It’s easy to come up with some true claims about morality. Morality is part of biology—and is thus subject to the usual forms of scientific enquiry.
This is a bad example, because “moral realism” really refers to normative moral statements, not descriptive ones.
I don’t think there is any interesting controversy in describing what people think is wrong. The interesting controversy is whether anything is actually wrong or not. THe problem is with “Morality is part of biology” is it is ambiguous at best, many people would see that as a descriptive statement, not telling them that “therefore you ought to do what your biology tells you to do.”
Best to work with unambiguous statements since the requirement is “at least some.”
“Killing randomly chosen children to see what it feels like is wrong” is a normative moral statement, that if objectively true means morality realists are right.
“Most people think killing randomly chosen childern to see what it feels like is wrong” is a descriptive statement that is objective, but doesn’t tell you whether you ought to kill randomly chosen children or not.
I think, at this point, a scientist would ask what you actually meant by normative moral statements. I.e. what you mean by “right” and “wrong”. I figure if you are sufficiently clear about that, the issue is dissolved, one way or the other.
Would that scientist be hoping I had something to add beyond what is in wikipedia? Because unless that scientist tells me what he doesn’t understand about normative moral statements in philosophy that isn’t easily found on the web, I wouldn’t know how to improve on the wikipedia article.
The article offers a bunch of conflicting definitions—from social science, economics and elsewhere. Until there’s a properly-formed question, it’s hard to say very much about the answer.
In philosophy, normative statements affirm how things should or ought to be, how to value them, which things are good or bad, which actions are right or wrong. Normative is usually contrasted with positive (i.e. descriptive, explanatory, or constative) claims when describing types of theories, beliefs, or propositions. Positive statements are factual statements that attempt to describe reality.
For example, “children should eat vegetables”, and “those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither” are normative claims. On the other hand, “vegetables contain a relatively high proportion of vitamins”, “smoking causes cancer”, and “a common consequence of sacrificing liberty for security is a loss of both” are positive claims. Whether or not a statement is normative is logically independent of whether it is verified, verifiable, or popularly held.
That doesn’t help too much with classifying things into categories of “right” and “wrong”. Either one defines these terms as relative to some unspecified agent’s preferences, or one gives them a naturalistic definition—e.g. as the preferences associated with universal instrumental values. Then there’s the issue of which type of definition is more practical or useful.
My point a few comments ago was that moral realism is the theory that moral statements are real, not that statements about morality are real. Statements about unicorns are real: “unicorns are cute white horses with pointy horns that can only be seen by virgins” is a real statement about unicorns. Unicorns are NOT real.
Any argument or disagreement in this chain arises from what is purely some sort of disagreement about how to use some terms. I don’t mean to suggest that the content of moral realism or normative vs descriptive is right or true or real, but I do have rather a thing about using words and terms and other labels in the standard ways they have been used.
For whatever reason, @timtyler considers the standard definitions of either moral relativism or normative to be nonsensical or incomplete or problematic in some serious way. Bully for him. In my opinion, it makes no sense to argue against what the standard definition of various terms are by pointing out that the concepts defined have problems.
Rather than redefining words like moral realism and normative that have quite a long history of meaning what wikipedia describes pretty clearly they mean, I suggest that people who want to create better concepts than these should call them something else, and not argue that the standard definitions are not the standard definitions because they are stupid or wrong or whatever.
This is a bad example, because “moral realism” really refers to normative moral statements, not descriptive ones.
I don’t think there is any interesting controversy in describing what people think is wrong. The interesting controversy is whether anything is actually wrong or not. THe problem is with “Morality is part of biology” is it is ambiguous at best, many people would see that as a descriptive statement, not telling them that “therefore you ought to do what your biology tells you to do.”
Best to work with unambiguous statements since the requirement is “at least some.”
“Killing randomly chosen children to see what it feels like is wrong” is a normative moral statement, that if objectively true means morality realists are right.
“Most people think killing randomly chosen childern to see what it feels like is wrong” is a descriptive statement that is objective, but doesn’t tell you whether you ought to kill randomly chosen children or not.
I think, at this point, a scientist would ask what you actually meant by normative moral statements. I.e. what you mean by “right” and “wrong”. I figure if you are sufficiently clear about that, the issue is dissolved, one way or the other.
Would that scientist be hoping I had something to add beyond what is in wikipedia? Because unless that scientist tells me what he doesn’t understand about normative moral statements in philosophy that isn’t easily found on the web, I wouldn’t know how to improve on the wikipedia article.
The article offers a bunch of conflicting definitions—from social science, economics and elsewhere. Until there’s a properly-formed question, it’s hard to say very much about the answer.
OK, here you go then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative#Philosophy
That doesn’t help too much with classifying things into categories of “right” and “wrong”. Either one defines these terms as relative to some unspecified agent’s preferences, or one gives them a naturalistic definition—e.g. as the preferences associated with universal instrumental values. Then there’s the issue of which type of definition is more practical or useful.
My point a few comments ago was that moral realism is the theory that moral statements are real, not that statements about morality are real. Statements about unicorns are real: “unicorns are cute white horses with pointy horns that can only be seen by virgins” is a real statement about unicorns. Unicorns are NOT real.
Any argument or disagreement in this chain arises from what is purely some sort of disagreement about how to use some terms. I don’t mean to suggest that the content of moral realism or normative vs descriptive is right or true or real, but I do have rather a thing about using words and terms and other labels in the standard ways they have been used.
For whatever reason, @timtyler considers the standard definitions of either moral relativism or normative to be nonsensical or incomplete or problematic in some serious way. Bully for him. In my opinion, it makes no sense to argue against what the standard definition of various terms are by pointing out that the concepts defined have problems.
Rather than redefining words like moral realism and normative that have quite a long history of meaning what wikipedia describes pretty clearly they mean, I suggest that people who want to create better concepts than these should call them something else, and not argue that the standard definitions are not the standard definitions because they are stupid or wrong or whatever.