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TakeAThirdOption's avatar

I think a moral realist, which is no more than a person who believes that the sentence "x is bad" makes any sense at all, although it doesn't, contrary to "x is bad if you want y (because it leads to z instead of y)", which makes very much sense, is just _bound_ to believe everyone is a moral realist.

If you believe x is bad then you just can't imagine anyone in their right mind would deny that. And saying "it's only bad if you want..." counts as denial. Because for them it's just bad. No hedging. So you are not in your right mind. You're crazy. Most people aren't crazy. So most people are moral realists. To a moral realist this is just _obvious_.

And, like it or not, most people probably are moral realist. Most people have a hard time understanding that "x is bad" is a sentence with zero meaning.

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Julia's avatar

I don’t know much about philosophy, but I guess that when most people use words like “good” or “bad”, they mean “stance-independently good/bad”—that if they meant purely “I support it” or “I oppose it”, then those are the words they’d use. Or do you think they call such ideas “good” or “bad” for short?

I’ve also seen quotes like “Wrong is wrong, even if everyone is doing it. Right is right, even if no one is doing it.”, but I don’t know how popular they are.

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