How many of the respondents to the Twitter poll did interpret the question as ”If you thought torturing babies for fun wasn’t wrong, would you still consider it wrong?” rather than, for example, ”If everyone else thought torturing babies for fun wasn’t wrong, would you still consider it wrong?”. The poll result doesn’t give you that information. The first sentence looks like a contradiction. But, I would argue, it is a valid reformulation of the poll question. Therefore, we have ”independent reasons” to reject moral realism, since moral realists seem to hold impossible views. Check mate, realists!
Interesting. What would you tell someone who would accept gastronomic realism, and all other weird types of realism one can imagine?
I share your intuition that moral norms that don't depend on anyone's goals and values make no sense, in a literal way. But I know you claim that there are propositions that you don't understand (like those belonging to rocket science, let's say) but are meaningful because they lead to empirically verifiable success. But surely, we need a less restrictive account of meaningful-ness, because we still want to consider propositions devoid of empirical friction with reality as meaningful. Can't I claim that moral propositions don't make sense in any situation, not even when they are meant in an antirealist interpretation? Or any proposition that isn't part of a language game with direct empirical traction?
Now, I don't say you proposed some kind of empiricist account of meaning, but it's hard for me to press on the idea that moral claims in a realist interpretation are meaningless, because this move is too strong, as it seems to me.
Does that equate moral anti-realism with non-cognitivism or expressivism? Subjectivists and relativists are moral anti-realists (and perhaps constructivists?) but not non-cognitivists. They think moral claims can be true or false, they just are stance dependent propositions.
I remember when Matthew did that Twitter poll - I voted on it. I voted that torture would still be wrong even if everyone approved it. I interpreted the question as one about my normative views, not my meta-ethical ones.
Later at some point I had an exchange with Matthew about this talking point. I told him that the claim that X would still be wrong even if everyone approved of it is compatible with anti-realism.
I gave the following example to illustrate my point:
Suppose that every utilitarian either dies or converts to deontology. It is still the case that pushing the fat man is right relative to the standards of utilitarianism, even if no one actually abides by those standards.
Matthew bizarrely responded to this by telling me that things couldn’t be stance-dependently right or wrong if the stance was just hypothetical.
Meanwhile if we take a look at the IEP, they say this:
“Constructivism ought to be understood by contrast as a species of a stance-dependent view. On this account, there are no moral, or ethical, truths that obtain entirely independently of any actual or hypothetical perspective. The standards that fix the relevant class of ethical facts are always made true by virtue of their ratification from within some actual or hypothetical perspective.”
They explicitly make reference to hypothetical perspectives when describing how moral truths can be stance-dependent.
Yoiks! That response seems to imply that for dead people whose appearances are lost to history, there aren't any stance-dependent facts about which were more attractive than others.
How many of the respondents to the Twitter poll did interpret the question as ”If you thought torturing babies for fun wasn’t wrong, would you still consider it wrong?” rather than, for example, ”If everyone else thought torturing babies for fun wasn’t wrong, would you still consider it wrong?”. The poll result doesn’t give you that information. The first sentence looks like a contradiction. But, I would argue, it is a valid reformulation of the poll question. Therefore, we have ”independent reasons” to reject moral realism, since moral realists seem to hold impossible views. Check mate, realists!
Interesting. What would you tell someone who would accept gastronomic realism, and all other weird types of realism one can imagine?
I share your intuition that moral norms that don't depend on anyone's goals and values make no sense, in a literal way. But I know you claim that there are propositions that you don't understand (like those belonging to rocket science, let's say) but are meaningful because they lead to empirically verifiable success. But surely, we need a less restrictive account of meaningful-ness, because we still want to consider propositions devoid of empirical friction with reality as meaningful. Can't I claim that moral propositions don't make sense in any situation, not even when they are meant in an antirealist interpretation? Or any proposition that isn't part of a language game with direct empirical traction?
Now, I don't say you proposed some kind of empiricist account of meaning, but it's hard for me to press on the idea that moral claims in a realist interpretation are meaningless, because this move is too strong, as it seems to me.
Does that equate moral anti-realism with non-cognitivism or expressivism? Subjectivists and relativists are moral anti-realists (and perhaps constructivists?) but not non-cognitivists. They think moral claims can be true or false, they just are stance dependent propositions.
I remember when Matthew did that Twitter poll - I voted on it. I voted that torture would still be wrong even if everyone approved it. I interpreted the question as one about my normative views, not my meta-ethical ones.
Later at some point I had an exchange with Matthew about this talking point. I told him that the claim that X would still be wrong even if everyone approved of it is compatible with anti-realism.
I gave the following example to illustrate my point:
Suppose that every utilitarian either dies or converts to deontology. It is still the case that pushing the fat man is right relative to the standards of utilitarianism, even if no one actually abides by those standards.
Matthew bizarrely responded to this by telling me that things couldn’t be stance-dependently right or wrong if the stance was just hypothetical.
Meanwhile if we take a look at the IEP, they say this:
“Constructivism ought to be understood by contrast as a species of a stance-dependent view. On this account, there are no moral, or ethical, truths that obtain entirely independently of any actual or hypothetical perspective. The standards that fix the relevant class of ethical facts are always made true by virtue of their ratification from within some actual or hypothetical perspective.”
They explicitly make reference to hypothetical perspectives when describing how moral truths can be stance-dependent.
Yoiks! That response seems to imply that for dead people whose appearances are lost to history, there aren't any stance-dependent facts about which were more attractive than others.
Nice. Do you happen to know where I can find that poll? I lost the link I had.
It’s inaccessible now because Matthew’s old Twitter account is no longer up.
Dang. Wish I saved what the question was. It was really not a very good way to survey people.