On the Properties of Quietism and Robustness

Abstract

This paper will appear under the rubric of “Quietism” in the OXFORD HANDBOOK OF MORAL REALISM, yet the term “quietism” is rejected by nearly every moral philosopher to whose work it is applied. In the first half of this paper, after a terse introductory section, I expand on why the term “quietism” is so objectionable. In lieu of that term, the phrase “moral realism as a moral doctrine” is the best designation for the moral-realist theory which I have expounded in some of my previous writings. (Other designations that are acceptable alternatives to “quietism” – and to the equally pejorative phrase “relaxed realism” – are “non-inflationary moral realism” and “minimalist moral realism.”) As is argued in the first half of the paper, quietism is a chimerical property insofar as it is predicated of moral realism as a moral doctrine.

Thereafter, the focus shifts to the property of robustness.

Supposedly what separates moral realism as a moral doctrine from some other varieties of non-naturalistic moral realism is that the latter are robust. Such is the contention of numerous opponents of moral realism as a moral doctrine. However, when the property of robustness is invoked to distinguish between moral realism as a moral doctrine and other non-naturalistic varieties of moral realism – rather than to advert to something which they have in common – it turns out to be illusive. As is argued in the second half of this paper, every dimension of objectivity ascribed to morality by robust non-naturalistic realists is also ascribed to morality by proponents of moral realism as a moral doctrine. Hence, philosophers err both when they affirm that moral realism as a moral doctrine is a species of quietism and when they deny that moral realism as a moral doctrine is robust.

Keywords: moral realism, minimalism, quietism, robustness, David Enoch, Ronald Dworkin, John Mackie, expressivism, objectivity