On the notion where our knowledge of irreducible normativity is forever limited to self-evident principles, the moral realism wager would remain irrelevant in practice. By definition, people will recognize self-evident principles either way, whether they try to act in accordance with irreducible normativity, or whether they just do what they most feel like doing.
But in your prior post, you noted:
Self-evident principles are principles that, by definition, (almost) everyone recognizes. (This may not mean that everyone will be motivated to act on them; for instance, amoral psychopaths may not have any intrinsic motivation to act on self-evident moral principles.)
And more generally, it seems like non-psychopaths often agree about a moral principle, yet don’t act based on it, due to habits or lack of willpower or whatever.
So might the moral realism wager matter, even if it doesn’t change what moral principles we “believed in”, because it would give additional force to the argument that people should actually act on those principles? Maybe someone acting as if moral realism is true and someone who is instead “just do[ing] what they most feel like doing” will endorse the same “moral” principles, but differ in how often they act on them?
(I think this is a minor point, probably depends somewhat on what version of moral anti-realism one endorses, and is already sort-of addressed in the parts of your prior post surrounding the claim “Moral realism or not, our choices remain the same”. Maybe it doesn’t warrant an answer here.)
You write:
But in your prior post, you noted:
And more generally, it seems like non-psychopaths often agree about a moral principle, yet don’t act based on it, due to habits or lack of willpower or whatever.
So might the moral realism wager matter, even if it doesn’t change what moral principles we “believed in”, because it would give additional force to the argument that people should actually act on those principles? Maybe someone acting as if moral realism is true and someone who is instead “just do[ing] what they most feel like doing” will endorse the same “moral” principles, but differ in how often they act on them?
(I think this is a minor point, probably depends somewhat on what version of moral anti-realism one endorses, and is already sort-of addressed in the parts of your prior post surrounding the claim “Moral realism or not, our choices remain the same”. Maybe it doesn’t warrant an answer here.)