Function and Truth in Ethics

In the first part of The Ethical Project Philip Kitcher provides a naturalistic account of the function of ethical practice. Though he conceives of this as an unashamedly empirical task— Kitcher denies that the function of ethical practice is to get at the ethical truth, or to get people to behave in accordance with the ethical truth—it is not one that he thinks has a debunking upshot. Instead he thinks that his account of the function ethical practice, which is based on his reading of the practice's origins in the behaviour of our homonid ancestors, provides us with all of the materials required for a pragmatic naturalist account of ethical truth. More familiar a priori attempts to ground ethical truth in the spirit of Kant are given short shrift, as are the supposedly more empirically adequate non-cognitivist accounts of ethical judgement which hold that such judgements express emotions, commitments, intentions, desires, or non-cognitive attitudes of some other kind.