Why should we care whether or not moral realism is true?
I plan to address this more in a future post, but the short answer is this that for some ways in which moral realism has been defined, it really doesn’t matter (much). But there are some versions of moral realism that would “change the game” for those people who currently reject them. And vice-versa, if one currently endorses a view that corresponds to the two versions of “strong moral realism” described in the last section of my post, one’s priorities could change noticeably if one changes one’s mind towards anti-realism.
What do you think are the implications of moral anti-realism for choosing altruistic activities?
It’s hard to summarize this succinctly because for most of the things that are straightforwardly important under moral realism (such as moral uncertainty or deferring judgment to future people who are more knowledgeable about morality), you can also make good arguments in favor of them going from anti-realist premises. Some quick thoughts:
– The main difference is that things become more “messy” with anti-realism.
– I think anti-realists should, all else equal, be more reluctant to engage in “bullet biting” where you abandon some of your moral intuitions in favor of making your moral view “simpler” or “more elegant.” The simplicity/elegance appeal is that if you have a view with many parameters that are fine-tuned for your personal intuitions, it seems extremely unlikely that other people would come up with the same parameters if they only thought about morality more. Moral realists may think that the correct answer to morality is one that everyone who is knowledgeable enough would endorse, whereas anti-realists may consider this a potentially impossible demand and therefore place more weight on finding something that feels very intuitively compelling on the individual level. Having said that, I think there are a number of arguments why even an anti-realist might want to adopt moral views that are “simple and elegant.” For instance, people may care about doing something meaningful that is “greater than their own petty little intuitions” – I think this is an intuition that we can try to cash out somehow even if moral realism turns out to be false (it’s just that it can be cashed out in different ways).
– “Moral uncertainty” works differently under anti-realism, because you have to say what you are uncertain about (it cannot be the one true morality because anti-realism says there is no such thing). One can be uncertain about what one would value after moral reflection under ideal conditions. This kind of “valuing moral reflection” seems like a very useful anti-realist alternative to moral uncertainty. The difference is that “valuing reflection” may be underdefined, so anti-realists have to think about how to distinguish having underdefined values from being uncertain about their values. This part can get tricky.
– There was recently a discussion about “goal drift” in the EA forum. I think it’s a bigger problem with anti-realism all else equal (unless one’s anti-realist moral view is egoism-related.) But again, there are considerations that go into both directions. :)
One thought is that if morality is not real, then we would not have reasons to do altruistic things. However, I often encounter anti-realists making arguments about which causes we should prioritize, and why. A worry about that is that if morality boils down to mere preference, then it is unclear why a different person should agree with the anti-realist’s preference.
So you know who’s asking, I happen to consider myself a realist, but closest to the intersubjectivism you’ve delineated above. The idea is that morality is the set of rules that impartial, rational people would advocate as a public system. Rationality is understood, roughly speaking, as the set of things that virtually all rational agents would be averse to. This ends up being a list of basic harms—things like pain, death, disability, injury, loss of freedom, loss of pleasure. There’s not much more objective or “facty” about rationality than the fact that basically all vertebrates are disposed to be averse to those things, and it’s rather puzzling for someone not to be. People can be incorrect about whether a thing is harmful, just as they can be incorrect about whether a flower is red. But there’s nothing much more objective or “facty” about whether the plant is red than that ordinary human language users on earth are disposed to see and label it as red.
I don’t know whether or not you’d label that as objectivism about color or about rationality/harm. But I’d classify it as a weak form of realism and objectivism because people can be incorrect, and those who are not reliably disposed to identify cases correctly would be considered blind to color or to harm.
These things I’m saying are influenced by Joshua Gert, who holds very similar views. You may enjoy his work, including his Normative Bedrock (2012) or Brute Rationality (2004). He is in turn influenced by his late father Bernard Gert, whose normative ethical theory Josh’s metaethics work complements.
The idea is that morality is the set of rules that impartial, rational people would advocate as a public system.
Yes, this sounds like constructivism. I think this is definitely a useful framework for thinking about some moral/morality-related questions. I don’t think all of moral discourse is best construed as being about this type of hypothetical rule-making, but like I say in the post, I don’t think interpreting moral discourse should be the primary focus.
Rationality is understood, roughly speaking, as the set of things that virtually all rational agents would be averse to. This ends up being a list of basic harms—things like pain, death, disability, injury, loss of freedom, loss of pleasure.
Hm, this sounds like you’re talking about a substantive concept of rationality, as opposed to a merely “procedural” or “instrumental” concept of rationality (such as it’s common on Lesswrong and with anti-realist philosophers like Bernard Williams). Substantive concepts of rationally always go under moral non-naturalism, I think.
My post is a little confusing with respect to the distinction here, because you can be a constructivist in two different ways: Primarily as an intersubjectivist metaethical position, and “secondarily” as a form of non-naturalism. (See my comments on Thomas Sittler’s chart.)
People can be incorrect about whether a thing is harmful, just as they can be incorrect about whether a flower is red. But there’s nothing much more objective or “facty” about whether the plant is red than that ordinary human language users on earth are disposed to see and label it as red.
Yeah, it should be noted that “strong” versions of moral realism are not committed to silly views such as morality existing in some kind of supernatural realm. I often find it difficult to explain moral non-naturalism in a way that makes it sound as non-weird as when actual moral non-naturalists write about it, so I have to be careful to not strawman these positions. But what you describe may still qualify as “strong” because you’re talking about rationality as a substantive concept. (Classifying something as a “harm” is one thing if done in a descriptive sense, but probably you’re talking about classifying things as a harm in a sense that has moral connotations – and that gets into more controversial territory.)
The book title “normative bedrock” also sounds relevant because my next post will talk about “bedrock concepts” (Chalmers) at length, and specifically about “irreducible normativity” as a bedrock concept, which I think makes up the core of moral non-naturalism.
this sounds like you’re talking about a substantive concept of rationality
Yes indeed!
Substantive concepts of rationally always go under moral non-naturalism, I think.
I’m unclear on why you say this. It certainly depends on how exactly ‘non-naturalism’ is defined.
One contrast of the Gert-inspired view I’ve described and that of some objectivists about reasons or substantive rationality (e.g. Parfit) is that the latter tend to talk about reasons as brute normative facts. Sometimes it seems they have no story to tell about why those facts are what they are. But the view I’ve described does have a story to tell. The story is that we had a certain robust agreement in response toward harms (aversion to harms and puzzlement toward those who lack the aversion). Then, as we developed language, we developed terms to refer to the things that tend to elicit these responses.
Is that potentially the subject of the ‘natural’ sciences? It depends: it seems to be the subject not of physical sciences but of psychological and linguistic sciences. So it depends whether psychology and linguistics are ‘natural’ sciences. Does this view hold that facts about substantive rationality are not identical with or reducible to any natural properties? It depends on whether facts about death, pain, injury, and dispositions are reducible to natural properties.
It’s not clear to me that the natural/non-natural distinction applies all that cleanly to the Gert-inspired view I’ve delineated. At least not without considerably clarifying both the natural/non-natural distinction and the Gert-inspired view.
you can be a constructivist in two different ways: Primarily as an intersubjectivist metaethical position, and “secondarily” as a form of non-naturalism.
This seems like a really interesting point, but I’m still a little unclear on it.
Rambling a bit
It’s helpful to me that you’ve pointed out that my Gert-inspired view has an objectivist element at the ‘normative bedrock’ level (some form of realism about harms & rationality) and a constructivist element at the level of choosing first-order moral rules (‘what would impartial, rational people advocate in a public system?’).
A question that I find challenging is, ‘Why should I care about, or act on, what impartial, rational people would advocate in a public system?’ (Why shouldn’t I just care about harms to, say, myself and a few close friends?) Constructivist answers to that question seem inadequate to me. So it seems we are forced to choose between two unsatisfying answers. On the one hand, we might choose a minimally satisfying realism that asserts that it’s a brute fact that we should care about people and apply moral rules to them impartially; it’s a brute fact that we ‘just see’. On the other hand, we might choose a minimally satisfying anti-realism that asserts that caring about or acting on morality is not actually something we should do; the moral rules are what they are and we can choose it if our heart is in it, but there’s not much more to it than hypotheticals.
What do you think are the implications of moral anti-realism for choosing altruistic activities?
Why should we care whether or not moral realism is true?
(I would understand if you were to say this line of questions is more relevant to a later post in your series.)
I plan to address this more in a future post, but the short answer is this that for some ways in which moral realism has been defined, it really doesn’t matter (much). But there are some versions of moral realism that would “change the game” for those people who currently reject them. And vice-versa, if one currently endorses a view that corresponds to the two versions of “strong moral realism” described in the last section of my post, one’s priorities could change noticeably if one changes one’s mind towards anti-realism.
It’s hard to summarize this succinctly because for most of the things that are straightforwardly important under moral realism (such as moral uncertainty or deferring judgment to future people who are more knowledgeable about morality), you can also make good arguments in favor of them going from anti-realist premises. Some quick thoughts:
– The main difference is that things become more “messy” with anti-realism.
– I think anti-realists should, all else equal, be more reluctant to engage in “bullet biting” where you abandon some of your moral intuitions in favor of making your moral view “simpler” or “more elegant.” The simplicity/elegance appeal is that if you have a view with many parameters that are fine-tuned for your personal intuitions, it seems extremely unlikely that other people would come up with the same parameters if they only thought about morality more. Moral realists may think that the correct answer to morality is one that everyone who is knowledgeable enough would endorse, whereas anti-realists may consider this a potentially impossible demand and therefore place more weight on finding something that feels very intuitively compelling on the individual level. Having said that, I think there are a number of arguments why even an anti-realist might want to adopt moral views that are “simple and elegant.” For instance, people may care about doing something meaningful that is “greater than their own petty little intuitions” – I think this is an intuition that we can try to cash out somehow even if moral realism turns out to be false (it’s just that it can be cashed out in different ways).
– “Moral uncertainty” works differently under anti-realism, because you have to say what you are uncertain about (it cannot be the one true morality because anti-realism says there is no such thing). One can be uncertain about what one would value after moral reflection under ideal conditions. This kind of “valuing moral reflection” seems like a very useful anti-realist alternative to moral uncertainty. The difference is that “valuing reflection” may be underdefined, so anti-realists have to think about how to distinguish having underdefined values from being uncertain about their values. This part can get tricky.
– There was recently a discussion about “goal drift” in the EA forum. I think it’s a bigger problem with anti-realism all else equal (unless one’s anti-realist moral view is egoism-related.) But again, there are considerations that go into both directions. :)
One thought is that if morality is not real, then we would not have reasons to do altruistic things. However, I often encounter anti-realists making arguments about which causes we should prioritize, and why. A worry about that is that if morality boils down to mere preference, then it is unclear why a different person should agree with the anti-realist’s preference.
So you know who’s asking, I happen to consider myself a realist, but closest to the intersubjectivism you’ve delineated above. The idea is that morality is the set of rules that impartial, rational people would advocate as a public system. Rationality is understood, roughly speaking, as the set of things that virtually all rational agents would be averse to. This ends up being a list of basic harms—things like pain, death, disability, injury, loss of freedom, loss of pleasure. There’s not much more objective or “facty” about rationality than the fact that basically all vertebrates are disposed to be averse to those things, and it’s rather puzzling for someone not to be. People can be incorrect about whether a thing is harmful, just as they can be incorrect about whether a flower is red. But there’s nothing much more objective or “facty” about whether the plant is red than that ordinary human language users on earth are disposed to see and label it as red.
I don’t know whether or not you’d label that as objectivism about color or about rationality/harm. But I’d classify it as a weak form of realism and objectivism because people can be incorrect, and those who are not reliably disposed to identify cases correctly would be considered blind to color or to harm.
These things I’m saying are influenced by Joshua Gert, who holds very similar views. You may enjoy his work, including his Normative Bedrock (2012) or Brute Rationality (2004). He is in turn influenced by his late father Bernard Gert, whose normative ethical theory Josh’s metaethics work complements.
Yes, this sounds like constructivism. I think this is definitely a useful framework for thinking about some moral/morality-related questions. I don’t think all of moral discourse is best construed as being about this type of hypothetical rule-making, but like I say in the post, I don’t think interpreting moral discourse should be the primary focus.
Hm, this sounds like you’re talking about a substantive concept of rationality, as opposed to a merely “procedural” or “instrumental” concept of rationality (such as it’s common on Lesswrong and with anti-realist philosophers like Bernard Williams). Substantive concepts of rationally always go under moral non-naturalism, I think.
My post is a little confusing with respect to the distinction here, because you can be a constructivist in two different ways: Primarily as an intersubjectivist metaethical position, and “secondarily” as a form of non-naturalism. (See my comments on Thomas Sittler’s chart.)
Yeah, it should be noted that “strong” versions of moral realism are not committed to silly views such as morality existing in some kind of supernatural realm. I often find it difficult to explain moral non-naturalism in a way that makes it sound as non-weird as when actual moral non-naturalists write about it, so I have to be careful to not strawman these positions. But what you describe may still qualify as “strong” because you’re talking about rationality as a substantive concept. (Classifying something as a “harm” is one thing if done in a descriptive sense, but probably you’re talking about classifying things as a harm in a sense that has moral connotations – and that gets into more controversial territory.)
The book title “normative bedrock” also sounds relevant because my next post will talk about “bedrock concepts” (Chalmers) at length, and specifically about “irreducible normativity” as a bedrock concept, which I think makes up the core of moral non-naturalism.
Thanks for your engaging insights!
Yes indeed!
I’m unclear on why you say this. It certainly depends on how exactly ‘non-naturalism’ is defined.
One contrast of the Gert-inspired view I’ve described and that of some objectivists about reasons or substantive rationality (e.g. Parfit) is that the latter tend to talk about reasons as brute normative facts. Sometimes it seems they have no story to tell about why those facts are what they are. But the view I’ve described does have a story to tell. The story is that we had a certain robust agreement in response toward harms (aversion to harms and puzzlement toward those who lack the aversion). Then, as we developed language, we developed terms to refer to the things that tend to elicit these responses.
Is that potentially the subject of the ‘natural’ sciences? It depends: it seems to be the subject not of physical sciences but of psychological and linguistic sciences. So it depends whether psychology and linguistics are ‘natural’ sciences. Does this view hold that facts about substantive rationality are not identical with or reducible to any natural properties? It depends on whether facts about death, pain, injury, and dispositions are reducible to natural properties.
It’s not clear to me that the natural/non-natural distinction applies all that cleanly to the Gert-inspired view I’ve delineated. At least not without considerably clarifying both the natural/non-natural distinction and the Gert-inspired view.
This seems like a really interesting point, but I’m still a little unclear on it.
Rambling a bit
It’s helpful to me that you’ve pointed out that my Gert-inspired view has an objectivist element at the ‘normative bedrock’ level (some form of realism about harms & rationality) and a constructivist element at the level of choosing first-order moral rules (‘what would impartial, rational people advocate in a public system?’).
A question that I find challenging is, ‘Why should I care about, or act on, what impartial, rational people would advocate in a public system?’ (Why shouldn’t I just care about harms to, say, myself and a few close friends?) Constructivist answers to that question seem inadequate to me. So it seems we are forced to choose between two unsatisfying answers. On the one hand, we might choose a minimally satisfying realism that asserts that it’s a brute fact that we should care about people and apply moral rules to them impartially; it’s a brute fact that we ‘just see’. On the other hand, we might choose a minimally satisfying anti-realism that asserts that caring about or acting on morality is not actually something we should do; the moral rules are what they are and we can choose it if our heart is in it, but there’s not much more to it than hypotheticals.