metaethics Archives • Richard Carrier Blogs

The Ontology of Moral Facts

Richard Carrier — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 23:12:14 +0000

Fifteen years ago I was asked to give a lecture to Christian high school students on “the ontology of morality,” which I did using clips from movies and television shows to illustrate the physical instantiation of moral facts in interacting human systems. They did remarkably well in understanding the subject. I then wrote up my […]

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New Publication: Objective Moral Facts Exist in All Possible Universes

Richard Carrier — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 16:11:09 +0000

I have a new peer-reviewed publication in philosophy: “Objective Moral Facts Exist in All Possible Universes,” Religions 16.8 (2025). This consolidates my previous peer-reviewed work on metaethics (“Moral Facts Naturally Exist (and Science Could Find Them,” in The End of Christianity, ed. John Loftus, Prometheus 2011) and subsequent blogging and debates into a new peer-reviewed […]

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Some Ancient Chinese Philosophy on Why We Ought to Be Moral

Richard Carrier — Sun, 12 Jun 2022 18:55:10 +0000

When looking for “the objectively correct” answer to the question of why we should be moral, we also should look to what the ancient Chinese had to say on the matter. Not because it is any more likely to be correct than Western answers; but because ancient China (especially the Chin to Han dynasties) was […]

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Justin Brierley on Moral Knowledge & the Problem of Evil

Richard Carrier — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 19:11:40 +0000

“But why exactly do we believe that human life should be valued?” Justin Brierley asks (p. 52). Nowhere in his quest for an answer does he ever resort to asking experts in moral psychology or sociology what science has found the answer to this question empirically to be, or even consult the over two thousand […]

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Erik Wielenberg and How Atheists Keep Missing the Point of Grounding Morality

Richard Carrier — Sun, 27 Mar 2022 19:04:52 +0000

In 2009 philosopher Erik Wielenberg published “In Defense of Non-Natural, Non-Theistic Moral Realism” in the journal Faith and Philosophy. The abstract claims: Many believe that objective morality requires a theistic foundation. I maintain that there are sui generis objective ethical facts that do not reduce to natural or supernatural facts. On my view, objective morality […]

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The Objective Value Cascade

Richard Carrier — Sun, 21 Nov 2021 19:14:24 +0000

In the movie Serenity, the crew of a spaceship far in humanity’s future discover the lost planet Miranda, where they discover a dark secret: that a government drug used on its population to make them docile and compliant, actually removed all desires of any kind, with the result that everyone just sat at their desks, […]

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Why A Neo-Aristotelian Naturalism Is Probably True

Richard Carrier — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 19:44:14 +0000

I have written a few times on my worldview as a whole—my “philosophy of life.” To be viable I believe any worldview must consist of a complete, consilient, coherent, evidence-based account of the six foundations of knowledge: epistemology (which includes semantics), science (which includes history), metaphysics (now more commonly called ontology), ethics (including both morality […]

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How My Philosophy Would Solve the Unsolved Problems

Richard Carrier — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 19:10:09 +0000

Tooling around looking for lists of “unsolved problems” in philosophy I must admit the best list that’s most easily found online is Wikipedia’s. I realized for general benefit I should write up how my worldview addresses these. I’ve already forayed a bit into this area with my articles Eight Philosophical Questions We’ll Never Solve?—which lists […]

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Study the Justifications and Applications of Moral Values with Me!

Richard Carrier — Fri, 27 Mar 2020 16:36:46 +0000

Hone your philosophy, master how to debate the moral argument with theists, and learn how to improve and defend your own moral reasoning and worldview. Have challenges in this subject to pose to me? Curious to study a subject so important and controversial? This is the course for you! How to register is explained below. […]

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Will AI Be Our Moses?

Richard Carrier — Sun, 29 Sep 2019 15:32:12 +0000

Last Friday the 13th I discussed the future of morality with Canadian philosopher Christopher DiCarlo. We advertised the subject with a double question: “Is Society Making Moral Progress and Can We Predict Where It’s Going?” The description was apt: Drs. DiCarlo and Carrier will discuss whether or not we can objectively know if societies are […]

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