Abstract

As its title implies, this book is meant to give a new foundation to moral philosophy. In the sense meant, a foundation is a cognitive grounding. Lee is opposing the various non-naturalist 'volitionalisms' that have proved so influential in recent moral philosophy. The burden of her book is to show that the non-naturalist claim that there is no grounding for values in facts is unwarranted. This claim is due, she says, to positivism and empiricism and the associated contention that knowledge is only possible on the basis of strict deductions or strict implications from evidence. If evidence E does not strictly imply assertion A, then A is irrational and unjustified. But to maintain this, says Lee, is to condemn oneself to absurdity. Strict implication does not in fact obtain in any sphere of cognitive discourse, so if moral claims are irrational because they lack strict implication from evidence, then claims in many other spheres are irrational, and this consequence is absurd. Therefore, she says, people should cease finding fault with moral claims as if they were somehow uniquely deficient in this respect.