Possible Worlds and Moral Philosophy

This paper is, in part, a response to Steffen Borge's article in Teorema Vol. XIX/1 (2000), "A Call for a Possible World Argument in Ethics". I suggest that the relationship between possible worlds and ethical deliberation is not distinctive and auxiliary in nature. Rather, I argue that the contemplation of possible worlds is an essential part of ethical theorizing. The immediate character of ethics vis-a-vis the possible is evidenced by the account of moral deliberation proposed by a certain form of moral particularism. In particular, the work of John McDowell demonstrates the inextricably modal aspects of ethics in this regard.