RE: Does anyone own "The Moral Landscape"?
October 18, 2018 at 9:17 am
(This post was last modified: October 18, 2018 at 9:26 am by The Grand Nudger.)
(October 18, 2018 at 8:50 am)DLJ Wrote: Given that the moral alert/alarm (sense of right or wrong) occurs prior to any analytical processes having the chance to rationalise anything, it must be deeply subjective. So where in the process does the 'opinion' part happen?As deeply subjective as every other thing you observe. Sure. Your moral intuition may be as wrong about what it's reporting as your eyes, ears, nose and skin. All of your observations are deeply subjective in this manner. This is not what moral philosophers are discussing when they discuss objective or subjective moral theories.
It's not that this is an insensible or incoherent use of the term..it's not...but it is a proposition that would be true in the event that morality, not you..the agent..morality... was subjective -or- objective.
So, imagine two worlds. One world in which morality really is objective. The other in which morality really is subjective. In both worlds you are a necessarily subjective agent. In both worlds you are experiencing moral intuitions in the same way. In both worlds it is you, sounding alert or alarm..... often in the absence (or at least conscious absence) of any analytics.
From the point of view of moral realism, your question is very much an apt one. Where does the opinion part happen? From a moral realists pov it is -not- your opinion that makes some x right or wrong (though a person might legitimately believe that), it is some statement of the matter of the relevant facts which does this. We observe what is wrong, we can be mistaken, but we do not ultimately create what is wrong through sheer force of opinion.
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