Does anyone own "The Moral Landscape"?

[The Grand Nudger]

It sounds like you’re saying there must be some objective moral facts, which line up with your views, because you’d be uncomfortable if there weren’t.

Why would it sound like that?  I'm explaining that..as a point of fact (amusingly) morally consistent claims must be..at least, epistemically objective with reference to their system of axioms.  Even if there is no underlying ontological objectivity - epistemic objectivity is what makes any moral position true or false -for that system-.

It is in that sense that there must be some moral objectivity, at a bare minimum.  Not because it makes us uncomfortable otherwise, but because we cannot make a positive moral utterance without that tacit assumption.

You can't even say "I think that x is wrong because" without delving into some sort of epistemic objectivity.

I say it kicks the can down the road..because we only ask the same question again of the axiomatic system.  Does it accurately model reality?  We can kick the can down the road one more time if we recognize that the system of axioms is at least epistemically objective and say - "yabut, what if things aren't as they seem" - and that's pretty much the end of the road. A moral realist takes epistemic objectivity to be indicative of ontological objectivity. They take things for what they present themselves to be. It's a statement that purports to report facts, gets those facts right..and so it's right, it's true.

Expecting a subjective idea to be objective is a mismatch. Notice that saying there is no objective morality is not the same as saying everything is objectively fine. It’s saying you’re trying to use two ideas which aren’t compatible.

If there was some cosmic inherent objective morality, it would have to be arbitrary from our point of view, because our opinion about what it should say is completely irrelevant. Why should it even be concerned with humans particularly? The alternative is that you’re just promoting your own morality to be objective, and anyone can do that. This just results in an individual objective morality for everyone, which is just the same as saying it’s subjective. It’s either some feature of reality itself, or it's an artificial construct we make to judge things. It can’t be both. If we’re trying to model it, then we have no way of testing what this cosmic judgement might be for each action. It would be like a number coming up on a screen outside our reality. Why should anyone care about that?

Morality doesn’t do anything, it’s not some law of reality like other physical laws. It’s just a way of assessing actions against some sort of scale. If it was inherent, it would make no difference. Things would be exactly the same.

Laws of reality and physical laws don't "do" anything either.  Gravity isn't a thing that's flitting back and forth pushing shit down. They are descriptions of behavior. Yes, morality is a way of assessing actions against some sort of scale. If the scale is meaningfully objective, the propositions being considered are sound, and the means of inference valid..then the moral conclusion is true in the same way that any other thing is considered to be true. A moral fact is the same as any other fact. That's moral realism.

Moral realism has absolutely nothing to do with asserting that my morality is the objective morality. I may not be in possession of a single moral fact. That is the way that believing nitwits have misused the concept - but you can lay them aside, they're nitwits. Moral realism, in stating that at least some moral statements are true...tacitly contends that some, then, must be false. The false ones could be mine. They could be spread throughout every existing moral system. They certainly seem to be. There are at least some things that..when I step back and take an objective look at them, they're horrible...but when I think about how I feel about them..I can't help but feel that they are good and right.

My moral intuitions don't always line up with an objective appraisal, but sometimes they do. How about you?