Moral Antirealism's Greatest HITS

[FlashDangerpants]

And ironically, I think VA is a kind of virtue ethicist. Sigh.

Well I see he has returned to spam this sub into oblivion again, so that was a nice holiday for us all really.

He isn't an organised thinker to be a virtue ethicist nor even a basic deontologist though. He doesn't have any real concept of either a thing that mkaes a certain choice the right choice, nor of a thing that makes a certain way of choosing the right way. He's all about the Stalinist orderly segmentation of society and very little else.

[Iwannaplato]

And ironically, I think VA is a kind of virtue ethicist. Sigh.

Well I see he has returned to spam this sub into oblivion again, so that was a nice holiday for us all really.

He isn't an organised thinker to be a virtue ethicist nor even a basic deontologist though. He doesn't have any real concept of either a thing that mkaes a certain choice the right choice, nor of a thing that makes a certain way of choosing the right way. He's all about the Stalinist orderly segmentation of society and very little else.

He has, in 'dialogue' with PH, said that he does not view morality based on mirror neurons as a set of rules, but more as building up the mirror neurons so that one tends to treat others with compassion. I think that's heading in the direction of virtue ethics.

I never got the impression he was thinking about virtue ethics or knew the term, but it seems like he was in that category. And a soviet apparatchik back in Stalin's day could also be a virtue ethicist, focusing on the appropriate virtues of a good comrade. It need not be a good thing that he's a neo-virtue ethicist. In fact the downside of qualities over rules of behavior is that courts and authorities have more freedom to judge. If you didn't break the law - that is weren't bad deontologically - then they at least have to frame you. But if they can interpret your attitude and degree of 'loving the communist state' or whatever, they have tremendous swing room to accuse you and send you to a gulag.

And I agree that when I piece together his distaste for the limbic system in general, his technocratic solutions, the underlying abstemiousness and distrust of the unconscious (that is he is still aligned with the Christian 'virtues') - and his overweening sense of self, I do think he fits into a category that scares me about the future. Transhumanist-light anti-humanism.

[FlashDangerpants]

I don't see his direction of travel in such a benevolent light. Firstly he has always attached a little bit of meaningless sciency sounding drivel to his claims, it used to be "DNA/RNA" and more recently he has been mentioning neurons, but it's all just window dressing. He only does it because he has tethered his moral theory to the sciences because he thinks that some of the respectability of science rubs off through proximity.

His actual theory is that a collection of experts can form a committee and assign numerical values for the relative evilness of various actions, and that this constitutes a mathematical operation with precision, resulting in a true and objective measurement. The whole of everything else that he writes is just an attempt to make you look away from the problems with that sentence.

[Iwannaplato]

I don't see his direction of travel in such a benevolent light. Firstly he has always attached a little bit of meaningless sciency sounding drivel to his claims, it used to be "DNA/RNA" and more recently he has been mentioning neurons, but it's all just window dressing. He only does it because he has tethered his moral theory to the sciences because he thinks that some of the respectability of science rubs off through proximity.

Loved that bolded phrase, lol.

In general: oh, I think it's very pernicious stuff. But I don't think the science is merely to do that. I think he is hoping for technological interventions into our brains in the future. He is some kind of transhumanist, with or without knowing it. But we're quibbling over details. We are both horrified by the whole picture, with different emphases.

His actual theory is that a collection of experts can form a committee and assign numerical values for the relative evilness of various actions, and that this constitutes a mathematical operation with precision, resulting in a true and objective measurement.

Shades of the Chinese Social Credit rating system.

The whole of everything else that he writes is just an attempt to make you look away from the problems with that sentence.

OK

[Astro Cat]

So have we decided the best way to say moral realism is bullshit yet?

[Iwannaplato]

So have we decided the best way to say moral realism is bullshit yet?

In general I think it's best to play defense. Keep the onus where it belongs. X exists, say person 1. Oh, demonstrate that, says person B. Now I would guess you were looking for which anti-realist tack to take which is the strongest or clearest or most likely to cause MRs trouble. But, as an ex-fullback (soccer), I tend to see things as a defender.

[FlashDangerpants]

So have we decided the best way to say moral realism is bullshit yet?

Pete has a way of putting it that gets the job done in one sentence...

Meanwhile, the fact that a non-moral premise can't entail a moral conclusion demolishes the case for moral objectivity - the existence of moral facts.

It's hard to argue that my long winded approach brings any particular advantage over that.

[Skepdick]

So have we decided the best way to say moral realism is bullshit yet?

Pete has a way of putting it that gets the job done in one sentence...

Meanwhile, the fact that a non-moral premise can't entail a moral conclusion demolishes the case for moral objectivity - the existence of moral facts.

It's hard to argue that my long winded approach brings any particular advantage over that.

I don't understand why this clown is victoriously beating his own chest.

What "advantage" is he pointing at?
What was the job? Why does he think the job is "done"?
He appears to be playing some game, by some rules that only he is aware of. Almost like he's marking his own homework.

From where I am looking at Peter Holmes self-destructed.

"The fact that a non-moral premise can't entail a moral conclusion demolishes the case for moral objectivity - the existence of moral facts.", he says!
Well that's just begging the question.

If that's a factual claim then... produce those facts. Or are you just pretending that your logical normatives are facts?

Ya fucking (self)deceptive cunts are just peddling an appeal to authority. The lot of you.