I think if you concede that some moral facts exist, it might be more accurate to call yourself a moral realist. The indeterminacy of morality could be a fundamental feature, allowing for many more acts to be ethically permissible (or no worse than other acts) than with a linear (complete) ranking. I think consequentialists are unusually prone to try to rank outcomes linearly.
I read this recently, which describes how moral indeterminacy can be accommodated within moral realism, although it was kind of long for what it had to say. I think expert agreement (or ideal observers/âjudges) could converge on moral indeterminacy: they could agree that we canât know how to rank certain options and further that thereâs no fact of the matter.
Thanks for bringing up this option! I donât agree with this framing for two reasons:
As I point out in my sequenceâs first post, some ways in which âmoral facts existâ are underwhelming.
I donât think moral indeterminacy necessarily means that thereâs convergence of expert judgments. At least, the way in which I think morality is underdetermined explicitly predicts expert divergence. Morality is ârealâ in the sense that experts will converge up to a certain point, and beyond that, some experts will have underdetermined moral values while others will have made choices within whatâs allowed by indeterminacy. Out of the ones that made choices, not all choices will be the same.
I think what I describe in the second bullet point will seem counterintuitive to many people because they think that if morality is underdetermined, your views on morality should be underdetermined, too. But that doesnât follow! I understand why people have the intuition that this should follow, but it really doesnât work that way when you look at it closely. Iâve been working on spelling out why.
I think if you concede that some moral facts exist, it might be more accurate to call yourself a moral realist. The indeterminacy of morality could be a fundamental feature, allowing for many more acts to be ethically permissible (or no worse than other acts) than with a linear (complete) ranking. I think consequentialists are unusually prone to try to rank outcomes linearly.
I read this recently, which describes how moral indeterminacy can be accommodated within moral realism, although it was kind of long for what it had to say. I think expert agreement (or ideal observers/âjudges) could converge on moral indeterminacy: they could agree that we canât know how to rank certain options and further that thereâs no fact of the matter.
Thanks for bringing up this option! I donât agree with this framing for two reasons:
As I point out in my sequenceâs first post, some ways in which âmoral facts existâ are underwhelming.
I donât think moral indeterminacy necessarily means that thereâs convergence of expert judgments. At least, the way in which I think morality is underdetermined explicitly predicts expert divergence. Morality is ârealâ in the sense that experts will converge up to a certain point, and beyond that, some experts will have underdetermined moral values while others will have made choices within whatâs allowed by indeterminacy. Out of the ones that made choices, not all choices will be the same.
I think what I describe in the second bullet point will seem counterintuitive to many people because they think that if morality is underdetermined, your views on morality should be underdetermined, too. But that doesnât follow! I understand why people have the intuition that this should follow, but it really doesnât work that way when you look at it closely. Iâve been working on spelling out why.