All moral statements are false. — Moliere

They are only false if you misinterpret them to be statements of fact.

You ought to do good, but you will not.

The moral conflict arises from identification, which is separation. I want versus we want, and then we want, versus they want.

The categorical imperative that I long considered as true was "Thou shalt not kill" -- but reality woke me up from that one. Clearly the societies which are very efficient at assigning the best people to killing are the ones which thrive. At which point -- what is moral realism anymore? — Moliere

What moral realism is not is either that the good works or is rewarded. So societies can 'thrive', just as individuals can 'thrive', by identifying self -interest as the individual against the rest, or the tribe against the enemy. In the latter case, the selfish individual is subsumed into a selfish society. A religious sect typically makes this identification, and strengthens it with supernatural threats and promises, and pretends it is not all a mafia.

Being moral will not save you. It was always an empty promise, because if it would save you, it would be mere expediency, and even arseholes would find it expedient to be good. But it is the only end to the internal conflict, to end the identification. Than one is, ahem, beyond good and evil. In the meantime, it is a commonplace that God favours the big battalions, and therefore being good is costly and painful.

They are only false if you misinterpret them to be statements of fact. — unenlightened

Isn't that what moral realism does? Moral anti-realism wishes to divest moral statements of fact-hood. There is no truth here -- just what's important. It's not the truth that will set you free, because there is no truth to the matter. There's nothing to deliberate or discover or argue. There are one's convictions and that's about it. Decision, in a backwards way, is what sets one free. It's the lack of deliberation, the lack of uncertainty, that frees one. Hence the temptation to call it a fact, to secure ones moral status even more.

You ought to do good, but you will not.

The moral conflict arises from identification, which is separation. I want versus we want, and then we want, versus they want.

It's only a moral conflict if there be a truth to the matter, though. If there be no truth, it's just a set of desires. And they need not even be in competition, unless that's what we want.

What moral realism is not is either that the good works or is rewarded. So societies can 'thrive', just as individuals can 'thrive', by identifying self -interest as the individual against the rest, or the tribe against the enemy. In the latter case, the selfish individual is subsumed into a selfish society. A religious sect typically makes this identification, and strengthens it with supernatural threats and promises, and pretends it is not all a mafia.

Being moral will not save you. It was always an empty promise, because if it would save you, it would be mere expediency, and even arseholes would find it expedient to be good. But it is the only end to the internal conflict, to end the identification. Than one is, ahem, beyond good and evil. In the meantime, it is a commonplace that God favours the big battalions, and therefore being good is costly and painful. — unenlightened

Right! So it makes sense to call it false. There's nothing there. There's no fact to the matter. There's no goodness. It's just you on your own making choices that feel right, just like everyone else.

I feel the need to note: I wouldn't call myself beyond good and evil. I basically think most people who have thought about the problem enough to be able to defend their nihilism can't make that claim just as a performative contradiction

Sorry, a third thought that might help us:

I read Nietzsche as the philosopher that cared so much about value that he was willing to sacrifice the good to save valuation itself.

I'd say I'm more attached to the good than I am to moral realism, and tend towards nihilism contra Nietzsche. I'm not willing to kill to save valuation. (EDIT: flipped the vowels to match the german phonetic rules)

There's no fact to the matter. — Moliere

If I do what I ought to do, then what I ought to do becomes the fact of what I do. Either my morality or my immorality is realised. The reality that I am defending here is that I can only pretend that my immorality is morality – I can only pretend that killing is good, or lying is good.

The inversion would be -- I can only pretend that killing is bad, given my reliance upon those who are willing to kill to preserve our societies. My actions betray the feeling. The paladins of our world would say something like this, some with resentment that there are those who don't fight, because they view themselves as a necessary part of the social world which is simultaneously shamingthem for doing their duty, and some without resentment because they feel pride and honor for the good they've done. The reason they kill is to preserve freedom -- a noble good. They sacrifice their morality for the community.

The inversion would be -- I can only pretend that killing is bad, given my reliance upon those who are willing to kill to preserve our societies. — Moliere

That is a justification. It has the form, killing is bad, but something else is worse, so killing is necessary, not killing is good.

And yet I will not do it.

I'm not much into the philosophical dimension of ethics, but this topic sounds somewhat interesting. I suppose I'd take the pragmatic approach here and ask the question, what practical differences in our conception (and action) of morality follows from one being either a moral realist or an anti-realist?

I mean, one can claim that they don't believe that murder is a crime. But rarely do such views lead to such acts. On the other hand, those who are serial killers, may actually believe this, and act according to this belief.

But then even they (frequently, not always) acknowledge that what they did was morally wrong, and society labels them as lacking a fundamental component of being a human being, correctly, in my view.

Aside from related examples, I don't see a big issue. But someone could clear up my confusion here, as I know almost nothing about such topics.

for me the morality/ethics of a phenomenon is dependent on the entity/being or even system to which we concentricise/centralise the moral question.

For example, at a human level of perspective, is it moral for a young, innocent child to die of famine? I think not as we generally feel it needless, unwarranted and harmful.

And thus can we as humans hold general life/existence accountable as a source of unwholesome and merciless states of affairs? Ie is life unfair? Immoral? Antinatalists may believe such a state of existence to be so.

On the other hand, is it moral or ethical for mother nature to endure a parasitic, resource hungry, pillaging and plundering species at the expense of all of her other species and natural existants - all other flora and fauna that make up her balanced, fined tuned and harmonious/equilibric ecosystem?

In that case, earth may reactively become hostile to any existant that disturbs her natural and imperative balance/harmony.

Climate change punishes those most dependent on things staying as they are. So the complexity and thus inherent dependency of humanities endeavours on a steady natural state leaves our systems perhaps most vulnerable to any change in that state/ environment.

And that translates into famine, and thus children in such famine prone areas starving to death.

Whos fault is that? Who is morally accountable. Is it mother nature being hostile? Or is it us being hostile to mother nature and experiencing the equal and opposite reaction.

If "justice" can be equated to natural balance, then our suffering is justice for the woes we commit against nature, just as our ability to foster diversity and ecology would lead to abundance/ prosperity, harmony and peace in nature.

Nature can be our provider or aggressor and I think this is in response to us being it's provider or aggressor. A two way system.

Morality works at many levels not just human ones. Although when inhuman in effect/manifestation, we observe it as imbalance or impaired/dysregulated ecosystem.

We can rationalise toxifying the atmosphere in our own insular human moral struggles against one another in a competitive capitalist society. But then the toxic atmosphere in turn toxifies us. And we can choose to consider ourselves at fault or life/nature at fault.

In the end it is clear that cause and effect work at multiple levels and magnitudes, and thus any immoral, unfair or harmful outcome is not restricted to direct unethical human action but also how those actions ripple out into other systems we would normally consider not within range of morality, and yet come back to bite us in the ass.

@unenlightened maybe we'll see one another the more I share, but maybe not. Still, in the spirit of sharing thoughts on the subject --

I have a hard time believing that anything is noble. Hence I am at least an anti-realist towards these virtues. Rather, people feel the sublime in contemplating noble actions -- but the reality of noble actions is far from beautiful, sublime, or good: for the most part Honors and nobility are the rewards of war. Moral goodness and war frequently go hand-in-hand, at least of this variety of moral goodness.

As much as I respect Nietzsche as a philosopher a lot of my beliefs can be read contra his entire project. Him and Aristotle are the usual suspects I have in mind when I think "Who is it I just basically disagree with on everything when I finally piece it all together into something coherent?" -- both hierarchical thinkers, both believers in masters and slaves, and both entirely bloodless in their lives while building an architecture of thought that supports empire, in Aristotle's case, and domination, in Nietzsche's case -- with a side dose of "self overcoming" to help those of us still invested in our slave moralities to accept Nietzsche's morality of domination.

But I would put the myth like this -- Noble goods are divine goods, and that they are out of reach for human beings. The most good a human being can do is to live a peaceful life among friends and family pursuing the simple pleasures of life. The noble goods inspire us, but they aren't meant for us to reach for them -- when we do we often commit to terrible things in the name of this greater good. They are better for myths and stories to reflect upon rather than emulate.

And yet that's far from some kind of morally realistic account. It's very much bound to an intepretation of our nature and the results I observe when people believe in a certain way, in addition to the kind of life I want to live. I want to live a peaceful life of simple pleasures, and I do so -- and I would do so were The Form of the Good to tell me to do otherwise.

As much as I respect Nietzsche as a philosopher a lot of my beliefs can be read contra his entire project. Him and Aristotle are the usual suspects I have in mind when I think "Who is it I just basically disagree with on everything when I finally piece it all together into something coherent?" — Moliere

I'm with you there. Look, I think that the difficulty, the disagreements, mostly arise from dealing with horrors — War to end war, defeat fascism etc. But there is no question of setting up Fascism so we can have a good war, any more than there is any question of getting pregnant in order to have an abortion. Dealing with evil for the good is hard. But making the distinction in principle, other things being equal is much easier - life over death, truth over falsehood, freedom over coercion love over hate, peace over war.

Heh. I think I'm more uncertain, but I have no disagreement that a lot of the difficulty has to do with horrors.

The easy cases are the principles we say we hold to. "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" is my war-tribes creed, and they are willing to kill in the name of these values. (even as we take on more and more fascistic cultural elements, what the creed says and how it functions are at odds. They basically contradict one another)

It's always a contrast with action that causes my uncertainty in principles, so for myself it is not easy to make in-principle distinctions. I am tempted by the good, but since I have no knowledge of the good, I have no truth of the good. And I don't even have a guess as to how someone could possibly have such a knowledge. Hence, being committed to honesty, I announce my nihilism.

The realist/antirealist discussion pretty much reduces to whether you want to use a bivalent logic or not. Realists say that all statements, even those about things we we don't believe, know, perceive or whatever, are either true or false. Antirealists say that at least some statements either do not have a truth value at all, neither true nor false, or have some third truth value that is neither true nor false.

The subjective/objective discussion remains mired in imprecision, sometimes being about the difference between public and supposedly private statements, sometimes being about distinguishing the world from supposed mental states, and sometimes being about grammatical differences between first and third person accounts.

It seems to me that you might have inadvertently carried the ambiguity of the subject/object discussion into the realist/antirealist discussion.

Hello unenlightened,

I'm not saying that. "Come buy my snake oil, it will make you immune from snake bites." Some people do lie all the time.

I am understanding this analogy to be agreeing that your moral system doesn’t purport to have objective moral judgments, is that correct?

It is corrosive to society. I'm saying that one cannot in good faith say say it is good to lie. One cannot found a society on the practice of lies, because lies only work at all in a social context of trust and honesty

This is all fair enough, but, to me, when you use the term “good” you are invoking a moral term. This term, so far, has not been demonstrated to be objective nor absolutely obligatory; which, as far as I am understanding you, you aren’t trying to claim that. But…..

It is an argument against subjectivism and against error theory.

Then you state this: your view, as far as I understand, is moral subjectivism. You are claiming:

1. Moral judgments are propositional (i.e., cognitive); and
2. There are not true objective moral judgments; and
3. Moral judgments are ultimately grounded in the subject (i.e., moral expressions truth is relative to the subject at hand).

Which is the definition of moral subjectivism. If you are refuting that position, then I think you would have to refute one of the above theses of it.

Bob

Hello Manual,

I appreciate your response!

I suppose I'd take the pragmatic approach here and ask the question, what practical differences in our conception (and action) of morality follows from one being either a moral realist or an anti-realist?

Generally speaking, one’s metaethical position is going to shape their normative ethical and applied ethical positions; in other words, metaethics asks the fundamental question of what it means for something to be “good” (“right”) or “bad” (“wrong”), normative ethics uses that definition to determine what is considered “good” and what is considered “bad” (and usually tries to formulate them as rules), and applied ethics is an attempt to apply those normative ethical rules to nuanced, every-day-to-day situations to see what the “right” or “wrong” thing is to do.

For example, if one is more of a moral anti-realist (generally speaking) then they don’t think there are objective moral judgments and so there general outlook on moral philosophy is to determine what is right or wrong based off of usually either their “desires” or their “will”; whereas, moral realists tend to view the world as if there are absolutely obligatory moral decrees and they must obey them regardless of their own personal stance.

I mean, one can claim that they don't believe that murder is a crime. But rarely do such views lead to such acts. On the other hand, those who are serial killers, may actually believe this, and act according to this belief.

Metaethics, although it definitely influences what ought to be laws, is not itself a study of what should be a crime: it is whether there are any objective moral judgments. I agree that simply whimsically thinking that one doesn’t think killing (in the sense of what is normally considered murder) is wrong will usually result in nothing, as they don’t sincerely and deeply believe it. I can tell myself I don’t belief something that I belief, but that won’t thereby make me unbelieve it (as I am think beliefs are involuntary to a large degree). But, imagine that someone does sincerely believe it is right to kill an innocent person as they take a walk passed their house: are there any absolutely obligatory judgments that you can point to to condemn their behavior? That would be a metaethical question.

Bob

Hello Benj96,

I appreciate your response!

for me the morality/ethics of a phenomenon is dependent on the entity/being or even system to which we concentricise/centralise the moral question.

That is fair, but at that point, I would argue, it is a matter of studying inter-subjectivity and not objectivity (which is fine if you aren’t claiming moral judgments are objective).

In terms of your examples, I think you are rightly noting that our actions have consequences (e.g., environment crisis leads to an inhabitable planet, etc.), but is there any “objective” or “absolutely obligatory” moral judgments guiding (or should be guiding) our actions?

Bob

Hello Banno,

Realists say that all statements, even those about things we we don't believe, know, perceive or whatever, are either true or false. Antirealists say that at least some statements either do not have a truth value at all, neither true nor false, or have some third truth value that is neither true nor false.

I don’t think this is an accurate depiction of either view. To me, moral realism is the thesis that:

1. Moral judgments are cognitive (which you mentioned); and
2. They are objective.

Whereas, moral anti-realism is that there are no true objective moral judgments, and there are three main sub-categories: subjectivism (i.e., expressivism), non-cognitivism, and error theory (i.e., nihilism).

The subjective/objective discussion remains mired in imprecision, sometimes being about the difference between public and supposedly private statements, sometimes being about distinguishing the world from supposed mental states, and sometimes being about grammatical differences between first and third person accounts.

It seems to me that you might have inadvertently carried the ambiguity of the subject/object discussion into the realist/antirealist discussion.

That is fair. I think that, upon further reflection, that I failed to separate out clearly the distinction between an “objective” moral judgment and one that is absolutely obligatory: but I think that my “fixated-upon” vs. “implicit” moral judgment distinction suffices.

Bob

Ah, ok - yes that summary was quite useful, thanks for that.

But, imagine that someone does sincerely believe it is right to kill an innocent person as they take a walk passed their house: are there any absolutely obligatory judgments that you can point to to condemn their behavior? That would be a metaethical question. — Bob Ross

In this example, I think so. To kill an innocent person for no reason, is not only irrational but outright evil. I mean, it's even a bit embarrassing to spell out why killing an innocent person is evil. These types of cases have been talked about in depth by others.

Having said that, I think it's important to realize that, at a certain point, it boils down to this is wrong (or this is good), without any further understanding of what this wrongness entails, beyond it being wrong.

I suspect that our understandings aren't elaborate enough to explore this topic with much more depth. If an alien species exited that had a higher overall intelligence, they would know significantly more about these topics.

Alas, that's my intuition, could be totally wrong.

2. They are objective. — Bob Ross

Sure. Then we ask how "objective" plays out. In realist/antirealist discussions, the fraught notion of objectivity gives way to a tighter discussion of truth values. An antirealist will say that there are moral statements that are not either true nor false; so they might say that moral statements are actually commands, or expressions of preference, or exclamations; but not statements. And not being statements, they may not have a truth value.

This is how your subjectivism, non-cognitivism, and error theory treat the truth value of moral statements.

Whereas deontology and consequentialism may say that there are moral statements, and that these are either true or they are false, and thereby take a realist stance, what you might call an objective approach.

And within each of these there are multiple ways in which things might play out.

This is the way the realist/antirealist discussion has been played out for thirty years or so.

I wasn't able to follow your "fixated" and "implicit" account. It looked a bit like Anscombe's direction of fit.

I am understanding this analogy to be agreeing that your moral system doesn’t purport to have objective moral judgments, is that correct? — Bob Ross

No. I am saying, (reluctantly because I prefer to avoid 'isms' as being ways not to listen to what is being said), that moral conflict arises from a psychological conflict between self-interest and social interest. It is a real conflict and because it is grounded in the nature of social individuals, there is a real difference between what is moral and what is immoral. Thus I am a 'moral realist' in that particular sense. By the same token, I am equally an 'immoral realist'. The reality of immorality is that individuals can and do exploit the sociality of people for a-social reasons and thereby harm and undermine sociality, including and importantly communication. This is expressed here in a simplified humanistic sense for ease of comprehension; to be more even handed and philosophically useful, I would reference not merely human society, but the whole environment.

Hello Manuel,

In this example, I think so. To kill an innocent person for no reason, is not only irrational but outright evil.

I also agree that it is evil—but is ‘evil’ referring to something objective? And are we absolutely obliged to fixate upon “thou shalt not kill an innocent person” or does it bottom out at a subjective affirmation (that one ought not kill an innocent person). Ultimately, is “thou shalt not kill an innocent person” a matter of taste or is it stance-independently wrong?

I mean, it's even a bit embarrassing to spell out why killing an innocent person is evil.

In every day-to-day talk, you are absolutely right; however, philosophy accepts no presumptions and will question everything—even what we take for granted as right or wrong.

Having said that, I think it's important to realize that, at a certain point, it boils down to this is wrong (or this is good), without any further understanding of what this wrongness entails, beyond it being wrong.

So, you think the origin of morals is indeterminate?

I suspect that our understandings aren't elaborate enough to explore this topic with much more depth. If an alien species exited that had a higher overall intelligence, they would know significantly more about these topics.

I don’t think I quite understood this part: why?

Bob

Hello Banno,

An antirealist will say that there are moral statements that are not either true nor false

I think this is incorrect: moral subjectivists are cognitivists and so are nihilists.

And not being statements, they may not have a truth value.

This is only a depiction of non-cognivitist moral anti-realist views and not moral anti-realism in its entirety. An error theorist claims that they do have truth value, but that they are all false; and, likewise, a moral subjectivist claims that they do have truth value, but it is relative to the subject at hand.

Whereas deontology and consequentialism may say that there are moral statements, and that these are either true or they are false, and thereby take a realist stance, what you might call an objective approach.

One could be a moral subjectivist, for example, and accept that stance you just explicated.

I wasn't able to follow your "fixated" and "implicit" account. It looked a bit like Anscombe's direction of fit.

Unfortunately, I am not that well versed on “direction of fit”, but from a basic reading off of google it was interesting. By “implicit” moral judgments, I mean that it is an involuntary obligation that occurs simply because a being’s nature is designed to orient in that manner, whereas an “fixated-upon” moral judgment is an obligation which one has voluntarily focused on to abide by it (and is possible for them to thusly not-focus, not-fixate upon it).

Bob

Hello unenlightened,

It seems as though, to me, that you are a “moral realist” in the sense that you do think that there is a real conflict between social interest and self-interest—but these “interests” boil down to inter-subjectivity and subjectivity respectively (and, therefore, are not objective moral judgments).

Are you just trying to note that your attitude is that of a moral realist in the sense that there are things which must be done societally to preserve the nation, which have very minimal concern for any particular individual’s wants?

Bob

So, you think the origin of morals is indeterminate? — Bob Ross

It's a bit tricky. It's species-dependent in so far as evidence pertaining to other animals being moral is shaky, some apes show the first glimmerings of such a capacity, but it's nowhere near the level of sophistication we show when we make moral judgments.

So, it's "objective" in the sense that human beings tend to agree on moral judgments, much more frequently that is otherwise stated, but we do not know if hypothetical alien species would necessarily have the exact same morality we have. It doesn't have the same level of objectivity physics has, for instance.

I don’t think I quite understood this part: why? — Bob Ross

As mentioned above, despite some tenuous evidence that other species may have morality in very specific occasions, the degree in which we have morality is not paralleled by anything else we see in the biological world.

This probably shows that in having a sophisticated moral capacity, we are speaking about a new level of complexity in nature, in which understanding is limited.

Again, if another, more intelligent alien species exists, that also had a moral system somewhat similar to ours, they might very well be able to explain why "murder is wrong" or "rape is wrong" in terms other than "it's wrong, you wouldn't like to be murdered or raped."

At bottom of these judgments, there's a feeling of repulsion or wrongness that is hard to verbalize.

I suspect there could be more to say instead of relying on feeling, but we don't know enough - we don't have a sufficiently large understanding - to explain these things in more depth.

Are you just trying to note that your attitude is that of a moral realist in the sense that there are things which must be done societally to preserve the nation, which have very minimal concern for any particular individual’s wants? — Bob Ross

It's more than that. We are discussing together; we are using language. This means we are already in a social relationship and already necessarily committed to a common purpose that involves truth and not falsehood. This moral position is necessary to commit to in the sense that to aver its negation would be a performative contradiction equivalent to my trying to persuade you that I do not care about you or what you think. In your terms, there can be no intersubjectivity that is not committed to truth. The sociopath is in practice a solipsist with nothing to say, though he may choose to appear to communicate as a manipulative strategy. This is very different from, say, establishing intersubjectively a rule for driving on one side of the road and not the other, which is necessary but arbitrary.

Truth, honesty, care for each other. These are the necessary components of social living, and social living is the necessary condition for communication. Morality is therefore necessary for language, and as real as language. And language is really real.

I think this is incorrect — Bob Ross

Don't misunderstand: I'm offering this as a clarification, a proscription, of the use of "antirealist", by way of bypassing the "contentious and unsettled nature of the topic". I'm basically stealing the use made of it by logicians such as Kripke.

Otherwise we will be prone to an unhelpful, even tedious, diversion into the many and various "..ism"s.

Hello Manuel,

Thank you for the elaboration!

It's a bit tricky. It's species-dependent in so far as evidence pertaining to other animals being moral is shaky, some apes show the first glimmerings of such a capacity, but it's nowhere near the level of sophistication we show when we make moral judgments.

It seems as though ‘morality’, to you, pertains solely to biology—is that correct?

If so, then I don’t really think we should be deriving moral commandments from whatever we were biologically born to do. However, I do get that we do quite a bit of things simply because it is a part of our nature (and that is certainly a rational thing to do): but, with morality, it just makes one wonder why one ought to do something simply because it is a part of their nature? Are they simply subjectively affirming it (and thusly it originates out of taste)?

So, it's "objective" in the sense that human beings tend to agree on moral judgments, much more frequently that is otherwise stated

If I am understanding you correctly, then I would agree, but I would call this ‘inter-subjective’ and not ‘objective’ at all.

but we do not know if hypothetical alien species would necessarily have the exact same morality we have. It doesn't have the same level of objectivity physics has, for instance.

It seems as though ‘morality’, to you, is the convergence of biological empathy (or something along those lines)--is that correct?

Otherwise, I am not following why it would matter if aliens agreed with us pertaining to moral judgments, as, for me, the truthity of those judgments (if they are objective) would be separate from our or the aliens’ understanding of them.

At bottom of these judgments, there's a feeling of repulsion or wrongness that is hard to verbalize./quote]

Why is a conscience a good indicator of what is right and wrong? A human can be bread to do the ‘wrong’ thing and feel good about it, just as much as the can not do the ‘right’ thing because it would bother them to do it.

Bob

Hello Unenlightened,

This means we are already in a social relationship and already necessarily committed to a common purpose that involves truth and not falsehood

Although I agree (in the sense that I am trying to get to the truth, and I have no doubt you are too), I don’t see how it is impossible for a discussion board conversation to be, on both sides, geared towards what is false (masked as truth). We could both be, for example, just interested in debating each other and are thusly just communicating counter points to each other (and not for the sake of what we think is true pertaining to the subject at hand) for the sake of having a good debate. To clarify, I don’t find any evidence either of us are doing that, but, as far as I am understanding you, it seems as though that kind of conversation wouldn’t be able to function properly (especially on a grand scale)--but I am failing to see how it would degenerate. Fundamentally, I think this is our dispute:

In your terms, there can be no intersubjectivity that is not committed to truth

But there can most certainly be in terms of first principles. Sure, if I lie, then I think it is true that should lie (i.e., I have uncovered the truth that I think I should lie)--but the lie itself is the covering up of what was uncovered. I would agree that the bigger the society the harder it is to be oriented towards untruth, but I don’t think it is impossible (or fundamentally radioactive). For example, we could all proclaim that “thou shalt not kill” simply because we don’t want to die (and it makes most rational sense to promote that in society) while lying that it is due to an absolute decree (devoid of any personal feelings and taste): this would operate just fine in society—wouldn’t it?

This is very different from, say, establishing intersubjectively a rule for driving on one side of the road and not the other, which is necessary but arbitrary.

I like that analogy, but I don’t think it holds if you are arguing for an objective morality: if the judgments themselves are ultimately arbitrary (and are not depictions of involuntary obligations), then those judgments are subjective (or inter-subjective).

Truth, honesty, care for each other.

I agree that promoting those principles is the most rational thing to do, but I disagree that most of society has to be sincere about them.

Bob

Hello Banno,

Don't misunderstand: I'm offering this as a clarification, a proscription, of the use of "antirealist", by way of bypassing the "contentious and unsettled nature of the topic". I'm basically stealing the use made of it by logicians such as Kripke.

Otherwise we will be prone to an unhelpful, even tedious, diversion into the many and various "..ism"s.

Oh, I see! So you are essentially saying that moral realism should be classified as simply moral cognitvism? Is that correct?

Bob