Exploring The Moral Universe

The Moral Universe is the central text in a wide-ranging and ambitious project conducted by three of the most important and influential figures in non-naturalist metaethics today: John Bengson, Terence Cuneo, and Russ Shafer-Landau.

Last year, Jeff Behrends, Jacob Sparks, and I invited leading lights in contemporary metaethics to present papers at a workshop on the book. The workshop, which we called “Exploring The Moral Universe,” occurred in Fall 2025 at Harvard University. The following papers were presented:

• Stephanie Leary (McGill), "Simplifying the Moral Universe"

• Sarah McGrath (Princeton), "Pricean Reflection and the Epistemology of Moral Fixed Points"

• Ralph Wedgwood (Southern California), "The Normativity of Morality"

• Debbie Roberts (Edinburgh), "Why Non-Naturalism?"

• Stephen Kearns (Florida State) and Daniel Star (Boston University), "Promiscuity and Moral Realism"

• Daniel Wodak (Wisconsin), "Explaining Authority"

• Stephen Finlay (Illinois), "Projecting the Moral Universe: A Tale of Three Distinctions"

• Matthew Bedke (British Columbia), "Avoiding a God of the Gaps: A Side-on Look at Moral Essences"

We’re now in the midst of preparing an edited volume which will include versions of the above papers as well as a few further contributions from others who were not present at the workshop.