Maria says 'factory farming is morally wrong' and Juan says 'factory farming is not morally wrong.' According to simple moral subjectivism, what is actually happening in this exchange?
AOne of them has made a factual error about the conditions in factory farms
BThey are not genuinely contradicting each other — each is simply reporting their own attitude, the way 'I dislike spinach' and 'I don't dislike spinach' said by two people are not contradictory
CThe disagreement proves that objective moral facts exist but are difficult to access
DTheir different cultural backgrounds explain why both statements can be true simultaneously
Simple subjectivism reduces 'X is wrong' to 'I disapprove of X.' If Maria's statement means 'I disapprove of factory farming' and Juan's means 'I don't disapprove of factory farming,' they are both reporting their own psychological states — like two people reporting different food preferences. There is no contradiction, because they are making claims about different things (their own attitudes). This is the central objection to simple subjectivism: it makes genuine moral disagreement logically impossible.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
An 'ideal observer theory' modifies subjectivism by grounding moral truth in what a fully informed, impartial, rational agent would approve. What problem is this primarily designed to solve?
ASimple subjectivism implies that no one can be morally mistaken — your moral beliefs are automatically correct as long as they reflect your actual attitudes
BSimple subjectivism requires universal agreement on all moral questions
CSimple subjectivism cannot explain why cultures disagree about ethics
DSimple subjectivism is indistinguishable from moral realism
If 'X is wrong' just means 'I disapprove of X,' then you cannot be morally wrong — your disapproval makes the statement true by definition. Ideal observer theory fixes this by introducing a normative standard: your moral beliefs can be *mistaken* relative to what an idealized rational agent would endorse. This allows for moral error and genuine disagreement while still grounding morality in subjects' attitudes rather than mind-independent facts.
Question 3 True / False
If moral subjectivism is true, then when you judge that the Holocaust was wrong, you are primarily making a claim about your own psychological state of disapproval, not about events or actions in the external world.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
This is the direct consequence of simple subjectivism: moral judgments report the speaker's attitudes. 'The Holocaust was wrong' becomes equivalent to 'I disapprove of the Holocaust.' This is what the moral phenomenology problem challenges — the judgment feels like it is tracking something real and binding about those events, not merely reporting a personal reaction. The felt difference between moral conviction and aesthetic preference is exactly what subjectivism struggles to explain.
Question 4 True / False
Sophisticated versions of moral subjectivism — such as ideal observer theories — become equivalent to moral realism because they posit an objective standard that moral judgments is expected to meet.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
Ideal observer theories remain anti-realist because the standard is still a feature of minds — the idealized preferences of a hypothetical rational agent — not mind-independent facts about the world. Moral realism claims moral facts hold independently of any mind's attitudes; subjectivism (even sophisticated versions) grounds moral truth in what subjects (idealized or not) would approve. The line between sophisticated subjectivism and constructivism can blur, but both are distinct from realism.
Question 5 Short Answer
What is the 'moral phenomenology problem' for subjectivism, and why does it challenge the theory even if every other objection were resolved?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: The moral phenomenology problem is the observation that moral judgments do not feel like reports of personal preferences. When someone judges that torturing children is wrong, the judgment carries a sense of binding, agent-independent normative force — it feels like they are tracking something real about the world that would hold regardless of their own attitudes. This phenomenological character — the felt 'aboutness' of moral judgment directed at actions and their properties, not at the speaker's inner states — is difficult for subjectivism to explain. Even if subjectivism were otherwise coherent, it would have to account for why moral experience feels fundamentally different from reporting preferences, or explain that feeling away.
This is why many anti-realists who find subjectivism otherwise appealing move to expressivism (moral statements express attitudes rather than report them) or constructivism (moral facts are constructed by rational procedures). Both attempts to preserve anti-realism while capturing the distinctive phenomenology of moral judgment.