Without commenting on whether this presentation matches the original metaethics sequence (with which I disagree), this summary argument seems both unsupported and unfalsifiable.
Would this be an accurate summary of what you think is the meta-ethics sequence? I feel that you captured the important bits but I also feel that we disagree on some aspects:
V(Elves, ) = Christmas spirity
V(Pebblesorters, ) = primality
V(Humans, _ ) = morality
If V(Humans, Alice) =/= V(Humans, ) that doesn't make morality subjective, it is rather i...
Unpacking "should" as " morally obligated to" is potentially helpful, so inasmuch as you can give separate accounts of "moral" and "obligatory".
The elves are not moral. Not just because I, and humans like me happen to disagree with them, no, certainly not. The elves aren’t even trying to be moral. They don’t even claim to be moral. They don’t care about morality. They care about “The Christmas Spirit,” which is about eggnog and stuff
That doesn't generalise to the point that non humans have no morality. You have m...
Morality binds and blinds. People derive moral claims from emotional and intuitive notions. It can feel good and moral to do amoral things. Objective morality has to be tied to evidence what really is human wellbeing; not to moral intuitions that are adaptions to the benefit of ones ingroup; or post hoc thought experiments about knowledge.
Moral goodness is clearly different form, eg, hedonic goodness. Enjoying killing doesn't mean you should kill.
It might be the case that humans have a mistaken view of the objectivity of morality, but it doesn't follow from that that morality=hedonism. You can't infer the correctness of one of N>2 theories form the wrongness of another.
It is possible to misuse the terms "dog" and "cat", so the theory of semantics you are appealing to as the only possible alternative to objective fully objective semantics is wrong as well. HInt: intersubjectivity, convention.
So what's the correct theory?
I don't know why you are bringing up hedonism. It is bad to kill even if you enjoy it; so if morally good means what it is good to do, as I say, it will be morally bad to kill even if it is pleasant to someone.
The fully intersubjective but non-objective theory of meaning that you are suggesting is also false, since if everyone all at once agrees to call all dogs and cats "dogs", that will not mean that suddenly there is no objective difference between the things that used to be called dogs and the things that used to be called cats.
The correct th... (read more)