How does moral realism treat claims about right and wrong actions?

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The Greek philosopher Plato — Realism Plato, marble portrait bust copied from an original of the 4th century bce; in the Capitoline Museums, Rome.

Moral realism posits that statements regarding right and wrong actions are not merely expressions of subjective preference or personal feeling. Instead, moral realists argue that these claims are objectively true or false based on their correspondence with moral facts, much like how historical or geographic statements are evaluated against their respective facts.1

This perspective asserts that moral properties exist independently of individual opinion. However, the theory faces significant philosophical challenges:

Metaphysical skepticism: Critics question whether a realm of distinct moral facts can exist, especially if those facts cannot be reduced to or explained by the natural world.1
Epistemological hurdles: It remains difficult to explain how humans can access or gain knowledge of these moral facts, as they do not appear to be discoverable through empirical observation or pure reason in the same way as logic or mathematics.1

While some theorists attempt to reduce moral properties to natural ones—such as equating "good" with "happiness"—these efforts often encounter the "open question" argument, which suggests that moral terms cannot be fully defined by natural properties alone.1