Sayre-McCord: Essays on Moral Realism

[Veritas Aequitas]

PH et. al. insist Moral Realism and Moral Objectivity are impossible as argued in the following thread:
What could make morality objective?
viewtopic.php?t=24601

"The standard arguments against moral facts, however, rely largely on the outmoded and discredited assumptions of logical positivism, assumptions that live on in moral theory long after they have died everywhere else." [SM]

In addition, I have charged that PH et. al. refutations of moral facts are grounded upon an illusion from philosophical realism [absolute mind-independence].

PH's What is Fact is Illusory
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39577

Why Philosophical Realism is Illusory
viewtopic.php?t=40167

PH's Philosophical Realism is Illusory
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39992

Sayre-McCord in his "Essays on Moral Realism" with optimism state the following;

Moreover, recent developments in moral theory, philosophy of science, and philosophy of language suggest several positive arguments, over and above common conviction, for believing in moral facts.
As a result, moral realism—the view that there are moral facts which we can discover—now enjoys renewed vitality and new intellectual credentials.

Sayre-McCord presented the following chapters in his book in support of the possibility of moral realism from the modern perspective:

• II MORAL REALISM
  7 Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life 127
  David Wiggins
  
  8 Values and Secondary Qualities 166
  John McDowell
  
  9 How to Be a Moral Realist 181
  Richard N. Boyd
  viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29683
  
  10 Moral Explanations 229
  Nicholas L. Sturgeon
  
  11 Moral theory and Explanatory Impotence 256
  Geoffrey Sayre-McCord
  
  12 Moral Reality 282
  Mark Platts

I have discussed Boyd's "How to Be a Moral Realist" in an earlier thread;
for the other, one will have to refer to the book.

Would anyone still insist it is absolutely impossible for morality to be objective?

Views??

[Veritas Aequitas]

Notes:
Abstracts of the above chapters:

David Wiggins’s “Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life” serves as a bridge between the papers attacking moral realism and those defending it.
On the one hand, Wiggins espouses a sort of ‘cognitive underdetermination’ with respect to moral claims that is congenial to anti-realists.
On the other hand , he argues that objectivity and discovery can be combined with invention to support a realist interpretation of moral values.
Both the subtlety of Wiggins's arguments for realism and the reasons he gives for limiting its scope have earned his paper a central place in discussions of realism.

Against anti-realists, John McDowell defends cognitivism about moral utterances (in “Values and Secondary Qualities”), recommending that moral properties be thought of as analogous to secondary qualities like color and that such secondary qualities are genuine features of objects (and not mere projections onto objects).

Taking advantage of new arguments for realism in the philosophy of science, Richard N. Boyd's “How to Be a Moral Realist” canvasses the many strategies open to realists for defending a consequentialist naturalism.

Likewise concerned to defend a naturalism in ethics, Nicholas L. Sturgeon (in “Moral Explanations”) argues, against Harman, that moral facts do figure in our best explanations of our experiences.

In “Moral theory and Explanatory Impotence” I [McCord] explore and criticize the assumption, shared by Harman, Boyd, and Sturgeon, that the legitimacy of moral facts would be secured by, and only by, their having a place within scientific explanations.

Finally, Mark Platts’s “Moral Reality” draws primarily on the philosophy of language to argue for a version of intuitionism that gives moral claims an ‘austerely realistic’ interpretation and straightforward truth-conditions, while avoiding traditional intuitionism’s reliance on peculiar mental faculties of moral intuition.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Notes:

[Iwannaplato]

Would anyone still insist it is absolutely impossible for morality to be objective?

Me, I wouldn't insist this. And note how far this question is from moral antirealists are driven by fear and lack the necessary rationality to.....and the usual attitude you express to those who are not moral realists.

And it's not that I wouldn't insist this because of this thread, but that wouldn't have been something I'd have insisted for most of my adult life.

[FlashDangerpants]

It's a fairly good book, but honestly none of the realists makes much of an argument. I can't remember off the top of my head any of those essays that actually makes the moral realist case itself rather than issuing some sort of "sketch" or plan for how such a thing could perhaps be constructed over a period of time. It's like a plan for a bank robbery that begins "most banks have doors, so let's all go in the doors and wave guns", all very well, but you can't sell that as the plot for the next Oceans <number> movie.

Is anybody here going to actually read it so that discussion of the essays contained could be well informed? VA doesn't count, he can't read. His description of Boyd's argument is such complete inane bullshit even after "more than 20" readings that this fiasco more or less proves he is not capable of reading papers at this level at all. All he did was skim read it looking for random sentences he could interpret as meaning that he is right about stuff, but that's all the reading VA ever does anyway.

I would be willing to review the book again if somebody had some actual interest in it. But otherwise I have other stuff to do.

[Peter Holmes]

Would anyone still insist it is absolutely impossible for morality to be objective?

Yes, I do. Given that objectivity is reliance on facts rather than opinions, and given that facts are features of reality that are or were the case, regardless of opinion - then there's no such thing as a moral fact - so morality isn't and can't be objective.

The moral rightness or wrongness of X can never be a state-of-affairs that just is the case. So the expression 'X is morally right/wrong' can never be a factual assertion with a truth-value. Moral rightness and wrongness are not states-of-affairs or features of reality.

And in classical logic, non-moral premises can't entail moral conclusions.

But, of course, if VA or anyone else cares to demonstrate the existence of a moral fact, or set out a valid and sound argument for moral objectivity, that would knock my position for six. So bring it on.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Would anyone still insist it is absolutely impossible for morality to be objective?

Yes, I do.

You do???
But your refutation 'Morality cannot be objective' is based on the thoughts from the outdated old schools as McCord stated in the book;

"The standard arguments against moral facts, however, rely largely on the outmoded and discredited assumptions of logical positivism, assumptions that live on in moral theory long after they have died everywhere else."

Moreover, recent developments in moral theory, philosophy of science, and philosophy of language suggest several positive arguments, over and above common conviction, for believing in moral facts.
As a result, moral realism—the view that there are moral facts which we can discover—now enjoys renewed vitality and new intellectual credentials.

..............

Given that objectivity is reliance on facts rather than opinions, and given that facts are features of reality that are or were the case, regardless of opinion - then there's no such thing as a moral fact - so morality isn't and can't be objective.

I have argued your sense of 'what is moral fact' is grounded on an illusion, as such your denial and refutation, 'morality cannot be objective' is baseless.
You have not provided any effective counters against my arguments.
Since your threads are such a mountain of a dumpster, I suggest you open a separate thread to refute my arguments specific to your claims.

PH's What is Fact is Illusory
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39577

Why Philosophical Realism is Illusory
viewtopic.php?t=40167

PH's Philosophical Realism is Illusory
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39992

The moral rightness or wrongness of X can never be a state-of-affairs that just is the case. So the expression 'X is morally right/wrong' can never be a factual assertion with a truth-value. Moral rightness and wrongness are not states-of-affairs or features of reality.

I have already address the above > "a 1000" times and yet you still have not acknowledge that.
In addition, I have raised a specific thread for that and you did not provide any convincing counters to it;

Morality = Rightness or Wrongness is WRONG
viewtopic.php?t=40331&sid=1aed7a7316f7a ... 6866cf325b

And in classical logic, non-moral premises can't entail moral conclusions.

Still indulging and banking in "classical logic" in our modern era?
This is the limitation set up by Hume's IS-OUGHT, Moore's Naturalistic Fallacies & Open Question Argument; but these limitations are applicable within the rules of classical logical which are not relevant for the new approaches to reality.

Example where whatever 'classical' is outdated with advent of modern views of truth and reality.
Classical Newtonian Physics is useful but it is limited to some 'lower grades' of the realization of reality.
Where we need to realize the greater grades of reality which bring forth greater utilities to humanity, we have to move on to higher grades of truths, facts, objectivity to Einsteinian and QM Physics.

It is the same with Morality; if we need to find greater utilities for humanity [peace and harmony] we cannot rely on classical logic.
To strive toward the vision and mission of perpetual peace [no evil acts] for humanity, we have to rely on morality grounded on a human-based morality-proper framework and system.
To do so, we have to abandon all the hindrances to morality from the shackles of classical logic, e.g. Hume's IS-OUGHT, Moore's Naturalistic Fallacies & Open Question Argument, etc.

But, of course, if VA or anyone else cares to demonstrate the existence of a moral fact, or set out a valid and sound argument for moral objectivity, that would knock my position for six. So bring it on.

Sayre-McCord: Essays on Moral Realism gives you the direction in support of moral realism, which indirectly support moral objectivity and existence of objective moral facts.
To be fair, you have to read the book and provide your counter why the book fails to meet its objective in establishing the possibility of moral realism.

Btw, whilst I agree with McCord's pointing to the possibility of Moral Realism, I do not agree with him re the totality of his approach.
The book's approach is limited to scientific realism while mine is grounded on scientific antirealism. Even for that contrast, it is not an issue in establish "moral realism" as I define it.

So what is your counter that McCord presentation of the possibility of Moral Realism is not tenable?

The critical question here is how can humanity steer and continually improve its average moral competences [quotient] itself towards the ideal of perpetual peace?
Morality Relativism [to each their own, tolerate evil and so on] is a non-started to any question of peace and harmony for humanity in the future.
On the other hand there is a logical and rational possibility for moral objectivity to drive moral progress continuously towards its objective.