Is the virtue of mercy contingent because in a sufficiently weird universe, no one would discover it?
I don’t know if I’m a moral realist. But assuming I were for a second: mercy essentially means “be nice to people even if they are bad/ do bad things”. Its not a statement about the world. Its not a truth claim. Its not a definition. Its not an algorithm. Its an imperative, an instruction. As such it is not subject to being contingent or necessary. Is the statement “Eat your vegetables” true? Well no it doesn’t have a truth value. Likewise with ethical statements.
Which isn’t remotely similar to mathematical statements which most philosophers either think express truths (Platonists) or formalisms—sequences of symbols that are generable from simple rules. But no philosophers that I know of think that mathematical statements require referents in the real world. There are some very strange mathematical fields that have nothing to do with this universe. My take on this is that it doesn’t really matter all that matters is that mathematics is useful.
I guess I failed to present my view clearly enough. See if this works better:
Is the virtue of mercy contingent because in a sufficiently weird universe, no one would discover it?
I don’t know if I’m a moral realist. But assuming I were for a second: mercy essentially means “be nice to people even if they are bad/ do bad things”. Its not a statement about the world. Its not a truth claim. Its not a definition. Its not an algorithm. Its an imperative, an instruction. As such it is not subject to being contingent or necessary. Is the statement “Eat your vegetables” true? Well no it doesn’t have a truth value. Likewise with ethical statements.
Which isn’t remotely similar to mathematical statements which most philosophers either think express truths (Platonists) or formalisms—sequences of symbols that are generable from simple rules. But no philosophers that I know of think that mathematical statements require referents in the real world. There are some very strange mathematical fields that have nothing to do with this universe. My take on this is that it doesn’t really matter all that matters is that mathematics is useful.