesting that moral rules
themselves state causal generalizations. The former are necessary in a stronger
sense than are the latter. Compare with the discussion in section 6 of the
present essay.

5. Explanatory Indispensability
It is relatively uncontroversial, at least for those who do not reject outright
the relevant ontology, that moral properties supervene upon naturalistic
properties. A consequence of this fact is that, in any situation in which one
might appeal to a moral property instance in order to account for some
explanandum, there will be implicated a range of naturalistic properties,
the so-called “subvenient base” of the moral property in question.
Anti-explanationists are apt to insist that it is the non-moral properties in
this subvenient base which do the real explaining, on the relevant occasions;
the moral properties that supervene upon these non-moral properties are
mere epiphenomena.
The wickedness or immorality of Wickham and Lydia supervenes partly
upon their behavior, in particular their decision to disregard the sanctified
proscription against pre-marital cohabitation. The subvenient base in the
case of the street hoodlums likewise includes their behavior. In each case,
the opponent of moral explanation insists that insofar as certain explananda
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 Moral Explanation . 9

seem to turn upon the instantiation of the moral properties in question, the
real explanatory work is done by the non-moral properties which subvene
under the moral properties.
But there are two crucial flaws with this line of argument. One of them
has been anticipated already. It is that exactly the same relationship obtains
between other sets of higher-level properties, such as those found in the
special sciences, and their realizers or subvenient bases. Why could one not
argue that it is not in fact the beliefs and desires of a higher animal which
explain its behavior, but rather its neurophysiological states? Come to that,
neurophysiological states are themselves supervenient. So they too are surely
epiphenomenal, and we must continue to search below for a genuine cause.
One ends up with either a great absurdity, or a truly colossal one. It would
surely be quite absurd to regard only basic physics as causally efficacious, on
the grounds that only basic physical properties do not supervene upon other
properties. And this would appear to be the ultimate result of the line of
thinking employed here by the opponent of moral explanations.
In fact, however, the line may imply something more absurd still. For it
is an open empirical question whether there is in fact a basic physical level,
a level the denizens of which are simple, in the sense of not being composed
by other sorts of particles. If one demands that causal- and explanatory-
relevance accrue only to basic, or non-supervenient properties, one is left
with the result that it is an open empirical question whether there is any
causation in the world.6 This is a reductio of whatever implies it, and in the
present case the culprit is the anti-explanationist’s insistence that supervenient
properties are always and everywhere epiphenomenal.
Even waiving this considerable difficulty, however, the attempt to replace
moral explanations with explanations adverting only to related naturalistic
properties is doomed to failure. If the injustice of a society is held to account
for the revolution, one might opt instead to cite the naturalistic properties
upon which the injustice of the society supervenes. The problem is that this
configuration of non-moral properties is going to be too specific to do the
explanatory job in question.
Sturgeon (1991) and others make the point that something is often lost
when one adverts to the subvenient base of a putatively explanatory
property. They have used examples to illustrate the view. I think the
argument to follow explains the common point in a deeper way.
Setting aside aberrant cases involving overdetermination and pre-emption,
it is a general truth that if c causes e, then it must be the case that had c not
occurred, e would not have occurred either. That is to say, it must be the
case that the closest possible worlds in which c does not occur are worlds in
which e does not occur. If striking the match causes it to light, then it must
be the case that had it not been struck, it would not have ignited. Take now
the claim that the injustice of the society caused a revolt. The moral property
of injustice satisfies the constraint. Had the society not been unjust there
would have been no revolt. But no non-moral or naturalistic property satisfies
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the constraint. Suppose that the injustice of the society supervened upon
naturalistic properties N1, N2, . . . , Nn. It is not true that had these naturalistic
properties not been instantiated, the revolt would not have occurred. This
is because the property of being unjust is multiply realizable. The closest
possible world in which this set of naturalistic properties is not instantiated
is a world in which a different set was present, one which is alike sufficient
for the instantiation of injustice. Since injustice passes the causal-explanatory
test, and no non-moral property does, it follows that moral properties do
explanatory work that cannot be done by their subvenient bases. Therefore
the anti-explanationist attempt to supplant moral properties in explanatory
contexts must fail.
This result shows the flaw in Sinnott-Armstrong’s contention that the
same level of generality provided by reference to a moral property can be
obtained by adverting to its subvenient base (159–60). The presence of the
base is not necessary for the production of the relevant sort of event. The
persistence conditions of the moral property instance and those of its base
do not line up in the requisite sort of way.
There are a few attempts in the literature to show that there is something
specific about morality which renders it unable to participate in the relevant
sort of explanatory schemes. Audi, for example, argues that the forms of super-
venience differ across the moral and the scientific cases. In the moral case,
there is not merely ontological dependence but epistemic dependence as well – in
order to be justified in attributing a moral property to an agent, or situation,
one must be justified in attributing some relevant base property to it as well.
Therefore explanations involving moral properties alone will be incomplete;
we must advert as well to the base properties necessarily implicated in
knowing, or justifiedly believing, that the moral property is present.
The argument fails to distinguish the moral from the psychological. The
same sort of epistemic dependence is present in the relationship between
mental properties and the behavior upon which they (partially) supervene.
One cannot believe, with justification, that Charlotte is in pain (or believes
or desires that p), without some behavioral or testimonial evidence.
However, this does nothing to show that psychological explanations are in
themselves incomplete, and must advert in addition to lower-level events.
So the argument does not in fact show that there is something unique about
the moral case, or something which is incompatible with moral explanation.
Alternative reasons the moral may be unsuited to play a causal-explanatory
role are given by Dworkin and McGinn (see Majors section 5 for brief
discussion of their claims).

6. Non-naturalism and Moral Explanation

The debate over moral explanation divides theorists into three main camps.
Naturalistic moral realists tend to view explanatory integrity as essential to
the respectability of moral properties. Anti-realists about morality may well
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 Moral Explanation . 11

agree with this, but they deny that the relevant sort of integrity is, or is likely
to be, attained. Non-naturalistic moral realists reject the idea that explanatory
integrity is necessary for the “vindication” of moral properties, and so do
not see the fact – if it is a fact – that moral properties are unsuited to play a
genuine explanatory role as a mark against them. Thus, with respect to the
claim,“If moral properties are real, or respectable, then they play a genuine
explanatory role,” naturalists accept the conditional together with its
antecedent, anti-realists accept the conditional, but deny the consequent,
and non-naturalists reject the conditional.
I believe that a more fruitful, alternative way for moral realists generally
to approach the issue of moral explanation is to view explanatory integrity
as a sufficient, though not a necessary, condition for the vindication of moral
properties. If non-naturalists were to take this approach, for example, they
would not feel doctrinally bound to oppose the explanatory relevance of
moral properties.7 They may feel so bound, in the current state of play, for
a number of reasons. They may think that basic moral principles are known
to us (or knowable by us) a priori. They may believe, further, that there are
two significant consequences of this: First, that moral reality can be known
through the use of reason alone; and therefore that it cannot be necessary
to the “vindication” of moral properties that they play a genuine explanatory
role. Second, that there is an a priori, conceptual connection between moral
and naturalistic properties. And if there is such a connection, then the former
cannot be suited to causing the latter. Causal relations may be nomologically
or physically necessary, but they are not conceptually necessary. Theirs is,
at most, an a posteriori necessity, rather than the a priori necessity which attends
conceptual connections. If moral property instances do not cause
instantiations of naturalistic properties, however, then it is obscure how they
could be explanatorily relevant to them.
The first point seems to me correct. It is plausible that basic moral
principles are known to us a priori. And it does indeed follow from this that
morality is not hostage to uncertain causal-explanatory fortunes. So why
not abandon altogether, with the typical non-naturalist, the idea that moral
properties play a genuine explanatory role? Part of the answer lies in the fact
that the second alleged consequence of the a priori nature of basic moral
principles rests upon confusion. It may be true that if c and e are bound
together by conceptual necessity, then the former is not suited to act as cause
of the latter.8 But the argument that moral properties are unsuited, in general,
to act as cause of naturalistic properties requires something substantially
stronger than this. It requires the principle that, if c and e are conceptually
connected, in the relevant sort of way, and if c is of canonical type C, and
e is of canonical type E, then no property instantiation of type C can ever
cause property instantiations of type E. This principle has little intuitive
plausibility, and is in fact subject to counterexample.
Semantic properties, such as those that concern expression meaning, and
thought content, are taken by many to be causally efficacious. Indeed, their
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12 . Moral Explanation

being so is arguably a necessary condition upon the respectability of

common-sense (and even theoretical) psychology. Presumably if they are
causally efficacious they cause non-semantic properties (properties concerning
behavior, for example) to be instantiated. Despite this, however, semantic
properties are conceptually connected to non-semantic ones. The former
(globally) supervene on the latter: There are no two conceptually possible
worlds which are indiscernible with respect to non-semantic features, but
which differ in their semantic properties. If this is so then the stronger
principle of the previous paragraph must be false.
The upshot is that the (alleged) fact that moral properties are conceptually
connected, in basic moral principles, to naturalistic properties has no tendency
to show that moral properties cannot cause naturalistic properties to be
instantiated. What it may show is that, where moral property M1 is
conceptually connected to naturalistic property N1, M1 is not suited to be
a cause of N1. But there is no licensed proscription against M 1 causing
N i (i ≠ 1).
Thus I think that wholesale resistance to moral explanation on the part
of certain moral realists is misguided. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion
that many such theorists reject the idea that the moral has explanatory
pretensions in part because they fear that those pretensions cannot be fulfilled.
It must surely be allowed, however, that if moral properties do play a causal
role, as explanationists have contended, then they are real. (Less paradoxically:
If moral predicates play a role in an indispensable causal explanation, then
they refer to genuine, instantiated properties.) And it has been suggested
here that the case for the claim that they do play such a role is very
strong. What is disputable is whether playing a causal-explanatory role is
necessary for ontological respectability. Though the matter is controversial,
I think that there are many good reasons for doubting this stronger claim,
and no compelling grounds in its favor. A corollary of the points made in
this section thus far is that the admission that moral properties play a genuine,
irreducible causal-explanatory role does not amount in itself a vindication
of ethical naturalism.
So it is a mistake to think that the fact that basic moral principles are
known a priori prevents moral properties from playing a causal-explanatory
role in all cases. It is also a mistake, I believe, to think that if moral properties
do play such a role then the autonomy of ethical theory will have been
compromised. For in what does such autonomy consist? In irreducibility?
Many classes of properties which are causally efficacious are irreducible, in
the relevant sense. Those of biology, geology, and psychology are examples.
In the obtaining of an unbridgeable is/ought gap? In the sense in which one
cannot derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’, it is just as impossible to derive a
‘thought’ from an ‘is’ – no sentence concerning physical reality logically
implies any psychological truth.9 The sort of gap in question is a general
feature of the relationship between higher-level, or supervenient, discourses
and their lower-level realizers. It is not peculiar to morality. It is not necessary
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 Moral Explanation . 13

to try to settle now the issue of whether this fact implies that the moral is
not autonomous, or rather that all supervenient but non-reducible discourses
(including ethics) are autonomous. I think that in any reasonable sense in
which ethics might be thought autonomous, it remains so upon the admission
that moral properties play a genuine causal-explanatory role.
This point is relevant to attempts to show that the explanationist project
cannot account for the normativity of morality (see, for example, Copp). It
may be true that contemporary naturalists who model moral properties upon
special science properties will necessarily fail to account for normativity. But
one who employs the hybrid approach suggested here can allow that
explanatory generalizations – as opposed to moral principles proper – are
not normative, in the relevant sense, as well as that moral principles are not
empirically confirmable. This is not yet to deny the possibility, or relevance,
of moral explanation, however, if our view is merely that the existence of
such explanations is sufficient, but not necessary, for the vindication of moral
properties. Basic moral principles, we may hold, state normative truths, and
are necessary and a priori; causal moral generalizations are non-normative,
and are necessary and a posteriori.
The conclusion we have reached is that a redoubtable case can be mounted
in favor of the probity and indispensability of moral explanation. No sound
reason for rejecting it has been provided. In addition, I have stressed that
all moral realists ought to be open at least to the possibility that moral
properties play a causal-explanatory role. There is no inconsistency between
their playing such a role, on the one hand, and moral principles being
knowable a priori, or being autonomous, on the other. Moral realists have
a difficult enough time as it is, without rejecting out-of-hand possible sources
of confirmation.

Short Biography
Brad Majors is a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
His dissertation,“Morality in Particular,” is a defense of one form of moral
particularism. His research interests are in metaethics, epistemology, and
philosophy of mind. Recent publications include “Moral Explanation and
the Special Sciences” (2003),“Moral Discourse and Descriptive Properties”
(2005), and “Quasi-Naturalism and Moral Reality” (2005).

Notes
* Correspondence address: Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 600
N. Park St., Madison,WI 53706, USA. Email: bmmajors@wisc.edu.
1 Harman’s positivistic view that it is our observations which are the primary explananda, in the

relevant range of cases, is questioned in Lycan and Pietroski (“Moral Causation”). Note also that
Harman thinks moral properties explanatorily impotent only insofar as they are taken to be
irreducible. Cf. note 3.
2 In fact I think that there can be no non-psychological explanation of the behavior, as contrasted

with the physical movements which intuitively constitute it. The argument provided in section 5
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14 . Moral Explanation

below can be adapted to show that no set of physical events (say, neurophysiological events) has
the right persistence conditions to be able to explain the behavior. But this matter is best put aside
for the present.
3 It is assumed here that moral properties do not reduce to other sorts of properties, in the strong

sense of being type-identifiable with them. This form of reduction is ruled out by the
multiple-realizability of moral properties, together with Leibniz’s law of the indiscernibility of
identicals. Since no (particular) non-moral property is necessary for the instantiation of any moral
property, no non-moral property can be identical with any moral property. There are weaker
conceptions of reduction, according to which reduction requires merely supervenience. But
reduction in this sense is uninteresting in the present context, since no established meta-ethical
view – realist or not – denies the supervenience of the moral upon the non-moral.
4 Counterfactual dependence fails to be necessary for explanatory relevance as well, because of cases

involving pre-emption. Suppose Bingley fires a bullet which kills Mr. Collins. If Jane was ready
to shoot, in case Bingley had missed, and if she would have fired accurately, then while Bingley
caused the death of Mr. Collins, it is not the case that the death would not have occurred, had he
not acted as he did.
5 There are difficult issues hereabouts concerning so-called “backtracking counterfactuals.” A

backtracking counterfactual is one the evaluation of which requires that inferences be made
concerning what would have happened, given certain changes, before the key temporal point in
question. Thus, in the example of the previous note, one might argue that had Bingley not fired
his gun, Jane would not have either, since in that case they would have been walking together in
the copse. The ban on backtracking was instituted partly because it threatens to make trouble for
the counterfactual analysis of causation, and partly because it makes the evaluation of many
counterfactuals difficult or impossible. But these grounds are not clearly compelling. Causation
may very well be an unanalyzable, primitive concept; and the counterfactual in the main text
seems more obviously correct than could be any theoretically motivated attempt to dispute it.
6 For this line see Block and Schaffer. Of course, the fact that a line of argument is absurd does

not imply that it is not endorsed in the literature. One who in effect embraces the view that there
is causation (at most) only at the bottom level is Jaegwon Kim (see e.g. his Mind in a Physical
World).
7 Shafer-Landau (98ff ) is the only nonnaturalist I know of who leaves room for the possibility of

moral explanation.
8 It should be noted, however, that conceptual necessities obtain, where they do, between concepts

of properties, and not between the properties themselves. So the principle I am granting for the
sake of argument is not evidently true.
9 This point is noted by Sayre-McCord (“Moral Theory” 258), who coins the useful phrase

“is/thought gap.”

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