Moral realism: A Defence - Russ Shafer-Landau

[Veritas Aequitas]

Here is a book that counters the Moral Fact Deniers' claim, i.e. there is objective Moral Realism.

Moral Realism: A Defence
https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Realism-De ... 0199259755

Introduction
Let me begin this book of philosophy with a bit of armchair sociology.
Nowadays many people express their moral views with a great deal more hesitation than was usual in the past.
We are less likely to wholeheartedly trumpet the cause of Progress, Manifest Destiny, Religion, or, indeed, anything that comes with capital letters.

Part of this stems from our comparatively greater exposure to those who think differently from us.
Part of this comes from witnessing what can be done by those whose certitude in their own moral convictions allows them to deny the humanity of their victims.

These two causes, and others, have themselves contributed to a distinctively philosophical source of our more measured ethical ambitions.
The philosophical source is a kind of scepticism about morality.
This scepticism is the view that our moral opinions are either never true, or are correct, when they are, only in virtue of our endorsements.
On this line, moral laws are human laws, made by, and for, humans.
Without some sort of personal or interpersonal ratification, a putative moral law is no law at all—just words, a mere pretender.
Moral principles enjoy no objective or transcendent status; they are not universal, but parochial; they are not awaiting our discovery, but rather are products of our creative efforts.
In likening the moral law to the positive law, whatever reservations we have about the authority of the latter are transferred to the former.

For those taken with this analogy, the often dismal history of our legislative undertakings seems to provide ample reason for the sort of moral modesty we see today.
But it doesn't, really.
If we create morality, then there is far less room for error than otherwise, and so far less ground for modesty.
If rightness is in the eye of the beholder, then so long as one's eyes are open, one is seeing aright, and there's an end on it.

Moral modesty is a virtue, when it is, just because of our fallibility—just because knowing the right thing to do is sometimes very difficult, and there are so many ways we can go wrong.
But modesty is not always a good thing.
It is easy to forget this if one is concentrating on textbook cases of arrogant Victorians or antebellum slaveholders.
Yet were we faced with such people as political opponents, humility and hesitation would be no virtue.
An unwavering conviction about certain matters is sometimes right and proper.
Whether such inflexibility amounts to virtue depends crucially on the worth of one's causes.

How is such worth best measured?

Sceptics about the status of morality claim that evaluative standards must reflect our own appraisals of propriety and worth.
Yet if we are the authors of the moral rules, then such rules are only as sound as we are.
We are rarely as imaginative or sympathetic as we might be, we are weak, liable sometimes to cut corners, and subject to all sorts of pressures to compromise.
The rules we make will invariably reflect these limitations.
In my own opinion, this is not cause for celebration, though there are some who see an inherently valueless world as an opportunity for limitless indulgence or courageous self-creation.

I surmise that most of those willing to adopt such a view do so not because of its intrinsic attractions, but because they do not understand how any alternative could possibly be true.
How could the moral law be something not of our own making, something whose truth did not depend on the commitments of those who are bound by its dictates?

Answering this question is the project I have set myself in this book.

If success is possible on this front, it will take the form of an adequate defence of moral realism.

Moral realism is the theory that moral judgements enjoy a special sort of objectivity: such judgements, when true, are so independently of what any human being, anywhere, in any circumstance whatever, thinks of them.

[Veritas Aequitas]

To grasp the full context of Shafer-Landau one will have to read his book.
But at least what I am conveying is, there are serious claims to Moral Realism.

Btw, for the Moral Realism skeptics, note
62% of Philosophers Surveyed Accept Moral Realism
https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/4866

[Peter Holmes]

Here is a book that counters the Moral Fact Deniers' claim, i.e. there is objective Moral Realism.

Moral Realism: A Defence
https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Realism-De ... 0199259755

Moral realism is the theory that moral judgements enjoy a special sort of objectivity: such judgements, when true, are so independently of what any human being, anywhere, in any circumstance whatever, thinks of them.

Judgements aren't true or false. Only factual assertions have truth-value. So this is unimpressive already.

When you've read the book, please summarise the killer argument for moral realism. Then one of us will demonstrate that it is - and must be - a fallacy.

[Iwannaplato]

Here is a book that counters the Moral Fact Deniers' claim, i.e. there is objective Moral Realism.

Moral Realism: A Defence
https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Realism-De ... 0199259755

Moral realism is the theory that moral judgements enjoy a special sort of objectivity: such judgements, when true, are so independently of what any human being, anywhere, in any circumstance whatever, thinks of them.

Judgements aren't true or false. Only factual assertions have truth-value. So this is unimpressive already.

When you've read the book, please summarise the killer argument for moral realism. Then one of us will demonstrate that it is - and must be - a fallacy.

So, morals are real, but chairs, the sun, dinosaurs, the big bang are not real. Not that the evidence supporting them is weak, there are no objects in and of themselves, just morals.

It should be noted that while there are many moral realists, they tend to disagree about morals and how or where they exist, what they are made of.

Let's look at a human situation.

It was immoral that the man stabbed his wife with a knife.

The judgment is real, but the knife isn't.

This will be a double comfort to the dead woman.

(I know, I know. VA doesn't think of morals as rules. He thinks of them as the tendencies of attitudes caused by some neurons (empathy) but not other tendencies caused by other neurons (like those that cause aggression.)

Interestingly we could call those physiological facts that lead to behavioral tendencies.

Rather than, say, moral facts.

AND THIS WOULD USE THE SCIENTIFIC FSK WHICH HE SAYS IS THE BEST.

I know you know all this, I just wanted to share the fun.

Occam's Razor
Can we explain the fact that mirror neurons can lead to a tendency to certain attitudes and behavior without introducing moral facts?
Yes, we can.

Modern formulations of the OR often look like

(OR1)
Other things being equal, if T1 is more ontologically parsimonious than T2 then it is rational to prefer T1 to T2.

Can we describe mirror neurons and attendant possible tendencies and behavior without introducing the moral fact entity?
Then it has less entities with moral facts and it is more parsimonious to introduce them.

Is there something that can be measured by science that is left out if we prefer the model without moral facts? No.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Here is a book that counters the Moral Fact Deniers' claim, i.e. there is objective Moral Realism.

Moral Realism: A Defence
https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Realism-De ... 0199259755

Moral realism is the theory that moral judgements enjoy a special sort of objectivity: such judgements, when true, are so independently of what any human being, anywhere, in any circumstance whatever, thinks of them.

Judgements aren't true or false. Only factual assertions have truth-value. So this is unimpressive already.

When you've read the book, please summarise the killer argument for moral realism. Then one of us will demonstrate that it is - and must be - a fallacy.

You are too jumpy and impose your personal thinking onto the above.

Didn't you read the statement which is self-evident, i.e.

Moral realism is the theory that moral judgements enjoy a special sort of objectivity:
such judgements, when true, are so independently of what any human being, anywhere, in any circumstance whatever, thinks of them.

In the above case, the author qualify his sort of judgment, i.e.
"such judgements, when true, are so independently of what any human being, anywhere, in any circumstance whatever, thinks of them"
as such,
these "moral judgements enjoy a special sort of objectivity" thus moral realism.

Note;

• judgment: the ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions.
  google dictionary

As such scientific facts from the scientific FSK are in one way 'judgments' as well.
So moral facts from the moral FSK are also in one way 'judgments' as well.

As stated,
To grasp the full context of Shafer-Landau one will have to read his book.
If you want more details, you'll need to read the book, if not, just let it pass,
but at least what I am conveying is, there are serious claims to Moral Realism.

I have read the book but my approach to moral realism is different from Shafer-Landau's, where he relied on the Moral Reliabilism FSK.
Are you familiar with Reliabilism up to its latest development and version.

[FlashDangerpants]

This is re-definition of "objectivity" to match what you can do (an opinion poll and nothing more) rather than what it is commonly understood to mean.

But you sacrifice the point of objectivity in doing so (you have nothing but a bunch of opinions that can change, not a timeless authoritative truth). You ought to be using some alternative name to avoid confusion, but you need the confusion of terms to allow for the sleight of hand inherent to your argument.

So because you are still evaluating these things on the basis of what they are made out of and not what they are for, you have a shit theory. It really doesn't matter whether the guy making the basic mistake is VA, Puttnam, or Shafer-Landau, the root of the error is the same either way.

[Iwannaplato]

This is re-definition of "objectivity" to match what you can do (an opinion poll and nothing more) rather than what it is commonly understood to mean.

But you sacrifice the point of objectivity in doing so (you have nothing but a bunch of opinions that can change, not a timeless authoritative truth). You ought to be using some alternative name to avoid confusion, but you need the confusion of terms to allow for the sleight of hand inherent to your argument.

So because you are still evaluating these things on the basis of what they are made out of and not what they are for, you have a shit theory. It really doesn't matter whether the guy making the basic mistake is VA, Puttnam, or Shafer-Landau, the root of the error is the same either way.

I mean, he wrote...

Didn't you read the statement which is self-evident, i.e.

Moral realism is the theory that moral judgements enjoy a special sort of objectivity:
such judgements, when true, are so independently of what any human being, anywhere, in any circumstance whatever, thinks of them.

My emphasis added.

Obviously if he thinks this statement is self-evident, an apriori. In a sense he is being honest here. I don't see why there needs to be complicated communication.

He thinks it obvious that there are moral judgments that are objective. It doesn't need to be supported by arguments because a statement like the one above is self-evidently true.

Now while using Intuitionalism in his post, he is also proposing that PH read a book that VA doesn't even really agree with.

All this Chinese plate spinning has to do with something he thinks is obvious and others do not. It is NOT the result of deduction. It is NOT the result of empirical research.

It's just obvious.

Fine, there's little to talk about and he should realize that others are not going to be convinced by an argument centered on it.