Objectivity and moral judgements

Abstract

H.D. Aiken has written a paper called 'The Concept of Moral Objectivity. As the title suggests, it seems to be written on the understanding that there is only one such concept, waiting to be clarified by the first man who can give it accurate expression. But one cannot expect any single answer to the question whether moral judgments are objective; their objectivity has been affirmed and denied in a variety of related and unrelated senses. I want to illustrate this variety by outlining some of the meanings which have been given to the word in these contexts, and to point briefly to some of the connections and distinctions between them, with a view then to isolating the sense of the question with which this thesis is mainly concerned, and indicating my general strategy in approaching it.