I have many good responses to the comments here, and I suppose I could sketch out some of the main arguments against anti-realism, but there are also many serious demands on my time and sadly this doesn’t look like a productive discussion. There seems to be very little real interest in finding out more (with a couple of notable exceptions). Instead the focus is on how to justify what is already believed without finding out any thing else about what the opponents are saying (which is particularly alarming given that many commenters are pointing out that they don’t understand what the opponents are saying!).
Given all of this, I fear that writing a post would not be a good use of my time.
many commenters are pointing out that they don’t understand what the opponents are saying
This is a little unfair; as soon as you take a deflationary stance on anything, you’re saying that the other stance doesn’t really have comprehensible content, and it’s a mistake to turn that into a general-purpose dismissal of deflationary stances.
There seems to be very little real interest in finding out more (with a couple of notable exceptions). Instead the focus is on how to justify what is already believed without finding out any thing else about what the opponents are saying
If you think that’s more true here than it is in other discussion forums, we’re doing something very wrong. I understand that you’re not able to spend time writing for this audience, but for those of us who do want to find out more about what moral realists are saying, every link you can provide to existing essays is valuable.
I accept this may be a case of the Popularization Bias (speaking for myself). I’d like to see some posts on the arguments against anti-realism...
Agreed. Perhaps Toby or David Pearce can be persuaded.
I don’t think I can persuaded.
I have many good responses to the comments here, and I suppose I could sketch out some of the main arguments against anti-realism, but there are also many serious demands on my time and sadly this doesn’t look like a productive discussion. There seems to be very little real interest in finding out more (with a couple of notable exceptions). Instead the focus is on how to justify what is already believed without finding out any thing else about what the opponents are saying (which is particularly alarming given that many commenters are pointing out that they don’t understand what the opponents are saying!).
Given all of this, I fear that writing a post would not be a good use of my time.
Alas. Perhaps some Less Wrongers with more time will write and post a hypothetical apostasy. I invite folk to do so.
This is a little unfair; as soon as you take a deflationary stance on anything, you’re saying that the other stance doesn’t really have comprehensible content, and it’s a mistake to turn that into a general-purpose dismissal of deflationary stances.
If you think that’s more true here than it is in other discussion forums, we’re doing something very wrong. I understand that you’re not able to spend time writing for this audience, but for those of us who do want to find out more about what moral realists are saying, every link you can provide to existing essays is valuable.
I, for one, am interested in hearing arguments against anti-realism.
If you don’t have personal interest in writing up a sketch, that’s fine. Might you have some links to other people who have already done so?
Elsewhere in the thread.
Toby already linked to the SEP articles on moral realism and anti-realism in another comment.