tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2631035637795172582.post4787676164730196483..comments2023-01-24T10:06:57.212-08:00Comments on (Blog&~Blog): Ethical Quasi-Realism and Logical TruthBenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06702722560438833244noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2631035637795172582.post-76430633621439545482010-09-12T22:18:20.299-07:002010-09-12T22:18:20.299-07:00Emil,
Well, Hume in different places hints at a v...Emil,<br /><br />Well, Hume in different places hints at a variety of meta-ethical positions, including outright error theory, as when he says that when we make moral assertions, we're painting the world in the colors of our emotional responses to it.<br /><br />(In a way, when he's in that 'projectivist' mode, Hume's position seems to be a sort of error-theoretic version of expressivism, the way that quasi-realism is a realist kind and the old A.J. Ayer expressivism, where moral statements aren't truth-evaluable at all, is a third kind. In all cases, what they have in common is the thought that, when we make moral assertions, we're expressing our moral attitudes, not discovering some feature of the world.)<br /><br />In other places, though, yeah, Hume says things that have inspired later naturalized moral realist views like the one you gesture at in your comment. In any case, personally, I tend to find the idea that someone could realize they made a moral mistake not because of a flaw in their reasoning or their access to relevant nonmoral facts but simply because (even under idealized circumstances) we took a vote and found out that they were outnumbered pretty implausible, but regardless, you're right, the criticism I'm raising only applies to the moral quasi-realist, not to any of the more robust versions of moral realism. After all, any other meta-ethical view would be, at worst, forced by similar criticisms into relativism about moral properties, not into relativism about truth, much much less relativism about <i>logical</i> truth.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06702722560438833244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2631035637795172582.post-64873700501105181292010-09-08T10:36:33.199-07:002010-09-08T10:36:33.199-07:00These sort of problems (there is a type with "...These sort of problems (there is a type with "sot" instead of "sort" somewhere) doesn't seem to affect (what I'm told is) Humean ethics (call it objective, subjective, quasi-objective or whatever): A moral claim is true iff the vast majority of unbiased, disinterested, informed humans think that it is true. Since psychopaths are in the very minority, that they don't share some moral belief doesn't matter. Right?Emil O. W. Kirkegaardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06373127088976173644noreply@blogger.com