The latest issue of Ethics includes the article "The Objectivity of Ethics and the Unity of Practical Reason", co-authored by Peter Singer and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek. Here's the abstract:

Evolutionary accounts of the origins of human morality may lead us to doubt the truth of our moral judgments. Sidgwick tried to vindicate ethics from this kind of external attack. However, he ended The Methods in despair over another problem - an apparent conflict between rational egoism and universal benevolence, which he called "the dualism of practical reason". Drawing on Sidgwick, we show that one way of defending objectivity in ethics against Sharon Street's recent evolutionary critique also puts us in a position to support a bold claim: the dualism of practical reason can be resolved in favor of impartiality.

The article has been selected for discussion by PEA Soup, a blog dedicated to philosophy, ethics, and academia.

Sometimes I don't understand philosophy.

I don't where moral truth is supposed to come from in moral realism, so I don't quite understand how the evolutionary argument is supposed to undermine them. Where did people used to think moral opinions came from? o.O

My consistent misunderstanding about moral realism is what it can mean to have an overridingly and consistently persuasive ought, or in what sense someone is in error by going against one's moral obligations. I can agree that people have moral obligations, morally ought to follow their moral obligations, and are in moral error by not doing what they morally ought to do, but I can't see how any of this would actually motivate someone unless they're already down for it or we can coerce them somehow.

Can someone who understands philosophy better than me explain moral realism?

I may not know the topic better than you do, and I haven't read a ton on the topic but I'll give you my understanding.

Where did people used to think moral opinions came from?

I think either from Religious documents or from arbitrary, subjective preferences that vary from culture to culture (or perhaps both).

Can someone who understands philosophy better than me explain moral realism?

I think of moral realism as claiming that there are objectively justifiable moral truths - kind of like how 2 + 2 = 4 is considered objectively justifiable rather than just an opinion.

LJM1979 wrote:

Where did people used to think moral opinions came from?

I think either from Religious documents or from arbitrary, subjective preferences that vary from culture to culture (or perhaps both).

Culture to culture preferences tend to be considered relativism, though, not realism.

LJM1979 wrote:

Can someone who understands philosophy better than me explain moral realism?

I think of moral realism as claiming that there are objectively justifiable moral truths - kind of like how 2 + 2 = 4 is considered objectively justifiable rather than just an opinion.

I mean, I would agree that moral truths can be objectively justifiable -- after all, it is a fact what maximizes happiness -- but I wouldn't know how one would go about saying that all people possess an overriding command to the exclusion of all other concerns.

Basically, I currently think of moral systems in terms of frameworks -- there are multiple frameworks you could use to evaluate moral claims, and of the ones that are internally consistent, it's more or less a personal preference and personal intuitions that let you choose.

Then I take moral realism to be the claim that one framework is superior to all other frameworks from a meta-ethical perspective and that choosing a different framework other than the realist one is wrong somehow. I don't understand that error -- how one could be wrong in picking a framework, outside of lack of internal consistency.

peterhurford wrote:

LJM1979 wrote:

Where did people used to think moral opinions came from?

I think either from Religious documents or from arbitrary, subjective preferences that vary from culture to culture (or perhaps both).

Culture to culture preferences tend to be considered relativism, though, not realism.

LJM1979 wrote:

Can someone who understands philosophy better than me explain moral realism?

I think of moral realism as claiming that there are objectively justifiable moral truths - kind of like how 2 + 2 = 4 is considered objectively justifiable rather than just an opinion.

I mean, I would agree that moral truths can be objectively justifiable -- after all, it is a fact what maximizes happiness -- but I wouldn't know how one would go about saying that all people possess an overriding command to the exclusion of all other concerns.

Basically, I currently think of moral systems in terms of frameworks -- there are multiple frameworks you could use to evaluate moral claims, and of the ones that are internally consistent, it's more or less a personal preference and personal intuitions that let you choose.

Then I take moral realism to be the claim that one framework is superior to all other frameworks from a meta-ethical perspective and that choosing a different framework other than the realist one is wrong somehow. I don't understand that error -- how one could be wrong in picking a framework, outside of lack of internal consistency.

I think I misunderstood your question about where morals come from.
I think lack of internal consistency is the only argument against any moral framework, but I don't dismiss the importance of it. If there is internal inconsistency, I think it means at least one of the beliefs is wrong and the inconsistency must be resolved to save the theory. You can't fully endorse a theory that you know has incorrect elements, right? The problem is that, regardless of the theoretical framework you use, if you look closely enough, you will find inconsistencies everywhere.

LJM1979 wrote:I think lack of internal consistency is the only argument against any moral framework, but I don't dismiss the importance of it.

Would moral realism be the argument, then, that there is only one framework that has internal consistency?

~

LJM1979 wrote:The problem is that, regardless of the theoretical framework you use, if you look closely enough, you will find inconsistencies everywhere.

I think that every person, if you look closely enough, has internal inconsistencies in how they implement their chosen framework. However, I think that consequentialism, deontology, and egoism -- and maybe a few other families of ethics -- all can be defined in an internally consistent manner. Thus, a plurality of frameworks.

peterhurford wrote:

LJM1979 wrote:I think lack of internal consistency is the only argument against any moral framework, but I don't dismiss the importance of it.

Would moral realism be the argument, then, that there is only one framework that has internal consistency?

~

LJM1979 wrote:The problem is that, regardless of the theoretical framework you use, if you look closely enough, you will find inconsistencies everywhere.

I think that every person, if you look closely enough, has internal inconsistencies in how they implement their chosen framework. However, I think that consequentialism, deontology, and egoism -- and maybe a few other families of ethics -- all can be defined in an internally consistent manner. Thus, a plurality of frameworks.

I think internal consistency is necessary but not sufficient for validity. You could have a simple internally consistent theory like "We should always do the most harm possible" but at the very least, it would lack face validity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_validity). I think moral realism implies that the theory has objectively valid claims, although there is a lot of ambiguity in the meaning of several of the words in this sentence.

I agree with your second comment. It's easy to develop an internally consistent theory, actually. The inconsistencies arise in the application of the theory to the real world.

LJM1979 wrote:I think internal consistency is necessary but not sufficient for validity. You could have a simple internally consistent theory like "We should always do the most harm possible" but at the very least, it would lack face validity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_validity).

But the only reason you don't like that theory is that you don't personally want to cause harm. From a strictly meta-ethical theory, there's no reason that harm maximization can't be used to normatively judge things. (I'd begrudgingly agree that harm maximization doesn't fit under the definition of "morality", but morality isn't always normative, and I think that's the problem of realism anyway).

There are going to be possible minds for which harm maximization is what they value, and they'll seek to do so. I'd judge them immoral-by-my-standards and justly-by-my-standards do everything I can to oppose them and even get those to agree me to team up and coerce them, but I'd agree they're not making any logical error (only a moral-by-my-standards one).

peterhurford wrote:

LJM1979 wrote:I think internal consistency is necessary but not sufficient for validity. You could have a simple internally consistent theory like "We should always do the most harm possible" but at the very least, it would lack face validity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_validity).

But the only reason you don't like that theory is that you don't personally want to cause harm. From a strictly meta-ethical theory, there's no reason that harm maximization can't be used to normatively judge things. (I'd begrudgingly agree that harm maximization doesn't fit under the definition of "morality", but morality isn't always normative, and I think that's the problem of realism anyway).

There are going to be possible minds for which harm maximization is what they value, and they'll seek to do so. I'd judge them immoral-by-my-standards and justly-by-my-standards do everything I can to oppose them and even get those to agree me to team up and coerce them, but I'd agree they're not making any logical error (only a moral-by-my-standards one).

I'm not really disagreeing with you. I don't think moral objectivity or realism exists in the same sense that mathematical objectivity does. (Not in the sense that 2 + 2 is objectively considered to equal 4.) Because there is a universal valuing of pain reduction (virtually all organisms want to minimize the pain they experience), though, I think you could make a slight case that a morality based on pain reduction is objectively valid. I'm not even sure I fully believe that though.

I don't think we're disagreeing either. My main concern is understanding the logical content of moral realism so I can decide if I agree with it.

LJM1979 wrote:Because there is a universal valuing of pain reduction (virtually all organisms want to minimize the pain they experience), though, I think you could make a slight case that a morality based on pain reduction is objectively valid. I'm not even sure I fully believe that though.

I agree that virtually all organisms want to minimize their own pain, but not all value minimizing the pain of others, especially not impartially -- and I think that's a critical distinction for morality.

peterhurford wrote:Sometimes I don't understand philosophy.

I don't where moral truth is supposed to come from in moral realism, so I don't quite understand how the evolutionary argument is supposed to undermine them. Where did people used to think moral opinions came from? o.O

My consistent misunderstanding about moral realism is what it can mean to have an overridingly and consistently persuasive ought, or in what sense someone is in error by going against one's moral obligations. I can agree that people have moral obligations, morally ought to follow their moral obligations, and are in moral error by not doing what they morally ought to do, but I can't see how any of this would actually motivate someone unless they're already down for it or we can coerce them somehow.

Can someone who understands philosophy better than me explain moral realism?

I'm a moral anti realist who knows some philosophy and some common arguments for moral realism off the top of my head are:

-- The fact that moral reasoning often gets us to agreement just like reasoning about other subjects where there is a matter of fact that is disputed.

-- The fact that most everyone strongly believes moral realism is the case (This is a serious and common argument in academic philosophy. Most philosophers try to "keep up appearances" part of the motivation is that a similar justifications might be the only way out of sceptical hypothesises),

-- The fact that there seem to be norms in epistemology and so there might be room for some other weird metaphysical stuff like moral facts.

I ended up analyzing "moral realism" and rejecting it in the following three-part blog series: "Will the Real Moral Realism Please Stand Up?", "Finlay and Joyce on Moral Discourse", and "Why Moral Realism is False and How We Can Still Have Moral Discourse Without It".