Edit to add: I’m a compatibilitist who is not a moral realist. I do not believe in the idea of moral desert except as a convenient (and very important and valuable!) social construct: Beyond a given society’s conventions, I believe that it is impossible in principle for anyone to deserve anything, good or bad.
The character of Death in The Hogfather basically got it right, as far as I’m concerned:
Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world, as if there is some...some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged
And also:.
Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
Also, funny: I’m a compatibilist non-moral-realist as well (and inspired by the Hogfather quote, too)! Morality is a social construct, and so is desert, I just find it important to think about the interplay of the two.
Edit to add: I’m a compatibilitist who is not a moral realist. I do not believe in the idea of moral desert except as a convenient (and very important and valuable!) social construct: Beyond a given society’s conventions, I believe that it is impossible in principle for anyone to deserve anything, good or bad.
The character of Death in The Hogfather basically got it right, as far as I’m concerned:
And also:.
Also, funny: I’m a compatibilist non-moral-realist as well (and inspired by the Hogfather quote, too)! Morality is a social construct, and so is desert, I just find it important to think about the interplay of the two.