The AntiChris
Senior Member
Gaah! Why is this so bloody hard?
It should be easyit's not easy to explain.
You surely realise by now that we antirealists really struggle to understand the realist position- it simply doesn't make any sense to us.
Anyway, apologies if you feel I've misrepresented your views (having looked at your comments I'm not convinced I was that far out).
I've got some questions. I'll try to keep it brief (I really dislike long posts addressing multiple issues),
It looks to me we as if we're essentially saying exactly the same thing.That's not the distinction I was making. It's about truth-makers. If "I'm concerned for his suffering" is the truth-maker for "It's okay for you to kill him", that's subjective. If the truth-maker is "He's suffering and wants to be killed", that's objective. I can be concerned about his suffering and still make an objective judgment, as long as it isn't my concern that makes killing the guy okay.The AntiChris said:For the claim to be objective it must be independent of the claimant's feelings/attitudes. To reword slightly what I said earlier, the point is that if the claimant (assessor) deems it morally acceptable out of concern for people like the patient, it's not objective. However if the assessor believes the acceptability is a 'moral fact' (i.e. mercy-killing the patient in this circumstance has the attitude-independent quality of 'moral acceptability') then it's an objective claim
We're both talking about reasons for saying "It's ok...". You just call them truth-makers.
Sure. I don't think I excluded this possibilityI can be concerned about his suffering and still make an objective judgment, as long as it isn't my concern that makes killing the guy okay.
Can you explain what you mean here? Are you saying that anti-realists argue for realist positions or simply that they defend their own views and ctriticise contrary views?But anti-realists argue first-order moral positions as much as the rest of us do.
That sounds like you're accepting the objectivity of moral claims without accepting their truth, i.e., you're an error theorist. Is that correct?The AntiChris said:]and a claim that is in my view is untrue (I don't believe moral facts exist).
No that wasn't what I intended. I was trying to say that "it's morally acceptable regardless of anyone's concerns for the patient" wasn't true but I can see I was a bit careless.
I'm wary of labels (they often mean quite different things to different people) but I think non-cognitivitist probably better describes my thinking.