To say that people act “as if” moral realism is true is to take some set of behavior or practices we have established people engage in, then offer a theoretical account of why people engage in that behavior that explains what’s going on.
The idea that ordinary people act “as if” moral realism is true is *obviously* true. We don’t need empirical studies to know that ordinary people act “as if” 2 + 3 = 5 is true; this is obvious from experience.
When people, say, condemn and criticize others for engaging in behavior that they judge to be morally wrong, it’s because they believe the wrongness of such behavior is a matter of objective truth. That is, people act as if they believe it is objectively true that certain behaviors are wrong (in the same way that people act as if they believe it is objectively true that 2 + 3 = 5).
2 + 3 = 5 is a first order claim. It tells you nothing about whether the person in question holds any specific metaphysical view about the nature of numbers. A better analogy would be whether when people say that 2 + 3 = 5 it's obvious that they are mathematical platonists. And it isn't obvious that they're mathematical platonistd.
It is not obvious that ordinary people are moral realists. In fact the best available evidence suggests that many of them are not. There is no good evidence that most people are more realists, or speak, think, or act like moral realists.
I think it's not even clear what the domain of moral data is once we look outside our own culture. People in very different times and places have quite different standards of moral judgment. A "reasons first" analysis of morality would probably look quite odd to people from cultures that have no word or phrase corresponding to "reason for action".
I am not at all satisfied with attenpts to analyze moral concepts that begin and end with a few "paradigm cases" of modern english phrases.
I agree. I've written a bit about this elsewhere but if you're interested look into the work of Stich, Machery, and others on the topic of delineating moral from nonmoral norms. My general view is that there is no principled distinction between moral and nonmoral norms, and that "moral" serves a kind of loose social role in certain subcultures, has some historical roots in theism and Western notions, but is too porous and fuzzy a notion to serve as a legitimate boundary for a special domain of norms.
The idea that ordinary people act “as if” moral realism is true is *obviously* true. We don’t need empirical studies to know that ordinary people act “as if” 2 + 3 = 5 is true; this is obvious from experience.
When people, say, condemn and criticize others for engaging in behavior that they judge to be morally wrong, it’s because they believe the wrongness of such behavior is a matter of objective truth. That is, people act as if they believe it is objectively true that certain behaviors are wrong (in the same way that people act as if they believe it is objectively true that 2 + 3 = 5).
2 + 3 = 5 is a first order claim. It tells you nothing about whether the person in question holds any specific metaphysical view about the nature of numbers. A better analogy would be whether when people say that 2 + 3 = 5 it's obvious that they are mathematical platonists. And it isn't obvious that they're mathematical platonistd.
It is not obvious that ordinary people are moral realists. In fact the best available evidence suggests that many of them are not. There is no good evidence that most people are more realists, or speak, think, or act like moral realists.
I think it's not even clear what the domain of moral data is once we look outside our own culture. People in very different times and places have quite different standards of moral judgment. A "reasons first" analysis of morality would probably look quite odd to people from cultures that have no word or phrase corresponding to "reason for action".
I am not at all satisfied with attenpts to analyze moral concepts that begin and end with a few "paradigm cases" of modern english phrases.
I agree. I've written a bit about this elsewhere but if you're interested look into the work of Stich, Machery, and others on the topic of delineating moral from nonmoral norms. My general view is that there is no principled distinction between moral and nonmoral norms, and that "moral" serves a kind of loose social role in certain subcultures, has some historical roots in theism and Western notions, but is too porous and fuzzy a notion to serve as a legitimate boundary for a special domain of norms.