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Russ Shafer-Landau. Moral Realism: A Defence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 322 pp. $99.00.
Many Christians bemoan the moral relativism of popular culture, presuming that they stand alone in defending "absolute truth" and objective moral standards in a moral wasteland. For those looking for fresh resources in support of moral objectivity, Russ Shafer-Landau's Moral Realism: A Defence will come as a welcome -but somewhat perplexing - surprise. For Shafer-Landau provides a vigorous and powerful defense of the idea that there are indeed objective moral standards, but he does so with almost no reference to God or religion.
Moral Realism is an ambitious work in metaethics. Metaethics is concerned with the meaning and reference of basic ethical terms (good, right, ought) as well as questions about the structure of moral reasoning and the justification of moral judgments. Those exploring the literature quickly find themselves immersed in highly technical discussions of not only moral theory but also ontology and epistemology. There is little consensus on basic issues, with a bewildering variety of positions advanced. Moral Realism provides a refreshingly clear and accessible introduction to the current debates as well as a forceful defense of moral realism. In advancing his thesis Shafer-Landau takes on some of the most influential perspectives in contemporary metaethics.
Shafer-Landau, professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsisn at Madison, is concerned to refute a widespread perspective-"the view that our moral opinions are either never true, or are correct, when they are, only in virtue of our endorsements" (p. 1). The idea that moral principles are "human laws, made by, and for, humans" is deeply embedded in popular consciousness and well entrenched within the academy. Against this consensus, Shafer-Landau argues for the truth of moral realism, that is, the view that "moral judgements enjoy a special sort of objectivity: such judgements, when true, are so independently of what any human being, anywhere, in any circumstance whatever, thinks of them" (p. 2). Moral realism acknowledges the "stance-independence" of moral reality. He writes: "Realists believe that there are moral truths that obtain independently of any preferred perspective, in the sense that the moral standards that fix the moral facts are not made true by virtue of their ratification from within any given actual or hypothetical...