Abstract

Do all methods of moral justification resemble the method of reflective equilibrium in presupposing that moral judgment's being justified depends at least in part on its being appropriately related to our actual substantial moral views? Can a moral judgment be justified without such a presupposition? I shall distinguish three versions of the no-option argument According to any version of the no-option argument, there is certain fact which characterizes moral theories, and that fact implies that there is no option other than to justify moral judgments by presupposing that their justification depends at least in part on their being appropriately related to our actual substantial moral views. Versions of the no-option argument differ in their specification of the characterizing fact that proves that in ethics there is only one option. I shall argue that the most common versions of the no-option argument are indefensible, while the defensibility of a more sophisticated version depends on the meaning of a notion of moral argument in philosophical ethics.