There Are No Arguments for Moral Realism or Anti-Realism

As you may or may not have surmised, I am a moral realist: I think there are stance-independent moral facts. Roughly, this is to say that, in any given context, there is a fact of the matter about what you have reason to do, reasons independent of your desires, preferences, socio-cultural context, etc.

However, one thing that — I think — distinguishes me from other moral realists is that I don’t think, properly speaking, there are any arguments for moral realism. Similarly, I also don’t believe there are any arguments for anti-realism either.

Let me clarify. What I mean is that I don’t think that everyone can or ought to be rationally compelled to be a moral realist.

Consider this (admittedly bizarre) situation: imagine that Bob and Annie see the world differently. Bob sees and believes that there is a pencil on the table. Annie sees and believes that there is no pencil on the table. They simply see the world differently — they literally perceive things differently, even after making sure they’re not hallucinating, checking multiple times, etc. Bob shouldn’t expect to be able to convince Annie that there is a pencil on the table. Similarly, Annie shouldn’t expect to be able to convince Bob that there isn’t a pencil on the table. At issue here is whether the world is a certain way — whether it has a pencil on the table — and Bob and Annie have different perceptions about this feature of the world.

This is essentially the situation that I believe two (well-informed) moral realists and anti-realists are in. At issue between them is whether the world is a certain way: namely, whether it contains stance-independent moral facts. And, if both of them have thoroughly reflected on all the classical considerations, it turns out that the realist and anti-realist simply have different perceptions. The realist believes that there are stance-independent moral facts out there. Upon reflecting on the nature of pain, the realist believes that this pain possesses a certain property: it is bad, stance-independently. Comparatively, the anti-realist believes that there are no facts of this kind. Upon reflecting on the nature of pain, the anti-realist believes that this pain is obviously bad for the person experiencing it, but does not see how it could have this additional property of being stance-independently bad: of being the kind of thing everyone has reason to prevent, no matter what their beliefs are.

At issue between these two camps is whether the world has a certain dimension — are there reasons people have for acting in certain ways, independently of what their stances or attitudes are?

This is simply a question about how the world is. At best, the usual arguments for realism or anti-realism are devices for you to determine which of the two ways you see the world.

Take the argument for realism from genuine disagreement. This argument, roughly, goes like this. There must be facts of the matter about morality, for, when people argue about morality, it sure seems like they are genuinely disagreeing — that they are debating whether something is true or false, and not just talking past one another via expressing their preferences. And it doesn’t seem like they are debating descriptive facts (like what society at large thinks).

Now, just about every premise in this argument is heavily contestable, but all I want to point out is that, if you do not think there are stance-independent reasons, I hardly see why this argument should convince you. You will just think that, even if people take themselves to be genuinely disagreeing about some non-descriptive fact, they really aren’t.

And this is true of anti-realist arguments too. Take, for instance, the consideration that moral facts are really weird, totally unobservable, unnecessary to posit, and really really weird!

I, as a moral realist, am not moved one bit by this argument. When I reflect on some things — say, creating a happy person — I think that there is a objective reason to pursue these things, independent of my desires. This is no less “unobservable” than my own phenomenal consciousness, and it is necessary to posit — for me — to account for how I see the world. The existence of these reasons may indeed be weird (depending on whether they’re non-natural), but that is just a statement about how I see the world: upon observation, the world is weird! Much like, when I reflect on the existence of conscious experience, I might remark: “hey, that is a really weird thing!”

Of course, my point isn’t that these arguments are bad. They’re helpful devices for figuring out which camp you fall into — for figuring out how you see the world. Unlike when it comes to physical facts, I don’t think you can just immediately determine whether you are a realist or anti-realist. You should ask yourself: do you think moral discourse is characterized by genuine disagreement? Do you grasp exactly what it is to say that there are stance-independent reasons, and just how weird that is? Do these strike you as the kind of thing that exist upon reflecting upon, eg, the nature of pain?

My experience speaking to non-philosophers has confirmed for me that it is often the case that people do not really know which of these camps they fall into (even when expressing confident “yes” or “no” answers to the question), taking some considerations to be dispositive when they are not (e.g., thinking rampant moral disagreement settles the issue, or that historical human consensus on some issues settles the issue). So the “arguments” commonly given by metaethicists are still very helpful devices to learn precisely what realism and anti-realism consists in, and what it means for the world to be one way or another. But, once one has fully grasped the issue, there aren’t (and can’t be) arguments that have to rationally compel one away from their preferred school of thought.