Well, that’s one way to lean into the “this isn’t justified by fundamentals or truth, but if people DID agree to it, things would be nicer than today (and it doesn’t violate preferences that I think should be common)”. But I’m not sure I buy that approach. Nor do I know how I’d decide between that and any other religion as a desirable coordination mechanism.
I’m not sure what flavor of moral anti-realism you subscribe to so I can’t really help you there, but I am currently writing a post which aims to destroy a particular subsection of anti-realism. My hope is that if I can destroy enough of meta-ethics, we can hopefully eventually make some sort of justified ethical system. But meta-ethics is hard and even worse, it’s boring. So I’ll probably fail.
Good luck! I look forward to seeing it, and I applaud any efforts in that direction, even as I agree that it’s likely to fail :)
That’s a pretty good summary of my relationship to Utilitarianism: I don’t believe it, but I do applaud it and I prefer most of it’s recommendations to a more nihilistic and purer theory.
Well, that’s one way to lean into the “this isn’t justified by fundamentals or truth, but if people DID agree to it, things would be nicer than today (and it doesn’t violate preferences that I think should be common)”. But I’m not sure I buy that approach. Nor do I know how I’d decide between that and any other religion as a desirable coordination mechanism.
I’m not sure what flavor of moral anti-realism you subscribe to so I can’t really help you there, but I am currently writing a post which aims to destroy a particular subsection of anti-realism. My hope is that if I can destroy enough of meta-ethics, we can hopefully eventually make some sort of justified ethical system. But meta-ethics is hard and even worse, it’s boring. So I’ll probably fail.
Good luck! I look forward to seeing it, and I applaud any efforts in that direction, even as I agree that it’s likely to fail :)
That’s a pretty good summary of my relationship to Utilitarianism: I don’t believe it, but I do applaud it and I prefer most of it’s recommendations to a more nihilistic and purer theory.
Wow what a coincidence, moral nihilism is exactly the subject of the post is was talking about. Here it is btw.