I’ve also found that some other anti-realists are extremely confident (though not certain) that consequentialism is true, though it’s an open question how often this is reasonable.
I don’t understand this. To quote a guy from LessWrong:
“While I guess this could be logically possible, anyone who is not a moral realist needs to provide some kind of explanation for what exactly a normative theory is supposed to be doing and what it means to assert one if there are no moral facts.”
Also, I think positions one, two, and four are in fact compatible with consequentialism. That said, your post is still useful since, whatever terminology we may use to describe them, these issues happen to be important.
Tom, that isn’t the only way the term “moral anti-realism” is used. Sometimes it is used to refer to any metaethical position which denies substantive moral realism. This can include noncognitivism, error theory, and various forms of subjectivism/constructivism. This is typically how I use it.
For one thing, since I endorse metaethical variability/indeterminacy, I do not believe traditional descriptive metaethical analyses provide accurate accounts of ordinary moral language anyway. I think error theory works best in some cases, noncognitivism (perhaps, though not plausibly) in others, and various forms of relativism in others. What this amounts to is that I think all moral claims are either (a) false (b) nonsense or (c) trivial; in the latter sense, by “trivial” I mean they lack objective prescriptivity, “practical oomph” (as Richard Joyce would put it) or otherwise compel or provide reasons for action independent of an agent’s goals or interests. In other words, I deny that there are any mind-independent moral facts. I’m honestly not sure why moral realism is taken very seriously. I’d be curious to hear explanations of why.
In other words, I deny that there are any mind-independent moral facts. I’m honestly not sure why moral realism is taken very seriously. I’d be curious to hear explanations of why.
I think we might get to something like moral realism as the result of acausal trade between possible agents.
I don’t understand this. To quote a guy from LessWrong:
“While I guess this could be logically possible, anyone who is not a moral realist needs to provide some kind of explanation for what exactly a normative theory is supposed to be doing and what it means to assert one if there are no moral facts.”
Also, I think positions one, two, and four are in fact compatible with consequentialism. That said, your post is still useful since, whatever terminology we may use to describe them, these issues happen to be important.
Anti-realism isn’t the position that there are no moral facts; that’s non-cognitivism.
Tom, that isn’t the only way the term “moral anti-realism” is used. Sometimes it is used to refer to any metaethical position which denies substantive moral realism. This can include noncognitivism, error theory, and various forms of subjectivism/constructivism. This is typically how I use it.
For one thing, since I endorse metaethical variability/indeterminacy, I do not believe traditional descriptive metaethical analyses provide accurate accounts of ordinary moral language anyway. I think error theory works best in some cases, noncognitivism (perhaps, though not plausibly) in others, and various forms of relativism in others. What this amounts to is that I think all moral claims are either (a) false (b) nonsense or (c) trivial; in the latter sense, by “trivial” I mean they lack objective prescriptivity, “practical oomph” (as Richard Joyce would put it) or otherwise compel or provide reasons for action independent of an agent’s goals or interests. In other words, I deny that there are any mind-independent moral facts. I’m honestly not sure why moral realism is taken very seriously. I’d be curious to hear explanations of why.
I think we might get to something like moral realism as the result of acausal trade between possible agents.