I really appreciated this post. Like many here, I find it hard to make sense of our strongest moral convictions, especially about things like torture or slavery, without concluding that some moral facts are objective. As C.S. Lewis put it, we donāt call a line crooked unless we have some idea of a straight one.
I understand the concern that moral facts might seem metaphysically strange, but I donāt think they are any stranger than logical or modal truths. Denying them also seems to undermine the kind of moral discourse we often want to have.
Personally, I ground morality in the character of God. Even putting that aside, I find moral anti-realism hard to accept. If nothing is really wrong, then what reason do we have to care about injustice beyond our own preferences?
Iām curious how anti-realists would approach serious moral disagreements, such as those involving human rights abuses, without appealing to something deeper than social consensus or personal feeling. Can we say āthis is wrongā in any meaningful way if morality is only expressive or constructed?
Like many here, I find it hard to make sense of our strongest moral convictions, especially about things like torture or slavery, without concluding that some moral facts are objective.
To whom does āourā refer? Most people throughout history do not seem to have shared these intuitions. If āpeople intuit things as being good/āright or bad/āwrongā is evidence for their moral truth/āfalsity, then it seems clear that the positions with the most evidence supporting them are āit is wrong to torture or enslave the ingroup and right to torture and enslave the outgroupā
Can we say āthis is wrongā in any meaningful way if morality is only expressive or constructed?
Yes, in the same way that we can make meaningful statements about the quality of art: either by expressing subjective opinions or by defining terms and discussing it in terms of those.
I understand the concern that moral facts might seem metaphysically strange, but I donāt think they are any stranger than logical or modal truths.
Not a Philosophy major, so youāll have to put up with my lack of knowledge, but I think Iād say that logical truths are contingent on the axioms being true, which is determined by how well they seem to match the world and our perceptions of it in the first place. And there are alternatives to classical logic that are āas trueā and generate logical truths as valid as those of classical logic. Not sure about modal truths -it is not something Iāve read about yet-. To the extent I grasp them, they appear constructed or definitional, not absolute, i.e.:
āA square cannot be round.ā ā because of how you define a square
It is possible that life exists on other planets.ā ā the question is about probabilities
āNecessarily, 2 + 2 = 4.ā ā Only if Peano Axioms and ZFC is assumed
Iām curious how anti-realists would approach serious moral disagreements, such as those involving human rights abuses, without appealing to something deeper than social consensus or personal feeling. Can we say āthis is wrongā in any meaningful way if morality is only expressive or constructed?
Canāt speak for others, but can for myself. Iād say that first, some preferences are widely agreed upon to begin with (at least in liberal, Western societies). When thereās a conflict, we have the framework of societal rules and norms to solve it, and which we accept as the best scenario for maximizing our individual well-being, even if it comes with some trade-offs at times. If thereās a serious disagreement between my preferences and those encoded in the rules, norms and contracts, I try to change those through the appropriate channels. If I fail and ii is something non-negotiable to me, I would have to leave my society and go to another that is better attuned to me.
I really appreciated this post. Like many here, I find it hard to make sense of our strongest moral convictions, especially about things like torture or slavery, without concluding that some moral facts are objective. As C.S. Lewis put it, we donāt call a line crooked unless we have some idea of a straight one.
I understand the concern that moral facts might seem metaphysically strange, but I donāt think they are any stranger than logical or modal truths. Denying them also seems to undermine the kind of moral discourse we often want to have.
Personally, I ground morality in the character of God. Even putting that aside, I find moral anti-realism hard to accept. If nothing is really wrong, then what reason do we have to care about injustice beyond our own preferences?
Iām curious how anti-realists would approach serious moral disagreements, such as those involving human rights abuses, without appealing to something deeper than social consensus or personal feeling. Can we say āthis is wrongā in any meaningful way if morality is only expressive or constructed?
To whom does āourā refer? Most people throughout history do not seem to have shared these intuitions. If āpeople intuit things as being good/āright or bad/āwrongā is evidence for their moral truth/āfalsity, then it seems clear that the positions with the most evidence supporting them are āit is wrong to torture or enslave the ingroup and right to torture and enslave the outgroupā
Yes, in the same way that we can make meaningful statements about the quality of art: either by expressing subjective opinions or by defining terms and discussing it in terms of those.
Not a Philosophy major, so youāll have to put up with my lack of knowledge, but I think Iād say that logical truths are contingent on the axioms being true, which is determined by how well they seem to match the world and our perceptions of it in the first place. And there are alternatives to classical logic that are āas trueā and generate logical truths as valid as those of classical logic. Not sure about modal truths -it is not something Iāve read about yet-. To the extent I grasp them, they appear constructed or definitional, not absolute, i.e.:
āA square cannot be round.ā ā because of how you define a square
It is possible that life exists on other planets.ā ā the question is about probabilities
āNecessarily, 2 + 2 = 4.ā ā Only if Peano Axioms and ZFC is assumed
Canāt speak for others, but can for myself. Iād say that first, some preferences are widely agreed upon to begin with (at least in liberal, Western societies). When thereās a conflict, we have the framework of societal rules and norms to solve it, and which we accept as the best scenario for maximizing our individual well-being, even if it comes with some trade-offs at times. If thereās a serious disagreement between my preferences and those encoded in the rules, norms and contracts, I try to change those through the appropriate channels. If I fail and ii is something non-negotiable to me, I would have to leave my society and go to another that is better attuned to me.