“Normative” ethical theories

[The Grand Nudger]

Whether or not something makes a realist or quasi realist case isn't an issue of speaking magic words or a personal identity. The author posits that a real and recognizable harm to society is a property of a particular class of moralizing. The author does not believe this harm is just his bad feelings, just his opinion, and certainly not the dictates of his culture or society as he is broadly rejecting this in the effort. The author cites facts and studies and inferences from them as-though facts of that matter, well..matter..and implicitly believes that such argumentation will be compelling to his audience. It's realism in a beard.

If we were to grant that it is merely quasi realism, moral desert, moral agency, and metaethics are not the same thing, and so this harm (however defined) could be true and the contention that we ought to pursue moral abolitionism on those grounds would -still- be in error. IOW If he makes a good argument (whatever this means outside of realist semantics) that we should stop doing That™...the That™ in question is not morality in general or necessary to realism in particular.

All that said, I don't want you to get the impression that I'm not a fan, or that I don't agree with the specific contention. Pages back when I introduced desert and mentioned that I was an under punish guy....his reasons are why. I do have a tendency to find error theorists criticism compelling, and that probably comes down to shared ground between realism and error theory. Both are cognitivist metaethics - the notion that moral or ethical statements are fact alike - rejecting non cognitivist assertions such as the notion that these statements are ultimately grounded in our emotions or desires or opinions, error theory positing that moral or ethical statements do purport to report facts, and facts about the object in question, but do not get the facts right. Ever.

I'm always down for wherever you want to take the thread.