Putting the Ideal in Idealism: On the Limits of Materialist Metaethics

Abstract: A number of recent studies have used the flat ontologies and other deflationary arguments in recent philosophy to argue for a return to Victorian materialisms, Darwinian and otherwise. In such views, the Victorian opponents of materialism end up coming across as conservative reactionaries. While such charges certainly have force, the opponents of materialism also had real philosophical weight behind their position. In particular, it's very difficult to see how any materialist philosopher, Victorian or Latourian, could answer the basic question of ethics: why should I be moral at all? If we center this question, the movement now termed "British idealism" looks more worthy of consideration than it might otherwise.