I don’t think I can convincingly argue for moral realism, but IMO you are too quick to dismiss it. There is extensive philosophical literature addressing your objections (as I understand them). I’m not saying that any of that literature is definitely correct, but you seem to be under-rating it. I object to your acting as if meta-ethics is basically solved and saying (in jest) that it’s confusing when smart people are realists, while also not really addressing any of the arguments in favor of realism.
For example:
In fact I’ve never even heard a moral realist propose any real-world experiment that could provide evidence for moral realism even in principle.
I’ve never heard a moral realist claim that their position can be supported experimentally.
Or:
The best anyone has ever come up with are ethical intuitionism (“it just feels like it’s true” from people who don’t understand evolution)
The evolutionary argument against intuition has been addressed by e.g. Parfit in On What Matters. I’m not sure his defense is correct, but you can’t claim that Parfit simply doesn’t understand evolution.
I point to surveys rather than making any object-level argument because I don’t think I can make good arguments on meta-ethics, you wouldn’t learn much from my arguments, and the arguments have to go for a long time to get anywhere at all. Instead, I’m pointing to the fact that a lot of literature exists that makes in-depth arguments for why realism is true.
Just want to flag that there’s a lot of definitional issues (which is a general challenge for deferring to surveys like that). Anti-realist is personally my clear best guess view of metaethics and I think a big portion (though far from all) of my disagreement with the surveyed philosophers is a verbal dispute. EDIT: I read other sibling comments more and it seems like people may care more about semantics discussion than I realized. If so, I agree that taking the semantic claim strongly is overconfident. I still think that non-naturalism vs naturalism is by far the most important debate here.
Importantly, more than half of those surveyed moral realists believe in naturalistic realism. I’ve looked into various positions in naturalistic realism until it bored me because I didn’t see how certain things matter e.g. seeing what causally regulates on the word “good” (cf: Cornell Realism) or what notions of folk morality we call “good” (cf: Jackson’s analytic functionalism). I think many philosophers who I respect also say its not a deep distinction (eg: Joe Carlsmith and Derek Parfit). I just believe that the definition is ultimately barely relevant imo. Perhaps one should be less confident about the definitions, but idk definitions seem partly subjective to me. The differences between the various anti-realist positions also seem not super deep to me.
There is still a substantial share of philosophers who believe in non-naturalist realism (25%), which is the number I care more about (though the 60% number is more cited). I am somewhat sympathetic to modesty based arguments for tough questions like this, so moral realism does have a small but real impact on my decision-making. However, I don’t defer more because I get worried about philosophers failing to account for things like mind-projection fallacy and thereby being too sympathetic to moral realism. (To be specific, my personal credences are tentatively 1-5% that non-naturalism realism is more right than anti-realism. Non-naturalism worlds do seem to matter more because mattering is fundamentally different.).
I’m pointing to the fact that a lot of literature exists that makes in-depth arguments for why realism is true.
Yes, I’m familiar with much of that literature and as far as I’m aware, none of it provides evidence that moral claims are truth-apt.
In fact I’ve never even heard a moral realist propose any real-world experiment that could provide evidence for moral realism even in principle.
I’ve never heard a moral realist claim that their position can be supported experimentally.
I never said that moral realists claim their positions can be supported experimentally, or that experiments are necessary to establish moral realism. I was just giving an example of something that would demonstrate that I’m wrong. To clarify: there is a plethora of types of possible evidence which, if they existed, would convince me of moral realism (of which empirical experiments would be a sufficient example), but moral realists fail to meet the very low bar of presenting any of them.
The evolutionary argument against intuition has been addressed by e.g. Parfit in On What Matters. I’m not sure his defense is correct, but you can’t claim that Parfit simply doesn’t understand evolution.
Derek Parfit was very smart, probably smarter than I am, and I haven’t read his specific defense of ethical intuitionism against the evolutionary debunking anti-realist argument. I am willing to read it if you think it’s airtight. But I’m pretty sure it’s going to be wrong, having heard this category of argument many times before. I would also guess that yes, his belief in it has a defeater that he never materialized, which is him having a better understanding of evolution.
I don’t think I can convincingly argue for moral realism, but IMO you are too quick to dismiss it. There is extensive philosophical literature addressing your objections (as I understand them). I’m not saying that any of that literature is definitely correct, but you seem to be under-rating it. I object to your acting as if meta-ethics is basically solved and saying (in jest) that it’s confusing when smart people are realists, while also not really addressing any of the arguments in favor of realism.
For example:
I’ve never heard a moral realist claim that their position can be supported experimentally.
Or:
The evolutionary argument against intuition has been addressed by e.g. Parfit in On What Matters. I’m not sure his defense is correct, but you can’t claim that Parfit simply doesn’t understand evolution.
62% of philosophers are realists (and 65% of metaethicists); it sounds like you are advocating for expressivism, which only 11% of philosophers agree with.
I point to surveys rather than making any object-level argument because I don’t think I can make good arguments on meta-ethics, you wouldn’t learn much from my arguments, and the arguments have to go for a long time to get anywhere at all. Instead, I’m pointing to the fact that a lot of literature exists that makes in-depth arguments for why realism is true.
Just want to flag that there’s a lot of definitional issues (which is a general challenge for deferring to surveys like that). Anti-realist is personally my clear best guess view of metaethics and I think a big portion (though far from all) of my disagreement with the surveyed philosophers is a verbal dispute. EDIT: I read other sibling comments more and it seems like people may care more about semantics discussion than I realized. If so, I agree that taking the semantic claim strongly is overconfident. I still think that non-naturalism vs naturalism is by far the most important debate here.
Importantly, more than half of those surveyed moral realists believe in naturalistic realism. I’ve looked into various positions in naturalistic realism until it bored me because I didn’t see how certain things matter e.g. seeing what causally regulates on the word “good” (cf: Cornell Realism) or what notions of folk morality we call “good” (cf: Jackson’s analytic functionalism). I think many philosophers who I respect also say its not a deep distinction (eg: Joe Carlsmith and Derek Parfit). I just believe that the definition is ultimately barely relevant imo. Perhaps one should be less confident about the definitions, but idk definitions seem partly subjective to me. The differences between the various anti-realist positions also seem not super deep to me.
There is still a substantial share of philosophers who believe in non-naturalist realism (25%), which is the number I care more about (though the 60% number is more cited). I am somewhat sympathetic to modesty based arguments for tough questions like this, so moral realism does have a small but real impact on my decision-making. However, I don’t defer more because I get worried about philosophers failing to account for things like mind-projection fallacy and thereby being too sympathetic to moral realism. (To be specific, my personal credences are tentatively 1-5% that non-naturalism realism is more right than anti-realism. Non-naturalism worlds do seem to matter more because mattering is fundamentally different.).
Yes, I’m familiar with much of that literature and as far as I’m aware, none of it provides evidence that moral claims are truth-apt.
I never said that moral realists claim their positions can be supported experimentally, or that experiments are necessary to establish moral realism. I was just giving an example of something that would demonstrate that I’m wrong. To clarify: there is a plethora of types of possible evidence which, if they existed, would convince me of moral realism (of which empirical experiments would be a sufficient example), but moral realists fail to meet the very low bar of presenting any of them.
Derek Parfit was very smart, probably smarter than I am, and I haven’t read his specific defense of ethical intuitionism against the evolutionary debunking anti-realist argument. I am willing to read it if you think it’s airtight. But I’m pretty sure it’s going to be wrong, having heard this category of argument many times before. I would also guess that yes, his belief in it has a defeater that he never materialized, which is him having a better understanding of evolution.