Objective Morality and the Nature of Reality

Abstract

"On February 12, 2010, biology professor Amy Bishop, who had recently been denied tenure, stood up at a biology department meeting and unexpectedly opened fire on her colleagues with a shotgun, killing three of them. Most people, upon hearing about this episode, would agree that the professor’s actions were morally wrong. But moral wrongness and other ethical properties are deeply puzzling.2 Some find such properties so problematic that they deny their existence altogether. What must reality be like in order for Bishop’s actions really to be morally wrong—morally wrong in a robust, objective sense?"