People here seem to share anti-realist sensibilities but then balk at the label
When I explain my meta-ethical standpoint to people in general, I usually avoid using phrases or words such as "there is no objective morality" or "nihilism” because there is usually a lot of emotional baggage, often times go they go “ah so you think everything is permitted” which is not really what I’m trying to convey.
do weird things for anti-realists like treat moral judgments as beliefs, make is-ought mistakes, argue against non-consequentialism as if there were a fact of the matter, and expect morality to be describable in terms of a coherent and consistent set of rules instead of an ugly mess of evolved heuristics.
In a lot of cases you are absolutely correct, but there are times when I think people on LW try answer “what do I think is right?”, this becomes a question concerning self-knowledge that is e.g. to what degree I'm I aware of what motivates me or can I formulate what I value?
When I explain my meta-ethical standpoint to people in general, I usually avoid using phrases or words such as "there is no objective morality" or "nihilism” because there is usually a lot of emotional baggage, often times go they go “ah so you think everything is permitted” which is not really what I’m trying to convey.
So you don't think everything is permitted?
How do you convey thinking there is no objective truth value to any moral statement and then convey that something is forbidden?
Do you believe in an objective morality capable of being scientifically investigated (a la Sam Harris *or others*), or are you a moral nihilist/relativist? There seems to be some division on this point. I would have thought Less Wrong to be well in the former camp.
Edit: There seems to be some confusion - when I say "an objective morality capable of being scientifically investigated (a la Sam Harris *or others*)" - I do NOT mean something like a "one true, universal, metaphysical morality for all mind-designs" like the Socratic/Platonic Form of Good or any such nonsense. I just mean something in reality that's mind-independent - in the sense that it is hard-wired, e.g. by evolution, and thus independent/prior to any later knowledge or cognitive content - and thus can be investigated scientifically. It is a definite "is" from which we can make true "ought" statements relative to that "is". See drethelin's comment and my analysis of Clippy.