how do you account for such individuals? Are they wrong? — Marchesk

Wrong about what? That what they did was pleasant to them? No that's just a fact. That what they did was okay? If they thought that, then clearly they're wrong.

Or because other human beings have similar aesthetic tastes? How do you get from people having aesthetic experiences to the object being aesthetically pleasing independent (real) of anyone? — Marchesk

Because we can make claims about beauty that wouldn't make any sense if the object's beauty required perception of it. Yet they do make sense; so it can't be that... etc.

For example, suppose you say 'there was a beautiful painting that no one had ever seen locked inside a cellar.' That's not incoherent or contradictory. Or make it a beautiful flower in an uninhabited part of the world, if that's easier.

If they thought that, then clearly they're wrong. — The Great Whatever

What makes them wrong, though? Because the rest of us say so?

Don't get me wrong, I think it's immoral in the extreme in the non-realist sense. I just don't see how one can philosophically make the case for moral realism.

What makes them wrong, though? Because the rest of us say so? — Marchesk

No.

That's the problem. There is no way to objectively determine that it's wrong. — Marchesk

Is there a difference between determining something and objectively determining something? Clearly I can determine it, and so can you, since we already did.

Is there a difference between determining something and objectively determining something? Clearly I can determine it, and so can you, since we already did. — The Great Whatever

We happen to be in agreement that torturing kids is wrong. But I'm sure we can find moral issues that we will strongly disagree with. What then?

We happen to be in agreement that torturing kids is wrong. But I'm sure we can find moral issues that we will strongly disagree with. What then? — Marchesk

The best thing to do would probably be to try to reduce our disagreement to a more fundamental one, to find out whether one of us was being inconsistent or was simply mistaken, or whether there was some deeper principle we didn't agree on. I don't think there's a surefire way to resolve disputes between more basic principles, but morality is in no sense unique on this front.

Otherwise, I might think you had the opinion I disagreed with because you were not sufficiently sensitive to whatever made me think the way I did, and so would recommend that you have a certain kind of experience that would allow you to remedy the deficiency I perceived in you. For example, a lack of empathy often comes from not being familiar the way in which, or the degree to which, other people suffer, and time around them, or simply witnessing what happens to them, can fix this. Of course some people are just incapable of empathy, so this will not work with them – but then, they seem to be 'morally blind' in the way that someone can be visually blind, and so visual evidence can't be presented to them.

So is your moral realism based on pleasure being the highest good, which wold be true for all beings capable of pain and pleasure?

Because I can sort of see how one would argue for moral realism on those grounds. But I'm an external world realist, so if morality isn't found out there, then it isn't real in my book.

My concern right now is more just with realism generally – hedonism seems to be a type of moral realism.

I think some sort of case can be made for hedonism, but that maybe it can't be made in quite the way it traditionally has. I'm a little uncertain of the moral status of pleasure.

It's not incoherent, but it's also not binding. If you believe it's a fiction, then you're acting, it's easy enough just to turn around and say, OK I don't actually believe it.
— Wayfarer

Right, exactly. "Technically" speaking I don't actually "believe" it, but for all purposes I do because I act as though I do. It's practical, conventional, and comfortable to have morality instead of constantly reminding yourself that nothing actually matters in the end. Especially in situations where you have to make a choice, since error theory doesn't just magically transport you elsewhere where you don't have to make choices anymore. Something has to guide our action, and I find that phenomenologically-based morality does this quite well and is more robust and dependable than both moral realism and egoism. — darthbarracuda

I don't think it's really robust. A moral realist acts like 'his life depends on it', whereas if it's simply pragmatic, then there's no such principle at stake. I think, for you (and many people) 'belief' of any kind is a stumbling block, so you have to come up with a kind of synthetic alternative.

According to the usual understanding all truth claims are based on the idea that what is truly claimed reflects reality, right? It comes down to what we believe reflects reality, we can never be absolutely certain what the reality is, can we?

According to this understanding, truths about what is conceived to be the impersonal objective nature reflect the actuality of that impersonal 'objective' nature and truths about personal subjective nature reflect the actuality of personal ( and interpersonal, by extension) 'subjective' nature. To insist that moral truths should reflect the actuality of impersonal objective nature in order to be grounded in reality would be to commit a category error.

I honestly do not know if you are responding to something I have said or making an argument against realism.

Happy to hear about truths about personal subjective nature which reflect our personal subjective nature.

Do you think there are any truths about human subjective nature? You know, things like people don't (generally) like to be used, objectified, raped, thieved from, tortured, bullied, deceived, humiliated, and so on?

What about stealing office stationary? Underpaying staff? Freeloading on your neighbour's WIFI because they didn't change their default password? The fact that nearly everyone will agree that it's wrong to torture children doesn't actually cast much light on the actual moral issues one really will encounter day to day.

What about stealing office stationary? Underpaying staff? Freeloading on your neighbour's WIFI because they didn't change their default password? The fact that nearly everyone will agree that it's wrong to torture children doesn't actually cast much light on the actual moral issues one really will encounter day to day. — Wayfarer

Or pulling the lever to change the tracks so that the trolley kills just one person rather than five. So to repeat a question I asked earlier (not directed specifically at you; just offered in general to the reader), how do we evaluate the truth of moral claims? What sort of things would verify or falsify or in some lesser sense support or oppose claims like "it is wrong to steal" or "you ought not steal"? Is it an empirical matter? Rational? Intuitive? The answer might shed light on the meta-ethical question as well.

. So to repeat a question I asked earlier, how do we evaluate the truth of moral claims? What sort of things would verify or falsify or in some lesser sense support or oppose claims like "it is wrong to steal" or "you ought not steal"? Is it an empirical matter? Rational? Intuitive? The answer might shed light on the meta-ethical question as well. — Michael

I am very dubious about 'the trolley problem' because of its artificiality. I suppose as a classroom exercise it's useful for focussing the mind on the issues involved. But in real life, again, we're not generally going to face anything like that choice. Mostly our moral and ethical challenges will be more quotidian. But that doesn't make them any less important, especially because they're real, rather than hypothetical, and even more so because many of them might not seem to matter.

After all, what's a bit of stationary?

So my answer as to why it is wrong to steal is rooted partially in the kind of upbringing I had, but it has been re-inforced by the kind of value system I have chosen to pursue. I envision life as being a spiritual path, and the idea of dharma - duty or right action - is fundamental to that. Living that way is in a sense like tuning an instrument or a vehicle, so that it runs smoothly. Ethical breaches are like leakages or malfunctions in the instrument. You can get away with a certain number, but ultimately they will stop the vehicle from running altogether. For example if your 'minor ethical lapses' lead to defrauding your employer to support your gaming habit, then you end up in jail. I guess that's the 'slippery slope' argument but the principle is applicable here.

I suppose, reflecting on the OP, I want such things to matter, and I hope and trust that they really do. The fact that so many seem to think that it might not really matter what you do, is, to me, a sign of something amiss, some kind of incipient malfunction or deficiency. What we do matters, and we have to be able to deal with that. OK, it might not actually matter much in the 'grand scheme' - like I might be a bookstore clerk or a driver, just a cog in the machine, as far as the big picture is concerned. But nevertheless, whatever has come my way, I have to do what is required. That ought to be the basis of a realist attitude towards ethics.

I recall a Gandhi quote along the lines of 'even though what you do might seem to be inconsequential, it is important that you do it'. But then Gandhi was a conscientious Hindu, one for whom the practice of dharma came before anything else. That is what is most often lacking in the modern secular world; as someone already observed in this thread, if indeed we are products of 'mindless evolution', then the only dharma is that dicated by the selfish gene. That is the kind of attitude our modern secular scientism engenders, that we are a kind of accidental byproduct of a meaningless process. Against that background, 'nothing really matters', in the sense depicted by Camus or Sartre, but it is our job to make it matter by conscious choice, by a kind of heroic defiance, like Sisyphus. I would not like to think like that; I would like to think it does matter, and in fact, I do believe it.

I am very dubious about 'the trolley problem' because of its artificiality. I suppose as a classroom exercise it's useful for focussing the mind on the issues involved. But in real life, again, we're not generally going to face anything like that choice. — Wayfarer

I imagine situations of that kind crop up during war. Do we bomb the munitions factory even though civilians are working there? Should we sacrifice a few to save more?

If you're a politician or a pilot, then you have to deal with it.

I recall reading that Obama was enormously conflicted over the drone programme.

But that shunts the whole thing off to the never never land of stuff that's never going to matter in the day to day.

I imagine situations of that kind crop up during war. Do we bomb the munitions factory even though civilians are working there? Should we sacrifice a few to save more? — Michael

That's my basic difficulty with 'moral realism'. I can't think of a moral-sounding assertion that is factual. '[proposition] is wrong' is an assertion of a belief that requires a context. Otherwise its truth-conditionality may be deflationary, i.e. it's only as good as the words that constitute it. And how is that factual, except to be confident that someone said it? I think it can only sort of hold up on a subjectivist view, and I don't get how subjectivism and realism get along. But then I'm not a realist, so what would I know? :)

Sure, those things are true.

That's my basic difficulty with 'moral realism'. I can't think of a moral-sounding assertion that is factual. — mcdoodle

Do not harm the methods of error correction.

Do you think there are any truths about human subjective nature? You know, things like people don't (generally) like to be used, objectified, raped, thieved from, tortured, bullied, deceived, humiliated, and so on? — John

Sure, those things are true. — shmik

If one can speak objectively of human subjectivity, then it seems to follow that there is something generic about it. One might say that the contents of awareness are always unique, such contents including a sense of self and personal preferences, yet the container is everywhere the same -awareness is the same whether it is yours or mine.

If such is the truth, it is not directly experienced, but inferred; I do not feel your pain, but your pain is as real as mine. I do not need to be told that I ought to avoid my own pain, because it is within my direct awareness, but the need to avoid your pain emerges indirectly from the understanding that we are not as separate as immediate experience suggests.

If your point of view is as real and as significant as my point of view, for all that I have no access to yours, then my obligation to you is equal to my obligation to myself. Of course it is unnatural to talk about obligation to oneself, because it is automatic - 'when hungry I eat, when thirsty I drink'. The understanding that your hunger and thirst are just as significant as mine is the foundation of obligation to another.

It is as if you are a limb that is numb to me, and I am a limb that is numb to you, and morality is the truth that if you damage a limb, you are damaging yourself, for all that you do not feel anything.

@The Great Whatever The statement "Torturing children is wrong" is ambiguous. It can mean torturing children is wrong in general, or it can mean torturing children is always wrong. In the former case, I would say, of course, the answer is "yes". In the latter, it's "no". If I am put in a situation where the only way to save five children from hideous torture is to torture one of them in a less hideous way then the ethical thing would be to carry out the torture. So, torturing children is not (always) wrong. And the problem of how much context you need to determine whether it's wrong arises.

The statement "Torturing children is wrong" is ambiguous. It can mean torturing children is wrong in general, or it can mean torturing children is always wrong. — Baden

If you are looking for a set of rules to impose on others, then perhaps it is ambiguous. However, if you are looking for a moral theory with which to inform our decision making, it is not. Torturing children is wrong, no matter how perverse your trolley problem.

That's a nice way of putting it, and I agree, although I would want to go even further and say that I do experience your pain, not the identical pain you experience, but I experience your pain as my pain, by putting myself in your place. I think this 'putting myself in your place' is not a matter of mere inference; it may be deeply felt. It is true that my realization of what is considered as your private pain, is in a strict sense "inferred"; but I feel convinced it is something far deeper than characterizing it as a mere inference suggests.

This seems similar to me to our realization of an external world; which I have never been able to convince myself is a matter of mere inference; even though when strictly considered,from a "purely rational" perspective, it seems as though it must be. See, even here, here I am speaking of "our realization of an external world", as if I could ever know such a thing! And yet....

This seems similar to me to our realization of an external world; which I have never been able to convince myself is a matter of mere inference; even though when strictly considered,from a "purely rational" perspective, it seems as though it must be. See, even here, here I am speaking of "our realization of an external world", as if I could ever know such a thing! And yet.... — John

Try this for size. What one might realise at some point is the distinction between internal and external. One does not have in one's possession an internal world from which one infers the external world, one is presented with and as a world undistinguished as self/not-self, or internal/external. The tastefeel of (m)other/milk/hunger/warm/I/world is.

The philosopher is alone trapped in an internal world of thought and sensation, but this is a sophisticated malady consisting of the mistaking of thought for world. And from there arises this talk of subject and object, and the sovereignty of self, but at the same time it's denigration in favour of the object. I blame Descartes.

Separation from (m)other is a natural process of insight and maturation perverted by a 'system' of 'Education'. One does not then need inference and argument to recreate the world, because the separation is only conceptual in the first place; self does not annihilate the world.

So the philosopher looks at the properties of objects and the sovereignty of self and finds no relation - and obligation is a relation. No wonder he gets depressed and loses all meaning.

I think you've squarely hit the nail, unenlightened. I find nothing to disagree with here, and I really have nothing to add. (Y)

That's not an ambiguity. It's just a matter of the scope of the claim, which isn't relevant to the question of realism.

I've always been somewhat at a loss when talking about moral realism. To a large degree it just doesn't fit with my outlook on the world. It not so much that the arguments against realism are convincing as much as none of the arguments for it are. I guess from my perspective I wander, why would there be ways in which we should act - in the realist sense.

Have any of you heard some convincing arguments for realism.

Racial bigotry is 'real', yet Science tells us that there is only one race, the human one. Racial bigotry is a social construction and Morals are also social constructions. If social constructions form the basis for how we behavior, then aren't they real enough?

For social facts, the attitude that we take toward the phenomenon is partly constitutive of the phenomenon … Part of being a cocktail party is being thought to be a cocktail party; part of being a war is being thought to be a war. This is a remarkable feature of social facts; it has no analogue among physical facts. (Searle 1995, 33–34)

Do you think that I am a moral agent in the same way as we are moral agents? Perhaps the "I' is derivative from the "We", where what I say, learn and how I behave mimics the roles I have learned from both global and local narratives.

If one can speak objectively of human subjectivity, then it seems to follow that there is something generic about it. One might say that the contents of awareness are always unique, such contents including a sense of self and personal preferences, yet the container is everywhere the same -awareness is the same whether it is yours or mine.

If such is the truth, it is not directly experienced, but inferred; I do not feel your pain, but your pain is as real as mine. I do not need to be told that I ought to avoid my own pain, because it is within my direct awareness, but the need to avoid your pain emerges indirectly from the understanding that we are not as separate as immediate experience suggests.

If your point of view is as real and as significant as my point of view, for all that I have no access to yours, then my obligation to you is equal to my obligation to myself. Of course it is unnatural to talk about obligation to oneself, because it is automatic - 'when hungry I eat, when thirsty I drink'. The understanding that your hunger and thirst are just as significant as mine is the foundation of obligation to another.

It is as if you are a limb that is numb to me, and I am a limb that is numb to you, and morality is the truth that if you damage a limb, you are damaging yourself, for all that you do not feel anything. — unenlightened

It looks like we have a vastly different view of some of these issues.

What ever generic is found about human subjectivity is based on similarity not sameness. Another person has a way they go through the world, it has similarities to my way, enough similarities that we can understand each other. I can make general statements about human preferences. I don't think of consciousness is a container and definitely the difference between people is much more than the so called contents of consciousness.

It's weird for me to describe someone else pain as 'real' or as real as my own. The real aspect is the being that is in pain, the pain cannot be separated or abstracted from the being as if pain is the same between beings (just containers with the same contents).

When you speak about points of view being as significant as others, I again cannot get onto your wavelength. Significance is always significance to something, to a being, to a process, to a god. There is no abstract significance which allows us to equate each persons point of view.

With regards to 'obligation', I would see that more as compulsion (for lack of a better word). I am not immoral if I avoid food for a time even whilst hungry. It's not as if I view humans as an island either. We feel compelled to acting in various ways towards each other, we have relationships and what we view as out own obligations. My issue with realism is that this isn't enough for it. It is not limited to describing out moral compulsions, it wants to make true sentences out of them, it wants to take something quite specific to each person and simplify it, generalise it, and then insist that this is the right way to act.
There is a large gap between caring and feeling of obligation towards others and moral realism.

I don't think of consciousness is a container and definitely the difference between people is much more than the so called contents of consciousness. — shmik

I don't see how you can be definite about what you are not conscious of. But of course there is much one is not conscious of that varies from person to person, habit, neurology, the state of their gut bacteria. There is much of the world one is not conscious of too. I don't think we disagree about that.

Don't get hung up about 'container'. It is just a convenient shorthand. Shall we say that to be conscious is to be the 'centre' of an 'experiential world? If that is an acceptable locution, then we can replace 'container' with 'centrality' and 'contents of consciousness' with 'experiential world'.

There is a large gap between caring and feeling of obligation towards others and moral realism. — shmik

I'd be grateful if you could explain the gap, because I don't see it. The nearest I can get is that morality as pontificated in prescriptions and proscriptions is a poor substitute for the weakness of caring about others. Because I don't actually feel your pain, I don't tend to care about it as much as my own, but this is merely a limitation of my senses - shortsightedness. Morality simply reminds me that you are sensitive too.

Significance is always significance to something, to a being, to a process, to a god. There is no abstract significance which allows us to equate each persons point of view. — shmik

Perhaps you are looking at the horizon, while I am looking at a bird, which is looking for grubs, and a cat which is looking at the bird with a view to lunch. Four very different views and significances. Each significance is a relation of a pov to a view. The horizon has no pov.

But back here in cyberspace, we are indeed talking about significance and points of view in the abstract, and it seems to have some significance to me, even if you think it is vacuous, though why you would indulge in vacuous talk is a mystery. So I assume you are saying something else; that pov's are incommensurate, incomparable.

That I entirely agree with, and it explains why the trolley problem is both intractable and somewhat offensive. Still, replace the people with logs of wood, or whatever does not have a pov, and there is no problem at all. Pull a lever or don't, chuck a log on the rails or not, and the trolley will stop somewhere and no harm done. As it is, the thought experiment requires a choice, and invites a calculus of pov's which cannot be made, and, dare I say, ought not be made. One must do something or nothing, but, I would say, it is not a moral choice at all, just as 'women and children first' is more of a social custom than a moral prescription - a way of deciding the undecidable.

I don't see how you can be definite about what you are not conscious of. But of course there is much one is not conscious of that varies from person to person, habit, neurology, the state of their gut bacteria. There is much of the world one is not conscious of too. I don't think we disagree about that.

Don't get hung up about 'container'. It is just a convenient shorthand. Shall we say that to be conscious is to be the 'centre' of an 'experiential world? If that is an acceptable locution, then we can replace 'container' with 'centrality' and 'contents of consciousness' with 'experiential world'. — unenlightened

Yeh if we look at people who have suffered brain damage, it seems clear that the structure of consciousness itself has changed rather than just the contents of consciousness. But yeh it's a forum, better to be brief and sacrifice accuracy than write pages just to get past the 'consciousness as container' line in the paragraph.

My point when questioning this was the idea that the 'container is the same'. If we replace container with centrality and contents with experiential world, it makes less sense to call 'the centrality the same'. Your argument was that awareness it the same whether yours or mine and that we are not as separate as we are commonly taken to be. This argument is definitely helped if the view of consciousness is as container.

I'd be grateful if you could explain the gap, because I don't see it. The nearest I can get is that morality as pontificated in prescriptions and proscriptions is a poor substitute for the weakness of caring about others. Because I don't actually feel your pain, I don't tend to care about it as much as my own, but this is merely a limitation of my senses - shortsightedness. Morality simply reminds me that you are sensitive too. — unenlightened

This is likely the main area where we differ. The view of morality as 'caring and feeling of obligation towards another', is descriptive to pov. I would say that it is part of our experiential world, not compelling it from the outside or acting on it.

Take my compulsion/feeling of obligation not to shoplift a packet of papadams from the supermarket at 34 Elizabeth St, South Yarra Australia, between the hours of 6:23 and 6:25pm on Wednesday the 1st March 2017.
1. How do I make a true sentence out of that.
2. How do I generalise it to fit many different occasions
3. How do I apply it to others as something that isn't reliant on my own pov.
There are more issues/questions. So if I feel obligated to act in a specific way and someone else does not feel obligated. When I tell them 'it is wrong to shoplift', I'm trying to say more than 'I feel the obligation not to shoplift so you should not do it'. The gap I am speaking about is moving from the moral experience to a true sentence which applies to others even if they don't have a moral experience with regards to the same issue.