Closereads: Peter Railton's "Moral Realism" (Part One) 

We're reading a 1984 essay by Mark's U. of Michigan undergrad advisor, included among the most cited philosophy papers in some list that Wes found. Railton's goal is to give a naturalistic account of ethics that both connects tightly to observed empirical facts about humanity and also makes moral facts real parts of our world, not merely reducible to non-moral facts about pleasure or expressed preferences or the like. In this first part, Railton lays out what naturalism in ethics amounts to and begins to explain why past empiricists like Hume don't provide a realist picture of morality.
Read along with us: www.filosoficas.unam.mx/docs/1110/files/Railton%20Moral%20realism.pdf
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