Abstract

In this chapter, I consider an attempted reductio of two realist doctrines with substantial normative implications: theism (i.e., realism about God as standardly conceived in the main monotheistic traditions) and normative realism (i.e., realism about normative properties and facts). After characterizing these doctrines, I look closely at the charge that, given the evolutionary origins of theistic and normative belief, both theism and normative realism entail an implausible type of normative scepticism. But, beyond a common prima facie vulnerability to evolutionary debunking arguments, normative realism and theism are in fact disanalogous in their resources for avoiding a reductio of this kind. As a result, what may worry theism need not worry secular varieties of normative realism.