I’m seeing a deep division between our worldviews. Because I take the phenomenological and existentialist stances, ontology and metaphysics are separated rather than combined because there is no true ontology one might hold, and thus although I may not have moral truth in my ontology (model of the world) nothing prevents you from having it as a construct in your understand of your lifeworld, so you’re right that to me it looks like at least positing the existence of moral essence as a useful sense-making structure, although I assume you take more a nuanced view than proposing an equivalent of moral phlogiston.
But maybe we should discuss this issue elsewhere than this thread? I’ll just say that there are moral realist positions that seem sensible, but I believe they only stand by rejecting phenomenology or existentialism, hence why I don’t hold them, and instead end up closer to what’s often called the moral constructivist position where moral “facts” are derived from intersubjective experience yet remain false in the normal meaning of the word.
I’m seeing a deep division between our worldviews. Because I take the phenomenological and existentialist stances, ontology and metaphysics are separated rather than combined because there is no true ontology one might hold, and thus although I may not have moral truth in my ontology (model of the world) nothing prevents you from having it as a construct in your understand of your lifeworld, so you’re right that to me it looks like at least positing the existence of moral essence as a useful sense-making structure, although I assume you take more a nuanced view than proposing an equivalent of moral phlogiston.
But maybe we should discuss this issue elsewhere than this thread? I’ll just say that there are moral realist positions that seem sensible, but I believe they only stand by rejecting phenomenology or existentialism, hence why I don’t hold them, and instead end up closer to what’s often called the moral constructivist position where moral “facts” are derived from intersubjective experience yet remain false in the normal meaning of the word.
I replied on the open thread.