So, what it sounds like to me is that you at least somewhat buy a couple object-level moral arguments for veganism, but also put a high confidence in some variety of moral anti-realism which undermines those arguments. There are two tracks of reasoning I would consider here.
First: if anti-realism is correct, it doesn’t matter what we do. If anti-realism is not correct, then it seems like we shouldn’t eat animals. Unless we’re 100% confident in the anti-realism, it seems like we shouldn’t eat animals. Note that there are a couple difficulties with this kind of view—some sticking points with stating it precisely, and the pragmatic difficulty of letting a tiny sliver of credence drive your actions.
Second: even if morals aren’t real, values still are real. Just as a purely descriptive matter, you as a homo sapiens probably have some values, even if there isn’t some privileged set of values that’s “correct”. Anti-realism claims tend to sneak in a connotations roughly of the form “if morals aren’t real, then I should just do whatever I want”—where “whatever I want” looks sort of like a cartoon Ayn Rand on a drunken power trip. But the whole thing about anti-realism is that there are no norms about what you should/shouldn’t do. If you want to, you could still be a saint-as-traditionally-defined. So which world do you prefer, not just based on what’s “morally correct”, but based on your own values: the world with meat at the cost of animal suffering, or the world without? Recommended reading on this topic from E-Yudz: What Would You Do Without Morality?
Missing cells in your matrix: perhaps morals are real, and creating animals for the purpose of meat is permitted. The main question for moral realists is “how can you find the truth?”. If morals have some basis in the real, measurable, objective universe, then it becomes an empirical question about how to act.
“if anti-realism is true, it doesn’t matter [to us] what we do”—that’s false. Whether something does matter to us is a fact independent of whether something ought to matter to us.
Rationality is a norm. A rational agent will believe what they rationally-ought to believe, and that includes any implications of anti-realism for action.
I don’t mean norm in the sense of “arbitrary standards imposed by society on everybody” , I mean it in the sense of “non arbitrary rules you should follow if you want to obtain specific results”. Rationality is it’s own norm, in that sense.
I think your second sentence is tautological, in that if an agent doesn’t believe what it rationally-ought, then it’s not a rational agent
Moral anti-realists do not claim that people don’t have preferences. Rather, they claim that there are no preference-assumption-free facts regarding preference system comparisons. Therefore moral anti realists will not seek such facts. Moral realists may seek such facts in order to improve/correct their preferences.
So, what it sounds like to me is that you at least somewhat buy a couple object-level moral arguments for veganism, but also put a high confidence in some variety of moral anti-realism which undermines those arguments. There are two tracks of reasoning I would consider here.
First: if anti-realism is correct, it doesn’t matter what we do. If anti-realism is not correct, then it seems like we shouldn’t eat animals. Unless we’re 100% confident in the anti-realism, it seems like we shouldn’t eat animals. Note that there are a couple difficulties with this kind of view—some sticking points with stating it precisely, and the pragmatic difficulty of letting a tiny sliver of credence drive your actions.
Second: even if morals aren’t real, values still are real. Just as a purely descriptive matter, you as a homo sapiens probably have some values, even if there isn’t some privileged set of values that’s “correct”. Anti-realism claims tend to sneak in a connotations roughly of the form “if morals aren’t real, then I should just do whatever I want”—where “whatever I want” looks sort of like a cartoon Ayn Rand on a drunken power trip. But the whole thing about anti-realism is that there are no norms about what you should/shouldn’t do. If you want to, you could still be a saint-as-traditionally-defined. So which world do you prefer, not just based on what’s “morally correct”, but based on your own values: the world with meat at the cost of animal suffering, or the world without? Recommended reading on this topic from E-Yudz: What Would You Do Without Morality?
Missing cells in your matrix: perhaps morals are real, and creating animals for the purpose of meat is permitted. The main question for moral realists is “how can you find the truth?”. If morals have some basis in the real, measurable, objective universe, then it becomes an empirical question about how to act.
“if anti-realism is true, it doesn’t matter [to us] what we do”—that’s false. Whether something does matter to us is a fact independent of whether something ought to matter to us.
Rationality is a norm. A rational agent will believe what they rationally-ought to believe, and that includes any implications of anti-realism for action.
I think I fully disagree that rationality is a norm. It’s a cluster of things, but the socially-enforced expected patterns are not a big part of it.
And I think your second sentence is tautological, in that if an agent doesn’t believe what it rationally-ought, then it’s not a rational agent.
I do agree that it’s difficult for anti-realists to crisply define “ought” in any way that’s distinct from “prefer”.
I don’t mean norm in the sense of “arbitrary standards imposed by society on everybody” , I mean it in the sense of “non arbitrary rules you should follow if you want to obtain specific results”. Rationality is it’s own norm, in that sense.
Yep. But tautologies are true
The implications of moral anti realism for action revolve around pursuing facts to feed into terminal preference updates.
Do you mind explaining further?
Moral anti-realists do not claim that people don’t have preferences. Rather, they claim that there are no preference-assumption-free facts regarding preference system comparisons. Therefore moral anti realists will not seek such facts. Moral realists may seek such facts in order to improve/correct their preferences.