If one is a particularist and anti-realist how do those judgements have any force that can possibly be called moral?
The antirealist position is that calling something moral or immoral entails a different kind of claim than what the realist means. Since moral talk is not about facts in the first place, something need not be a factual claim to have moral force. Instead, if a moral statement is an expression of emotion for instance, then to have moral force it needs to properly express emotions. But I’m not well read here so that’s about as far as I understand it.
I meant that if one ascribes some non-zero probability to there being genuine moral demands on one, it would seem one still has reason to follow them.
Sure, though that’s not quite what we mean by moral uncertainty, which is the idea that there are different moral theories and we’re not sure which is right. E.g.: https://philpapers.org/archive/URAMIM.pdf
You’re referring to a kind of metaethical uncertainty, uncertainty over whether there are any moral requirements at all. In which case this is more relevant, and the same basic idea that you have: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/505234 And, yeah, it’s a good argument, though William MacAskill has a paper out there claiming that it doesn’t always work.
I think I was mixed up about non-cognitivism, but some people seem to be called non-cognitivists and realists?
Generally speaking you cannot be both. There are antirealists and there are realists. Noncognitivists are antirealists and so are error theorists.
For example David Hume, who I’ve heard called a non-cognitivist and a consequentialist
Just as one can be an antirealist particularist, one can be an antirealist consequentialist.
Simon Blackburn who is called a quasi-realist despite being a non-cognitivist.
So, quasi realism is different, probably best considered something in between. There are blurry boundaries between antirealism and realism.
I would recommend reading from here if you want to go deep into the positions, and then any particular citations that get your interest:
The antirealist position is that calling something moral or immoral entails a different kind of claim than what the realist means. Since moral talk is not about facts in the first place, something need not be a factual claim to have moral force. Instead, if a moral statement is an expression of emotion for instance, then to have moral force it needs to properly express emotions. But I’m not well read here so that’s about as far as I understand it.
Sure, though that’s not quite what we mean by moral uncertainty, which is the idea that there are different moral theories and we’re not sure which is right. E.g.: https://philpapers.org/archive/URAMIM.pdf
You’re referring to a kind of metaethical uncertainty, uncertainty over whether there are any moral requirements at all. In which case this is more relevant, and the same basic idea that you have: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/505234 And, yeah, it’s a good argument, though William MacAskill has a paper out there claiming that it doesn’t always work.
Generally speaking you cannot be both. There are antirealists and there are realists. Noncognitivists are antirealists and so are error theorists.
Just as one can be an antirealist particularist, one can be an antirealist consequentialist.
So, quasi realism is different, probably best considered something in between. There are blurry boundaries between antirealism and realism.
I would recommend reading from here if you want to go deep into the positions, and then any particular citations that get your interest:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/projectivism-quasi-realism.html
Or, if you want a couple of particular arguments, look at sources 3 and 4 linked by Rob.
Once you’ve read most of the above, you might want to look at things written by rationalists as well.