I got to the end of Morris’ Science and the End of Ethics. He actually does turn to how his view of non-retributionist and non-realist moral judgments could pan out.
Given what he values and wants for society which is largely increased happiness for people, he sees the question of how to increase happiness as one central to the question of ethics. He grounds this in studies showing that increased happiness leads to increased prosocial behaviour, and increased prosocial behaviour contributing to the happiness of the one performing those acts as well as others. He looks at a number of elements such as wealth distribution, social mobility and a few others to say that as a matter of politics we could increase happiness and pro-sociality by changing our approach to these - making wealth more evenly distributed, helping people become more content with their social state rather than feeling like they need to judge themselves by comparing themselves to people with more wealth or status.
Something i need to read more on, but all of these come down to an instrumental ought regarding actions - if we want a society with less antisocial and more prosocial actions, as well as more happiness overall, there are policies that can be enacted that don’t rely on realist beliefs and can reject retributionist ones also.
I mentioned I bought a book by Gibbard following The Grand Nudger’s suggestions of quasi-realism and Blackburn’s mention of him in the lecture I was linked to earlier in this thread. Turns out the lectures behind the book i bought (Reconciling Our Aims. In Search of Bases for Ethics) are online. First one here
https://youtu.be/94iONGr0SvM?si=c2W0C5GhlaUQWM3D
Given what he values and wants for society which is largely increased happiness for people, he sees the question of how to increase happiness as one central to the question of ethics. He grounds this in studies showing that increased happiness leads to increased prosocial behaviour, and increased prosocial behaviour contributing to the happiness of the one performing those acts as well as others. He looks at a number of elements such as wealth distribution, social mobility and a few others to say that as a matter of politics we could increase happiness and pro-sociality by changing our approach to these - making wealth more evenly distributed, helping people become more content with their social state rather than feeling like they need to judge themselves by comparing themselves to people with more wealth or status.
Something i need to read more on, but all of these come down to an instrumental ought regarding actions - if we want a society with less antisocial and more prosocial actions, as well as more happiness overall, there are policies that can be enacted that don’t rely on realist beliefs and can reject retributionist ones also.
I mentioned I bought a book by Gibbard following The Grand Nudger’s suggestions of quasi-realism and Blackburn’s mention of him in the lecture I was linked to earlier in this thread. Turns out the lectures behind the book i bought (Reconciling Our Aims. In Search of Bases for Ethics) are online. First one here
https://youtu.be/94iONGr0SvM?si=c2W0C5GhlaUQWM3D
