“So, for instance, suppose you take a baby and hit it with great force with a hammer. Moral realism says: 1. You’re doing something wrong.”
Moral realism doesn’t say that hitting a baby with a hammer is wrong. Moral realism entails that there is some fact about the morality of hitting a baby with a hammer. Probably, that moral fact is that it is wrong to do this, but moral realism is not a theory about specific moral facts. It’s a theory that moral facts are possible.
This is a pedantic point, but the more commitments you unnecessarily build into moral realism, the more likely someone is to reject it. Someone might be open to there being moral facts, and yet believe that the wrongness of torturing babies isn’t one of these facts. If someone like that accepted your claim that moral realists necessarily believe it is wrong to torture babies, they might think, “Oh, I guess I’m not a moral realist then.” The belief that it’s wrong to torture babies is a promising contender for one of the world’s most popular moral beliefs. Still, the less you commit the moral realist to, the more plausible moral realism is going to seem.
“So, for instance, suppose you take a baby and hit it with great force with a hammer. Moral realism says: 1. You’re doing something wrong.”
Moral realism doesn’t say that hitting a baby with a hammer is wrong. Moral realism entails that there is some fact about the morality of hitting a baby with a hammer. Probably, that moral fact is that it is wrong to do this, but moral realism is not a theory about specific moral facts. It’s a theory that moral facts are possible.
This is a pedantic point, but the more commitments you unnecessarily build into moral realism, the more likely someone is to reject it. Someone might be open to there being moral facts, and yet believe that the wrongness of torturing babies isn’t one of these facts. If someone like that accepted your claim that moral realists necessarily believe it is wrong to torture babies, they might think, “Oh, I guess I’m not a moral realist then.” The belief that it’s wrong to torture babies is a promising contender for one of the world’s most popular moral beliefs. Still, the less you commit the moral realist to, the more plausible moral realism is going to seem.