Even for experts in meta-ethics, I can’t see how their confidence can get outside the 30%-70% range given the expert disagreement. For non-experts, I really can’t see how one could even get to 50% confidence in anti-realism, much less the kind of 98% confidence that is typically expressed here.
It depends on the expertise; for instance, if we’re talking about systems of axioms, then mathematicians may be those with the most relevant opinions as to whether one system has preference over others. And the idea that a unique system of moral axioms would have preference over all others makes no mathematical sense. If philosphers were espousing the n-realism position (“there are systems of moral axioms that are more true than others, but there will probably be many such systems, most mutually incompatible”), then I would have a hard time arguing against this.
But, put quite simply, I dismiss the moral realistic position for the moment as the arguments go like this:
1) There are moral truths that have special status; but these are undefined, and it is even undefined what makes them have this status.
2) These undefined moral truths make a consistent system.
3) This system is unique, according to criteria that are also undefined.
4) Were we to discover this system, we should follow it, for reasons that are also undefined.
There are too many ’undefined’s in there. There is also very little philosphical literature I’ve encountred on 2), 3) and 4), which is at least as important as 1). A lot of the literature on 1) seems to be reducible to linguistic confusion, and (most importantly) different moral realists have different reasons for believing 1), reasons that are often contradictory.
From a outsider’s perspective, these seem powerful reasons to assume that philosphers are mired in confusion on this issue, and that their opinions are not determining. My strong mathematical reasons for claiming that there is no “superiority total ordering” on any general collection of systems of axioms clinches the argument for me, pending further evidence.
It depends on the expertise; for instance, if we’re talking about systems of axioms, then mathematicians may be those with the most relevant opinions as to whether one system has preference over others. And the idea that a unique system of moral axioms would have preference over all others makes no mathematical sense. If philosphers were espousing the n-realism position (“there are systems of moral axioms that are more true than others, but there will probably be many such systems, most mutually incompatible”), then I would have a hard time arguing against this.
But, put quite simply, I dismiss the moral realistic position for the moment as the arguments go like this:
1) There are moral truths that have special status; but these are undefined, and it is even undefined what makes them have this status.
2) These undefined moral truths make a consistent system.
3) This system is unique, according to criteria that are also undefined.
4) Were we to discover this system, we should follow it, for reasons that are also undefined.
There are too many ’undefined’s in there. There is also very little philosphical literature I’ve encountred on 2), 3) and 4), which is at least as important as 1). A lot of the literature on 1) seems to be reducible to linguistic confusion, and (most importantly) different moral realists have different reasons for believing 1), reasons that are often contradictory.
From a outsider’s perspective, these seem powerful reasons to assume that philosphers are mired in confusion on this issue, and that their opinions are not determining. My strong mathematical reasons for claiming that there is no “superiority total ordering” on any general collection of systems of axioms clinches the argument for me, pending further evidence.