“Normative” ethical theories

[The Grand Nudger]

After I heard Blackburn in the interview you linked to mention Alan Gibbard I bought one of his books that deals with the day to day applications. It is called “ Reconciling Our Aims: In Search of Bases for Ethics” and has the following description
“ In these three Tanner lectures, distinguished ethical theorist Allan Gibbard explores the nature of normative thought and the bases of ethics. In the first lecture he explores the role of intuitions in moral thinking and offers a way of thinking about the intuitive method of moral inquiry that both places this activity within the natural world and makes sense of it as an indispensable part of our lives as planners. In the second and third lectures he takes up the kind of substantive ethical inquiry he has described in the first lecture, asking how we might live together on terms that none of us could reasonably reject. Since working at cross purposes loses fruits that might stem from cooperation, he argues, any consistent ethos that meets this test would be, in a crucial way, utilitarian. It would reconcile our individual aims to establish, in Kant's phrase, a "kingdom of ends." The volume also contains an introduction by Barry Stroud, the volume editor, critiques by Michael Bratman (Stanford University), John Broome (Oxford University), and F.M. Kamm (Harvard University), and Gibbard's responses.” Apparently he isn’t quite quasi - realist but Blackburn seems to think he is close.  I will try to find some recent explicitly quasi-realist stuff as well based on what you have said.

Re you noting that I am making claims that are opposed to other views, I absolutely agree. I am not claiming those things to be morally good or bad in some objective sense, but the kind of society I want to live in would treat prisoners better, focus on reducing reoffending without just locking people away for life etc. I can’t tell someone they are bad for not wanting those things and that is fine to me.

Not opposed to other views in the sense of their fundamental nature, but opposed to equivalent views making countervailing claims from -within- an ethical structure which you share. IE subjectivism doesn't privilege your subjective views. I places them alongside all other subjective views. All equivalently grounded in the fact that matters, which is not a fact of the matter in question, but of each individual.

I am not sure if I am seeking to say realist things without acknowledging realist content, I need to think that through after getting into the quasi-realist stuff.  I do think that trying to change my language so that it reflects my metaethics is hard to do, largely because qualifying every statement if I use standard moral language is just a lot of effort. I try to avoid calling things wicked or evil or morally bad or good, but still use the terms “bad” “good” and “progress”; the first two meaning my feelings towards those actions and potential desires for change based on them. The latter purely indexicalised to my preferred way for things to be and movement towards it.  That could be misleading to people who hear me say those words without qualification.

It's unwieldy, for sure.  We learn to speak about right and wrong before we learn the sorts of things we're discussing here.  Before we think about what commitments the language entails or suggests.  So long as you're comfortable with there being nothing that's actually better about treating prisoners..well..better, it's just a habit.   If you actually do think you mean something when you say that which doesn't reduce to your mere opinion or your emotional state...if you really think prisoners can be treated worse or better....

...well, that's either realist content, or a realist conceit.  

Would you say that it is dishonest communication to use those words when discussing things with people if I don’t explain that what I mean by them may not be what they mean by them? I sort of think it might be, and perhaps I ought to look harder at using clearer language without having to go into a “and this is what I think about moral realism” discourse with anyone I talk to where I use a term that they may take to imply realist commitments? No clue what those clearer terms would be either. Perhaps just “I don’t approve of x” although that seems a bit trite, same as “I don’t like x”. They don’t quite capture that there is a difference between the ice-cream dislike vs my dislike of murder, and my disapproval of chewing with out open compared to genocide. That difference is one of intensity of feeling, constancy of that feeling and not giving free-passes to people who do it in some situations etc.

The first question that leaps to my mind being..so what if it were?  Dishonest implies the possibility of true content and an intent to deceive.  Inaccurate, more like.  Big Bad X's.  Personally, I understand why they're wrong (or are said to be, at least), but I don't feel yuck about them.  Similarly, there are things which disgust me which I can't find any moral fault with whatsoever.   That's why emotivist theories don't work for me.  I suppose if you felt yuck about every "bad" thing and "yum" about every good thing they would seem more compelling, and even obvious, but it's just not my experience.  As you note, there's something about the subject that emotivist statements don't capture.  

Re am I looking for an ethical system devoid of realist content or conceit, I think that is more what I am after. I want to see what people who don’t believe in objective morals have to say about ways to live life and how they justify those. Is it just on utilitarian grounds or something contractarian or is it some other way. Or does it just devolve down to “what’s the point” and if so, why do I take that approach to society but not my employment. I have definite views about the way things are best run and how to do it when it comes to my work, and with no objective standard for that either. I am genuinely not sure hence wanting to see what is out there but not knowing where to start. I will dig into the quasi-realism stuff as a starting point along with Gibbard’s stuff and see if they signpost theories.


Hopefully getting into the stuff you have been saying will help me think the above through.

Utterly devoid is a high bar to clear.  Critics of any such system you might find would and have contended that realist conceit is a fundamental unit of moral discourse even if realist content is utterly absent in the universe.  Point being that I don't think that anyone could actually tell you, definitively, "here's such a system, and -it is- devoid of -any- such content.