Response-Dependent Realism

Abstract Writers on metaethics divide over two conceptions of what moral realism comes to. The first of these—the “Modest” conception—commits only to the truth-aptness of moral judgments. The second—the “Robust” conception—commits to the mind- or stance- or response-independence of such judgments. In this chapter, I take up the relationship of response-dependent (RD) metaethical theories to these two conceptions of realism. While some proponents of RD views see themselves as opponents of realism, I do not. On the Modest conception, RD views are realist. And the resources they have to respond to the challenges of the Robust conception are considerable. Moreover, a capably mounted form of RD, responsive to the motivations for Robust realism, puts pressure on the resources Robust realism has for rejecting response-dependence. If so, the theoretical distance between RD views and Robust realist views may be smaller than one might suppose.