This dissertation formulates and defends a version of moral realism capable of answering the major metaphysical and epistemological questions other realist theories have not: namely, "What makes it the case that our concept of goodness objectively applies to certain things in the world?" and "How can we know to which things it objectively applies?".;To answer these questions, I propose a descriptive analysis of normative concepts: an analysis of intrinsic goodness and badness as phenomenal qualities of experience. I argue that all of our positive experiences share a common phenomenal quality that can only be accurately described in normative terms---as "goodness"---and that our negative experiences all share a phenomenal quality of badness. I claim that we acquire our concepts of intrinsic goodness and badness from our experience of these qualities, and that it is thus a conceptual truth that an experience that has one of these qualities is intrinsically good or bad.;I address Moore's Open Question Argument against such an analysis by arguing that, though the question of pleasure's goodness has an open feel, two things explain this: (1) the fact that we have a concept of all-things-considered goodness which depends not just on a thing's intrinsic goodness but also on its instrumental goodness, which is not knowable by reflection on the mere concepts involved, and (2) the fact that we easily mistake the goodness or badness we associate with pleasure for an intrinsic normative property of it.;I go on to explain how the pro tanto goodness and badness of phenomenal experiences justify judgment-independent claims about which states of the world as a whole ought to be promoted, all things considered. I argue that to pursue anything but the greatest total balance of good over bad phenomenal experience for all subjects would be arbitrarily to ignore the normativity of some of these experiences.;Finally, I defend the hedonistic utilitarian implications of this view against arguments that it conflicts with our moral intuitions, arguing that our intuitions are more consistent with the practice of hedonistic utilitarianism than is usually recognized.
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