For eg, if you just decide you want to do something nice for your friend—in the sense of something beneficial for her, rather than just picking an act that will give you warm fuzzies—then your presumption of what category of things would be ‘nice for her’ implicitly judges how to group states of the world. If you also feel like some things you might do would be nicer for her than others, then you’re judging how to order states of the world.
This already has the makings of a ‘moral system’, even though there’s not a ‘thou shalt’ in sight. If you further think that how she’ll react to whatever you do for her can corroborate/refute your judgement of what things are nice(r than others) for her, your system seems to have, if not a ‘realist’ element, at least a non purely antirealist/subjectivist one.
Very true! And this is precisely why I’m outright suspicious of non-naturalistic theoretical ethics and it’s magical “oughts”. In my case, in fact, I’m especially suspicious of Peter Singer and his simplistic form of hedonic utilitarianism, because it seems to me to rely overmuch on intuition pumps and too little on naturalized descriptions of how actual agents judge value.
Very true! And this is precisely why I’m outright suspicious of non-naturalistic theoretical ethics and it’s magical “oughts”. In my case, in fact, I’m especially suspicious of Peter Singer and his simplistic form of hedonic utilitarianism, because it seems to me to rely overmuch on intuition pumps and too little on naturalized descriptions of how actual agents judge value.