I lean in favor of (some kind of) normative realism. My grounds for this are the relatively-basic ones: it certainly seems, for example, that some choices are plain irrational or that some states-of-affairs are bad in a stance-independent way. And of course, robust realists will always point to the partners-in-crime of moral facts, in other kinds of a priori domains.
My main source of uncertainty — indeed, the reason I flip back and forth between realism and anti-realism — is (various presentations of) the epistemological objection to moral realism. In particular, (i) I’m not sure if we have the right kind of epistemic access to any abstract facts (and find views like mathematical/logical conventionalism plausible for this reason) and (ii) even if we did, I often struggle to find an explanation for why we have moral knowledge specifically (it doesn’t seem obviously evolutionarily advantageous to know the true moral facts, and the idea that it’s a mere byproduct of other a priori knowledge feels a bit unsatisfying, in that I don’t really know if there’s a connection between moral facts and facts about other platonic universals). See this essay by Carlsmith articulating this kind of objection. I like some of the responses to arguments of this general sort in this paper by David Enoch.
My grounds for this are the relatively-basic ones: it certainly seems, for example, that some choices are plain irrational or that some states-of-affairs are bad in a stance-independent way
Seems that way to who? It does not seem that way to me. If I had to say how things “seemed,” I’d say it seems to me that this is not the case.
And of course, robust realists will always point to the partners-in-crime of moral facts, in other kinds of a priori domains.
They do, but I don’t find these arguments even a little convincing. I don’t see any good reasons to be a normative realist in any nonmoral domains, either.
Personally, I think there are very serious problems with people relying so heavily on how much things seem to them. Among other issues, I don’t think there are good ways to resolve conflicts if things seem differently to others.
I lean in favor of (some kind of) normative realism. My grounds for this are the relatively-basic ones: it certainly seems, for example, that some choices are plain irrational or that some states-of-affairs are bad in a stance-independent way. And of course, robust realists will always point to the partners-in-crime of moral facts, in other kinds of a priori domains.
My main source of uncertainty — indeed, the reason I flip back and forth between realism and anti-realism — is (various presentations of) the epistemological objection to moral realism. In particular, (i) I’m not sure if we have the right kind of epistemic access to any abstract facts (and find views like mathematical/logical conventionalism plausible for this reason) and (ii) even if we did, I often struggle to find an explanation for why we have moral knowledge specifically (it doesn’t seem obviously evolutionarily advantageous to know the true moral facts, and the idea that it’s a mere byproduct of other a priori knowledge feels a bit unsatisfying, in that I don’t really know if there’s a connection between moral facts and facts about other platonic universals). See this essay by Carlsmith articulating this kind of objection. I like some of the responses to arguments of this general sort in this paper by David Enoch.
Seems that way to who? It does not seem that way to me. If I had to say how things “seemed,” I’d say it seems to me that this is not the case.
They do, but I don’t find these arguments even a little convincing. I don’t see any good reasons to be a normative realist in any nonmoral domains, either.
Personally, I think there are very serious problems with people relying so heavily on how much things seem to them. Among other issues, I don’t think there are good ways to resolve conflicts if things seem differently to others.