1. Bentham’s Bulldog’s post ascribes some consequences to moral anti-realism, but does not give an argument to show why they follow, and there appears to be no such implication. There are plenty of versions of anti-realism. Also, there is a conflation of moral anti-realism and rationality anti-realism, which are not the same. That said, I agree that moral realism is true—at least, if properly defined; the definition in the OP is open to different interpretation about what counts as “thinks about it”.
2. Moral realism says nothing about whether it is wrong to hit a baby with great force with a hammer, for example. Moral realism takes no stance on the matter. In fact, I would say that that depends of course on the circumstances: If Alice hits the baby with great force with a hammer in order to kill him instantly and save him from a far worse experience that Alice knows awaits him if she does not do it (e.g., being slowly dissolved alive in acid until death, suffering the excruciating pain that goes with it, etc.), that would not be wrong.
I will point out that moral realism does not preclude that whether an action is morally wrong—and how wrong it is—depends on facts about the mind of the agent, in particular the intent of the agent and perhaps the information available to them, knowledge, etc.
I would also like to challenge what appears to be an implication that evolution leads to all moral beliefs being “geared towards survival” as in “believing having many kids is obligatory.”, or a lack of belief in transitivity, etc. In the OP, that is said to be a consequence of anti-realism, but it seems to be written as a consequence of evolution by the mechanisms studied by science—i.e., not including a guiding will, or force, or creator, etc.
That is not what evolution would lead to. For example, consider monkeys or apes, say capuchins. They have species-wide rules (and some that are common to other species too, but that aside), and a motivation for punishing rule-breakers (I’d say morality, but let’s leave that aside). But they do not have a rule ‘have many monkey kids’. Sure, they do not know the connection between sex and reproduction, so it would be hard to enforce. But capuchins do not have a rule ‘have a lot of sex’, either. No, what was conducive to reproductive success was to punish those who behave in certain manners. And of course, it was not conducive to punish monkeys who did not have a lot of sex. And then, feelings of avoidance of rule-breaking—like guilt—were also conducive to reproductive success. And so on. The point is that rules do not need to involve a direct connection to reproductive success.
As for belief in transitivity, or things like that, that is a belief that requires theoretical thinking about morality. What evolution gave us is morality on the one hand, and the ability for high-order thinking on the other hand. Applying the latter to the former we can get beliefs not connected to reproductive success, at least not in any obvious manner.
A couple of side points:
1. Bentham’s Bulldog’s post ascribes some consequences to moral anti-realism, but does not give an argument to show why they follow, and there appears to be no such implication. There are plenty of versions of anti-realism. Also, there is a conflation of moral anti-realism and rationality anti-realism, which are not the same. That said, I agree that moral realism is true—at least, if properly defined; the definition in the OP is open to different interpretation about what counts as “thinks about it”.
2. Moral realism says nothing about whether it is wrong to hit a baby with great force with a hammer, for example. Moral realism takes no stance on the matter. In fact, I would say that that depends of course on the circumstances: If Alice hits the baby with great force with a hammer in order to kill him instantly and save him from a far worse experience that Alice knows awaits him if she does not do it (e.g., being slowly dissolved alive in acid until death, suffering the excruciating pain that goes with it, etc.), that would not be wrong.
I will point out that moral realism does not preclude that whether an action is morally wrong—and how wrong it is—depends on facts about the mind of the agent, in particular the intent of the agent and perhaps the information available to them, knowledge, etc.
I would also like to challenge what appears to be an implication that evolution leads to all moral beliefs being “geared towards survival” as in “believing having many kids is obligatory.”, or a lack of belief in transitivity, etc. In the OP, that is said to be a consequence of anti-realism, but it seems to be written as a consequence of evolution by the mechanisms studied by science—i.e., not including a guiding will, or force, or creator, etc.
That is not what evolution would lead to. For example, consider monkeys or apes, say capuchins. They have species-wide rules (and some that are common to other species too, but that aside), and a motivation for punishing rule-breakers (I’d say morality, but let’s leave that aside). But they do not have a rule ‘have many monkey kids’. Sure, they do not know the connection between sex and reproduction, so it would be hard to enforce. But capuchins do not have a rule ‘have a lot of sex’, either. No, what was conducive to reproductive success was to punish those who behave in certain manners. And of course, it was not conducive to punish monkeys who did not have a lot of sex. And then, feelings of avoidance of rule-breaking—like guilt—were also conducive to reproductive success. And so on.
The point is that rules do not need to involve a direct connection to reproductive success.
As for belief in transitivity, or things like that, that is a belief that requires theoretical thinking about morality. What evolution gave us is morality on the one hand, and the ability for high-order thinking on the other hand. Applying the latter to the former we can get beliefs not connected to reproductive success, at least not in any obvious manner.