1- There are inevitable conflicts between practically any two creatures on this planet as to what preferences they would have as to the world. If you narrow these down to the area classified by humans as “moral” the picture can be greatly simplified, but there will still be a large amount of difference.
Sure, as I said at the end, the “universality” of the whole thing is an open problem.
I dispute that moral sentences ARE about the attitudes of people. Most people throughout history have had a concept of “Right” and “Wrong” as being objective. This naive conception is philosophically indefensible, but the best descriptor of what people throughout history, and even nowadays, have believed. It is hard to defend the idea that a person thinks they are referring to X and are in fact referring to Y when X and Y are drastically different things and the person is not thinking of Y on any level of their brain- the likely case for, say, a typical Stone Age man arguing a moral point.
That’s fine. But in that case, all moral sentences are false (or nonsense, depending on how you feel about references to non-entities). I agree that there is a sense in which that is true which you outlined here. In this case we can start from scratch and just make the entire enterprise about figuring out what we we really truly want to do with the world—and then do that. Personally I find that interpretation of moral language a bit uncharitable. And it turns out people are pretty stuck on the whole morality idea and don’t like it when you tell them their moral beliefs are false.
Subjectivism seems both more charitable and friendlier—but ultimately these are two different ways of saying the same thing. The debates between varieties of anti-realism seem entirely semantic to me.
2- There are some rare exceptions- some people define morality differently and can thus be said to mean different things. Almost all moral sentences, if every claim to something be right or wrong throughout history count as moral sentences, are false/nonsense, however.
The principle of charity, however, does not apply here- the evidence clearly shows that human beings throughout history have truely believed that some things are morally wrong and some morally right on a level more than preferences, even if this is not in fact true.
The principle of charity, however, does not apply here- the evidence clearly shows that human beings throughout history have truely believed that some things are morally wrong and some morally right on a level more than preferences, even if this is not in fact true.
Philosophy typically involves taking folk notions that are important but untrue in a strict sense and constructing something tenable out of that material. And I think the situation is more ambiguous than you make it sound.
But it is essentially irrelevant. I mean, you could just go back to bed after concluding all moral statements are false. But that seems like it is ignoring everything that made us interested in this question in the first place. Regardless of what people think they are referring to when they make moral statements it seems pretty clear what they’re actually doing. And the latter is accurately described by something like subjectivism or quasi-realism. People might be wrong about moral claims, but what we want to know is why and what they’re doing when they make them.
A typical person would be insulted if you claimed that their moral statements referred only to feelings. Most philosophical definitions work on a principle which isn’t quite like how ordinary people see them but would seem close enough to an ordinary person.
There are a lot of uses of the concepts of right and wrong, not just people arguing with each other. Ethical dilemnas, people wondering whether to do the “right” thing or the “wrong” thing, philosophical schools (think of the Confucians, for example, who don’t define ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ but talk about it a lot). Your conception only covers one use.
Sure, as I said at the end, the “universality” of the whole thing is an open problem.
That’s fine. But in that case, all moral sentences are false (or nonsense, depending on how you feel about references to non-entities). I agree that there is a sense in which that is true which you outlined here. In this case we can start from scratch and just make the entire enterprise about figuring out what we we really truly want to do with the world—and then do that. Personally I find that interpretation of moral language a bit uncharitable. And it turns out people are pretty stuck on the whole morality idea and don’t like it when you tell them their moral beliefs are false.
Subjectivism seems both more charitable and friendlier—but ultimately these are two different ways of saying the same thing. The debates between varieties of anti-realism seem entirely semantic to me.
1- Alright. Misunderstood.
2- There are some rare exceptions- some people define morality differently and can thus be said to mean different things. Almost all moral sentences, if every claim to something be right or wrong throughout history count as moral sentences, are false/nonsense, however.
The principle of charity, however, does not apply here- the evidence clearly shows that human beings throughout history have truely believed that some things are morally wrong and some morally right on a level more than preferences, even if this is not in fact true.
Philosophy typically involves taking folk notions that are important but untrue in a strict sense and constructing something tenable out of that material. And I think the situation is more ambiguous than you make it sound.
But it is essentially irrelevant. I mean, you could just go back to bed after concluding all moral statements are false. But that seems like it is ignoring everything that made us interested in this question in the first place. Regardless of what people think they are referring to when they make moral statements it seems pretty clear what they’re actually doing. And the latter is accurately described by something like subjectivism or quasi-realism. People might be wrong about moral claims, but what we want to know is why and what they’re doing when they make them.
A typical person would be insulted if you claimed that their moral statements referred only to feelings. Most philosophical definitions work on a principle which isn’t quite like how ordinary people see them but would seem close enough to an ordinary person.
There are a lot of uses of the concepts of right and wrong, not just people arguing with each other. Ethical dilemnas, people wondering whether to do the “right” thing or the “wrong” thing, philosophical schools (think of the Confucians, for example, who don’t define ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ but talk about it a lot). Your conception only covers one use.