In order to maintain a realist position about goodness, we can see this negotiation as a process of discovery, rather than a change in goodness itself.
This doesn’t seem to be a viable position. Suppose I face options A and B (e.g., in the stock market), and if I choose A I double my bargaining power (e.g., power and/or wealth) versus option B. Then by choosing A over B it seems incontrovertible that I’m changing the outcome of the negotiation process, and therefore changing goodness itself if goodness equals the negotiation outcome.
My perspective is that it’s better to reserve “moral realist” to mean there are objective values/morality independent of bargaining/cooperation, otherwise you’d run into issues like the above, where you can change what’s good by your actions, which probably contradicts a lot of people’s intuitions about what “moral realism” or “objective values” entails.
I think one can read that line to be about moral epistemology under a truly realist conception. It seems to match my reading of Peter Railton. Of course one needs to then argue why our imperfect attempts at value negotiations can give us information about the moral facts. This question becomes easier if one takes the moral facts to be constituted by some (potentially idealized) negotiation, which is the position of moral constructivisim. But constructivists wouldn’t say that morality is “discovered” by the process of negotiation.
This doesn’t seem to be a viable position. Suppose I face options A and B (e.g., in the stock market), and if I choose A I double my bargaining power (e.g., power and/or wealth) versus option B. Then by choosing A over B it seems incontrovertible that I’m changing the outcome of the negotiation process, and therefore changing goodness itself if goodness equals the negotiation outcome.
My perspective is that it’s better to reserve “moral realist” to mean there are objective values/morality independent of bargaining/cooperation, otherwise you’d run into issues like the above, where you can change what’s good by your actions, which probably contradicts a lot of people’s intuitions about what “moral realism” or “objective values” entails.
To what extent do you think you’re getting those sorts of power-grab-ish dynamics in philosophical investigations, Hegelian dialectic-like stuff, etc?
I think one can read that line to be about moral epistemology under a truly realist conception. It seems to match my reading of Peter Railton. Of course one needs to then argue why our imperfect attempts at value negotiations can give us information about the moral facts.
This question becomes easier if one takes the moral facts to be constituted by some (potentially idealized) negotiation, which is the position of moral constructivisim. But constructivists wouldn’t say that morality is “discovered” by the process of negotiation.