XiXiDu comments on What is Metaethics? - Less Wrong

31 Post author: lukeprog 25 April 2011 04:53PM

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Comment author: XiXiDu 27 April 2011 02:34:02PM 0 points [-]

What are you going to do instead of invoking "morality"? Are you going to describe people's reactions as a way of avoiding using the word "morality"? That would be cumbersome, to say the least.

I am going to use moral terminology in the appropriate cultural context. But why would one use it on a site that supposedly tries to dissolve problems using reductionism as a general heuristic? I am also using the term "free will" because people model their decisions according to that vague and ultimately futile concept. But if possible (if I am not too lazy) I avoid using any of those bogus memes.

Morality is real. It isn't imaginary. That it's made out of people's reactions doesn't stop it from being real.

Of course, it is real. Cthulhu is also real, it is a fictional cosmic entity. But if someone acts according to their fear of Cthulhu I am not going to resolve their fear by talking about it in terms of the Lovecraft Mythos but in terms of mental illness.

What are you going to do instead of invoking "morality"? Are you going to describe people's reactions as a way of avoiding using the word "morality"? That would be cumbersome, to say the least.

How so? Can you give an example where the use of terminology derived from moral philosophy is useful instead of obfuscating?