“Normative” ethical theories

[Lucian]

I think that appeals to naturalism don’t work either. They still have a category we can’t explain, the nature of oughtness or obligation that fixes to some natural sorts and not others. Also the notion my actions and character ought to be positively appraised if I do some and commended, but disapproved of and potentially punished for others. How that works is still of a nature that is unlike anything else we know and is at base an appeal to intuition for something we have no real evidence of.

I do appeal to natural facts, but admit that they are simply my preferences. I prefer certain states to others and would act like anyone else to see those states enacted. That may mean I am functionally ambivalent to them so I don’t vote or campaign for them but still would like to see them, or it may mean that I step in on occasion and voice my disapproval or approval and hope others will follow.

[The Grand Nudger]

We have to be careful here. Natural realism is not an appeal to metaphysical naturalism . It is an appeal to natural facts. IE, empirical facts. There may be other kinds of facts, these are simply not the facts such the moral system is based on - nor are they the kind of facts our moral statements purport to report, if so.

Additionally, the latter is moral desert, not metaethics. It may be true that some moral claims are true in non novel ways and simultaneously false that we ought to be positively appraised if I do some and commended, but disapproved of and potentially punished for others. A vast reduction in moral praise and condemnation is consistent with most realist ethics. In fact, I'd say that the author makes a decent realist case for exactly this. Similarly, whether or not a given person is compelled by any type of normative assertion (and which kind) is a question of agency. It may be true that there are moral facts, and those facts are natural facts, and a given person or society will not find that compelling. This happens to me all the time. I look at a thing I want, I look at my bank account, there's not enough in there...and I get it anyway. Consequences follow.

Now here we are to the meat of it. You cannot acknowledge or invoke natural facts, and then say they are merely your preferences. They are one or the other. Consider all of the things you wish were not true, but are..and all of the things you wish were true, and aren't. Those facts that you might cite from whatever studies you could source would still be true no matter how you or me or some warlord felt about it, no? That you think a practical ethics has something to do with human well-being and not a warlord getting his jollies or his henchman getting fat and rich is a fact alike assertion too..isn't it?

[Lucian]

I am not sure what you mean by natural facts then. A natural fact is that cyanide exists, it doesn’t entail anything. It just is.
Can you help explain what you mean by natural facts as I am missing something here.

I am again with morris on the nature of realist moral claims and the link to praise and disapprobation. To say something is moral is to say we ought to do it and to say that is to say that we are in some way worthy of positive evaluation in light of it. Or at the very least, worthy of disapproval if we don’t do it.

[The Grand Nudger]

Moral desert is metaethically neutral, as I mentioned awhile back. Thus, proving moral desert is a mistake does not entail or suggest that we have proven realism (or any other) metaethical position to be false. Perhaps there are things we ought to do which do not deserve praise. Perhaps there are things we should not do that do not deserve condemnation. These details often lay in our ideas about agency. A toddler sets a fire and someone dies and we say it's a tragedy - we extend our sympathy. A full grown adult sets that same fire and we strap him to a gurney and kill him dead.

A natural fact is a provable statement about something that actually exists or occurs in the world supported by direct evidence, observation, and empirical study. I can think of a number of natural facts about cyanide and people that are fertile grounds for ethical discourse and logical entailments.

[Lucian]

So what is it about a given natural fact that makes it a moral one and makes it different from simply the atomic structure of carbon or putting it in terms of actions, scratching my head when I get an itch there

[The Grand Nudger]

What is it about a given natural fact that makes it an airplane one and makes it different from physics or putting it in terms of actions? If we're looking for a "more" there, natural realism doesn't contain or require it.

In the context of a hypothetical world where ethical realism is in actuality an empty set and we have properly realized or can demonstrate as much, there is still the observation that we communicate ethical assertions this way out of habit or a lack of discipline. It's one thing to conceieve of an ethics absent such content. I think that can be done, (rightly or wrongly in metaethical fact). Another to communicate a practical ethics on that basis. That's more difficult. We fall into a series of as-though assertions. That's what I mean when I say realist conceit.

[Lucian]

If there isn’t anything more needed then you haven’t really told me anything different than I am when I assert Jimbob hit someone or an airplane crashed. I don’t see where you get the “moral” from outside of merely defining an action as such and if it is just a matter of definition then I don’t see why anyone would actually care. What does calling something moral do or achieve?

[The Grand Nudger]

Do we see where we get the airplane from? Do we merely define an airplane action as such, and what does calling something airplane do or achieve? Mereological nihilism presents these same questions about any assertion from natural facts whether they are airplane facts or ethical facts in normative-expression.

From a quasi realist utilitarian expressive pov, calling something an airplane or an ethical fact accurately communicates how said content comes to our apprehension in a way that is useful to compelling the actions of other similarly constituted subjects towards a utilitarian goal that itself does possess fact-alike conditions and outcomes.

[Lucian]

I don’t see how defining something as moral does any such thing as being useful to compel once one realises that all is what is being done. I am not being nihilistic about airplanes, I am however about supposed facts that somehow obtain for actions that people simply define as being moral or not.
How would you persuade someone that is not convinced of your view of what a moral fact is? What do you appeal to to show the Incan if they still existed that sacrificing people on an altar in a painful fashion is immoral? I don’t see that the realist is any better off than the anti-realist here
What specifically about an act makes it moral or not? Just utility of the label itself in persuading people? Claiming God will punish people does the same and probably with the same degree of success in curtailing or promoting an action as someone claiming morals exist

[The Grand Nudger]

You're a rational person. You can probably imagine that things have utility which you do not see. Though....... I have to ask, if even anti-realist ethical utterances leverage realist semantics, should the utility of such semantics really be in question, even if we've dispensed with their accuracy?

Do you know much about mesoamerican temple culture? I don't personally think that the incan sacrifice was an immoral thing. If it did what they thought it did they'd have been loons not to try, and it was far more voluntary and praise inducing than people tend to assume. The act itself is still wrong, and wrong in fact even in their own context - but you see that there is no necessity of condemnation just as there's no particular reason to praise their ignorance even if and understanding that it was well intentioned.

What specifically about an act makes it an airplane act or not? Is it just the utility of the label in persuading people? In utilitarian expressivism the answer is a resounding yes..but does that track with your observed experience? I won't comment on gods......because who cares. A real god really wishing makes a thing subjective or emotive, not objective, regardless of whether or not he'll beat the shit out of anyone who does otherwise or people believe it will, or might then act accordingly.

Thing is, this is all fiction, in context. There's nothing wrong with gods demanding and beating the shit out of those who refuse or fail to satisfy those demands. There's nothing wrong with this all being fictional and people acting like it's real. Not really. Right?