(Somewhat tangential to the post; just an insight into what metaethical fanaticism—or something similar—feels like from the inside, for me.)
I feel like this post assumed people who are operating under a sort of metaethical fanaticism or a moral realism wager want moral realism to be true, or hope it’s true, or something like that. For example, you write:
Bob: Maybe I was just hopeful, not confident.
And:
The assumption is that you’d cling to the hope that irreducible normativity turns out to be meaningful, despite appearances to the contrary.
I think sometimes my metaethical fanaticism looks like that. And I imagine for some people that’s how it typically looks. But I think for me it’s more often “wanting to be careful in case moral realism is true”, rather than “hoping that moral realism is true”. You could even say it’s something like “concerned that moral realism might be true”.
That said, I do think my reaction to being fully convinced that moral realism is false would contain more “sense of disappointment at the universe turning out to feel more ‘empty/meaningless’” than “sense of relief at the lifting of obligations”. But I also think that, on this matter, I’m mostly driven by a strong (and perhaps misguided) sense that the stakes would be very high if moral realism is true, so I should do my best to do what would be good if that were the case.
I guess one could say that, for me, it’s more about something like conscientiousness than about something like spirituality.
I think sometimes my metaethical fanaticism looks like that. And I imagine for some people that’s how it typically looks. But I think for me it’s more often “wanting to be careful in case moral realism is true”, rather than “hoping that moral realism is true”. You could even say it’s something like “concerned that moral realism might be true”.
Interesting! Yeah, that framing also makes sense to me.
(Somewhat tangential to the post; just an insight into what metaethical fanaticism—or something similar—feels like from the inside, for me.)
I feel like this post assumed people who are operating under a sort of metaethical fanaticism or a moral realism wager want moral realism to be true, or hope it’s true, or something like that. For example, you write:
And:
I think sometimes my metaethical fanaticism looks like that. And I imagine for some people that’s how it typically looks. But I think for me it’s more often “wanting to be careful in case moral realism is true”, rather than “hoping that moral realism is true”. You could even say it’s something like “concerned that moral realism might be true”.
That said, I do think my reaction to being fully convinced that moral realism is false would contain more “sense of disappointment at the universe turning out to feel more ‘empty/meaningless’” than “sense of relief at the lifting of obligations”. But I also think that, on this matter, I’m mostly driven by a strong (and perhaps misguided) sense that the stakes would be very high if moral realism is true, so I should do my best to do what would be good if that were the case.
I guess one could say that, for me, it’s more about something like conscientiousness than about something like spirituality.
Interesting! Yeah, that framing also makes sense to me.