Does anyone own "The Moral Landscape"?

[robvalue]

Lol, I very much look forward to your thoughts on it!

I'm extremely confused by moral realism as a concept in the first place. As far as I can see, you can only formulate an ethical statement to be a fact once you've picked a framework to evaluate outcomes (as Khem was saying regarding the is/ought problem). Once you've done this, surely the truth of those statements is based on your own framework, and hence only applicable to you? And any person could pick any framework they like.

The second thing that confuses me is how wellbeing is defined. This is such a hugely vague concept that trying to evaluate it, even after deciding on using it as a framework, seems to be impossible if you're coming up with anything nuanced. Of course, we can make very simple statements that I'd be willing to concede as facts for the sake of argument such as, "It's unethical to punch someone for no reason". But all you're really saying is that punching people is bad for their wellbeing.

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PS: maybe I'm misunderstanding, but moral realism appears to be suggesting there is a "correct" framework to pick. If so, I see this as a circular statement.

I understand what you are saying. For a couple years of my life, I was a moral nihilist. Then, due to Nietzsche's influence on my thought, I thought that ethics was relative. It was really only after reading Plato's Republic that I began to think of things differently.

I tried (and failed) to locate for you an online copy of David Enoch's brief essay "Why I am an Objectivist about Ethics (And You are, Too)." It's a short, light read and it makes its argument convincingly. (I am aware that the Republic is an intolerable slog for most readers.) If you can get your hands on a copy of Enoch's essay, read it.

Another essay that can be found online is James Rachels' "The Challenge of Cultural Relativism"... even if it doesn't make you a moral realist, you will find it highly logical and thought-provoking. It is a seriously enjoyable read for anyone interested in ethics. If anything, I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. And it's only 12 pages long. And I'm willing to bet it's better than Harris's writing.

I've been philosophizing all day on the forums, it seems. I'm intellectually exhausted. Let me come back to your post tomorrow and see if I can supply a satisfying response.

Thank you, I'll check it out

My objection is that moral realism doesn't seem to be actually saying anything. Everyone comes up with statements that apply to them, subject to the way they apply their values to the world. Those are their "ethical facts", if you like. How do you compare one person's facts to another? Is one "better" than another? It depends entirely on what ethics are trying to achieve, which has already been covered in their individuals values; hence it is circular. Maybe you're trying to achieve wellbeing, or survival of the species, or whatever. For these ethical facts to transcend the individual, there has to be a "correct framework", and I find that to be a meaningless idea.

I'll come back with more after I've read the suggested piece.

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Okay well... I agree that this looks like a better analysis than Harris, but I still find big problems in the framing used here.

The article discusses the idea of "correct ethics" or "correct systems of ethics", without ever defining what that is supposed to mean, as far as I can see. Correct in what way? To say cultural reletavism is or isn't correct is as meaningless to me as saying moral realism is correct. It talks about some objective standard for measuring the ethics of different cultures. Can there be one? Of course there can. There are infinitely many. But which one do you pick? This is again a circular problem. The correct one is correct, because it is the correct one. But correct for what purpose? If I want correct information about something, I need to specify what I actually want to know about it. There seems to be an implicit assumption that there is some "correct goal" of morality here. But morality means nothing until you've set the goal.

To me, cultural relativism is more a matter of observation than anything else. I don't use it to make statements about what is objectively right and wrong, because I find such notions incoherent on their face. The article talks about being unable to criticise other cultures. What I don't get is why this even matters, except to make one culture feel good about themselves; or to try and justify some sort of forcing of ethics onto another society. "We are right and you are wrong, so you should change!" To me, the discussion is all about the underlying values. Do the different cultures have the same values? If so, are they applying them in a logical, scientific and consistent manner? If the values are different, can one side convince the other to be closer to theirs?

So I'm still in the position of being unclear what a "true ethical statement" is supposed to be. If such a thing did exist, if there were somehow ethics that are inherent to the fabric of reality, then no one would care what they are. If they turned out to be different from our own ethics, no one would change them just because the new ones are "correct". A change in ethics requires a reason, and just "being correct" is not a reason.