Is moral anti-realism the correct metaethical view? (25)

Introduction

• Yes, anti-realism is the correct account of meta-ethics

• Moral realism = best explanation

• Mackie’s argument from queerness

• Response that this would also support a non-naturalist realist position

• Mackie’s argument from relativity

• Response that the disagreement is about non-moral facts rather than moral ones

• Hume’s Fork = strongest argument

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• Can be argued that moral realism = best explanation

• Best explanation for the way we use moral language

• Includes moral reasoning, persuading, disagreeing etc

• It is unlikely that these would exist if there was no truth to moral claims

• When people disagree it is because they think that there are facts that would settle the disagreement

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• Mackie’s argument from queerness supports moral anti-realism

• Mind-independent moral properties, if they existed, would be metaphysically ‘queer’

• They would be completely different to any other property that we have reason to believe exists

• So, it is implausible that moral realism is true

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• Mackie’s argument from queerness could also support a non-naturalist realist position

• An example of this is Plato’s account in which knowledge of the form of the good would motivate us

• Whilst Mackie argues that objective values would be ‘queer,’ this doesn’t discount that fact that moral properties could be non-natural

• For Plato, moral motivation comes from the agent’s epistemically state

• Forms are an ultimate standard of value, and are non-natural

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• Mackie’s argument from relativity is stronger than his argument from queerness

• There is a widespread and intractable moral disagreement

• There is also a lack of procedure by which we can solve it

• This is best explained by the falsity of moral realism

• Instead, it is the case that different environments and circumstances will lead to different views on morality

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• A response to Mackie’s argument from relativity is to say that the disagreement is about the non-moral facts rather than the moral facts

• For example, take the statement, ‘suffering is wrong’

• All cultures basically agree with that

• The debate is about how best to avoid suffering, rather than whether suffering is good or not

• This is an epistemological problem rather than a moral one

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• Hume’s Fork is the strongest argument for moral anti-realism

• States that knowledge is either a relation of ideas or a matter of fact

• Moral propositions are not analytic a priori or synthetic a posteriori

• This means that they are not MOFs or ROIs

• Therefore, moral knowledge is impossible

• Thus, moral realism is false