Why "Swabian"?

Cliché has it that Swabians are particularly parsimonious ("miserly" is such a bad word ...). The 'Swabian' defence of Moral Realism applies parsimony in two respects.

(1) Extensional parsimony. Most meta-ethicists seem more or less unaware of the fact that the denial of Moral Realism is a radical view: to avoid Moral Realism (this position being construed naturally) you must deny (not just the reality of certain complex moral systems, or of the entities assumed by our actual moral views, but indeed) the existence of any single moral entity—including, for instance, plain moral intentions and moral actions. The Swabian defence appreciates this fact and exploits it: It applies a parsimonious construal of the extension of moral entities. It economically restricts its focus to the question whether some moral entities exist, keeping in mind that a positive answer to this question suffices to establish the truth of Moral Realism.

(2) Definitorial parsimony. Customarily, definitions are expected to be complete (to represent the meaning and/or the extension of a term completely). In the case of terms like 'moral intention', 'moral action' and 'moral fact', which the present Swabian defence uses, there is a problem, however. Like many (or most, or perhaps all) common language expressions, terms like 'intention' and 'action' are rather vague. As a consequence, it is hard, if not impossible, to give an exhaustive analysis of the meaning of these terms without involving features which will raise reasonable doubt. Fortunately, for the construal of arguments exhaustive definitions are often not required (this is a fact which most philosophers fail to see, or at least fail to take into consideration), and the demonstration of the truth of Moral Realism is such a case. The Swabian defence takes this insight seriously. It parsimoniously restricts itself to partial definitions in cases where complete definitions are not required in order to state the argument aimed at.