pragmatist comments on [Poll] Less Wrong and Mainstream Philosophy: How Different are We? - Less Wrong

38 Post author: Jayson_Virissimo 26 September 2012 12:25PM

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Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 26 September 2012 01:54:31PM 4 points [-]

Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?

Submitting...

Comment author: pragmatist 26 September 2012 02:44:44PM *  10 points [-]

[EDIT: The way I had initially described the distinction was misleading, as pointed out by thomblake. I apologize for potentially skewing the results of the poll, although I don't think my revised version is that far off from the earlier version. Still, I should have been more careful.]

Moral realism: There are objective moral facts, i.e. there are facts about what is right and wrong (or good and bad) that are not constituted by a subject's beliefs and desires.

Moral anti-realism: The denial of moral realism.

Comment author: thomblake 26 September 2012 05:27:42PM 3 points [-]

i.e. there are facts about what is right and wrong (or good and bad) that are not agent-relative.

Is that right? I've understood that you can be a realist about subject-sensitive objective moral facts. Is that different from saying that the facts are "agent-relative"?

Comment author: pragmatist 26 September 2012 05:46:28PM 1 point [-]

You're right, my potted descriptions here are misleading. Certain forms of relativism are appropriately classified as realist. I'll edit my descriptions.

Comment author: thomblake 26 September 2012 06:01:55PM 0 points [-]

Thanks! I was concerned I had it wrong.

Comment author: komponisto 27 September 2012 03:06:12PM 0 points [-]

Other : depends on the level of the desires (object-level, meta-level, etc.)