Questions tagged [moral-realism]
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The Self-Undermining Arguments from Disagreement
I recently watched this video (this paper seems to argue the same thing), where, near the end of the video, a very interesting argument against the Argument from Disagreement (where, moral skeptics ...
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Why are most philosophers moral realists? [duplicate]
I’m having trouble understanding this. Moral realism is the position that morality is independent of subjective opinion. But how can this be if only we care about what’s moral? Lions are ripping other ...
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How can a moral antirealist make moral normative claims?
So as I understand it, normative ethics asked questions like, "what should I do?" whereas metaethics asks... "what makes something good or bad."
What I'm confused about is... if ...
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Does any strand, school, or proponent of moral realism say anything about what happens to moral offenders?
Suppose that:
(some form of) moral realism is true, that is, there exists at least some moral claims/assertions/principles that are themselves 'true', in some adequate sense
a person knows/is aware ...
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Moral Non-Realists Responses to Suffering
It seems to me that one possible grounding for objective morality is in the inherent badness of suffering.
Suffering is inherently bad, I believe, by definition, and non-instrumental suffering could ...
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Can rocks suffer on panpsychism?
On panpsychism, everything has consciousness. If so, does it entail that all entities in the universe, such as rocks, bricks, plants, water, air, etc., can experience suffering? If this holds, what ...
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Can moral realism, physicalism, and physical causal closure be all true at the same time?
For illustrative purposes, let X be the set of all instances where Bob has tortured and eaten babies alive for fun. (Also assume that X is non-empty, to avoid trivial responses.)
Suppose that ...
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Can erotetic logic be used to devise a noncognitivist moral realism?
The IEP article on moral realism says that noncognitivist realism is logically possible, but goes on to assess the one attempt at such a position (Bruce Waller's) thusly:
Waller’s divide-and-conquer ...
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Physicalist Critiques of Error Theory
Mackie’s Error Theory makes two parallel arguments that moral qualities have no place in a naturalistic understanding of our universe. That (1) such a bizarre epistemic power unlike any other we ...
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If moral statements aren't supposed to be reports of objective facts, does the practice of "fallacy checking" apply to moral arguments?
Maybe this is just a case of Jörgensen’s dilemma, but so I was reading the SEP article about feminist perspectives on argumentation, more specifically this passage:
The difficulty some philosophers ...
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Is imaginative resistance evidence against, or for, moral fictionalism?
There's an entry in the SEP called "Imaginative Resistance" which goes over an account of a problem with our ability to entertain moral counterfactuals:
The phenomenon of “imaginative ...
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Can morality based in pragmatism delay moral progress?
I read a recent paper about trophy hunting. In it, the authors have a footnote that argues against people who oppose trophy hunting on the basis that it is absolutely wrong.
The authors write:
"...
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Moral Error Theory questions
The following is a quote taken from:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/#Nonc
The error theorist doesn’t think that torturing innocent people is morally wrong, but doesn’t think ...
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What should I read to deepen my understanding about 'relativism and anti-realism'?
After some discussion, I noticed the philosophical questions I want to explore are mainly ideas that take a relativist and anti-realist point of view. (whether when it comes to morals, or concepts ...
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Are there any philosophers who argue for a non-utilitarian moral realism from phenomenology?
What I have in mind is a non-utilitarian alternative to Sharon Hewitt Rawlette (a summary from a podcast) which would propose something like:
Morality is objective because moral facts are equally as ...
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What is the moral justification for our own existence in the universe?
As sentient beings, we have the ability to reflect on our own existence and consider the moral implications of our actions. But what gives us the right to exist in the first place? Is it simply the ...
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Veganism and Cognitive dissonance
I had a recent discussion with a friend about the ethics and morality of veganism.
I defined veganism as the following
Minimising harm to animals to the maximal extent
Some background information, ...
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Could ethics be grounded in a law of nature?
Assuming that morality is objective, is it possible that the reason there are moral truths (i.e it is wrong to harm children) is because of an undiscovered law of nature (like gravity)?
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I know Survival of the fittest is realistic. But is it morally ethical?
Survival for the fittest and extinction for the weakest.
I know that should be the way.
But ethically if you think about it just because it happens in reality, does that statement make it morally ...
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What is one’s incentive to be moral?
Assuming there is no afterlife, or whatever afterlife there is does not depend on the morality of my actions in this life, what is one’s incentive to be moral given basic rational self-interest is ...
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What is the origin of the idea that moral realism requires a god?
This idea has always been very strange to me. The first time I encountered this idea was when I was required to read about the Euthyphro Dilemma in college. It felt like a whole dialogue about ...
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Moral issues in cyber technology [closed]
Is anyone of deontology or utilitarianism adequate to handle moral issues in cyber technology? Or do we need some other theory?
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What is ethical subjectivism?
I'm having difficulty understanding ethical subjectivism.
Taken from wikipedia here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_subjectivism
Ethical sentences describe propositions.
Some such propositions ...
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How does the "ideal observer theory" deduce that murder of innocents is wrong?
The ideal observer theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_observer_theory) says "A is better than B if an impartial and fully informed observer would choose A over B... here, A and B are ...
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Historically, were most philosophers moral realists before the rise of physicalism?
Moral facts seem weird because they don't seem to mesh too well with a purely physicalist ontology (although there is such a thing as ethical naturalism). It somehow seems odd that alongside the facts ...
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If Parfit's objectivism metaphysical?
In On What Matters, Derek Parfit argues that we sometimes have objective reasons to have certain desires or aims. I find this to be a metaphysical claim, and other philosophers (such as Michael Smith) ...
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Boundary case on the morality of torture [closed]
Most everyone would agree that "cold-blooded" torture is morally wrong. We agree so much so that many assume it's objectively wrong.
That being said, imagine this thought experiment:
A ...
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Is it moral get free benefits from a country and then leave it for a better life?
There is an article about movies. It mentions an actress from the former Soviet Union who was denounced by some communist for playing a role in the wrong western movie.
He says:
The Soviet Union gave ...
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Does Hume's Is-Ought Thesis imply moral nihilism?
Assuming you are an atheist, cognitivist, and a moral objectivist, does Hume's Is-Ought Thesis imply you must be a moral nihilist (or perhaps more weakly, at least a moral skepticist)?
Put another ...
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Is this conditional donation morally permissible?
About a week ago, at the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic in Bulgaria, a Bulgarian entrepreneur (Ivaylo Penchev, founder of Walltopia), offered a conditional donation of medical ventilators to a state-...
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