You’re right, not all cognitivists are anti-realists. But some are, including Eliezer.
Indeed, realists are generally considered cognitivist. But my impression is that if a moral system is labeled cognitivist, the implication is that it is anti-realist. That’s because realism is usually the top level of classifying moral systems, so if you’re bothering to talk about cognitivism, it’s because the system is anti-realist.
This is correct I think, but confusing. All realists are by definition cognitivists. Non-cognitivist is simply one variety of anti-realist: someone who thinks moral statements aren’t the kinds of things that can have truth conditions at all. For example, someone who thinks they merely reflect the speakers emotional feelings about the matter (like loudly booing).
Of the anti-realists there are two kinds of cognitivists: Moral error theorists who think that moral statements are about mind-independent facts but that there are no such facts And moral subjectivists who think that moral statements are about mind-dependent facts. If what you say is true, Eliezer is one of those (more or less).
Yes, people who say that realists are cognitivists say that this is true by definition, but I don’t think these terms are used consistently enough that it is a good idea to argue by definition. In particular, I think Eliezer is right to equivocate on whether he is a realist. He certainly rejects the description of his morality as “mind-dependent.”
Yes, people who say that realists are cognitivists say that this is true by definition, but I don’t think these terms are used consistently enough that it is a good idea to argue by definition.
I’m not trying to argue by definition: I’m just telling you what the terms means as they are used in the metaethical literature (where they’re used plenty consistently). If someone wants to say they are a moral realist but not a cognitivist then I have no idea what they are because they’re not using standard terminology. If someone doesn’t fit into the boxes created by the traditional terminology then come up with different labels. But it’s an incredibly confusing and bad idea to use an unorthodox definition to classify yourself as something you’re not. You representation makes me more confused about Eliezer’s views. Why position him with this language if you aren’t taking definitions from an encyclopedia?
According to the standard groupings being an anti-realist cognitivist and objectivist would group someone with the error theorists. If Eliezer doesn’t fit there then we can come up with a word to describe his position once it is precisely distinguished from the other positions.
Here’s an example of inconsistency in philosophical use. I keep saying that Eliezer equivocates about whether he is a realist, and that I think he’s right to do so. Elsewhere in the comments on this post you say that moral subjectivism is not realism by definition. But it’s not clear to me from the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on moral realism that this is so. The entry on anti-realism says that Sayre-McCord explicitly puts moral subjectivism in moral realism. Since he wrote the article on realism, that explains why it seems to accept that possibility, but this it certainly demonstrates that this uncertainty is more mainstream than you allow.
Uncertainty, even disagreement, about how to classify views is fine. It’s not the same as inconsistency. Sayre-McCord’s position on subjectivism is non-standard and treated as such. But I can still figure out what he thinks just from a single paragraph summarizing his position. He takes the standard definitions as a starting point and then makes an argument for his structure of theories. This is the sort of thing I’m asking you to do if you aren’t going to use the standard terminology.
You seem to be concerned with bashing philosophy instead of explaining your usage. I’m not the field’s standard bearer. I just want to know what you mean by the words you’re using! Stop equivocating about realism and just state the ways in which the position is realist and the ways in which it is anti-realist. Or how it is realist but you don’t think realism should mean what people think it means.
I never used “realism,” so there’s no point in my defining it.
Look back at this thread!
My whole point was that Eliezer avoids the word. He thinks that cognitivism is a useful concept, so he uses it. Similarly, he avoids “moral subjectivism” and uses terms like “subjectively objective.” He equivocates when asked for a label, endorsing both “realist” and “cognitivist anti-realist.” But he does spell out the details, in tens of thousands of words across this sequence.
Yes, if people want to pin down Eliezer’s views they should say what parts are realist and what parts are anti-realist. When I object to people calling him realist or anti-realist, I’m certainly agreeing with that!
After that comment about “bashing philosophy,” I don’t think there’s any point in responding to your first paragraph.
But he does spell out the details, in tens of thousands of words across this sequence.
I am one of a number of people who cannot detect a single coherent theory in his writings. A summary in the standard jargon would be helpful in persuading me that there is one.
You’re right, not all cognitivists are anti-realists. But some are, including Eliezer.
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If you ask him whether he’s a moral realist, he’ll say yes, but if you ask him for a self-description, he’ll say cognitivist which is often grouped against realism. Moreover, if asked for detail, he’ll say that he’s an anti-realist.
These quotes did not exactly express to me that you don’t know to what extent his views or realist or anti-realist. I’m sorry if I was targeting you instead of Eliezer… but you were agreeing with his confusing equivocation.
Similarly, he avoids “moral subjectivism” and uses terms like “subjectively objective.”
Ah yes, the old eschewing the well-recognized, well-explored terminology for an oxymoronic neologism. How could anyone get confused?
You sure you’re not trying to force me to use jargon I don’t like? I don’t know what else to call responding to new jargon with sarcasm.
At the very least, you seem to be demanding that we confuse laymen so that philosophers can understand. I happen to believe that philosophers won’t understand, either.
No, the right answer isn’t to say “I don’t know if he is a realist.” Actually, I do think it would be better to reject the question of realism than to equivocate, but I suspect Eliezer has tried this and found that people don’t accept it.
At the very least, you seem to be demanding that we confuse laymen so that philosophers can understand. I happen to believe that philosophers won’t understand, either.
As far as I can tell, no one understands. But I don’t see how my suggestion, which involves reading maybe 2 encyclopedia articles to pick up jargon, would confuse laymen especially.
No, the right answer isn’t to say “I don’t know if he is a realist.”
Right, it’s just you explicitly called him an anti-realist. And he apparently calls himself both? You can see how I could get confused.
Actually, I do think it would be better to reject the question of realism than to equivocate, but I suspect Eliezer has tried this and found that people don’t accept it.
Do people accept equivocation? I’d be fine with rejecting the question of realism so long as it was accompanied by an explanation of how it was a wrong question.
You sure you’re not trying to force me to use jargon I don’t like? I don’t know what else to call responding to new jargon with sarcasm.
Just expressing my opinion re: design principles in the construction of jargon. I know I’ve been snippy with you, apologies, I haven’t had enough sleep.
The problem with the standard jargon is that “realism” is used to label a metaphysical and an epistemological claim. I like to call the epistemological claim, that there is a single set of moral truths, moral objectivism, which clearly is the opposite of moral subjectivism.
I simply don’t believe you that philosophers use these words consistently. Philosophers have an extremely bad track record of asserting that they use words consistently.
So, I think that is simply false regarding the analytic tradition, especially if we’re comparing them to Less Wrong’s use of specialized jargon (which is often hilariously ill-defined). I’d love to see some evidence for your claim. But that isn’t the point.
There are standard introductory reference texts which structure theories of ethical semantics. They contain definitions. They don’t contradict each other. And all of them will tell you what I’m telling you. Let’s look, here’s wikipedia. Here is the SEP on Moral Realism. Here is the SEP on Moral Anti-Realism. Here is the entry on Moral Cognitivism. All three are written by different philosophers and all use nearly identical definitions which define the moral realist as necessarily being a cognitivist. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy says the same thing.
We’re not talking about something that is ambiguous or borderline. Cognitivism is the first necessary feature of moral realism in the standard usage. If you are using the term “moral realist”, but don’t think cognitivism is part of the definition then no one can figure out what you’re saying! Same goes for describing someone as an anti-realist who believes in cognitivism, that moral statments can be true and that they are mind-indpendent. All the terms after “anti-realist” in that sentence make up the entire definition of moral realism
I’m not trying to be pedantic or force you to use jargon you don’t like. But if you’re going to use it, why not use the terms as they are used in easily available encyclopedia articles written by prominent philosophers? Or at least redefine the terms somewhere.
Clarification- do you mean inconsistencies within or between philosophers? Between philosophers I agree with you- within a single philosopher’s work I’d be curious to see examples.
I just mean that philosophers have a bad track record asserting that they are using the same definition as each other. That’s rather worse than just not using the same definition. I told Jack that he wasn’t using the same definition as the Stanford Encyclopedia. I didn’t expect him to believe me, but he didn’t even notice. Does that count for your purpose, since he chose the source?
But, yes, I do condemn argument by definition because I don’t trust the individuals to have definitions.
If someone wants to say they are a moral realist but not a cognitivist then I have no idea what they are because they’re not using standard terminology.
Presumably a Platonist who thinks the Form of the Good is revealed by a mystical insight.
A Platonist who thinks the Form of the Good is revealed by mystical insight is a cognitivist and I don’t know why you would think otherwise. Wikipedia:) “Cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences express propositions and can therefore be true or false”.
Or you’re not using standard terminology, in which case, see above.
Is it? That seems backwards to me: non-cognitivism is one of the main varieties of non realism. (The other being error theory.) What am I missing?
You’re right, not all cognitivists are anti-realists. But some are, including Eliezer.
Indeed, realists are generally considered cognitivist. But my impression is that if a moral system is labeled cognitivist, the implication is that it is anti-realist. That’s because realism is usually the top level of classifying moral systems, so if you’re bothering to talk about cognitivism, it’s because the system is anti-realist.
This is correct I think, but confusing. All realists are by definition cognitivists. Non-cognitivist is simply one variety of anti-realist: someone who thinks moral statements aren’t the kinds of things that can have truth conditions at all. For example, someone who thinks they merely reflect the speakers emotional feelings about the matter (like loudly booing).
Of the anti-realists there are two kinds of cognitivists: Moral error theorists who think that moral statements are about mind-independent facts but that there are no such facts And moral subjectivists who think that moral statements are about mind-dependent facts. If what you say is true, Eliezer is one of those (more or less).
Yes, people who say that realists are cognitivists say that this is true by definition, but I don’t think these terms are used consistently enough that it is a good idea to argue by definition. In particular, I think Eliezer is right to equivocate on whether he is a realist. He certainly rejects the description of his morality as “mind-dependent.”
I’m not trying to argue by definition: I’m just telling you what the terms means as they are used in the metaethical literature (where they’re used plenty consistently). If someone wants to say they are a moral realist but not a cognitivist then I have no idea what they are because they’re not using standard terminology. If someone doesn’t fit into the boxes created by the traditional terminology then come up with different labels. But it’s an incredibly confusing and bad idea to use an unorthodox definition to classify yourself as something you’re not. You representation makes me more confused about Eliezer’s views. Why position him with this language if you aren’t taking definitions from an encyclopedia?
According to the standard groupings being an anti-realist cognitivist and objectivist would group someone with the error theorists. If Eliezer doesn’t fit there then we can come up with a word to describe his position once it is precisely distinguished from the other positions.
Here’s an example of inconsistency in philosophical use. I keep saying that Eliezer equivocates about whether he is a realist, and that I think he’s right to do so. Elsewhere in the comments on this post you say that moral subjectivism is not realism by definition. But it’s not clear to me from the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on moral realism that this is so. The entry on anti-realism says that Sayre-McCord explicitly puts moral subjectivism in moral realism. Since he wrote the article on realism, that explains why it seems to accept that possibility, but this it certainly demonstrates that this uncertainty is more mainstream than you allow.
Uncertainty, even disagreement, about how to classify views is fine. It’s not the same as inconsistency. Sayre-McCord’s position on subjectivism is non-standard and treated as such. But I can still figure out what he thinks just from a single paragraph summarizing his position. He takes the standard definitions as a starting point and then makes an argument for his structure of theories. This is the sort of thing I’m asking you to do if you aren’t going to use the standard terminology.
You seem to be concerned with bashing philosophy instead of explaining your usage. I’m not the field’s standard bearer. I just want to know what you mean by the words you’re using! Stop equivocating about realism and just state the ways in which the position is realist and the ways in which it is anti-realist. Or how it is realist but you don’t think realism should mean what people think it means.
I never used “realism,” so there’s no point in my defining it.
Look back at this thread!
My whole point was that Eliezer avoids the word. He thinks that cognitivism is a useful concept, so he uses it. Similarly, he avoids “moral subjectivism” and uses terms like “subjectively objective.” He equivocates when asked for a label, endorsing both “realist” and “cognitivist anti-realist.” But he does spell out the details, in tens of thousands of words across this sequence.
Yes, if people want to pin down Eliezer’s views they should say what parts are realist and what parts are anti-realist. When I object to people calling him realist or anti-realist, I’m certainly agreeing with that!
After that comment about “bashing philosophy,” I don’t think there’s any point in responding to your first paragraph.
I am one of a number of people who cannot detect a single coherent theory in his writings. A summary in the standard jargon would be helpful in persuading me that there is one.
...
These quotes did not exactly express to me that you don’t know to what extent his views or realist or anti-realist. I’m sorry if I was targeting you instead of Eliezer… but you were agreeing with his confusing equivocation.
Ah yes, the old eschewing the well-recognized, well-explored terminology for an oxymoronic neologism. How could anyone get confused?
You sure you’re not trying to force me to use jargon I don’t like? I don’t know what else to call responding to new jargon with sarcasm.
At the very least, you seem to be demanding that we confuse laymen so that philosophers can understand. I happen to believe that philosophers won’t understand, either.
No, the right answer isn’t to say “I don’t know if he is a realist.” Actually, I do think it would be better to reject the question of realism than to equivocate, but I suspect Eliezer has tried this and found that people don’t accept it.
As far as I can tell, no one understands. But I don’t see how my suggestion, which involves reading maybe 2 encyclopedia articles to pick up jargon, would confuse laymen especially.
Right, it’s just you explicitly called him an anti-realist. And he apparently calls himself both? You can see how I could get confused.
Do people accept equivocation? I’d be fine with rejecting the question of realism so long as it was accompanied by an explanation of how it was a wrong question.
Just expressing my opinion re: design principles in the construction of jargon. I know I’ve been snippy with you, apologies, I haven’t had enough sleep.
The problem with the standard jargon is that “realism” is used to label a metaphysical and an epistemological claim. I like to call the epistemological claim, that there is a single set of moral truths, moral objectivism, which clearly is the opposite of moral subjectivism.
I simply don’t believe you that philosophers use these words consistently. Philosophers have an extremely bad track record of asserting that they use words consistently.
So, I think that is simply false regarding the analytic tradition, especially if we’re comparing them to Less Wrong’s use of specialized jargon (which is often hilariously ill-defined). I’d love to see some evidence for your claim. But that isn’t the point.
There are standard introductory reference texts which structure theories of ethical semantics. They contain definitions. They don’t contradict each other. And all of them will tell you what I’m telling you. Let’s look, here’s wikipedia. Here is the SEP on Moral Realism. Here is the SEP on Moral Anti-Realism. Here is the entry on Moral Cognitivism. All three are written by different philosophers and all use nearly identical definitions which define the moral realist as necessarily being a cognitivist. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy says the same thing.
We’re not talking about something that is ambiguous or borderline. Cognitivism is the first necessary feature of moral realism in the standard usage. If you are using the term “moral realist”, but don’t think cognitivism is part of the definition then no one can figure out what you’re saying! Same goes for describing someone as an anti-realist who believes in cognitivism, that moral statments can be true and that they are mind-indpendent. All the terms after “anti-realist” in that sentence make up the entire definition of moral realism
I’m not trying to be pedantic or force you to use jargon you don’t like. But if you’re going to use it, why not use the terms as they are used in easily available encyclopedia articles written by prominent philosophers? Or at least redefine the terms somewhere.
Clarification- do you mean inconsistencies within or between philosophers? Between philosophers I agree with you- within a single philosopher’s work I’d be curious to see examples.
I just mean that philosophers have a bad track record asserting that they are using the same definition as each other. That’s rather worse than just not using the same definition. I told Jack that he wasn’t using the same definition as the Stanford Encyclopedia. I didn’t expect him to believe me, but he didn’t even notice. Does that count for your purpose, since he chose the source?
But, yes, I do condemn argument by definition because I don’t trust the individuals to have definitions.
Presumably a Platonist who thinks the Form of the Good is revealed by a mystical insight.
A Platonist who thinks the Form of the Good is revealed by mystical insight is a cognitivist and I don’t know why you would think otherwise. Wikipedia:) “Cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences express propositions and can therefore be true or false”.
Or you’re not using standard terminology, in which case, see above.