Executive summary: This post critiques Bentham’s Bulldog’s recent defense of moral realism on the EA Forum, arguing that none of his linguistic, rationality-based, or intuition-driven arguments successfully establish objective morality—though the author remains agnostic and sees moral realism as plausible only if theism is true.
Key points:
Linguistic arguments are unconvincing: The author argues that the fact moral claims are treated propositionally in English doesn’t imply they are objectively true—just as gendered nouns in other languages don’t reflect objective gender properties.
Rationality doesn’t require realism: BB claims that moral anti-realists must deny that obviously irrational actions (e.g., self-torture) are irrational; the author rebuts this by distinguishing between being rational (acting on one’s desires) and whether one should have certain desires, noting that anti-realists can still affirm rational norms without objective morality.
Moral intuitions lack testability: Unlike perceptual, mathematical, or logical intuitions, moral intuitions cannot be empirically tested, making them less epistemically reliable—especially since evolution wouldn’t have selected for their accuracy.
Intuition isn’t enough: BB’s appeal to intuition as justification for moral realism is undermined by the historical fallibility and untestability of moral intuitions; the author emphasizes that seeming true isn’t sufficient evidence in this domain.
Conditional credence in realism: The author finds moral realism plausible if theism is true (since a moral God could instill accurate intuitions), but sees it as implausible under atheism due to the lack of any grounding for objective moral truth.
Summary judgment: While moral anti-realism may feel “weird,” the author contends that weirdness is not a defeater, and remains unconvinced by BB’s arguments in favor of moral realism.
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Executive summary: This post critiques Bentham’s Bulldog’s recent defense of moral realism on the EA Forum, arguing that none of his linguistic, rationality-based, or intuition-driven arguments successfully establish objective morality—though the author remains agnostic and sees moral realism as plausible only if theism is true.
Key points:
Linguistic arguments are unconvincing: The author argues that the fact moral claims are treated propositionally in English doesn’t imply they are objectively true—just as gendered nouns in other languages don’t reflect objective gender properties.
Rationality doesn’t require realism: BB claims that moral anti-realists must deny that obviously irrational actions (e.g., self-torture) are irrational; the author rebuts this by distinguishing between being rational (acting on one’s desires) and whether one should have certain desires, noting that anti-realists can still affirm rational norms without objective morality.
Moral intuitions lack testability: Unlike perceptual, mathematical, or logical intuitions, moral intuitions cannot be empirically tested, making them less epistemically reliable—especially since evolution wouldn’t have selected for their accuracy.
Intuition isn’t enough: BB’s appeal to intuition as justification for moral realism is undermined by the historical fallibility and untestability of moral intuitions; the author emphasizes that seeming true isn’t sufficient evidence in this domain.
Conditional credence in realism: The author finds moral realism plausible if theism is true (since a moral God could instill accurate intuitions), but sees it as implausible under atheism due to the lack of any grounding for objective moral truth.
Summary judgment: While moral anti-realism may feel “weird,” the author contends that weirdness is not a defeater, and remains unconvinced by BB’s arguments in favor of moral realism.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.