“Normative” ethical theories

[LoneWolf]

So I think a key thing would be to start with some basic texts / links that would support those to ensure we aren't working from mischaracterisations; especially given that I am ignorant of the details of all of these, bar the Christian framework (of which I think it would be fair to say there are many)

Right, by bringing these frameworks side-by-side in a comparison we can learn interesting stuff. And indeed good quality descriptions of first principles matter, they always have. Another thing to note is that there is probably a lot of overlap between the moral frameworks and that some of these first principles seem contradictory. Enough to investigate here. This should be a project like unravelling the human genome and taught at school, if you ask me. Quite the linguistic hair splitting, get to it!

[The Grand Nudger]

b-mine

...that's pretty standard for moral realism, actually.

Yep, I don’t doubt that. I am just saying that is what he feels is a reasonable way for even those who hold his views as well

His view being that we can dispense with morality is not made reasonable by invoking bog standard moral realism. I get that what he’s talking about is what he sees as those sticky intractables, but, ofc, those very views he expresses -are- those intractables he’s accepted as a matter of fact. This is, ofc, meaningless, absent any such facts in the first place. What he’s suggesting, in the parlance of moral or ethical philosophy, is that we can do away with all of this moral disagreement by accepting moral realism…and his personal view of what moral realism entails.

[Lucian]

No, that is incorrect
He is saying that if you value people having good lives, and if you want to have a good life then prosocial acts are good to achieve that. Claiming that requires moral realism to be a reasonable aspiration isn’t reasonable in my mind. He doesn’t claim you “should” do this absent the “if you value and want to see that”
Also, remember, he isn’t wanting to get rid of moral thinking in general, but only the sort that can lead to praise or retributive justice based on failing to meet some sort of standard. Sure; you might praise them for doing things you like and want to see, but not in the sense that you have done something objectively good

[The Grand Nudger]

Explicit in that formulation of pro social values is that there is indeed a goal and fact of wellbeing which any rational person…regardless of not sharing such a motivation, could accept if they properly understood it.

Sure we can utter those words without calling ourselves moral realists. Without even knowing what the term means…but we’re still uttering moral realist words. The specific form in this case being utilitarian consequentialism.

[Lucian]

Explicit in that formulation of pro social values is that there is indeed a goal and fact of wellbeing which any rational person…regardless of not sharing such a motivation, could accept if they properly understood it.

Sure we can utter those words without calling ourselves moral realists.  Without even knowing what the term means…but we’re still uttering moral realist words.  The specific form in this case being utilitarian consequentialism.

I don’t see that the case at all. Slightly confused here, can you explain why you think that?

[Angrboda]

Explicit in that formulation of pro social values is that there is indeed a goal and fact of wellbeing which any rational person…regardless of not sharing such a motivation, could accept if they properly understood it.

Sure we can utter those words without calling ourselves moral realists.  Without even knowing what the term means…but we’re still uttering moral realist words.  The specific form in this case being utilitarian consequentialism.

I don’t see that the case at all. Slightly confused here, can you explain why you think that?

My impression was that he was conflating a thing being rationally derivable with it then being objective. I don't think that follows.

[The Grand Nudger]

Explicit in that formulation of pro social values is that there is indeed a goal and fact of wellbeing which any rational person…regardless of not sharing such a motivation, could accept if they properly understood it.

Sure we can utter those words without calling ourselves moral realists.  Without even knowing what the term means…but we’re still uttering moral realist words.  The specific form in this case being utilitarian consequentialism.

I don’t see that the case at all. Slightly confused here, can you explain why you think that?

Why I think that utilitarian consequentialism based on pro social values that are asserted to reduce harm being acceptable even to an egoist…provided they properly understood it…is a form of moral realism?

Because it contains and invokes every qualifying or definitional criteria of moral realism as ethical philosophy understands it.

Or why I think we can do moral realism without saying so or knowing that’s what we’re doing?

A- because we’re wired that way…rightly or wrongly, and b, in the same way we can apply wet pigment to a canvass with a brush and still maintain that we are not painting.

[Lucian]

I don’t recognise your definition of moral realism then. What qualifying or definitional criteria are you claiming here?

Ideally if you could provide some quotes with where they came from it would help me. I think we discussed this before
Also @LoneWolf - I am still eager to keep on with your track on this as well

[The Grand Nudger]

You can find a wonderful primer on the subject in the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, and a guy by the name of Shelley Kagan does excellent lectures, interviews, and even debates both about and from the premise of moral realism both in theory and as rigorous peer reviewed summaries of observational analysis- ie descriptively.

You’ll find the simplest description of the set pretty early in Stanford. Moral realism is the notion that moral statements purport to report facts, and insomuch as they get those facts right, the moral statements would then be true. Same as any other mechanically equivalent assertion.

So, for example…if it turns out that there -really- is some set of behaviors and attitudes that -really- reduce a -real- harm, and that this holds across societies and even in the case of a pure egoist individual….then it’s -really- true that those things would be better to do. That those things are what we ought to do. The author of the book seems to believe that we ought to dispense with morality…because of this argument…but this is a literal textbook argument from moral realism, it’s just had the term excised for its ability to produce disagreement even where none actually exists.


I’m actually sympathetic to that view, btw. It’s a people proble, though, not a metaethical issue. We’re capable of strongly disagreeing about that which we agree. We could call it anything (or nothing) and we would still disagree. We don’t and can’t resolve that dispute by rejecting the metaethical. All we have done in that case is to reject the foundations of the statements we wish to argue as true.

[Lucian]

You can find a wonderful primer on the subject in the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, and a guy by the name of Shelley Kagan does excellent lectures, interviews, and even debates both about and from the premise of moral realism both in theory and as rigorous peer reviewed summaries of observational analysis- ie descriptively.

You’ll find the simplest description of the set pretty early in Stanford.  Moral realism is the notion that moral statements purport to report facts, and insomuch as they get those facts right, the moral statements would then be true.  Same as any other mechanically equivalent assertion.

So, for example…if it turns out that there -really- is some set of behaviors and attitudes that -really- reduce a -real- harm, and that this holds across societies and even in the case of a pure egoist individual….then it’s -really- true that those things would be better to do.  That those things are what we ought to do.  The author of the book seems to believe that we ought to dispense with morality…because of this argument…but this is a literal textbook argument from moral realism, it’s just had the term excised for its ability to produce disagreement even where none actually exists.


I’m actually sympathetic to that view, btw.  It’s a people proble, though, not a metaethical issue.  We’re capable of strongly disagreeing about that which we agree.  We could call c anything (or nothing g) and we would still disagree.

Cool, let me do some reading. I still fundamentally disagree with you, but thanks for the citation, I will get some reading done, ponder, and respond in the next day or two.