This is an illustration of a failure to communicate, something that happens more and more as comment sections become the standard forum for conversations.
Good points Lance. Interestingly I feel it echoes my feelings about the philosophy of mind. Which is that every philosophy of mind would need to explain reality, and so we shouldn't expect them to look any different. They merely describe the same thing differently.
Here your point is that the moral realist and antirealist are describing the same phenomena. One isn't lacking morality or evil. It just comes to the same result differently. That makes total sense.
Where I think some models of morality do start to take on an air of difference is when they start arguing for odd moral exclusions or blanket moral treatments. I looked at that in my latest article on the concept of "intrinsic value". I feel similar about many utilitarian arguments. They seem to end up suggesting that killing less people rather than more is a satisfying moral solution.
All I'm saying is that moral philosophy can start to take on the air of distasteful differences in morality, and I guess people need to be mindful of that, as others can read that in the way you've described here. Personally, I tend to steer clear of moral philosophy because it can feel like a very grey area and with a lot of heated differences. But unfortunately my writing is leading me to have to delve into it. So I will have to see how I go with that. It sure is difficult not to find some claims distasteful
Q: “Do you think torturing babies for fun is morally wrong?”
A: It depends on the circumstances. In most cases it is morally wrong, but if the baby is engaging in rhetoric that occludes the difference between social conventions and physical reality, then it is morally right to torture the baby for fun.
You already know how the dialog tree of the realist works. You know some of the branches are rhetorically effective. So you should prepare counter measures and intercept any realist attempts to score cheap points before they happen.
And I know you're already doing that effectively, but your normative-entanglement blogs usually don't explore these options a lot.
So just for the audience, in the case of the first syllogism you would promptly respond that:
P1. If moral realism is false then slavery is not wrong. -> FALSE
P2. Slavery is wrong. -> TRUE
C. Moral realism is true. -> FALSE
Then the realist will complain and say wrongness is synonymous with stance-independent wrongness and claim that the antirealist can't say P2 is true.
And this is already the most crucial branch point.
The realist willl want to assume realism as self-evident and not needing explanation and then try to score points using this entanglement as you described.
But you must never allow the realist to claim wrongness for themselves and instead press them to explain what stance-independent wrongness is supposed to be. Which of course they can't. Otherwise they would be the first person to have solved meta ethics and they'd leave the discussion to go pick up their nobel prize.
At least a non-naturalist realist has literally zero positive arguments for their position so they MUST attack antirealism and define realism as its negative.
While you must stay on the offense here and not let up, in between formal arguments you can and should make it known that, other than the realist, the antirealist actually has lots of resources to explain their view of morality and what stance-dependent wrongness is. Many of these examples can also be used to score points with an audience. For example observations of moral foundations like fairness in other animals is something that resonates and leaves an impression with people.
And possibly the most rhetorically effective way to turn it around on the realist is to say that exactly the fact that stance-independent wrongness is non-personal makes it appear hollow and suspect. And the only way for morality to be "real" is if it's stance-dependent. And I know you're using this attack as well. You can challenge the realist and dare them to deny that they personally, subjectively think slavery is wrong. Usually, they will agree that they indeed have this stance-dependent position and with that you have established that you both already agree on the antirealist view point. And it will resonate with an audience that you want members of a society to stance-dependently agree with the moral norms and be personally invested instead of treating it as an inexplicable, non-natural abstract thing that may or may not be motivating to the individual. When you have that, any further arguments about the metaphysics of it are just academic and superfluous.
And if they say they don't have a personal stance-dependent sense of right and wrong and would just follow whatever the non-natural moral facts turn out to be, even if they wildly disagree with the norms of the society, then they just look like a psychopath.
This is an illustration of a failure to communicate, something that happens more and more as comment sections become the standard forum for conversations.
Good points Lance. Interestingly I feel it echoes my feelings about the philosophy of mind. Which is that every philosophy of mind would need to explain reality, and so we shouldn't expect them to look any different. They merely describe the same thing differently.
Here your point is that the moral realist and antirealist are describing the same phenomena. One isn't lacking morality or evil. It just comes to the same result differently. That makes total sense.
Where I think some models of morality do start to take on an air of difference is when they start arguing for odd moral exclusions or blanket moral treatments. I looked at that in my latest article on the concept of "intrinsic value". I feel similar about many utilitarian arguments. They seem to end up suggesting that killing less people rather than more is a satisfying moral solution.
All I'm saying is that moral philosophy can start to take on the air of distasteful differences in morality, and I guess people need to be mindful of that, as others can read that in the way you've described here. Personally, I tend to steer clear of moral philosophy because it can feel like a very grey area and with a lot of heated differences. But unfortunately my writing is leading me to have to delve into it. So I will have to see how I go with that. It sure is difficult not to find some claims distasteful
Q: “Do you think torturing babies for fun is morally wrong?”
A: It depends on the circumstances. In most cases it is morally wrong, but if the baby is engaging in rhetoric that occludes the difference between social conventions and physical reality, then it is morally right to torture the baby for fun.
You already know how the dialog tree of the realist works. You know some of the branches are rhetorically effective. So you should prepare counter measures and intercept any realist attempts to score cheap points before they happen.
And I know you're already doing that effectively, but your normative-entanglement blogs usually don't explore these options a lot.
So just for the audience, in the case of the first syllogism you would promptly respond that:
P1. If moral realism is false then slavery is not wrong. -> FALSE
P2. Slavery is wrong. -> TRUE
C. Moral realism is true. -> FALSE
Then the realist will complain and say wrongness is synonymous with stance-independent wrongness and claim that the antirealist can't say P2 is true.
And this is already the most crucial branch point.
The realist willl want to assume realism as self-evident and not needing explanation and then try to score points using this entanglement as you described.
But you must never allow the realist to claim wrongness for themselves and instead press them to explain what stance-independent wrongness is supposed to be. Which of course they can't. Otherwise they would be the first person to have solved meta ethics and they'd leave the discussion to go pick up their nobel prize.
At least a non-naturalist realist has literally zero positive arguments for their position so they MUST attack antirealism and define realism as its negative.
While you must stay on the offense here and not let up, in between formal arguments you can and should make it known that, other than the realist, the antirealist actually has lots of resources to explain their view of morality and what stance-dependent wrongness is. Many of these examples can also be used to score points with an audience. For example observations of moral foundations like fairness in other animals is something that resonates and leaves an impression with people.
And possibly the most rhetorically effective way to turn it around on the realist is to say that exactly the fact that stance-independent wrongness is non-personal makes it appear hollow and suspect. And the only way for morality to be "real" is if it's stance-dependent. And I know you're using this attack as well. You can challenge the realist and dare them to deny that they personally, subjectively think slavery is wrong. Usually, they will agree that they indeed have this stance-dependent position and with that you have established that you both already agree on the antirealist view point. And it will resonate with an audience that you want members of a society to stance-dependently agree with the moral norms and be personally invested instead of treating it as an inexplicable, non-natural abstract thing that may or may not be motivating to the individual. When you have that, any further arguments about the metaphysics of it are just academic and superfluous.
And if they say they don't have a personal stance-dependent sense of right and wrong and would just follow whatever the non-natural moral facts turn out to be, even if they wildly disagree with the norms of the society, then they just look like a psychopath.
Either way the antirealist wins.
That latter move in the last two paragraphs seems very strong. I'll try to think about how to develop that into a line of critique. Thank you.