"But why do philosophers cling to moral realism? The answer is simple.
Philosophers, much like the common science denier, love their intuitions. Where science conflicts with common sense it is science that looks suspect. So much so that philosophers have historically continuously embarrassed themselves by defending prejudices, myths, and a great many blunders that we now look upon in shame - and make the hostility of many scientists against philosophy hardly unjustified."
If I wrote this as an undergraduate I would have been rinsed. Explaining why those who disagree with you "cling" to their beliefs which you have offered no actual argument against is very poor form. Lumping realists in with past philosophers who have been wrong about stuff is just so cheap it is nuts. A realist could write the exact same non-arguement against you. They'd just have to frame you as clinging to an apparently clearly irrational belief due to other considerations.
That's because one can't submit a short 1000-word polemic as an undergraduate essay. They are two different formats entirely. But criticizing a polemic for being polemical is a bit pointless.
We don't have to rely on intuitions for moral realism, there are many realist theories that don't rely on intuitions.
The realists who usually promote the intuitions-based account of moral realism bottom out all knowledge at the level of intuitions. So they might retort that your rejection of intuitionism is ultimately based on your own intuitions (which, as you say, may be faulty) because there's no alternative to global skepticisim/radical solipsism.
I’m a bit torn on this one. As a fellow anti-realist I actually share a lot of the sentiments expressed here. I think it comes down to what you were trying to do. If the purpose of this was mainly expressive, then that’s your prerogative. But given a couple of your critiques I feel like it’s presenting argument as well. You say “people don’t like being moralized to”, which I think is true. But they also don’t like being sneered at and condescended to, and this reads very condescending. Once again, not trying to tone police, just saying if this is supposed to be compelling to people, the way it’s presented is possibly at odds with that. I constantly criticize apologists and people like Michael Huemer for being sort of flippantly dismissive and only making arguments that are compelling to people who already agree with them, and unfortunately I feel the same about this. The best this can do is let other anti-realists like me be like “Yeah, get em Walter!”, but likely any realist who reads it will just take it as immediately condescending and leave. It’s mainly just signaling, which I don’t think is “wrong”, just not sure if that’s what you were actually trying to do.
Yeah, the idea that intuition is garbage and whatnot is pretty extreme. Intuition is awesome! Like many things, it just can't *exactly* be trusted. (Depending on how you define trust, and interpretation/communication and whatnot.)
It's not that extreme. There isn't even any good evidence philosophical intuitions are a real psychological phenomenon in the first place. People actually don't go far enough even when they criticize intuitions. The problem isn't that intuitions are "garbage." The problem is that once you disambiguate what "intuition" refers to, it's either trivial and not epistemically very helpful, or it isn't even real.
It seems to me the question is how real are they, more than if they exist at all, so to speak. Which is sort of what you said. It's epistemicly helpful as a word that most people have some gist of the meaning of at least.
To define what it "really" is would be to make it concrete, which changes the definition, at least to my mind. Maybe we'll stop using the word when it becomes truly useless. The definition of intuit itself (if you can find it instead of the company 😋) is not very "helpful" by some lights, and yet it gives us a valuable tool for communicating ideas (if we think communication of them is valuable).
Does this imply that we should not punish? We declare no act illegal and we impose no sanctions on those who perform acts of that type?
This seems to imply that it is wrong to encourage or discourage behavior with rewards or sanctions as this involves imposing one's values on the world.
Do you also believe that we should abandon all talk of right and wrong beliefs, intellectual failings, epistemic obligations, and so on? If not, what would you say is the difference between accepting objective constraints on behavior and accepting objective constraints on belief?
Beliefs can be true or false, more or less accurate. If you want to have true beliefs, then certain epistemic "obligations", as you might want to phrase it, follow. But there is no such standard for morality.
I think some study on academic philosophers showed that the majority considered themselves moral realists?
But I never really found their argument much more convincing than saying "I feel this way so it's right".
E.g. Michael Huemer whose best argument is some version of "I thought about it".
But why does the lion eat the sheep? Why do dogs attack other dogs? What makes us think we as humans are so different that we can say with certainty that some things are simply wrong , in a way it wouldn't be for an animal?
I am not an academic philosopher but I can't understand how the argument "it's wrong because it's wrong" can be convincing to so many of them.
It's funny ... my moral worldview lines up completely with what I want.
Clearly, the concept of morality exists. The sense of morality for the vast majority of us sapiens apes exists. But then I can think of the fire truck actually being 'red' as well. (ie concept and sense of colour). Yes, moral realism is one tiny branch of naive realism.
The tools exist to formalize every position in this debate, moral realism, anti-realism, error theory, all that shit. The ones that formalize stop being called philosophy and start being called mathematics, physics, or economics. The ones that refuse to formalize remain philosophy, or slide into theology. This isn't a coincidence. Formalization is the test. It doesn't care which side you're on. It asks can you state your bridge precisely enough that someone could check it? The positions that can, graduate. The positions that can't, persist and not because of hard or deep mysteries. Because they're unfalsifiable.
I think formalization is the tool rather than the goal. Precision and evidence are the key. But otherwise, I am not unsympathetic. Good philosophy is close to the sciences.
You can be a moral realist and also believe you don't have access to exactly what those objective morals are (not being a god, or simply without full understanding of the universe). A philosopher would call this moral realism with epistemic humility. Not everyone who believes in objective morality is trying to impose their beliefs on others.
I continually find myself observing philosophers arguing false dichotomies. What for?
If it bothers us when somebody is moralizing, it might be something we need to look at within ourselves. If somebody was trying to convince me that molesting children was a natural and acceptable way of behaving, I would react with disgust in them. When someone moralizes to me about reducing animal cruelty, I know they're right and react with a bit of disgust in myself that my desire to eat animal bodies outweighs my ability to be ethical. It implies a lack of self-discipline.
Hello. Hi. Fellow vegan and animal wellbeing advocate here. More of a question than a comment.
What we have outlined here is a version of error theory. That view has difficulties in accounting for moral reasons and deliberation.
Let’s suppose our uncle is a flatearther. If we are error theorists about the shape of the Earth, we would hold that there is no fact of the matter about it, that Earth-shape talk is like talking about witches and phlogiston, and so on.
But then how do we make our uncle see reason?
See what?
“Reason?” You’re kidding me. Unc is an error theorist too. For him there is no fact of the matter about it just the same.
How do we convince uncle? Well, we don’t. We let him live his life.
Now what if we meet an error theorist animal abuser? There is no fact of the matter to him. He likes them sliced, and likes them diced, and he does it himself, though he also pays others to do it. A realist, a funny word that erases the difference between naturalist and voodoo theory realists, has no difficulty accounting for the wrongness of our animal abuser interlocutor.
But what do you, Walter, have as a reason to convince him? Or did you run out of reasons – in which case are we left with violence?
I have a few questions (and I don't necessarily disagree with you) :
When you speak of "wrongness" in "the wrongness of our animal abuser interlocutor", what exactly do you mean by this ?
"Or did you run out of reasons – in which case are we left with violence?" Well, aren't you always left with some form of violence, be it through law or societal pressure? Suppose you live in a society of people who just agree to behave in a certain way simply because it is to their liking and someone breaks the contract, how do you make them behave? We are in no need of notions such as inherent wrongness for us to be able to take action when it comes to this person's behavior. What role does this "wrongness" play in this case?
In other words, is external wrongness necessary for you to be able to act or are your actions sufficient causes in themselves?
I sympathize with a lot of this, but cannot get on board with nihilistic framings or getting rid of right/wrong language. For me the best expression of "what's going on" is that acts can be truly right and wrong per judgments; and (contra realists) these judgments are always grounded in norms, e.g., strongly & deeply felt cares & concerns. That is, stealing back the "truly" that realists stole.
I understand the sentiment. Except, how useful is it to engage in moral/political debates when people have an enormous diversity of radically different meta-ethical views of what they even mean by right and wrong? Better to be explicit, then to hope that others will just change the meanings of their terms.
I share your passion for specification, but we can just append such specification to words like right, wrong, and duty as needed. For example, recently some of my employees did not do their duty on proactive communication. This duty is not in some unmoored, realist sense; it's per my expectations and ultimately their job description & contract. But since everyone knows that relativization, it's handy & efficient to just say duty (or obligation, or responsibility, or whatever).
I don't think contractural duties are quite the same as moral ones. And I don't have much of a problem with that usage here. Nor do I in the context of judging something to be a "good" knife, i.e. one that is sharp.
Roger that. Where I think the moral categorization is handy is for imposed duties of kinds like, "I need you to stop poking your sister," or, "I expect some basic level of respect." Some folks like putting these in terms of contracts (and where "ought" goes back to meaning "owing," per contractual debt). But I think the "least weird" thing to do is just to say these things directives & judgments are grounded upon cares & concerns; "norm-sensitive."
"This duty is not in some unmoored, realist sense; it's per my expectations and ultimately their job description & contract."
That's just it: "realist" stuff isn't "unmoored". It is distinctly moored ..to reality. Whether you think communication is important is irrelevant to the fact that it just is. Individual and therefore species success in general and in specific cannot be found without proper communication. It's not based in duty at all. It's based the reality of how things work.
You yourself are just as bound to good communication - with those whose services you have requested and everyone else as well - if you intend to thrive.
Contracts and job descriptions and other pieces of paper are trappings. When you realize the objective truth of the matter, you have even more responsibility to communicate well because you are the one who is more responsible for the success of the operation moreso than anyone you hire is.
Searle notes that ordering a beer creates an objective “moral” fact: you are obligated to pay. This isn’t just preference or expectation. It’s inter-subjective which is real enough.
"Real enough" is a nonsense phrase. It's real or it isn't.
Indeed, you ordered a beer (goods/services) and you are required to pay. You are also required to communicate if you have a question about or problem with the execution of the beer delivery. That's not even a metaphor; it's just another example of exchange on the market.
"Inter-subjectivity" is also a nonsense phrase, but in two ways. Firstly, you're just talking about agreement or consensus. Words already exist for that and making up clunkier ones to sound "educated" doesn't have the effect the university philosophy bro departments hoped.
Secondly, "subjective" means based on personal opinions, feelings, and individual experiences rather than external facts.
When you are talking about "external facts", then "subjective" as an alleged concept doesn't even apply.
Things are what they are and no amount of pretending will change it. The rise of the counter-elite is really starting to get cooking. These people just won't be including "anti-realists" (still dead from laughing) in any opportunities or networks. That's why the departments and their fanbois are struggling so hard to push their "subjectivism" as is dies a screaming, writhing death.
Whether others change the meanings of their terms is irrelevant. Words mean what they mean via etymology. We don't give entire meanings of words away to those who never bothered to study their etymology in the first place. We set these people straight instead. They are welcome to let their egos rule them, and they are welcome to hold themselves back from reaching a higher level.
"Right and wrong" has a meaning. Every word is backed by a concept. Can one argue that a word take on a bit more nuance? Sure, sometimes that's helpful. Can one claim the word can "mean anything" or mean its own opposite? Not if that person wants to be assessed as possessing a working brain.
The comment asking about the parallel to epistemic obligations is the sharpest thing in this whole thread, and I think the actually consistent answer is yes, all the way down, not just for morality. If moral facts don't survive scrutiny because morality is always relative to some subject for whom things matter, the same argument applies to objective reason too, since logic can't fully prove its own foundations without circularly relying on logic to do so. Most people who reject moral realism quietly keep epistemic realism intact, which is exactly the inconsistency Both Sides Brigade is pointing at, and I don't think it survives close inspection.
As a one time historian who has stumbled into substack moral ethics by accident, this all makes sense. By contrast everytime I read a real moralist post, especially from Both Sides Brigade, I find it unconvincing.
Stumbling in, it took me a while to work out that ‘realism’ was not a position based in the real evey day hard world we live in but a belief that a concept has a reality independent of human thought.
Throughout the question of how this makes a difference has remained unclear. The realists can not put forward with agreement what the moral facts are. Telling me that pulling the wings off flies is bad is not a great step forward. Instead the realists and non realists all have different takes on what matters.
There was a time when many a poet and others took Beauty as a definite thing, who real essence could be determined. The arguments for morality appear to apply as well (or not..) to ‘beauty’ as to ‘morality’.
On the one hand, the claim seems to be that morality is subjective. On the other, that we ought to be using evidence and reason instead of intuitions to guide our actions. However, the possibility of bringing evidence to support a claim seems to me to be the hallmark of objectivity.
In other words, isn't it actually the antirealists who think morality is just intuition and subjective feeling?
Regardless, if your naturalism is paired with a deflationary theory of truth (as I would support), I don't see why you don't just endorse some form of quasirealism and sidestep the controversy entirely.
Also, if naturalism entails the idea that we should put aside metaphysics, I don't see how your metaphysical claim (that there are no moral properties) is of help here.
I could write a lengthy Lewisian ode about how your reasoning ends up being circular.
But in line with your polemic style... here goes a quicker one.
Where this breaks down, miserably, is your own back yard.
Suppose a thug shows up there, intent on... how should I put it mildly... non-consensually exploiting your loved ones. And suppose the society backs him up, mounting arguments in support - that it's medically necessary for this individual to conduct such acts, that it's needed for the greater good lest he conduct more grievous harm, that we need to be inclusive and allow anyone to express himself the way he sees fit. There is no right and wrong, after all, right? Right?.. Would you condone?
1) you are made worse off by others in the name of morality
2) you are made worse off by others in the name of... good reasons and evidence-based arguments?
I am more afraid of the former than the latter. Because there is no argument to be given against moral zealots who think they are morally in the right. But in the latter case, I could appeal to reasons, evidence, and so forth. If you look at the conflict resolution literature, it is very clear that the former almost never works and the latter path is to be preferred.
Granted. But have you noticed the circularity? I couldn't hope to have exposed it better than you just have.
Your argument for ditching moral realism is that a zealot mob may use it to ill ends to persecute you unjustly, but infallibly, by appealing to what they call morality. But their ability to do so presupposes that an arbitrary thing can be called moral, i.e. the absence of moral realism!
Also, have you noticed that by justifying being "made worse off in the name of evidence", you promoted what you call "evidence" to the pedestal of moral realism?
The debate is, then, not about realism vs relativism. It is about the origin of realism, the resulting moral edifices, and their comparison.
I don't think there's any circularity. I think there are a few points being made in parallel:
1. There is no good evidence for moral realism.
2. However, most people value (subjectively) truth and human well-being, and given those shared values, we can use reason and evidence to find better ways of promoting those values.
3. People believing their particular values are objectively correct creates inflexible thought processes and is more likely to lead to suffering than the alternative.
It's not circular, and don't ever make that claim again. It's beneath you.
It’s so crazy that people randomly decided to value the wellbeing of all humans even thought those values are apparently just meaningless. I wonder how that happened?
Hint- most moral systems are developed by moral realists
What is this argumentation:
"But why do philosophers cling to moral realism? The answer is simple.
Philosophers, much like the common science denier, love their intuitions. Where science conflicts with common sense it is science that looks suspect. So much so that philosophers have historically continuously embarrassed themselves by defending prejudices, myths, and a great many blunders that we now look upon in shame - and make the hostility of many scientists against philosophy hardly unjustified."
If I wrote this as an undergraduate I would have been rinsed. Explaining why those who disagree with you "cling" to their beliefs which you have offered no actual argument against is very poor form. Lumping realists in with past philosophers who have been wrong about stuff is just so cheap it is nuts. A realist could write the exact same non-arguement against you. They'd just have to frame you as clinging to an apparently clearly irrational belief due to other considerations.
That's because one can't submit a short 1000-word polemic as an undergraduate essay. They are two different formats entirely. But criticizing a polemic for being polemical is a bit pointless.
Greene's dissertation is great. So is J.L. Mackie's Inventing Right and Wrong and Richard Joyce's The Myth of Morality. A longer argumentative essay of mine was also linked in the piece: https://walterveit.substack.com/p/why-effective-altruists-and-everyone
Writing polemics with no argument is pointless.
Premise 1: The main arguments for moral realism depend on intuitions.
Premise 2: Intuitions are unreliable.
Conclusion: The main arguments for moral realism are unreliable.
We don't have to rely on intuitions for moral realism, there are many realist theories that don't rely on intuitions.
The realists who usually promote the intuitions-based account of moral realism bottom out all knowledge at the level of intuitions. So they might retort that your rejection of intuitionism is ultimately based on your own intuitions (which, as you say, may be faulty) because there's no alternative to global skepticisim/radical solipsism.
Premise 1: The main argument for abandoning moral intuition depends on either/all of the following - reasoning, perception, and epistemic certainty
Premise 2: Reasoning can be faulty, perception is unreliable, and epistemic certainty is a fairy tale
Conclusion: (I strongly opine loool that) Scientific realism doesn’t start from anywhere.
You could use premise 2 to reject literally anything.
The relevant question is what method of gaining knowledge is more *reliable*.
The scientific method beats intuition every day of the week.
The scientific method itself relies on intuition (seemings)
premise 2 has nothing going for it at all
And yet, they've persisted for centuries
Noise disguised as scientific discourse for the ignorant masses.
Thank you for saying!
Thank you so much for saying this!!!!!
I’m a bit torn on this one. As a fellow anti-realist I actually share a lot of the sentiments expressed here. I think it comes down to what you were trying to do. If the purpose of this was mainly expressive, then that’s your prerogative. But given a couple of your critiques I feel like it’s presenting argument as well. You say “people don’t like being moralized to”, which I think is true. But they also don’t like being sneered at and condescended to, and this reads very condescending. Once again, not trying to tone police, just saying if this is supposed to be compelling to people, the way it’s presented is possibly at odds with that. I constantly criticize apologists and people like Michael Huemer for being sort of flippantly dismissive and only making arguments that are compelling to people who already agree with them, and unfortunately I feel the same about this. The best this can do is let other anti-realists like me be like “Yeah, get em Walter!”, but likely any realist who reads it will just take it as immediately condescending and leave. It’s mainly just signaling, which I don’t think is “wrong”, just not sure if that’s what you were actually trying to do.
Yeah, the idea that intuition is garbage and whatnot is pretty extreme. Intuition is awesome! Like many things, it just can't *exactly* be trusted. (Depending on how you define trust, and interpretation/communication and whatnot.)
It's not that extreme. There isn't even any good evidence philosophical intuitions are a real psychological phenomenon in the first place. People actually don't go far enough even when they criticize intuitions. The problem isn't that intuitions are "garbage." The problem is that once you disambiguate what "intuition" refers to, it's either trivial and not epistemically very helpful, or it isn't even real.
It seems to me the question is how real are they, more than if they exist at all, so to speak. Which is sort of what you said. It's epistemicly helpful as a word that most people have some gist of the meaning of at least.
To define what it "really" is would be to make it concrete, which changes the definition, at least to my mind. Maybe we'll stop using the word when it becomes truly useless. The definition of intuit itself (if you can find it instead of the company 😋) is not very "helpful" by some lights, and yet it gives us a valuable tool for communicating ideas (if we think communication of them is valuable).
The life motto I take away from this article: "Stop appointing your values as your ambassador to the universe."
State what you oppose.
State why.
State the consequences.
State the kind of world you are trying to build.
⠀
The only thing “objectively wrong” adds is a second dispute: whose subjectivity gets promoted to objectivity?
Does this imply that we should not punish? We declare no act illegal and we impose no sanctions on those who perform acts of that type?
This seems to imply that it is wrong to encourage or discourage behavior with rewards or sanctions as this involves imposing one's values on the world.
Do you also believe that we should abandon all talk of right and wrong beliefs, intellectual failings, epistemic obligations, and so on? If not, what would you say is the difference between accepting objective constraints on behavior and accepting objective constraints on belief?
Beliefs can be true or false, more or less accurate. If you want to have true beliefs, then certain epistemic "obligations", as you might want to phrase it, follow. But there is no such standard for morality.
Those objective epistemic norms implicate objective moral norms in the Companions in Guilt Argument. Look into it.
I find the companions in guilt arguments incredibly unconvincing.
I think some study on academic philosophers showed that the majority considered themselves moral realists?
But I never really found their argument much more convincing than saying "I feel this way so it's right".
E.g. Michael Huemer whose best argument is some version of "I thought about it".
But why does the lion eat the sheep? Why do dogs attack other dogs? What makes us think we as humans are so different that we can say with certainty that some things are simply wrong , in a way it wouldn't be for an animal?
I am not an academic philosopher but I can't understand how the argument "it's wrong because it's wrong" can be convincing to so many of them.
It's funny ... my moral worldview lines up completely with what I want.
Clearly, the concept of morality exists. The sense of morality for the vast majority of us sapiens apes exists. But then I can think of the fire truck actually being 'red' as well. (ie concept and sense of colour). Yes, moral realism is one tiny branch of naive realism.
The tools exist to formalize every position in this debate, moral realism, anti-realism, error theory, all that shit. The ones that formalize stop being called philosophy and start being called mathematics, physics, or economics. The ones that refuse to formalize remain philosophy, or slide into theology. This isn't a coincidence. Formalization is the test. It doesn't care which side you're on. It asks can you state your bridge precisely enough that someone could check it? The positions that can, graduate. The positions that can't, persist and not because of hard or deep mysteries. Because they're unfalsifiable.
I think formalization is the tool rather than the goal. Precision and evidence are the key. But otherwise, I am not unsympathetic. Good philosophy is close to the sciences.
The tool serves the goal structurally.
Due to popular demand, I've written up a follow up essay on whether we still need moral philosophers: https://walterveit.substack.com/p/the-end-of-moral-philosophy
You can be a moral realist and also believe you don't have access to exactly what those objective morals are (not being a god, or simply without full understanding of the universe). A philosopher would call this moral realism with epistemic humility. Not everyone who believes in objective morality is trying to impose their beliefs on others.
I continually find myself observing philosophers arguing false dichotomies. What for?
If it bothers us when somebody is moralizing, it might be something we need to look at within ourselves. If somebody was trying to convince me that molesting children was a natural and acceptable way of behaving, I would react with disgust in them. When someone moralizes to me about reducing animal cruelty, I know they're right and react with a bit of disgust in myself that my desire to eat animal bodies outweighs my ability to be ethical. It implies a lack of self-discipline.
Hello. Hi. Fellow vegan and animal wellbeing advocate here. More of a question than a comment.
What we have outlined here is a version of error theory. That view has difficulties in accounting for moral reasons and deliberation.
Let’s suppose our uncle is a flatearther. If we are error theorists about the shape of the Earth, we would hold that there is no fact of the matter about it, that Earth-shape talk is like talking about witches and phlogiston, and so on.
But then how do we make our uncle see reason?
See what?
“Reason?” You’re kidding me. Unc is an error theorist too. For him there is no fact of the matter about it just the same.
How do we convince uncle? Well, we don’t. We let him live his life.
Now what if we meet an error theorist animal abuser? There is no fact of the matter to him. He likes them sliced, and likes them diced, and he does it himself, though he also pays others to do it. A realist, a funny word that erases the difference between naturalist and voodoo theory realists, has no difficulty accounting for the wrongness of our animal abuser interlocutor.
But what do you, Walter, have as a reason to convince him? Or did you run out of reasons – in which case are we left with violence?
Metaepistemic error theorist (no ought) =/= truth error theorist (no fact)
I have a few questions (and I don't necessarily disagree with you) :
When you speak of "wrongness" in "the wrongness of our animal abuser interlocutor", what exactly do you mean by this ?
"Or did you run out of reasons – in which case are we left with violence?" Well, aren't you always left with some form of violence, be it through law or societal pressure? Suppose you live in a society of people who just agree to behave in a certain way simply because it is to their liking and someone breaks the contract, how do you make them behave? We are in no need of notions such as inherent wrongness for us to be able to take action when it comes to this person's behavior. What role does this "wrongness" play in this case?
In other words, is external wrongness necessary for you to be able to act or are your actions sufficient causes in themselves?
I would love to tell you all of that once my dissertation is complete 🙂
No rush!
I sympathize with a lot of this, but cannot get on board with nihilistic framings or getting rid of right/wrong language. For me the best expression of "what's going on" is that acts can be truly right and wrong per judgments; and (contra realists) these judgments are always grounded in norms, e.g., strongly & deeply felt cares & concerns. That is, stealing back the "truly" that realists stole.
I understand the sentiment. Except, how useful is it to engage in moral/political debates when people have an enormous diversity of radically different meta-ethical views of what they even mean by right and wrong? Better to be explicit, then to hope that others will just change the meanings of their terms.
I share your passion for specification, but we can just append such specification to words like right, wrong, and duty as needed. For example, recently some of my employees did not do their duty on proactive communication. This duty is not in some unmoored, realist sense; it's per my expectations and ultimately their job description & contract. But since everyone knows that relativization, it's handy & efficient to just say duty (or obligation, or responsibility, or whatever).
I don't think contractural duties are quite the same as moral ones. And I don't have much of a problem with that usage here. Nor do I in the context of judging something to be a "good" knife, i.e. one that is sharp.
Roger that. Where I think the moral categorization is handy is for imposed duties of kinds like, "I need you to stop poking your sister," or, "I expect some basic level of respect." Some folks like putting these in terms of contracts (and where "ought" goes back to meaning "owing," per contractual debt). But I think the "least weird" thing to do is just to say these things directives & judgments are grounded upon cares & concerns; "norm-sensitive."
"This duty is not in some unmoored, realist sense; it's per my expectations and ultimately their job description & contract."
That's just it: "realist" stuff isn't "unmoored". It is distinctly moored ..to reality. Whether you think communication is important is irrelevant to the fact that it just is. Individual and therefore species success in general and in specific cannot be found without proper communication. It's not based in duty at all. It's based the reality of how things work.
You yourself are just as bound to good communication - with those whose services you have requested and everyone else as well - if you intend to thrive.
Contracts and job descriptions and other pieces of paper are trappings. When you realize the objective truth of the matter, you have even more responsibility to communicate well because you are the one who is more responsible for the success of the operation moreso than anyone you hire is.
Searle notes that ordering a beer creates an objective “moral” fact: you are obligated to pay. This isn’t just preference or expectation. It’s inter-subjective which is real enough.
Don't matter who said what, just what is true.
"Real enough" is a nonsense phrase. It's real or it isn't.
Indeed, you ordered a beer (goods/services) and you are required to pay. You are also required to communicate if you have a question about or problem with the execution of the beer delivery. That's not even a metaphor; it's just another example of exchange on the market.
"Inter-subjectivity" is also a nonsense phrase, but in two ways. Firstly, you're just talking about agreement or consensus. Words already exist for that and making up clunkier ones to sound "educated" doesn't have the effect the university philosophy bro departments hoped.
Secondly, "subjective" means based on personal opinions, feelings, and individual experiences rather than external facts.
When you are talking about "external facts", then "subjective" as an alleged concept doesn't even apply.
Things are what they are and no amount of pretending will change it. The rise of the counter-elite is really starting to get cooking. These people just won't be including "anti-realists" (still dead from laughing) in any opportunities or networks. That's why the departments and their fanbois are struggling so hard to push their "subjectivism" as is dies a screaming, writhing death.
Sorry. No. Words do change things, really. I promise.
Whether others change the meanings of their terms is irrelevant. Words mean what they mean via etymology. We don't give entire meanings of words away to those who never bothered to study their etymology in the first place. We set these people straight instead. They are welcome to let their egos rule them, and they are welcome to hold themselves back from reaching a higher level.
"Right and wrong" has a meaning. Every word is backed by a concept. Can one argue that a word take on a bit more nuance? Sure, sometimes that's helpful. Can one claim the word can "mean anything" or mean its own opposite? Not if that person wants to be assessed as possessing a working brain.
I appreciate you sharing your perspectives on these things, though I do not share them.
No rebuttal means you forfeit, and that is the wisest thing you can do given the fact that morality is a health science.
Moral concern extends to life in general, and especially living things with conscious experiences.
Moral concern does not extend to non-conscious matter.
The facts of the situation determine the difference.
Morals are based on an underlying objective reality.
Part of my argument for moral realism.
The comment asking about the parallel to epistemic obligations is the sharpest thing in this whole thread, and I think the actually consistent answer is yes, all the way down, not just for morality. If moral facts don't survive scrutiny because morality is always relative to some subject for whom things matter, the same argument applies to objective reason too, since logic can't fully prove its own foundations without circularly relying on logic to do so. Most people who reject moral realism quietly keep epistemic realism intact, which is exactly the inconsistency Both Sides Brigade is pointing at, and I don't think it survives close inspection.
As a one time historian who has stumbled into substack moral ethics by accident, this all makes sense. By contrast everytime I read a real moralist post, especially from Both Sides Brigade, I find it unconvincing.
Stumbling in, it took me a while to work out that ‘realism’ was not a position based in the real evey day hard world we live in but a belief that a concept has a reality independent of human thought.
Throughout the question of how this makes a difference has remained unclear. The realists can not put forward with agreement what the moral facts are. Telling me that pulling the wings off flies is bad is not a great step forward. Instead the realists and non realists all have different takes on what matters.
There was a time when many a poet and others took Beauty as a definite thing, who real essence could be determined. The arguments for morality appear to apply as well (or not..) to ‘beauty’ as to ‘morality’.
On the one hand, the claim seems to be that morality is subjective. On the other, that we ought to be using evidence and reason instead of intuitions to guide our actions. However, the possibility of bringing evidence to support a claim seems to me to be the hallmark of objectivity.
In other words, isn't it actually the antirealists who think morality is just intuition and subjective feeling?
Regardless, if your naturalism is paired with a deflationary theory of truth (as I would support), I don't see why you don't just endorse some form of quasirealism and sidestep the controversy entirely.
Also, if naturalism entails the idea that we should put aside metaphysics, I don't see how your metaphysical claim (that there are no moral properties) is of help here.
I could write a lengthy Lewisian ode about how your reasoning ends up being circular.
But in line with your polemic style... here goes a quicker one.
Where this breaks down, miserably, is your own back yard.
Suppose a thug shows up there, intent on... how should I put it mildly... non-consensually exploiting your loved ones. And suppose the society backs him up, mounting arguments in support - that it's medically necessary for this individual to conduct such acts, that it's needed for the greater good lest he conduct more grievous harm, that we need to be inclusive and allow anyone to express himself the way he sees fit. There is no right and wrong, after all, right? Right?.. Would you condone?
There are two scenarios:
1) you are made worse off by others in the name of morality
2) you are made worse off by others in the name of... good reasons and evidence-based arguments?
I am more afraid of the former than the latter. Because there is no argument to be given against moral zealots who think they are morally in the right. But in the latter case, I could appeal to reasons, evidence, and so forth. If you look at the conflict resolution literature, it is very clear that the former almost never works and the latter path is to be preferred.
Granted. But have you noticed the circularity? I couldn't hope to have exposed it better than you just have.
Your argument for ditching moral realism is that a zealot mob may use it to ill ends to persecute you unjustly, but infallibly, by appealing to what they call morality. But their ability to do so presupposes that an arbitrary thing can be called moral, i.e. the absence of moral realism!
Also, have you noticed that by justifying being "made worse off in the name of evidence", you promoted what you call "evidence" to the pedestal of moral realism?
The debate is, then, not about realism vs relativism. It is about the origin of realism, the resulting moral edifices, and their comparison.
I don't think there's any circularity. I think there are a few points being made in parallel:
1. There is no good evidence for moral realism.
2. However, most people value (subjectively) truth and human well-being, and given those shared values, we can use reason and evidence to find better ways of promoting those values.
3. People believing their particular values are objectively correct creates inflexible thought processes and is more likely to lead to suffering than the alternative.
It's not circular, and don't ever make that claim again. It's beneath you.
It’s so crazy that people randomly decided to value the wellbeing of all humans even thought those values are apparently just meaningless. I wonder how that happened?
Hint- most moral systems are developed by moral realists