Abstract

Toomas Karmo claims that his taxonomy of ethical sentences has the result that there does not exist a sound argument with all non-ethical premises and an ethical conclusion. In a recent paper, Mark T. Nelson argues against this claim. Nelson presents a sound argument that he takes to be such that (i) Karmo’s taxonomy classifies that argument’s single premise as non-ethical and (ii) Karmo’s taxonomy classifies that argument’s conclusion as ethical. I attempt to show that Nelson is mistaken about (ii). For any possible world at which the premise of Nelson’s argument is true, Karmo’s taxonomy classifies the conclusion of Nelson’s argument as non-ethical