Like BiasedBayes, this article reads to me as putting forward a false dichotomy. Unlike BiasedBayes, I don't think that "wellbeing" or "science" have much to do with why I'm unconvinced by the article.

To me the third alternative to the dichotomy is, unsurprisingly, my own view: moral facts don't exist, and "right" & "wrong" are shorthand for behaviour of which I strongly approve or disapprove. My approvals & disapprovals can't be said to be moral facts, because they depend solely on my state of mind, but I'm nonetheless not obliged to become a nihilist because my approvals & disapprovals carry normative import to me, so my uses of "right" & "wrong" are not just descriptive as far as I'm concerned.

I expect Boghossian has a rebuttal, but I can't infer from the article what it would be. I can't imagine a conversation between the two of us that doesn't go in circles or leave me with the last word.

Me: Moral facts don't real. And yet, no logic compels me to be a nihilist. Checkmate, perfessor!

Imagined extrapolation of Paul Boghossian: But if there are no moral facts, any uses of ideas like "right", "wrong", or "should" just become descriptions of what someone thinks or feels. This leaves you bereft of normative vocabulary and hence a nihilist.

Me: Uses of "right", "wrong", or "should" are descriptions of how someone thinks or feels, at least when I use them. Specifically, they're descriptions of how I think or feel. But they aren't just that.

IEPB: So what's that extra normative component? Where does it come from?

Me: Well, it comes from me. I mentally promote certain actions (& non-actions) to the level of obligations or duties, or at least things which should be encouraged, whether or not I (or others) actually fulfil those obligations or duties.

IEPB: This is reminiscent of the example I gave in my article of etiquette, which derives its normative force from the hidden moral fact (absolute norm) that "we ought not, other things being equal, offend our hosts".

Me: If that analogy works, there must be some moral fact hidden in my mental-promotion-to-duty conception of right & wrong. Suppose for a moment that that's so. Start with the observation that my conception of right is basically "that is the right thing to do, in that it is something I approve of so strongly that I regard it as an obligation, or something approaching an obligation, binding on me/you". Digging into that, what's the underlying "moral fact" there? Presumably it's something like "we ought to do things that satt strongly approves of, and not do things that satt strongly disapproves of". But that's obviously not a moral fact, because it's obviously partial and dependent on one specific person's state of mind.

IEPB: Which means it's not normative, it's just a description of someone's mind. So you have no basis for normative judgements. You're a nihilist in denial.

Me: If I'm incapable of making normative judgements, how do you explain my judgement that you shouldn't make mediocre philosophical arguments, because I strongly disapprove of them?

IEPB: Har har. That's not a normative judgement. That's just a description of your state of mind.

Me: Not "just"! It's an assertion that you're obliged to not make mediocre philosophical arguments!

IEPB: Obliged in what way?

Me: Obliged in that I'm telling you you're obliged!

IEPB: That's not an obligation, that's just you expressing your preferences.

Me: No, because there's an explicit extra component to what I'm expressing. Your "just"ing would be correct if I were saying, for example, that I don't like chocolate. But I'm not merely passively observing that I don't approve of mediocre philosophical arguments. I'm telling you to desist from making them.

IEPB: I don't disagree that you're telling me that. Nor would any rational listener to this conversation. But "satt is telling me to desist" is "just a descriptive remark that carries no normative import whatsoever", quoting my article, which you did read, right?

Me: As a matter of fact I did. But like I say, I'm not (just) making the bland descriptive claim which anyone with ears would agree with. I'm carrying out the first-order action of commanding you, in the earnest hope that you will listen & obey, to refrain from an action.

IEPB: Big whoop. Anybody can give an order.

Me: That you're unmoved by my order doesn't make it any less normative. Compare a realm where we both agree that there are facts: empirical investigation of reality. If I told you that gravity made things fall downwards, that would still have force (lol) as a positive, empirical claim, whether you agreed or not. Likewise, when I tell you to knock off some behaviour, that still has force as a normative claim, whether you agree or not.

IEPB: Nuh uh. The two cases are disanalogous. In the gravity case I can only disagree with you on pain of being objectively incorrect. In the knock-it-off case I can disagree with you however I please.

Me: No, you disagree on pain of being quasi-objectively wrong, according to my standard.

IEPB: Oh, come on. Quasi-objectively? By your standard? Really?

Me: Yes; any observer would agree that you'd violated my standard.

IEPB: But that's purely a descriptive claim!

Me: That's the descriptive component, and as a descriptive claim it's objectively correct. The normative claim is that your disagreement and violation mean you're in the wrong, as defined by my disapproval of your behaviour. And that normative claim is subjectively correct.

IEPB:

And at this point I have to break off this made-up conversation, because I don't see what new rebuttal Boghossian could/would give. Here endeth the philosopher fanfiction.

Edit, 4 days later: correct "normative important" misquotation to "normative import".