Do the introspectively ascertainable aspects of our moral experiences carry ontological objective purport—portraying reality as containing worldly moral properties and facts, thus supporting moral realism? Horgan and Timmons (2008, 2018) answer this question in the negative, arguing that their non-realist view, cognitivist expressivism, can accommodate the introspectively ascertainable moral phenomenology (including categorical authoritativeness) just as well as realism can—where accommodating the phenomenology means accounting for it without construing it as misleading or erroneous. If sound, this constitutes an important defense of cognitivist expressivism, undermining a central attraction of realism. They thus pose a challenge to realists to identify any aspects of moral phenomenology that cannot be accommodated by expressivism and instead favor realism. I here take up that challenge, in two stages. First, I argue that cognitivist expressivism does not after all capture certain important aspects of the phenomenology of the sort of moral experience on which they focus, while realism does. This argument does not depend on claiming that the phenomenology has ontological objective purport. The claim so far is just that there is more to categorical authoritativeness than the expressivist account captures, though this leaves the door open to Kantian rationalism (and perhaps other non-realist accounts) as well as realism. Second, I will go on to argue that although some aspects of moral phenomenology may only point to this broader range of views, others do specifically carry ontological objective purport and thus directly support realism insofar as we take the phenomenology seriously.

我们道德经验中内省可确定的方面是否带有本体论的客观主旨——将现实描绘成包含世俗的道德属性和事实，从而支持道德现实主义？Horgan 和 Timmons（2008 年，2018 年）否定地回答了这个问题，认为他们的非现实主义观点，即认知主义表现主义，可以像现实主义一样容纳可内省确定的道德现象学（包括绝对权威性）——在那里容纳现象学意味着在不将其解释为误导或错误的情况下对其进行解释。如果合理，这构成了对认知主义表现主义的重要辩护，破坏了现实主义的核心吸引力。因此，它们对现实主义者提出了挑战，以确定表现主义无法适应的道德现象学的任何方面，而是支持现实主义。我在这里分两个阶段接受这个挑战。首先，我认为认知主义表现主义毕竟没有捕捉到他们所关注的那种道德经验的现象学的某些重要方面，而现实主义却捕捉到了。这个论点并不依赖于声称现象学具有本体论的客观要旨。迄今为止的说法只是，分类权威性比表现主义描述所捕捉的要多，尽管这为康德理性主义（或许还有其他非现实主义的论述）和现实主义敞开了大门。其次，我将继续论证，尽管道德现象学的某些方面可能只指向这一更广泛的观点，但其他方面确实特别带有本体论的客观要旨，因此只要我们认真对待现象学，就直接支持实在论。