Can the empirical sciences contribute to the moral realism/anti-realism debate?

An increasing number of moral realists and anti-realists have recently attempted to support their views by appeal to science. Arguments of this kind are typically criticized on the object-level. In addition, however, one occasionally also comes across a more sweeping metatheoretical skepticism. Scientific contributions to the question of the existence of objective moral truths, it is claimed, are impossible in principle; most prominently, because such arguments impermissibly derive normative from descriptive propositions, such arguments beg the question against non-naturalist moral realism, science cannot inform conceptual accounts of moral judgements, and the conceptual is logically prior to the empirical. My main aim in this paper is to clarify and critically assess these four objections. Moreover, based on this assessment, I will formulate four general requirements that science-based arguments in favor of moral realism and anti-realism should meet. It will turn out that these arguments are limited in several ways, and that some existing arguments have been unsound. Yet it is still possible in principle for the empirical sciences to contribute to the moral realism/anti-realism debate

Subject and Object in Scientific Realism

In this paper, I explore the relationship between the subject and the object from the perspective of scientific realism. I first characterize the scientific realist position that I adopt. I then address the question of the nature of scientific knowledge from a realist point of view. Next I consider the question of how to locate the knowing subject within the context of scientific realism. After that I consider the place of mind in an objective world. I close with some general remarks on the topic

Entanglement swapping of noisy states: A kind of superadditivity in nonclassicality

We address the question as to whether an entangled state that satisfies local realism will give a violation of the same, after entanglement swapping in a suitable scenario. We consider such possibility as a kind of superadditivity in nonclassicality. Importantly, it will indicate that checking for violation of local realism, in the state obtained after entanglement swapping, can be a method for detecting entanglement in the input state of the swapping procedure. We investigate various entanglement swapping schemes, which involve mixed initial states. The strength of violation of local realism by the state obtained after entanglement swapping, is compared with the one for the input states. We obtain a kind of superadditivity of violation of local realism for Werner states, consequent upon entanglement swapping involving Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state measurements. We also discuss whether entanglement swapping of specific states may be used in quantum repeaters with a substantially reduced need to perform the entanglement distillation step.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, RevTeX4; v2: new discussions added, published versio

Scientific Realism

This article endeavors to identify the strongest versions of the two primary arguments against epistemic scientific realism: the historical argument—generally dubbed “the pessimistic meta-induction”—and the argument from underdetermination. It is shown that, contrary to the literature, both can be understood as historically informed but logically validmodus tollensarguments. After specifying the question relevant to underdetermination and showing why empirical equivalence is unnecessary, two types of competitors to contemporary scientific theories are identified, both of which are informed by science itself. With the content and structure of the two nonrealist arguments clarified, novel relations between them are uncovered, revealing the severity of their collective threat against epistemic realism and its “no-miracles” argument. The final section proposes, however, that the realist’s axiological tenet “science seeks truth” is not blocked. An attempt is made to indicate the promise for a nonepistemic, purely axiological scientific realism—here dubbed “Socratic scientific realism.

Where constructionism and critical realism converge: interrogating the domain of epistemological relativism

The paper interrogates the status, nature and significance of epistemological relativism as a key element of constructionism and critical realism. It finds that epistemological relativism is espoused by authorities in critical realism and marginalized or displaced in the field of management and organization studies, resulting in forms of analysis that are empirically, but not fully critically, realist. This evaluation prompts reflection on the question of whether, how and with what implications epistemological relativism might be recast at the heart of critical realist studies of management and organization

Ecological realism and the tension of realism and idealism in Heidegger\u27s thought

I examine the question of realism and idealism in terms of a tension in Martin Heidegger’s thought between entity realism and being idealism. Entity realism is the idea that entities exist independently of humans, whereas being idealism is idea that the being of entities is dependent on humans in some way. The question then is how to reconcile entity realism and being idealism without collapsing to an unattractive position like subjectivism or naïve realism. I appropriate Heidegger’s tension to answer the question of realism and idealism in terms of what I call ecological realism. Ecological realism is a way to combine the insights of both realism and idealism without collapsing into logical inconsistency or an undesirable form of either realism or idealism. We want to account for how entities exist independently of us while their being depends on us. I account for these two theses in terms of the concept of sense-making, which concerns how we make sense of the entities we encounter. Appropriating insights from Heidegger as well from modern scientific theory, I defend ecological realism against several objections, and develop an answer to the question of realism and idealism that does justice to both the reality of entities and the ideality of their being

Internal Realism and the Reality of God

How do religions refer to reality in their language and symbols, and which reality do they envisage and encounter? on the basis of some examples of an understanding of religion without reference to reality, I first answer the question of what ”realism’ is. realism has been an opposite concept to nominalism, idealism, empiricism and antirealism. The paper concentrates especially on the most recent formation of realism in opposition to antirealism. In a second section the consequences for philosophy of religion and theology are considered. How the reality, as it is considered in philosophy of religion and in theology, has to be characterised, if and how this reality is relevant for human beings, and what its relation is to everything else, can only be answered and clarified in a presentation in a language that is specific for this reality, the reality of God

Truth in Economic Subjectivism

The notion of subjectivism has a significant place in the body of economic theory, most notably in the theory of economic value. There is, however, one concern that some philosophers have raised about truth in normative judgments that puts economic subjectivism seriously into question. This concern can be articulated as the following question: Do economic value judgments have truth values? The answer to this question is pertinent not only for an improved understanding of economic value but also for such philosophical investigations as realism, epistemology, ontology, and ethics. Nonetheless, the answer is not readily available in the body of economic theory. This paper argues that the truth or falsity of economic judgments can be settled objectively.subjective economic value; subjectivism; objectivism; economic judgments; moral realism; social ontology; philosophy of economics

Ontic structural realism and the interpretation of quantum mechanics

This paper argues that ontic structural realism (OSR) faces a dilemma: either it remains on the general level of realism with respect to the structure of a given theory, but then it is, like epistemic structural realism, only a partial realism; or it is a complete realism, but then it has to answer the question how the structure of a given theory is implemented, instantiated or realized and thus has to argue for a particular interpretation of the theory in question. This claim is illustrated by examining how OSR fares with respect to the three main candidates for an ontology of quantum mechanics, namely many worlds-type interpretations, collapse-type interpretations and hidden variable-type interpretations. The result is that OSR as such is not sufficient to answer the question of what the world is like if quantum mechanics is correc