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Mario Pasquato's avatar

Layperson (with respect to moral philosophy) here. I am confused by realism, moral or otherwise. If the suffering of dinosaurs being bad is an objective moral fact, meaning it’s independent on the opinions of any observer or even on the existence of any observer, where is this fact stored? If not in an observer (in the form of an opinion) where else? In the mind of god? If somehow moral beliefs were wiped out from all of our brains with some scifi device, do moral realists think we would be able to rediscover them from scratch, without any difference with respect to the original?

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John C's avatar

Excellent article. I have one question in particular:

> I’ve discussed this so many times it’s become tedious: the best available empirical evidence does not suggest that most people are moral realists, act like moral realists, think like moral realists, speak like moral realists, endorse moral realism, or in any way favor moral realism.

That's been my experience as well, though realists never tire of claiming the opposite. Do you have a single article where you've collected this information (with links to the relevant studies and/or summaries, tables etc)? It would be great to have that in a single place, both so you could link to it yourself and because it would be an invaluable resource for refuting this claim in the wild.

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Lance S. Bush's avatar

The first of those links contains a complete bibliography of the relevant papers, though the results are mixed. Some argue that most people are moral realists (e.g., Zijlstra). I critique all of these studies and offer my own take on the literature in my dissertation.

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Lance S. Bush's avatar

Also if you like audio stuff there's this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtK4vzLfYCQ

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