S5E45 - AH - "Apologetics Month: The Moral Argument" - After Hours with Trent Horn

[@rickydettmer2003]

This Apologetics month idea has been amazing

[@PintsWithJack]

Glad you've enjoyed it!

[@lanceindependent]

I'm a moral antirealist and I like arguing with people about moral realism. This is a really high quality video, so thanks for sharing this. Good audio quality. Well paced, easy to follow. Personally, I have a number of concerns with the moral argument. First, I think the easiest way to respond to it is to simply deny moral realism. That is, my problem is with moral realism, not theism. Second, I don't think theism requires or entails moral realism. I'm not sure if Christian doctrine requires moral realism, but I'm skeptical that it does. Since I think moral realism is less plausible than theism and probably less plausible than Christianity, I think it's a mistake for Christians and theists to appeal to moral realism as an argument for God. It strikes me as a bit like appealing to the existence of Bigfoot to prove evolution is true. Third, I don't find it at all convincing that God is somehow necessary for moral realism. I don't buy any secular moral realist accounts at all, but I also don't think bringing God into the picture solves any of the problems moral realism faces. I'd be happy to discuss this with any of you! Also happy to discuss realism in the comments. Cheers!

[@PintsWithJack]

Thanks for your kind remarks :) So if you're a moral antirealist, does that mean you can't affirm, say, that rape and torturing babies is wrong? While it has the attraction of consistency, I think fairly few people could bite that bullet.

[@lanceindependent]

@@PintsWithJack It does not mean that. I do think those actions are wrong. I don't think antirealists have to bite any bullets. Questions about whether particular actions are morally right or wrong are normative claims. Moral antirealists can (and typically do) have normative standards. For comparison, I am not a gastronomic realist. I do not think there are objective facts about which food is good or bad. If someone were to ask me: "does that mean that you can't affirm that pizza tastes good?" ...I would find that rather strange question. Because it clearly does not mean that. I do think pizza tastes good. I just don't think that there are facts about whether pizza tastes good that are true independent of people's food preferences. Likewise, I can think things are morally wrong without thinking they're *objectively* morally wrong.

[@PintsWithJack]

@@lanceindependent Oh, okay, I should have been more precise with my language. Still, I think it would be the minority of people who could affirm that rape, racism, or baby torture isn't *objectively* wrong.

[@lanceindependent]

@@PintsWithJack They might. Two points. (1) Whether the majority of people believe something is not, by itself, especially good evidence that whatever it is they believe is true. I'm fine granting that it's some evidence, but it's hardly decisive. (2) Unfortunately, in the case of moral realism, the overall body of empirical evidence does not support the conclusion that most people are moral realists. While a handful of studies point in this direction, the best-designed and most rigorous recent studies, which strive to correct on the methodological shortcomings of previous studies, find that the majority of respondents, when presented with a variety of questions about moral realism, tend to favor antirealist responses. Davis (2021) found that, averaging across the five moral foundations, the mean antirealist response rate was 65.4% (p. 17). The most common responses were noncognitivism (34.2%) and relativism (20.4%), with non-naturalist realism making up only 15.3% of responses. Pölzler and Wright (2020) likewise found, across numerous paradigms, that a majority of people consistently favor antirealist responses. In their case, cultural relativism and individual subjectivism were the most common responses, with realist responses reflecting a minority across all paradigms. There is a larger literature on the empirical study of what nonphilosophers think about moral realism. This data does not provide compelling evidence that most favor moral realism. But again, even if they did, that wouldn't be good evidence for moral realism. References Davis, T. (2021). Beyond objectivism: new methods for studying metaethical intuitions. Philosophical Psychology, 34(1), 125-153. Pölzler, T., & Wright, J. C. (2020). Anti-realist pluralism: A new approach to folk metaethics. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 11(1), 53-82.

[@PintsWithJack]

@@lanceindependent I dunno, if you walked down the street with a sign saying "Racism is not objectively evil" or "Rape is not objectively wrong", you'd get a statistically significant response ;-) I find that even people who claim moral relativism for their actions nevertheless affirm moral objectivity in their re-actions.