Commitment, value, and moral realism - Lieberman, Marcel S. (Cambridge University Press, 1998)
Includes bibliographical references (pages 199-207) and index
Marcel Lieberman examines the conditions under which commitment is possible, and offers at the same time an indirect argument for moral realism. He argues that realist evaluative beliefs are functionally required for commitment - especially regarding its role in self-understanding - and since it is only within a realist framework that such beliefs make sense, realism about values is a condition for the possibility of commitment itself. His ambitious study addresses questions that are of great interest to analytic philosophers but also makes many connections with continental philosophy and with folk psychology, sociology, and cognitive science, and will be seen as a novel and distinctive intervention in the debate about moral realism
Introduction -- The challengers: Allan Gibbard and Richard Rorty -- Commitment and intention -- Commitment and belief -- Self-conception and substantive commitments -- Conclusion