As a sort-of normative realist wagerer (I used to describe myself that way, and still have mostly the same views, but now longer consider it a good way to describe myself), I really enjoyed this post, but I think it misses the reasons the wager seems attractive to me.
To start, I don’t think of the wager as being “if normative realism is true, things matter more, so I should act as if I’m a normative realist”, but as being “unless normative realism is true, I don’t see how I could possibly determine what matters, and so I should act as if I’m a normative realist”.
I’m also strongly opposed to using Martha-type dilemmas to reason about meta-ethics. To start, this assumes a sort of meta-normative realism where there is an objective truth to meta-ethics, which is highly non-obvious to me. Secondly, I don’t buy the validity of thought experiments that go “assume X is true” rather than “assume you observe X”, especially when the metaphysical possibility of X is questionable. Finally, I think that my actual answer to any deal of the form “if X: I get $100; else: a hundred children burned alive” is to reject it, even if X is “2 + 2 = 4″, and so my response to such deals has little bearing on my evaluation of X.
I’ll admit that I don’t think I understand ethical nihilists. The analogy of the Galumphians was very helpful, but I still expect that nihilists have something in their ontology which I would label as a should. I’ll note that I don’t associate ethical nihilism with any sort of gloomy connotations, I’m just confused by it.
I don’t know if I count as a nihilist, as it’s unclear what precisely is meant by the term in this and other contexts. I don’t think there are stance-independent normative facts, and I don’t think anything “matters” independently of it mattering to people, but I find it strange to suggest that if nothing matters in the former sense that nothing matters in the latter sense.
Compare all this to gastronomic realism and nihilism. A gastronomic realist may claim there are facts about what food is intrinsically tasty or not tasty that is true of that food independent of how it tastes to anyone. A gastronomic nihilist would deny food is tasty or not tasty in this way. Food itself, they might maintain, is neither tasty or not tasty independently of how it tastes to people. But that doesn’t mean people can’t find things tasty or untasty. It just means that to find something tasty is to have a particular kind of psychological attitude towards it. Just the same, one could have moral attitudes, or stances, towards some actions and not others. And things can matter to someone. But I have no idea what it would mean for an action to be right or wrong, or for a particular set of considerations to “matter,” independent of anyone’s stances, or how much they matter to people. I think things can matter to people, but they can’t just matter simpliciter.
In that sense, I take a much stronger stance towards non-naturalist normative or moral realism than what seems implied in the post here: I am not convinced non-naturalist normative realism is even a meaningful position to take. As such, it’s unclear to me how anyone could assign credence to it being true, since it’s not clear to me it’s the sort of thing that could true or false in principle, for the same reason a string of meaningless words couldn’t be true or false. One way to put this is that I don’t think normative realism’s problems are metaphysical so much as conceptual.
I’ll admit that I don’t think I understand ethical nihilists
I don’t know if I qualify or not. I don’t like nor agree with object-level morality of many who call themselves “nihilist”, but I’m definitely an anti-realist in that I don’t think there’s an objective or observable “truth” to be had on ethical issues (or meta-ethical issues). I’m with you on disregarding Martha’s question, and I think the problem of “what is true” goes as deep as you like in meta-meta-meta-etc. ethics. “if nihilism is true...” is not a valid start to a proposition. It’s NOT true, nor is it false. It’s a different dimension than truth.
But there are still pretty strong “should” statements to be made. They’re based on common preferences and observations of working equilibria, not directly testable. There IS truth in expressed and observed preferences and interactions among moral actors in various contexts (modern societies and subcultures). It is actually the case that some equilibria seem to work OK, and some seem less so, and it’s very reasonable to have pro-social preferences about one’s own and others’ behavior.
My “should” comes from observations and extensions of what things seem to make for a more pleasant/attractive world. Everyone SHOULD avoid burning people, even for a lot of money. I like the world where that’s the common choice much better than the world where it isn’t. Doesn’t make it “true”, and I can imagine contexts where there would be different common preferences and equilibria.
As a sort-of normative realist wagerer (I used to describe myself that way, and still have mostly the same views, but now longer consider it a good way to describe myself), I really enjoyed this post, but I think it misses the reasons the wager seems attractive to me.
To start, I don’t think of the wager as being “if normative realism is true, things matter more, so I should act as if I’m a normative realist”, but as being “unless normative realism is true, I don’t see how I could possibly determine what matters, and so I should act as if I’m a normative realist”.
I’m also strongly opposed to using Martha-type dilemmas to reason about meta-ethics. To start, this assumes a sort of meta-normative realism where there is an objective truth to meta-ethics, which is highly non-obvious to me. Secondly, I don’t buy the validity of thought experiments that go “assume X is true” rather than “assume you observe X”, especially when the metaphysical possibility of X is questionable. Finally, I think that my actual answer to any deal of the form “if X: I get $100; else: a hundred children burned alive” is to reject it, even if X is “2 + 2 = 4″, and so my response to such deals has little bearing on my evaluation of X.
I’ll admit that I don’t think I understand ethical nihilists. The analogy of the Galumphians was very helpful, but I still expect that nihilists have something in their ontology which I would label as a should. I’ll note that I don’t associate ethical nihilism with any sort of gloomy connotations, I’m just confused by it.
I don’t know if I count as a nihilist, as it’s unclear what precisely is meant by the term in this and other contexts. I don’t think there are stance-independent normative facts, and I don’t think anything “matters” independently of it mattering to people, but I find it strange to suggest that if nothing matters in the former sense that nothing matters in the latter sense.
Compare all this to gastronomic realism and nihilism. A gastronomic realist may claim there are facts about what food is intrinsically tasty or not tasty that is true of that food independent of how it tastes to anyone. A gastronomic nihilist would deny food is tasty or not tasty in this way. Food itself, they might maintain, is neither tasty or not tasty independently of how it tastes to people. But that doesn’t mean people can’t find things tasty or untasty. It just means that to find something tasty is to have a particular kind of psychological attitude towards it. Just the same, one could have moral attitudes, or stances, towards some actions and not others. And things can matter to someone. But I have no idea what it would mean for an action to be right or wrong, or for a particular set of considerations to “matter,” independent of anyone’s stances, or how much they matter to people. I think things can matter to people, but they can’t just matter simpliciter.
In that sense, I take a much stronger stance towards non-naturalist normative or moral realism than what seems implied in the post here: I am not convinced non-naturalist normative realism is even a meaningful position to take. As such, it’s unclear to me how anyone could assign credence to it being true, since it’s not clear to me it’s the sort of thing that could true or false in principle, for the same reason a string of meaningless words couldn’t be true or false. One way to put this is that I don’t think normative realism’s problems are metaphysical so much as conceptual.
I don’t know if I qualify or not. I don’t like nor agree with object-level morality of many who call themselves “nihilist”, but I’m definitely an anti-realist in that I don’t think there’s an objective or observable “truth” to be had on ethical issues (or meta-ethical issues). I’m with you on disregarding Martha’s question, and I think the problem of “what is true” goes as deep as you like in meta-meta-meta-etc. ethics. “if nihilism is true...” is not a valid start to a proposition. It’s NOT true, nor is it false. It’s a different dimension than truth.
But there are still pretty strong “should” statements to be made. They’re based on common preferences and observations of working equilibria, not directly testable. There IS truth in expressed and observed preferences and interactions among moral actors in various contexts (modern societies and subcultures). It is actually the case that some equilibria seem to work OK, and some seem less so, and it’s very reasonable to have pro-social preferences about one’s own and others’ behavior.
My “should” comes from observations and extensions of what things seem to make for a more pleasant/attractive world. Everyone SHOULD avoid burning people, even for a lot of money. I like the world where that’s the common choice much better than the world where it isn’t. Doesn’t make it “true”, and I can imagine contexts where there would be different common preferences and equilibria.