RE: An Argument Against Hedonistic Moral Realism
June 17, 2019 at 6:12 am
(This post was last modified: June 17, 2019 at 6:21 am by SenseMaker007.)
(June 16, 2019 at 7:17 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: If you're asking why I pointed out how pleasure and pain were mind independent in the relevant and less trivial sense, it's due to the fact that the strength of your argument would rely on that premise being true in that same relevant and less trivial sense.
And it doesn't work because, as pointed out, pleasure and pain are the foundation of moral values to the hedonist rather than their external causes.
Quote:Otherwise, you're not actually arguing anything contrary to what realism dictates. You don't seem to be. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your beef is more against the standard and (otherwise) understood use of that same term in ethical theory. You think it generates confusion. Maybe it does, but in whom?
It generates confusion in people who insist that somebody isn't an objectivist when they deem the foundation of moral values to be within our brains.
I also don't think it's as simple as you make out when many philosophers deem Divine Command Theory to be a subjectivist theory, for example, despite the fact that such a God would be omniscient, merely because it claims that God's mind is the foundation of moral values. Some philosophers deem it to be a subjectivist theory for precisely that reason and others don't because if Divine Command Theory is true then it's true independent of God's mere opinion ... because if it's true God has knowledge.
"Mind-independent" is an ambiguous term and although plenty of philosophers are intelligent ... plenty aren't and are grossly overrated. I think it causes far more confusion than you think. And I think that this is the case with many unhelpful terms that need to be refined. I think refining unhelpful terms is part of good philosophy.
I mean, take somebody like Daniel Dennett, for instance. He's a world-renowned philosopher but he frequently equivocates and makes bad analogies. Although, he may do that on purpose. But if terms are clearer then it also makes it more difficult for people to purposefully mislead, as well.
