swer is categorically: No. Moral disapproval is moral disapproval, and is so regardless of whether or not there exists a truly objective reason for the disapproval. However, what modifies Hägerström’s standpoint is the fact that the strength of a moral argument is severely weakened once the moral argument is demonstrated to lack objective justification and objective validity. Different systems of morality and values therefore, strictly speaking, do not necessarily depend upon an objective reality for their justification and validation. On the contrary, a subjective frame of mind constitutes a sufficient cause for the justification and validation of any system of morality and values.This fact, however, does not mean that morality or value-judgments claiming to have theoretical validity can abandon objective reality when it comes to their own cognitive justification.This is because any claim of theoretical validity in any moral discourse still depends upon the same objective reality as any other theoretical claim does for its theoretical validity.129 Regardless of the aforementioned, Hägerström’s view of the practical importance of his own moral theory and philosophy must be described as being that of a naïve idealist rather than that of a moral nihilist. Hägerström was of the conviction that a nonabsolutist view of moral values such as his own would, if embraced, hopefully lead to the general downfall and abandonment of fanaticism, which was a goal that theoretically could be realized by means of his meta-ethical theory’s instrumental function in the rational undermining of the psychologically necessary foundations for fanaticism, which in turn would weaken the foundations for the preservation of a fanatical ideology. The reason why Hägerström believed this was possible is that the anchor stone of fanaticism is the belief in the existence of objectively a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 287 5. 1 pract ical importance. moral program. naïve ideal i sm? 129 See, e.g., Hägerström,“Moraliska föreställningar,” p. 43;“Moral Propositions,” p. 90.
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