Thanks for putting this out there. I like how you list the two versions of moral realism you find coherent, and especially that you list what would convince you of each.
My intuition here is the first option is the case, but also that instead of speaking about moral realism we should talk about qualia formalism. I.e., whether consciousness is real enough such that it can be spoken about in crisp formal terms, seems prior to whether morality is real in that same sense. I’ve written about this here, and spoke about this in the intro of my TSC2018 talk.
Whether qualia formalism is true seems an empirical question; if it is, we should be able to make novel and falsifiable predictions with it. This seems like a third option for moving forward, in addition to your other two.
Thanks for putting this out there. I like how you list the two versions of moral realism you find coherent, and especially that you list what would convince you of each.
My intuition here is the first option is the case, but also that instead of speaking about moral realism we should talk about qualia formalism. I.e., whether consciousness is real enough such that it can be spoken about in crisp formal terms, seems prior to whether morality is real in that same sense. I’ve written about this here, and spoke about this in the intro of my TSC2018 talk.
Whether qualia formalism is true seems an empirical question; if it is, we should be able to make novel and falsifiable predictions with it. This seems like a third option for moving forward, in addition to your other two.