I wouldn’t expect lesswrongians to be keen on Platonic style moral realism, where moral facts correspond to supernatural objects, but there are other classes of morally realistic theories’ where moral facts depend on analytical truths or natural states of affairs. Lesswrongians are definitely keen utilitarianism, where ethical claims depend on natural facts about preferences, and is therefore, arguably, a naturalistic form of moral realism.
The is-ought gap remains a problem which I touch on below.
But nearly all standard arguments against moral realism also function as arguments against “normative realism”
If normative realism is just the claim that there are meaningful and true statements about what you should do if you want to achieve some X, then they are abundant.. things like game theory and engineering, actually any kind of methodology, have plenty of them.
What are the problems with normative realism about moral claims, then?Maybe that they are categorical, lacking an “if you want to do X” condition.
I wouldn’t expect lesswrongians to be keen on Platonic style moral realism, where moral facts correspond to supernatural objects, but there are other classes of morally realistic theories’ where moral facts depend on analytical truths or natural states of affairs. Lesswrongians are definitely keen utilitarianism, where ethical claims depend on natural facts about preferences, and is therefore, arguably, a naturalistic form of moral realism.
The is-ought gap remains a problem which I touch on below.
If normative realism is just the claim that there are meaningful and true statements about what you should do if you want to achieve some X, then they are abundant.. things like game theory and engineering, actually any kind of methodology, have plenty of them.
What are the problems with normative realism about moral claims, then?Maybe that they are categorical, lacking an “if you want to do X” condition.