Maybe the grounding of morality lies closer to the social surface than philosophers like to think, neither in the structure of practical reason nor in a telos of human nature but rather in our mundane ways of muddling through together – that is, in how we get along. Our ways of getting along must themselves rest on the bedrock of practical reason and human nature, but they may form, as it were, a layer of topsoil without which morality could never take root. If so, then asking how moral norms can sprout straight out of our rationality or humanity may be futile.

This image suggests that moral philosophers ought to take a closer look at the social surface of our dealings together as autonomous human beings. In the lectures that follow, I pursue this suggestion by considering how our mundane interactions are informed by our recognition of one another's agency. How does that mutual recognition shape our collective life?

My answer to this question will ultimately lead to a metaethics that is in some respects rationalist and in others skeptical. My metaethics is rationalist in that it grounds morality in social phenomena that are themselves supported by practical reasoning. But morality is thus supported by rationality at one remove; and so its underpinnings are less secure than is generally claimed in rationalist metaethics.