Minimal Moral Realism

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Work In Progress.

This post is intended to cover the very basic objections that people commit against minimal moral realism, and if you feel like there are more nuanced straw-mans that have been left out then feel free to share your input below or on the forum. This wiki is intended to provide relatively simple explanations to the concepts.

Binding Force Straw-man

One of the very common objections that anti-realists commit is the idea that minimal moral realism is prescribing "oughts" that are objective, or the idea that an objective "ought" exists out there in the universe as a mind-independent property.

Minimal moral realism does not make arguments that you objectively "ought" to do this/that, or the idea that such an ought is a mind-independent property in the universe. When people ask for this "binding" force (ought/should) they are asking for something that is beyond the scope of minimal moral realism. This position does NOT prescribe such things, rather, it just shows you the correct determined moral action, and any demands/arguments that stipulate these binding force notions is inherently missing the point of minimal moral realism.

This straw-man is similar to anti-evolution creationist straw-mans because the creationist asks about the big bang/abiogenesis when that is simply beyond the scope of what evolution talks about.

Some anti-realists believe that IF you have a goal (i.e. seeking truth/being rational) then there are some normative reasons for why you should do certain things, and you can derive certain oughts to particular things.

For example, let's say on a math test you came across 5+5 = and you had to select between two answers; 10 or 11 -- Only 10 is the correct mathematical answer to this question, but you can choose to answer incorrectly by writing down 11 instead. However, IF you have the goal of "I ought to be rational/seek truth", then it would logically follow that you ought to answer 10 in order to meet your goal.

A similar argument can be made for minimal moral realism. It just shows you the correct moral action and IF your goal is to be a "moral person" (or I ought to be a moral person/rational person), then minimal moral realism can show you what you ought to do in order to meet this goal of yours. This is simply a case of jumping from an ought to another ought. A separate argument can be made for why you ought to be rational/moral, but this is not something that minimal moral realism is going to do (much like how a scientific naturalist may make argument with respect to the big bang, but these are beyond the scope of biological evolution).

Differentiating by Utility

A counterargument to the Mathematics-Morality analogy is that mathematics has intrinsic utility and inherently negative practical consequences for violating and morality does not (consequences being only socially relative for violating the subjective norms of your society). That is to say, the argument is that mathematics have an objective binding force and are real in that respect while morality is subjective because it lacks such a binding force.

Those who reject morality as "not useful" in that way sound like Humanities students complaining about having to study derivatives because "they would never use them in their life". And the truth is, those humanities students are fundamentally right. It's almost impossible to imagine what kind of effect would have in the life of 90% of the world population believing that the derivative of the cosine of x is the logarithm function. As long as the person basically goes along with the conclusions of his or her society (be they technically right or wrong in mathematics or morality), the life of that person would be totally unaffected. We can write d cos(x)/ dx = log(x) and the world goes on spinning.

The importance of mathematics truth is completely dependent on social context. If you don't have the technology to perform millions of calculations per second then understanding Taylor Series is much less important. So when these people say that the importance of breaking a moral law depends on whether that correct moral law is already widely accepted in a society, the sensible answer is "so what?". Saying that there are imaginable situations in which breaking a moral law would yield you no personal ill consequences, is just as saying that Group Theory was pretty irrelevant to a cave man, that doesn't prove that it doesn't have objective truth value.

The only attack you can give to a farmer that says that the derivative of the cosine of x is the logarithm is "What if the guys that fabricated your phone thought as you do?". That's it. That is the same argument you can give to someone that negates a moral law (i.e. "what if the people with power over you behaved to you in the way you behave to those you have power over?"). It might negatively affect you if the scientists and engineers who developed the technology you rely on didn't use correct mathematical foundations, but likewise it could negatively affect you if the politicians and policy makers you live under the influence of used poor moral foundations for their actions.

Good/Bad Straw-man

This moral system does not state notions of morally good/bad to be properties of objective fact that just "exists" somewhere out there in the universe, as if it was floating or something, nor are we saying that this is something that is mind-independent properties of the cosmos. People straw-man and take these properties to be things that are simply existing when that is simply not the case to what we talk about.

When we speak of things that are "morally good/bad", we say this when it comports to the correct moral theory, in reference to it as such. We determine what the correct moral theory is using deduction/process of elimination, so any stipulations in regards to "good/bad" is in conjunction with that system. We're not stipulating that something is good/bad because it just "is", or it just "exists", this is what some anti-realists tend to accuse people of when that's not the case.

Intrinsic Proposition Straw-man

Likewise with above, we do not say that, for example, a proposition such as "it's wrong to kill animals unnecessarily" is objective intrinsically. It's not some kind of objective proposition that simply exists and is independent of our minds, that's ludicrous and simply not what minimal realists proclaim.

For example; 4 in of itself is meaningless, it really doesn't say anything, nor does it simply "exist", but if we add the mathematical formula such as 2+2 = 4 then we can objectively say that this is the correct answer, irregardless of your personal feelings/attitudes.

Morality is analogous in that regard because propositions of correct moral actions are shown in a similar sense, they're nested in an objective framework, and the underlining principles help us determine the correct action, just as is the case with math. The correct moral action that is determined is objective in the same sense, it doesn't matter what you personally feel/have a personal attitude, just like that of math.

Take it simply as follows: Those moral propositions do not simply just "exist" as facts, they exist as objective facts through a formula that helps reach the determined correct moral action. Nobody is arguing that these are mind-independent facts of the universe that is imbued to the cosmos, as some people mistakenly suggest.

And to further make this even more simpler, take this example:

All other things being equal, giving Bob chocolate has a moral value of X

If Bob wants to be given chocolate, that value is positive.

If Bob doesn't want to be given chocolate (maybe's he's allergic, on a diet, etc.) that moral value is negative.

It has nothing to do with your opinion as to whether it's right or wrong to give Bob chocolate, but to do with the fact of the consequences of giving him chocolate which relates to the fact (not opinion) of how he responds to it/if he wants it or not.

This is where the concept of "mind independence" doesn't make any sense and is pretty useless. Morality is a matter of fact external to the actor, and that's what's important, but that doesn't mean it has nothing to do with any minds anywhere. There are material facts of minds, they're not magical. That kind of "mind-dependence" is true of all psychology, neuroscience, even arguably quantum physics (and basically all science and reality). Are all of those things subjective because they have something to do with the mind? If not, we have to understand that there are objective facts of mind, and that's what we're after for objectivity; eliminating the influence of opinion of the actor on moral evaluation, not eliminating consideration for minds in entirety (which doesn't make sense in any field of science).

What IS The Answer

Minimal moral realism can show you what the correct moral action is, it cannot force you to choose that option, but nonetheless, the objectivity of it remains. Just like with math, it can show you the correct answer to 3+3, but it cannot force you to answer 6, that depends on whether or not you want the right answer to pass the test, and likewise with morality it depends on whether or not you want to do the moral thing.

This point is similar to (1) above (see Binding Force Straw-man) because people mistakenly get the wrong idea in regards to some kind of binding force that is being prescribed, and that is not the case. Minimal moral realism is merely showing you the correct moral actions, that is all.

Ontological/Epistemological Dichotomy

This is a collaborative straw man that is propitiated by skeptics/William Lane Craig whereby they make a distinction between "ontological/epistemological" categories when discussing morality. For further in depth reading onto this topic please open the following: (see Objective-subjective distinction)

Essentially, this way of thinking can actually work against with what most moral realists generally hold, or at least view. This position has become quite dominant, and it propitiates a black and white thinking of morality so it's important that people understand why this straw-man is false, as well as understand that people have different definitions of morality to the extreme one that these interlocutors use.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's (SEP) Realism Definition

Some anti-realists (as well as non-realists) take the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's definition of "generic realism" and begin conflating that definition of realism into moral realism as if realism means the same thing in every context. A rather large caveat to their claims is the notion of things being "real" from beyond one's "conceptual scheme", as the definition suggest. They take this notion and pass it off against forms of moral realism, however, not all moral realists position adhere to such views.

People believe that minimal moral realists are "slipping" in some robust realism claims as the robust model of moral realism would do, and this idea is predicated on the notion that minimal moral realists try to speak of things to be true/real from beyond our conceptual scheme. This, however, is false. It's also rather ironic that they would accuse minimal moral realists for slipping in anything when they've slipped in the generic realism definition here. There's a distinction that has been made/propitiated in order to understand what they're thinking:

  • Shallow Claims = From within our conceptual scheme/true from our axioms
  • Deep Claims = Beyond our conceptual scheme, proving things from beyond our axioms

This is what these non-realists generally believe, and they think we're making what they call a "deep claim", or at least slipping it in.

When we speak of things to be "true/false" or "real" we do so from the presupposed laws of thoughts that we have all engaged with in order to have a rational exchange in discourse. We presuppose the laws of thought, as well as an objective reality, for the teleology of discussion. We do not make claims in regards to "justification" of these things, nor claims of things that exceed these presuppositions from beyond our conceptual scheme, as the definition/anti-realist might suggest. This is the view that minimal moral realists hold, so this would fall into their "shallow claim" criterion and thus it does not make any stipulations for "deep claims".

Absolute Proposition Straw-man

Another major glaring error that these anti-realists tend to commit is that they take some moral propositions (i.e. it's wrong to kill babies unnecessarily) as things that are absolute universals. It may be a conflation to absolute morality, but this is simply not what minimal moral realism advocates for.

Morality is objective, and it can output objective answers, BUT, this output of objective fact is relative to contexts. The underlining principles and the objective morality itself is not necessarily relative, but the output of the answers is what I'm talking about to be relative to contexts. Take this analogy to understand:

When we measure temperature in different states we do such a thing through an objective methodology. The methodology itself helps us to output objective answers for given temperatures, however, this is relative to given states. We can objectively determine the temperature in Alaska, but this may vary and change if we measured the temperature in Texas. This does NOT negate the fact that the methodology helps output objective answers, it just means that the answers/conclusions are relative to contexts. Whatever answer we get in a certain context is objective, but if we move to some other context it will change to a different objective answer for that specific context.

Think of minimal moral realism in a similar line of fashion, this analogy merely attempts to describe the concept of this. Morality is objective, and the objective answers are relative to contexts. We do have general underlining principles that are objective, but we're not making universals like "do not murder" as an absolutist might do. An equivocation of these things against minimal moral realism is an error and a misunderstanding of what minimal moral realism is about.

Mind Independence Interpretations

It's important to appreciate the broad range of interpretations of mind-dependence/mind-independence, and that to a substantial degree those interpretations blur the line between these categories, which is unhelpful.
Meaningful interpretations create a sharp line, which is what we use here. When we speak of mind dependence, we mean it is the opinion of a mind, one not otherwise intended to reflect objective facts outside that mind, that makes something moral or not. That is a belief; one without inherent truth value beyond the fact of the belief itself.

  • The belief "Chocolate is delicious." is an opinion.
  • The belief "Bob thinks Chocolate is delicious." is a fact belief which purports to represent the objective fact of the opinion Bob holds.


This is crucial to understand in order to comprehend the functional boundaries of mind-dependence. If we regard the belief "Bob thinks Chocolate is delicious" to be mind-dependent despite there being objective truth value to the claim outside the mind that believes it on the grounds that a mind is involved in the scenario being described, then everything becomes mind-dependent: not just psychology, but all of science which is based on some level on observation or interpretation by minds.

People may believe that morality is or is not mind-independent, but the claim that morality can NOT be mind-independent on the grounds that it is thought of, analyzed, affects, or is measured by its affect on minds is inherently linked to a deeper factual subjectivism about reality and the universe (often magical thinking). For further in depth reading onto this topic and the collaborative implications of such interpreaions please open the following: (see Objective-subjective distinction)

Equivocating Different Definitions of Objective

A common issue when discussing about moral realism is the constant equivocation between two distinct definitions of "objective". This is an issue as these two different definitions of "objective" have an incredible impact upon what an individual is proclaiming when he/she put forth propositions.

In the following video clip you can see YouTuber Rationality Rules break down the different definitions of "objective" and go into further explanation on what is meant/interpreted by these given definitions.

(Still in progress)