Grounds and Moral Laws

This dissertation consists in a series of papers on what could be called moral grounding (i.e. the application of metaphysical grounding to the moral domain). These papers motivate two distinct, but mutually complimentary, projects. The first concerns the nature of metaphysical grounding itself. In the first paper, I motivate and defend a functionalist theory of grounding (f-grounding). According to f-grounding, a relation R is a grounding relation iff R backs non-causal explanations. In the second paper, I elucidate one of the key components of f-grounding: the relation of backing. Specifically, I argue that backing is a form of truthmaking.
The second project concerns the motivation and defence of a neo-Humean theory of moral principles. First, I argue that moral principles have an important role in the definition of moral naturalness (ch. 3). Then, in chapter 4, I motivate NHM by showing that it provides dialectically compelling answers to questions concerning the explanation of pure moral principles as well as the explanation of moral supervenience. In that same paper, I defend the contingentist aspect of moral principles (roughly, the view that there are possible worlds with different pure moral principles). Finally, in the final paper, I defend the explanatoriness of moral principles qua moral generalizations. In doing so, I appeal to a pluralist theory of moral explanation.