Judicious agent theory

This thesis is about moral facts and their relation to moral agents. It denies that moral facts are ‘independent’ of moral agents or explained by ‘ideal’ versions of those agents because the implications of these views are: (1) justifiably counter-intuitive; and (2) sufficiently implausible for independent reasons. Instead it is maintained that moral facts are explained by facts about what the particular moral agent in question could actually recognize and be motivated to do when reasoning as well as they could in the circumstances. Moreover, it is contended that this fact/ agent relation does not merely arise relative to specific moral agents in the sense in which relativity matters for moral facts in metaethics. Moral facts apply neutrally among moral agents to which they should apply.