Normative Eliminativism: What I Think About Ethics

I hold a position of normative eliminativism: the view that no universal moral truths or common goods exist.

My primary justification rests on the problem of metanormative regress that undermines moral realist frameworks. Any attempt to ground objective moral facts encounters an infinite regress: each justification for why certain moral principles hold requires further justification, ad infinitum. No bedrock foundation exists upon which to construct universally binding normative claims. The regress reveals that moral realism’s central promise of objective moral truths is unfulfillable.

This may seem to conflict with a favorite quote of mine from Erich Fromm: “Critical and radical thought will only bear fruit when it is blended with the most precious quality man is endowed with - the love of life.” It does not.

My eliminativist stance does not commit me to nihilism. The absence of mind-independent moral facts does not negate the psychological reality of desires, preferences, and values. I want things, care about outcomes, and pursue goals. These subjective states require no metaphysical grounding in objective moral reality to possess motivational force. Normative eliminativism simply recognizes that my values arise from contingent psychological and social processes rather than correspondence with universal moral truths.

We are beings who care deeply about things while inhabiting a universe devoid of inherent normative structure.

At some point I’d like to write a careful argument defending this view by responding to Steven Pinker’s essay Why It Is Rational To Be Good. Until then, this will do as a reference post. Read The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Truth about Morality and What to Do About it for a more formal argument for what is roughly my position by someone who knows more than I do.