I enquired further into the problem of the domain specificity of truth and the claim, brought forward by Parfit and Scanlon, that in ethics truth does not involve correspondence so that there are no ethical objects such as values, while ethical judgements can nonetheless be true. One can call this approach "objectivism without realism", although the terminology is rather fluid, and some would still be prepared to call Scanlon's and Parfaits approach "realist". As far as terminology is concerned, perhaps Ronald Dworkin is the most important voice who dismisses realism in ethics, which -- in line with John Mickie's claims -- would in his opinion imply the existence of ontologically weird objects.

In the course of this year, I considered a number of criticisms of "objectivism without realism". The most challenging one has been developed by Charles Larmore who -- and this is of course of special interest for me -- combines this criticism of this type of contemporary objectivists with a criticism of Kant. The discussion of objectivity in ethics, and of normativity in general, is conducted with reference to reasons and their status, and according to Larmore Kant rejects the idea that rationality consists in responding rightly to independently existing reasons. Rather, Larmore sees Kant's famous conception of autonomy as an attempt to construct rationality independently of such an idea of a response to something. In Larmore's opinion, Kant thinks that reason must be the author of its principles. This is where I disagree with Larmore. In my opinion, Kant's claim that rational nature has absolute worth is a point of reference which can be read in a realist way.