The Puzzle of Moral Supervenience and the Divide and Conquer Strategy: A Platonic Defense of Moral Non-Naturalism

Document Type : Original Research

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Abstract
Despite its significant advantages in explaining normativity, moral non-naturalism has consistently grappled with the enigma of "supervenience"—the necessary covariation and dependence of moral facts on natural facts. To resolve this challenge, Fogal and Risberg proposed the "Divide and Conquer" (DC) strategy, which addresses the supervenience puzzle by combining the explanatory roles of particular natural facts and general moral principles. However, Harjit Bhogal has confronted this strategy with a devastating dilemma, arguing that moral principles fail the "difference-making" condition. He claims that appealing to these principles merely displaces the mystery of supervenience onto the unexplained necessity of bridge laws. Aiming to defend moral non-naturalism, this study demonstrates that Bhogal's critique holds only if the metaphysical nature of moral principles is overlooked. In this article, the DC strategy is reconstructed based on "Platonic metaphysics" and the acceptance of moral properties as inherently "second-order properties." The outcome of this reconstruction reveals that the necessity governing bridge laws within a Platonic framework is not a "modal miracle," but rather the logical and metaphysical entailment of second-order properties. This theoretical synthesis not only rescues non-naturalism from the deadlock of supervenience but also provides an independent argument for the coherence and validity of Platonic non-naturalism.

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Articles in Press, Corrected Proof
Available Online from 18 October 2026

  • Receive Date 29 June 2026
  • Revise Date 23 August 2026
  • Accept Date 07 September 2026
  • Publish Date 18 October 2026