“Normative” ethical theories

[The Grand Nudger]

Should and shouldn't are at least intended to be motivational utterances in any metaethical basis, I think.  Some version of externalism is descriptively true, if not metaethically.  We're individual and compromised agents operating in what often amounts to an exclusively suboptimal decision field with who knows how many moving parts.  All of that seems to effect us in ways additional to the mere knowledge of some fact, if there are facts.  Notice the s, value pluralism.  Harm reduction might not be the only thing we're talking about when we talk about morality like cholesterol may not be the only thing when we're talking about health - but it gets pretty far in a practical morality or for preventing a heart attack.  

Speaking of....I know that fact, and I (at least think I )know it would be bad for me to keel over and leave this family short a friend and parent and provider, and the thought of it makes me uncomfortable and sometimes even shameful - but I'm still eating burgers and fries.  Maybe one of those perfectly rational agents we imagine would do differently. Then again, maybe a perfectly rational agent, though it does not possess our emotional content, understanding what that content -is-, the mere and thoroughly natural fact of it's existence and attributes, would decide it was also value making, and so the enjoyment of a human life would have to be balanced against it's brevity or longevity for a full accounting of valid and true normative utterances.