Bohemian Rhetoricity

I sometimes encounter moral realists who will say something like this:

"If you reject realism, then you can't think anything is really good or bad, or that anything really matters."

This is an empty rhetorical move that accomplishes nothing. It relies on exploiting ambiguity about what is meant by “really” to give the impression that there’s something substantive and important missing from an antirealist’s perspective without specifying what it is. This is because if the realist had to specify what it was, they’d either (a) be reduced to saying something trivial and meaningless or (b) they wouldn’t be able to, because the realist’s position relies on appeal to meaningless concepts that have no practical relevance.

The problem with this move is the use of the term "really." If we unpack what the realist means by "really," they have a few options. The two main options would be:

(a) By "really," they just mean that something is good or bad or matters in the sense that realists think things are good or bad or matter. That is, they might just mean that it is stance-independently good or bad or matters.

If this is the approach they want to take, then we can substitute "really" for "stance-independent" and examine the original charge against the antirealist:

"If you reject realism, then you can't think anything is stance-independently good or bad, or that anything stance-independently matters."

This is true. Trivially true, in fact. This is nothing more than a restatement of the difference between realism and antirealism. And it is no objection to antirealist views of good, bad, and mattering that they aren’t realist views. That would be like objecting to atheism on the grounds that it “does not affirm the existence of God.” That’s just a description of the position!

If this is all realists are trying to say, then they’re not saying anything.

(b) By “really,” they mean more than just that the antirealist doesn’t think things are stance-independently good or bad, or that they stance-independently. It could include or presume this, but the realist would have to be saying substantive in addition to or instead of this.

If so, what might these extra or alternative elements of something “really” being good or bad, or “really” mattering consist of? I don’t know, and I have yet to hear a good answer from any realists. If they do mean something else, why don’t they say so? Why make use of a term like “really,” the meaning of which isn’t clear or specific enough for us to know what they mean,

Realists also have no monopoly on the term “really. They don’t own the word. An antirealist could dispute whether things mattering in the sense realists think they matter is what “really” matters; perhaps the antirealist things antirealist conceptions of mattering are what “really” matter. Realists aren’t entitled to help themselves to the use of the term “really,” - the appropriateness of the term and whether or not things really matter or don’t really matter is itself a potential matter of contention between realists and antirealists. It’s not something realists can help themselves to, as though they own the very notion of “really."