Length: 1500-1800 words (c. 5-6 pages double-spaced). Typed in a 12-point font, double-spaced, with numbered pages, a title.

Citations should be placed in parentheses in the body of your text (there is no need for footnotes) and should contain the name of the author, an abbreviated title if necessary (if we read more than one thing by that author), and the page number. You need not append a list of works cited.

When the topics below ask you for arguments for or against a position, you should draw those arguments from the readings—you are not being asked to devise your own arguments. So be sure to carefully review the arguments in all the readings that are relevant to your chosen topic.

PAPER TOPIC: Gilbert Harman argues in ch. 1 of The Nature of Morality that moral facts fail an explanatory test or criterion of existence. Russ Shafer-Landau and Peter Railton both wish to deny Harman’s negative conclusion and to reinstate moral realism, but on sharply different grounds. Railton thinks the test was fine but Harman’s verdict was incorrect: that is, he accepts Harman’s test but seeks to show that moral facts pass it. Shafer-Landau, by contrast, argues (in Moral Realism ch. 4 and “Ethics as Philosophy” sec. 6) that Harman’s test is inappropriately applied to moral and normative facts and that they therefore do not need to pass it.

Explain each style of response in detail and decide which is better. (You will need to explain Harman’s original argument sufficiently to motivate the respective responses to it.) What are the arguments for each of these positions? What are the pros and cons of each, and the risks each runs? In the end, which approach do you think offer a better basis for moral realism?

Readings:
1) Gilbert Harman, The Nature of Morality, ch. 1 (attached)
2) Gilbert Harman, selections from “Is There a Single True Morality?”: §§ 5.1-5.3, 5.7 (pp. 77-84, 95-99) Can be accessed here: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.proxy3.library.mcgill.ca/view/10.1093/0198238045.001.0001/acprof-9780198238041-chapter-5
3) Russ Shafer-Landau, selections from Moral Realism: A Defence, ch. 4: pp. 80-84, 98-99, 110-115 only (§§ I, part of IV, V). Can be accessed here: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.proxy3.library.mcgill.ca/view/10.1093/0199259755.001.0001/acprof-9780199259755-chapter-5
4) Gilbert Harman, selections from The Nature of Morality, ch. 2: (attached)
5) Peter Railton, “Moral Realism”. Can be accessed here: http://www.jstor.org.proxy3.library.mcgill.ca/stable/2185589?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents