I’m pretty confused about this, but currently I look at it something like this:
Moral sentences state beliefs whose validity doesn’t depend on whether or not anyone approves of them. These beliefs are about facts in the world, the same world that physics describes, just different aspects of it.
Epistemically, I am a coherentist: a belief is more justified the better it fits within the most explanatorily coherent system of beliefs. I see reflective equilibrium as a useful method for approaching that coherence.
In physics, we have a dense and well-corroborated network of beliefs, supported by prediction and intervention. Ethics, by contrast, has a thinner and more contested network, and lacks comparably strong validation tools. So, my confidence in particular moral propositions, and in moral realism itself, is correspondingly weaker.
Still, I treat improvements in moral theory (better explanations, resolution of paradoxes, maybe convergence across cultures) as evidence that we’re tracking real features of the world, just as progress in physics suggests we’re tracking reality. The quality and coherence of our moral theories should inform how confident we are in moral realism.
I’d put my credence around 60%. Coherent moral theories face enough external constraints and show some explanatory success that I slightly lean toward thinking they track real features of conscious beings and their interactions.
I’m pretty confused about this, but currently I look at it something like this:
Moral sentences state beliefs whose validity doesn’t depend on whether or not anyone approves of them. These beliefs are about facts in the world, the same world that physics describes, just different aspects of it.
Epistemically, I am a coherentist: a belief is more justified the better it fits within the most explanatorily coherent system of beliefs. I see reflective equilibrium as a useful method for approaching that coherence.
In physics, we have a dense and well-corroborated network of beliefs, supported by prediction and intervention. Ethics, by contrast, has a thinner and more contested network, and lacks comparably strong validation tools. So, my confidence in particular moral propositions, and in moral realism itself, is correspondingly weaker.
Still, I treat improvements in moral theory (better explanations, resolution of paradoxes, maybe convergence across cultures) as evidence that we’re tracking real features of the world, just as progress in physics suggests we’re tracking reality. The quality and coherence of our moral theories should inform how confident we are in moral realism.
I’d put my credence around 60%. Coherent moral theories face enough external constraints
and show some explanatory successthat I slightly lean toward thinking they track real features of conscious beings and their interactions.