The organizing theme of Reid's Essays on the Active Powers concerns the nature of human agency - whether human agents are endowed with an active power, what constitutes its exercise, and so forth. There is, however, an important subtheme woven through the text, one that concerns the objectivity of morality, or what we nowadays call “moral realism.” My purpose in this essay is to examine several strands of Reid's version of moral realism. In particular, I want to consider four constituents of Reid's broadly realist view: Reid's moral ontology, his account of moral thought and discourse, his account of moral motivation, and his account of moral knowledge. Since each of these topics is of interest to contemporary philosophers, I shall also be concerned to relate Reid's thought on these matters with what recent Anglo-American moral philosophers have said about them.

I. MORAL ONTOLOGY

Sometimes what is deepest in a philosopher’s thought is not what receives the most attention from that philosopher. This is the case, I submit, with respect to Reid’s views concerning the moral realm. Although issues of moral ontology do not receive much explicit attention in Reid’s work, they are what lie deepest in his moral philosophy. It is Reid’s views on the nature of moral reality that ultimately shape his views on the nature of moral discourse, moral motivation, and moral epistemology. I propose, then, to start with Reid on moral ontology.