An interesting article I've just found:

Why Should I Be Moral? Revisited, Kai Nielson (1984)

Some philosophers have resisted the very posing of this question. They have taken it to be a pseudo question. I first want to respond to them in a rather brisk manner. That is, I will respond to those who want to reject the question not because it is immoral to ask it but for the reason that it is – or so they believe – senseless to ask it. It makes about as much sense, they claim, as asking "Why are all scarlet things red?" If we reflect carefully on the occurrence of the word "should" in the putative question "Why should I be moral" we will come to see, the claim goes, that we are trying to ask for the logically impossible: we are asking for a moral reason to accept any moral reasons at all.

That objection evaporates as soon as we reflect on the fact that not all intelligible uses of "should" are moral uses of the term. When I ask, "Should I put a bandage on that cut?" I am not normally asking a moral question and the "should" does not here have a moral use. When I ask, "Why should I be moral?" I am not asking, if I have my wits about me, "What moral reason or reasons have I for being moral?" That indeed is like asking "Why are all scarlet things red?" Rather, I am asking, can I, everything considered, give a reason sufficiently strong – a non-moral reason clearly – for my always giving an overriding weight to moral considerations, when they conflict with other considerations, such that I could be shown to be acting irrationally, or at least less rationally than I otherwise would be acting, if I did not give such pride of place to moral considerations?

All of this is to say (1) there are consequences to breaking moral codes, (2) the distinction between moral codes and legal codes is idiosyncratic to secular societies and not some metaphysical distinction, and (3) the truth value of a claim can be based upon a social norm that is reducible to nothing more than an idea or belief. — Hanover

This would be something like cultural relativism? That isn't the kind of meta-ethics I'm asking about. As per the OP I'm specifically assuming some kind of robust moral realism (objectivism) – and specifically of the non-naturalist kind.

Change the word "moral" to "legal." Now does it matter? — Hanover

Yes, because there are consequences to the breaking the law.

Morality affects people's behaviors and it affects people's responses to you. — Hanover

Moral beliefs affect people's behaviours. If you believe that it is immoral to eat meat then it makes no difference if your belief is true or false. Either way you're going to bitch at me for eating meat.

It remains that if vegetarianism is true, then eating meat is bad. — Banno

I haven't claimed otherwise.

I'm trying to understand what you're getting at I guess. — Hanover

Assume that it is immoral to eat meat. I eat meat. What are the practical consequences?
Assume that it is not immoral to eat meat. I eat meat. What are the practical consequences?

Any practical consequences in the first case are the same as any practical consequences in the second case. As such, whether or not it is immoral to eat meat makes no practical difference.

Compare with:

Assume that the water is boiling. I put my hand in the water. What are the practical consequences?
Assume that the water is not boiling. I put my hand in the water. What are the practical consequences?

There are practical consequences in the first case that differ from the practical consequences in the second case. As such, whether or not the water is boiling makes a practical difference.

So I can see why it matters if the water is boiling. But I can't see why it matters if it's immoral to eat meat.

Ok, so except for all the morally bad things, nothing morally bad will happen...

Not such a profound observation. — Banno

I didn't say nothing morally bad will happen. I said that nothing non-morally bad will happen.

Clear as mud. "Nothing bad will happen if I disobey an obligation" - the "bad" thing that will have happened is that you will have disobeyed an obligation. — Banno

I didn't mean "bad" in the moral sense. I pre-empted this response and already changed the wording.

As if someone could have a moral belief that they ought not eat meat without believing that "I ought not eat meat" is true. — Banno

I'm not claiming otherwise.

If eating meat is immoral, then "eating meat is immoral" is true, and the direct practical implication is that one ought not eat meaty. — Banno

The existence of the obligation has no practical implication.

If I put my hand in water then it matters if it's boiling. If it is then I will burn my hand.

If I eat meat then it doesn't matter if I ought not eat meat. Nothing detrimental will happen if I disobey an obligation and nothing beneficial will happen if I obey an obligation. So why should I care about such an obligation?

Yes, a very odd post, in which you claim that there are no "practical implications" for vegetarianism while pointing out that the vegetarian will probably not eat meat.

What more practical an implication could you find? — Banno

See here:

Moral beliefs certainly have practical implications, in that if people believe that eating meat is immoral then it is likely that less meat is eaten and fewer animals are harvested, but that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm saying that eating meat actually being immoral has no practical implications and that eating meat actually not being immoral has no practical implications.

And from the OP:

Sure, if we believe that we ought not do X then we might not do X, but then it wouldn't really matter if our beliefs were true; only that we have them.

It's certainly not the case that if my belief that eating meat is wrong is true then I won't eat meat and that if my belief that eating meat is wrong is false then I will eat meat, as if moral facts themselves, as distinct from moral beliefs, influence my behaviour.

Hence the answer I gave previously - that it makes no sense to ask why we ought do what we ought do. — Banno

I'm not asking that.

I don't understand this phrase. — Banno

See here.

How is this not a slide from obligation to motivation? Sure, there are issues of weakness of the will. But they presume an obligation avoided, and hence an obligation.

What you are doing here is indeed incomprehensible. — Banno

Assume that we have some obligation. What is our motivation to obey such an obligation?

That's the question asked by the OP.

My stance is that if obligations have no practical import then the mere existence of an obligation is insufficiently motivating.

I ought do this? Okay, but I won't because I don't want to.

Well to be accurate, homosexuality is wrong by her (Muslim) community ethical standard, not her personal moral code (based on her actions). This is very common for folks' morals to clash with their community ethical standards. But she is, in fact, following her moral code. — LuckyR

She told me that she believes it's wrong and struggles with that belief.

Is your main point here just that you think non-naturalism doesn't work and you're therefore a naturalist consequentialist when it comes to ethics? — Hanover

No, I'm just asking a question of non-naturalists: why be moral? It seems to me that if non-naturalism is true then moral facts are of no practical import and so I wonder why they'd be motivated to be moral.

But now that you mention it, perhaps there's a case to argue that moral facts must be of practical import and so if non-naturalism entails that moral facts are of no practical import then non-naturalism must be false, but that's perhaps a topic for a different discussion.

Then I'll give you a real life example. My friend is a gay Muslim. She genuinely believes in the teachings of Islam – including that homosexuality is wrong – and yet she still dates women. She "knows" that this is "haram" but her desires trump her moral beliefs in deciding how to live her life.

Of course for her the choice is more difficult because she believes that she will be punished for doing wrong, but for the non-religious ethical non-naturalist, there's no such punishment. And so my question stands; what is the motivation to be moral?

Usually, people don't seem to indulge in such moral skepticism, so your thought experiment is moot for them. A philosopher cannot just ignore such things about people. It seems that most people are intuitively and absolutely sure about their sense of right and wrong, and this surety being intuitive and absolute is essential to their sense of morality. — baker

Yes, and what if you are absolutely sure that something you enjoy is wrong and something you're disgusted by is right? Would you change your behaviour to reflect your moral knowledge, or would you decide to continue as you were?

If it could be proved beyond all doubt that there was a God, that divine command theory is true, and that we have a moral obligation to kill infidels then I still wouldn't kill infidels because I don't want to be a killer. Morality be damned.

Either eating meat is immoral or it isn't.

Some people believe that eating meat is immoral and some people believe that eating meat is not immoral.

One of these groups is right and one of these groups is wrong.

What are the practical implications if the former are right? What are the practical implications if the latter are right?

I can't see that there are any in either case.

Regardless of who is right and who is wrong, those who believe that eating meat is immoral probably won't eat meat and those who believe that eating meat is not immoral probably will eat meat.

Like calling Letitia James “peekaboo” which is obviously a stand in for “jigaboo”.

Taken from this.

The SEP article on moral motivation explains it better:

If we are to explain moral motivation, we will need to understand not only how moral judgments so regularly succeed in motivating, but how they can fail to motivate, sometimes rather spectacularly. Not only do we witness motivational failure among the deranged, dejected, and confused, but also, it appears, among the fully sound and self-possessed. What are we to make of the “amoralist”—the apparently rational, strong willed individual who seemingly makes moral judgments, while remaining utterly indifferent?

...

Although contemporary philosophers have been divided with respect to Mackie’s moral skepticism, they have mostly agreed in rejecting his extremely strong claims about what moral motivation, and the objective moral properties that figure in our moral judgments, would have to be like. They have uniformly rejected the suggestion that a grasp of morality’s requirements would produce overriding motivation to act accordingly. And most have rejected efforts to explain moral motivation by appealing to a motivating power emanating from moral properties and the acts and states of affairs that instantiate them.

...

No realist or objectivist need think that moral properties, or facts about their instantiation, will, when apprehended, be sufficient to motivate all persons regardless of their circumstances, including their cognitive and motivational makeup. And realists certainly need not take the view that Mackie ascribes to Plato, that seeing objective values will ensure that one acts, “overruling any contrary inclination” (Mackie 1977,23). An individual might grasp a moral fact, for example, but suffer from temporary irrationality or weakness of will; she might be free of such temporary defects but possess a more indelible motivational makeup that impedes or defeats the motivating power of moral facts. Any plausible account of moral motivation will, and must, acknowledge these sources of motivational failure; and any plausible analysis of moral properties must allow for them. Even those realists or objectivists who maintain that all rational and motivationally unimpaired persons will be moved by moral facts need not think they will be overridingly indefeasibly motivated. As already noted, regardless of their views with respect to broader metaethical questions, contemporary philosophers do not take any position on the precise strength of moral motivation—with the qualification (alluded to earlier) that they reject, apparently universally, the idea that moral motivation is ordinarily overriding.

I'm asking why there is a motivation to be moral if moral facts have no practical implications.

The obvious practical implications are 1) how much meat is eaten, and 2) how many animals are harvested. — Leontiskos

Moral beliefs certainly have practical implications, in that if people believe that eating meat is immoral then it is likely that less meat is eaten and fewer animals are harvested, but that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm saying that eating meat actually being immoral has no practical implications and that eating meat actually not being immoral has no practical implications.

This doesn't quite follow, both because "immoral" and "harmful" might be neither individuals nor kinds, and because as mentioned in previous posts "immoral" and "harmful" might well be set up as extensionally equivalent — Banno

If they're extensionally equivalent then it would be naturalism, not non-naturalism? I'm specifically talking about non-naturalism.

Secondly, the presumption that differences must be observable has been addressed elsewhere — Banno

I'm not saying that differences must be observable. I'm only saying that there don't appear to be any observable differences.

You are asking for an observable difference where the difference at hand is on of attitude, of intent. — Banno

I'm not sure what attitudes and intent have to do with moral truth, unless we're talking about moral subjectivism, which we're not.

Thirdly, your strategy of asking for motivation is... problematic. At some stage, ratiocination must be replaced by action. And this will happen even if there is no reasoned account for the action. Buridan's Ass will not starve, it will eat. — Banno

I don't get what you're saying here. Yes, either I will eat meat or I won't. And either it is immoral to eat meat or it isn't. But whether or not I will eat meat and whether or not it is immoral to eat meat are two different considerations, and I'm interested in discussing the latter and the implications of its answer.

Rigid designation works primarily with individuals. "Michael" refers to Michael in every possible world in which Michael exists. But H₂O and water are kinds, not individuals. Whether "H₂O" and "water" rigidly refer to H₂O and water is a contentious issue. This is leaving aside the problem of whether to differentiate kinds such as these from predicates such as green, or whether green should be considered a kind and ...is green a predicate, and so on. On top of that we have the problem that "immoral" ranges over actions, and it is not entirely uncontroversial that actions are individuals of the sort that can be referred to rigidly. ↪frank is perhaps saying something along these lines. — Banno

You brought up the case of water necessarily being H₂O. I was simply explaining that I don't think the explanation for how this works applies to the case of ethical non-naturalism.

If a posteriori necessity depends on rigid designators referring to the same thing and if "immoral" and "harmful" are not rigid designators referring to the same thing then "harm is immoral" is not an a posteriori necessity.

If you think that there can be a posteriori necessities without rigid designators referring to the same thing then I'd be interested in hearing an explanation of it.

Again, there is a lot more going on here than one might suppose, and introducing alethic modality doesn't help. — Banno

We're not infallible, and so it's possible that some of our moral beliefs are wrong.

I don't think this at all a controversial claim.

So with that in mind, I'm asking about the practical implications of our moral beliefs being true and of those same moral beliefs being false. I don't think that eating meat being immoral has any practical implications and I don't think that eating meat not being immoral has any practical implications. So why would it matter to us if eating meat is immoral or not? Is it simply philosophical curiosity?

I just want to know what he did that was illegal. — NOS4A2

It’s explained in the indictments.

What did he do that was illegal? — NOS4A2

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/trump-jan-6-indictment-2020-election/1f1c76972b25c802/full.pdf

18 U.S.C. 371
(Conspiracy to Defraud the United States)

18 U.S.C. 1512 (k)
(Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding)

18 U.S.C. §§ 1512(c) (2), 2
(Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding)

18 U.S.C. 241
(Conspiracy Against Rights)

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/georgia-indictment-trump/daed97d37562a76f/full.pdf

VIOLATION OF THE GEORGIA RICO (RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS) ACT
O.C.G.A. 16-14-4(c)

SOLICITATION OF VIOLATION OF OATH BY PUBLIC OFFICER
O.C.G.A. 16-4-7& 16-10-1

CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT IMPERSONATING A PUBLIC OFFICER
O.C.G.A. 16-4-8& 16-10-23

CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT FORGERY IN THE FIRST DEGREE
O.C.G.A. 16-4-8 & 16-9-1(b)

CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS
O.C.G.A.§§ 16-4-8& 16-10-20

CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT FILING FALSE DOCUMENTS
O.C.G.A. 16-4-8& 16-10-20.1(b)

CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT FORGERY IN THE FIRST DEGREE
O.C.G.A. §§ 16-4-8 & 16-9-1(b)

CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS
O.C.G.A. §§ 16-4-8& 16-10-20

FILING FALSE DOCUMENTS
O.C.G.A. 16-10-20.1 b

SOLICITATION OF VIOLATION OF OATH BY PUBLIC OFFICER
O.C.G.A. 16-4-7 & 16-10-1

FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS
O.C.G.A. 16-10-20

SOLICITATION OF VIOLATION OF OATH BY PUBLIC OFFICER
O.C.G.A. 16-4-7 & 16-10-1

FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS
O.C.G.A. 16-10-20

It’s a good thing contesting an election is part and parcel of democracy. — NOS4A2

There are legal and illegal ways to contest an election. Trump's way was illegal.

I most certainly did not. You didn't read anything I wrote. — frank

You said this:

This is the primary root of moral realism: that it comes from God. Some cultures maintained that we're born knowing the difference between good and evil (Persians), but in the Hebrew outlook, we aren't. We have to learn it by becoming acquainted with God's laws. That would be a form of a posteriori necessity. — frank

How is that a form of a posteriori necessity?

I was explaining how there can be aposteriori necessity in the moral realm — frank

You asserted that if there is God then moral truths are a posteriori necessities but I don't think you explained how this follows. Why can't it be that in one possible world God commands that eating meat is immoral and in another possible world God commands that eating meat is not immoral?

I did read what you wrote. You said that "the difference between good and evil ... [is learned] by becoming acquainted with God's laws."

So I'm asking what you would do if God's laws commanded that love is immoral. What if he commanded that we ought kill every second baby?

This is pretty much exactly what I was asking in the OP:

Let us imagine that the concept of categorical/unconditional imperatives/obligations was sensible. Let us also imagine that these are true.

...

Presumably, regardless of what is or isn't [categorically immoral], you wouldn't kill babies.

So what is the motivation to obey God's moral laws?

Love. — frank

And what if God commands that love is immoral?

You were asking how there could be necessarily true statements known a posteriori. Did you understand the answer? — frank

No, because as soon as you introduce God all bets are off. Rather than argue against it I'd like to consider the implications.

Love. — frank

What's the motivation to be loving?

This is the primary root of moral realism: that it comes from God. Some cultures maintained that we're born knowing the difference between good and evil (Persians), but in the Hebrew outlook, we aren't. We have to learn it by becoming acquainted with God's laws. That would be a form of a posteriori necessity. — frank

So let's grant that the existence of God entails that there are necessary moral truths. Why be moral? What if God commands that non-believers ought be stoned to death? Would you stone non-believers to death?

Assume, for the sake of argument, that God does not reward the moral or punish the immoral.

I, for one, am not motivated simply by the belief (or knowledge) of what I ought to do.

Ukraine was their project, and it has been a hopeless mess. From cynically pushing Russia (probably in the belief that Putin was bluffing), to a strategy of wishful thinking that not only failed to hurt Russia but in fact spectatularly backfired, and continuing by burning all bridges by boycotting diplomacy, only to then make a 180 and subsequently failing to push Zelensky into negotiations. — Tzeentch

You're blaming Biden for Russia invading Ukraine and Ukraine not willing to give away some of their territory in exchange for "peace"?

In terms of foreign relations, the US lost on all fronts under Biden. It's been one tragic clownshow. — Tzeentch

What about domestic? I suspect that's what Americans care most about.

It doesn't define what it is, but it blatantly defines it to be something not physical. — noAxioms

No it doesn't. See my other argument in that post:

1. A foo is a four-sided triangle
2. Foos are a metaphysical impossibility
3. Therefore triangles, if they exist, do not have four sides

Premise 1 doesn't define "four-sided" or "triangle". It only defines "foo".

So:

1. A p-zombie is a non-conscious organism physically identical to a conscious human
2. P-zombies are (not) a metaphysical impossibility
3. Therefore consciousness, if it exists, is (non-)physical

Premise 1 doesn't define "non-conscious organism" or "physically identical to a conscious human". It only defines "p-zombie".

You don't think the Biden administration has been an unmitigated disaster? Ok. — Tzeentch

What disastrous things has it done?

I could work out a scenario in which someone would conclude that it is (the bolded part) — frank

How? Until Kripke's Naming and Necessity almost all philosophers thought a posteriori necessity impossible. It was only with his explanation of rigid designators that a strong case for them was made. If you can make a case for a posteriori necessity without rigid designators then that would be quite the philosophical breakthrough.

Right. Adjectives can't be rigid designators. — frank

Then I repeat what I said before:

Does necessary a posteriori truth without rigid designators that refer to the same thing make sense? If not then if ethical non-naturalism is true then "it is immoral to harm others" is not a necessary a posteriori truth.

That's an adjective. — frank

As is "immoral" according to you.

Then "harmful" rather than "harm".

Step 1 defines consciousness to be supernatural — noAxioms

Step 1 doesn't define consciousness. It defines p-zombies. Here's a different argument:

1. A p-zombie is physically identical to us but has no consciousness
2. P-zombies are a metaphysical impossibility
3. Therefore consciousness, if it exists, is physical

If step 1 defined consciousness as being supernatural then the conclusion would be a contradiction, but it isn't. Therefore step 1 doesn't define consciousness as being supernatural.

To make it clearer, here's another argument:

1. A foo is a four-sided triangle
2. Foos are a metaphysical impossibility
3. Therefore triangles, if they exist, do not have four sides

Step 1 does not define "four-sided" or "triangle". It only defines "foo".