I was quite open to both moral realism and antirealism, some three years ago, then in a short period of time I became an antirealist, mainly because, like you, I think we can't make sense of stance-independent moral facts. I was a theist believing in the 3O God, but now I find the argument from evil very compelling, after I've seen it presented in a more formal way - by Draper, for example. I was a staunch pro-natalist, but Benatar's asymmetry caused me to suspend judgement. Then I became a philosophical pessimist, largely because of a death in my family, and that pushed me toward antinatalism - I'm now around 0.7544 confident that having kids is wrong.
Interesting, and thanks for sharing! I'm surprised to see quite a few people say that they don't think (at least some forms of) moral realism don't make sense, since this view is so rare in the academic literature and in my experience academic philosophers often scoff at such a view and seem to regard it as ridiculous.
I was open to moral realism when I first got into the debate, because I thought 'there must be a meaningful way of talking about stance-independent moral truths, I'm just not aware of it', until I found this is not the case. I still don't find it utterly crazy, because of two reasons: 1) the anti-realist accounts don't capture the main traits of moral discourse either, unless we want to be revisionary; I know there's a risk that I may assume as true some empirical claims about how people talk about morality, but at least in my experience people do seem to think that morality is something you can have debates about, and in a more substantive manner than, let's say, taste or art; also, various forms of subjectivism just seem incoherent, but I lean towards some form of constructivism. 2) I think theism is plausible, and I'm not sure it favors realism or antirealism.
I think I don't live in a philosophical echo-chamber, because I also studied neurobiology and data science/artificial intelligence, so I had to get accustomed to various ways of thinking. I am less pessimistic about philosophy than you, but I think your concerns have to be voiced more often, btw. Thanks for your work!
I don't think antirealism has to (or does) account for ordinary moral discourse in the first place; I don't see it as a view *about* ordinary thought and practice. As such, even if it couldn't this is no shortcoming of antirealism. Even so, I think it does fine handling debates. People argue about the price of products. This doesn't imply they're price realists.
I was quite open to both moral realism and antirealism, some three years ago, then in a short period of time I became an antirealist, mainly because, like you, I think we can't make sense of stance-independent moral facts. I was a theist believing in the 3O God, but now I find the argument from evil very compelling, after I've seen it presented in a more formal way - by Draper, for example. I was a staunch pro-natalist, but Benatar's asymmetry caused me to suspend judgement. Then I became a philosophical pessimist, largely because of a death in my family, and that pushed me toward antinatalism - I'm now around 0.7544 confident that having kids is wrong.
Interesting, and thanks for sharing! I'm surprised to see quite a few people say that they don't think (at least some forms of) moral realism don't make sense, since this view is so rare in the academic literature and in my experience academic philosophers often scoff at such a view and seem to regard it as ridiculous.
I was open to moral realism when I first got into the debate, because I thought 'there must be a meaningful way of talking about stance-independent moral truths, I'm just not aware of it', until I found this is not the case. I still don't find it utterly crazy, because of two reasons: 1) the anti-realist accounts don't capture the main traits of moral discourse either, unless we want to be revisionary; I know there's a risk that I may assume as true some empirical claims about how people talk about morality, but at least in my experience people do seem to think that morality is something you can have debates about, and in a more substantive manner than, let's say, taste or art; also, various forms of subjectivism just seem incoherent, but I lean towards some form of constructivism. 2) I think theism is plausible, and I'm not sure it favors realism or antirealism.
I think I don't live in a philosophical echo-chamber, because I also studied neurobiology and data science/artificial intelligence, so I had to get accustomed to various ways of thinking. I am less pessimistic about philosophy than you, but I think your concerns have to be voiced more often, btw. Thanks for your work!
I don't think antirealism has to (or does) account for ordinary moral discourse in the first place; I don't see it as a view *about* ordinary thought and practice. As such, even if it couldn't this is no shortcoming of antirealism. Even so, I think it does fine handling debates. People argue about the price of products. This doesn't imply they're price realists.
Thanks for the kind words!