As with all other moral realists, so-called relaxed moral realists believe that there are moral truths. Unlike metaphysical moral realists, they do not take themselves to be defending a substantively metaphysical position when espousing this view, but to be putting forward a moral thesis from within moral discourse. In this paper, I employ minimalism about truth to examine whether or not there is a semantic analysis of the claim ‘There are moral truths’ which can support this moral interpretation of one of moral realism’s key theses. My results are both discouraging and encouraging: Whilst I will argue that the claim ‘There are moral truths’ cannot be shown to be both moral and capable of demarcating relaxed realism from irrealism on the basis of a convincing semantic analysis that would be compatible with relaxed commitments, the moral interpretation of moral realism can be secured by modifying our understanding of what distinguishes relaxed realism from error-theoretic irrealism. Yet, we will see that this moral interpretation of moral realism does not ‘tumble out’ of the semantics provided for its central claims. Rather, hard work needs to be done before we can fully relax.

中文翻译：

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放松道德真理

与所有其他道德现实主义者一样，所谓的轻松的道德现实主义者相信存在道德真理。与形而上学的道德现实主义者不同，他们在拥护这种观点时并不认为自己捍卫了实质性的形而上学立场，而是从道德话语中提出了一种道德论题。在本文中，我运用关于真理的极简主义来检验对“存在道德真理”主张的语义分析是否可以支持这种对道德现实主义关键论文之一的道德解释。我的结果既令人鼓舞，也令人鼓舞：尽管我将辩称“存在道德真理”这一主张既不能被证明具有道德性，又能够在令人信服的语义分析的基础上将宽松现实主义与非现实主义划清界限。承诺，道德现实主义的道德解释可以通过修改我们对松弛现实主义与错误理论上的非现实主义的区别的理解来保证。但是，我们将看到，这种对道德现实主义的道德解释不会“跌倒”为其核心主张所提供的语义。相反，在我们完全放松之前，需要完成艰苦的工作。