I understand where you’re coming from, but I’m not sure that skepticism is as easy to defeat as e.g. young earth creationism. The arguments seem to take more thought and creativity to refute.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I think that that’s why they are still taken seriously.
I didn't find this compelling, because I think what counts as a "philosophical" topic is related to the fact that radical skepticism is/seems to be a live option. I.e., that the main thing ethics and epistemology have in common is that they are concerned with questions that have generated extreme, persistent disagreement among apparently rational people for millennia. In which case, skepticism's popularity doesn't seem like evidence that philosophers are either especially biased or especially virtuous. And if they're not especially biased, I don't see why it matters if philosophers are more skeptical than other experts.
But philosophers are skeptical about things that are in fact *not* controversial to anyone else. It's not controversial to anyone else that matter exists, that some people know their own names, that time exists, that some people are conscious, etc.
Nor is there persistent disagreement about any of those things among *rational* people.
That doesn't seem like evidence that the issue is philosophers rather than philosophizing. I.e., to me it seems equally expected on both hypotheses. And if it's philosophizing (i.e., if thinking very hard about a "philosophical" topic is unusually likely to lead people to bizarre, revisionary conclusions), such that smart people in other fields would endorse weird views (at the same rate) if they philosophized more, that doesn't seem to count against skepticism. But of course, if philosophers or their methods are biased, that would. It definitely seems common for people to self-select out of the field because it seems like a waste of a time.
EDIT: An example a "non-philosophers" endorsing skeptical views might be LessWrong, which is mainly STEM people with no formal training in philosophy. But moral anti realism and reductionism about consciousness are very popular/the dominant views.
It seems to me that metaethical anti-realism leads to moral skepticism because it leaves moral claims ungrounded, without any standard of good or evil and justice or injustice independent of varying subjective preferences. In that case, it's hard to see how punishing someone for torturing infants is any more justifiable than punishing someone for eating vanilla ice cream instead of chocolate. That's not a refutation of anti-realism but it makes anti-realism implausible. If you find the time, I'd like to see how you'd respond to the following arguments.
The only anti-realist theories that permit moral statements to be true—but not objectively true--are subjectivism and relativism (which is a form of subjectivism). Assuming subjectivism is true, if Smith feels that murder is unjust, but Jones feels that it's just, it's true that murder is unjust for Smith but just for Jones. It's as if Smith says chocolate ice cream tastes better than vanilla, and Jones says the reverse. Since there's no objective standard of justice, whether murder is just or not is simply a matter of opinion. Neither man is objectively right or wrong. Neither is objectively better or worse, more or less just than the other. To suppose otherwise is to implicitly reject anti-realism. Hence, if anti-realism is true, it's no more rational to criticize either man for his belief about murder than for his belief about the flavor of ice cream.
To illustrate the importance of independent, objective standards, consider a situation in which two men in a room experience discomfort. One man says the room is too cool (say below 65 degrees F) and the other says it's too warm (say above 75 degrees F). Each man is reporting his subjective experience. It's true subjectively that the room feels below 65 degrees for one man and above 75 degrees for the other. But the room can't be both below 65 degrees and above 75 degrees. The claims of both men can't be objectively true, though both can be objectively false. Absent some independent objective standard, such as a room thermometer, there's no more reason to attribute objective falsity to the claim of one man than to that of the other. This is the sort of situation anti-realists find themselves in when they disagree about moral beliefs. On the issue of baby torture, there's no more reason to believe that its advocate is wrong than that its opponent is wrong.
It can be objected that metaethical relativism as applied to whole societies is different from subjectivism. But if the moral beliefs of the members of a society are objectively true for that society, that's not a form of anti-realism. So, an anti-realist version of societal relativism requires that those beliefs be inter-subjective rather than objective. It would be like everyone (or a majority) preferring the same flavor of ice cream or holding the same religious beliefs.
Versions of anti-realism that don't regard moral beliefs as even subjectively true—such as noncognitivism and error theory-- seem to explicitly reject morality altogether.
We seem to be left with these options: If anti-realism is true, then the correct metaethical theory is moral nihilism—the view that morality doesn't objectively exist, and nothing is objectively morally right or wrong. If the correct metaethical theory is not moral nihilism, then anti-realism is not true.
A consistent anti-realist must regard all normative beliefs as non-objective because so far as truth is concerned, there's no sufficiently important distinction between moral beliefs and other normative beliefs to justify treating moral beliefs differently from other normative beliefs. As a consequence, the anti-realist can't object to being irrationally criticized without apparently abandoning anti-realism because the belief others ought to be rational is a normative one. And an anti-realist may prefer rationality to irrationality and truth to falsity (or the reverse), but he can't adequately justify the belief that one should be rational and pursue the truth (or that one should be irrational and pursue falsity).
I don't understand what the objection to subjectivism is. It can't justify punishment? Why wouldn't the subjectivist say that the "justification" of punishment is subjective like everything else, and therefore it is "justified" precisely in the sense that he himself approves of it? Of course it isn't *objectively* justified, any more than anything else is, but why would that bother the subjectivist?
Are you assuming that it's morally wrong to punish someone for X if X isn't objectively wrong, or if X isn't irrational? Wouldn't the subjectivist just say, "No, it's morally right to punish people who do things that I disapprove of, because I approve of punishing those people"?
“Hence, if anti-realism is true, it's no more rational to criticize either man for his belief about murder than for his belief about the flavor of ice cream.”
What proposition are you representing with the label “anti-realism” here? If anti-realism is about stance independence or dependence, the consequent doesn’t follow. Subjectivists can criticize others for not sharing their views without being irrational. They just can’t base the criticism on stance-independent norms. E.g., “your stance on murder will have the following consequences, which you claim you don’t want and will not occur,” or “your stance on murder and your stance on [something else] are logically contradictory.”
I understand where you’re coming from, but I’m not sure that skepticism is as easy to defeat as e.g. young earth creationism. The arguments seem to take more thought and creativity to refute.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I think that that’s why they are still taken seriously.
I didn't find this compelling, because I think what counts as a "philosophical" topic is related to the fact that radical skepticism is/seems to be a live option. I.e., that the main thing ethics and epistemology have in common is that they are concerned with questions that have generated extreme, persistent disagreement among apparently rational people for millennia. In which case, skepticism's popularity doesn't seem like evidence that philosophers are either especially biased or especially virtuous. And if they're not especially biased, I don't see why it matters if philosophers are more skeptical than other experts.
But philosophers are skeptical about things that are in fact *not* controversial to anyone else. It's not controversial to anyone else that matter exists, that some people know their own names, that time exists, that some people are conscious, etc.
Nor is there persistent disagreement about any of those things among *rational* people.
That doesn't seem like evidence that the issue is philosophers rather than philosophizing. I.e., to me it seems equally expected on both hypotheses. And if it's philosophizing (i.e., if thinking very hard about a "philosophical" topic is unusually likely to lead people to bizarre, revisionary conclusions), such that smart people in other fields would endorse weird views (at the same rate) if they philosophized more, that doesn't seem to count against skepticism. But of course, if philosophers or their methods are biased, that would. It definitely seems common for people to self-select out of the field because it seems like a waste of a time.
EDIT: An example a "non-philosophers" endorsing skeptical views might be LessWrong, which is mainly STEM people with no formal training in philosophy. But moral anti realism and reductionism about consciousness are very popular/the dominant views.
It seems to me that metaethical anti-realism leads to moral skepticism because it leaves moral claims ungrounded, without any standard of good or evil and justice or injustice independent of varying subjective preferences. In that case, it's hard to see how punishing someone for torturing infants is any more justifiable than punishing someone for eating vanilla ice cream instead of chocolate. That's not a refutation of anti-realism but it makes anti-realism implausible. If you find the time, I'd like to see how you'd respond to the following arguments.
The only anti-realist theories that permit moral statements to be true—but not objectively true--are subjectivism and relativism (which is a form of subjectivism). Assuming subjectivism is true, if Smith feels that murder is unjust, but Jones feels that it's just, it's true that murder is unjust for Smith but just for Jones. It's as if Smith says chocolate ice cream tastes better than vanilla, and Jones says the reverse. Since there's no objective standard of justice, whether murder is just or not is simply a matter of opinion. Neither man is objectively right or wrong. Neither is objectively better or worse, more or less just than the other. To suppose otherwise is to implicitly reject anti-realism. Hence, if anti-realism is true, it's no more rational to criticize either man for his belief about murder than for his belief about the flavor of ice cream.
To illustrate the importance of independent, objective standards, consider a situation in which two men in a room experience discomfort. One man says the room is too cool (say below 65 degrees F) and the other says it's too warm (say above 75 degrees F). Each man is reporting his subjective experience. It's true subjectively that the room feels below 65 degrees for one man and above 75 degrees for the other. But the room can't be both below 65 degrees and above 75 degrees. The claims of both men can't be objectively true, though both can be objectively false. Absent some independent objective standard, such as a room thermometer, there's no more reason to attribute objective falsity to the claim of one man than to that of the other. This is the sort of situation anti-realists find themselves in when they disagree about moral beliefs. On the issue of baby torture, there's no more reason to believe that its advocate is wrong than that its opponent is wrong.
It can be objected that metaethical relativism as applied to whole societies is different from subjectivism. But if the moral beliefs of the members of a society are objectively true for that society, that's not a form of anti-realism. So, an anti-realist version of societal relativism requires that those beliefs be inter-subjective rather than objective. It would be like everyone (or a majority) preferring the same flavor of ice cream or holding the same religious beliefs.
Versions of anti-realism that don't regard moral beliefs as even subjectively true—such as noncognitivism and error theory-- seem to explicitly reject morality altogether.
We seem to be left with these options: If anti-realism is true, then the correct metaethical theory is moral nihilism—the view that morality doesn't objectively exist, and nothing is objectively morally right or wrong. If the correct metaethical theory is not moral nihilism, then anti-realism is not true.
A consistent anti-realist must regard all normative beliefs as non-objective because so far as truth is concerned, there's no sufficiently important distinction between moral beliefs and other normative beliefs to justify treating moral beliefs differently from other normative beliefs. As a consequence, the anti-realist can't object to being irrationally criticized without apparently abandoning anti-realism because the belief others ought to be rational is a normative one. And an anti-realist may prefer rationality to irrationality and truth to falsity (or the reverse), but he can't adequately justify the belief that one should be rational and pursue the truth (or that one should be irrational and pursue falsity).
I don't understand what the objection to subjectivism is. It can't justify punishment? Why wouldn't the subjectivist say that the "justification" of punishment is subjective like everything else, and therefore it is "justified" precisely in the sense that he himself approves of it? Of course it isn't *objectively* justified, any more than anything else is, but why would that bother the subjectivist?
Are you assuming that it's morally wrong to punish someone for X if X isn't objectively wrong, or if X isn't irrational? Wouldn't the subjectivist just say, "No, it's morally right to punish people who do things that I disapprove of, because I approve of punishing those people"?
“Hence, if anti-realism is true, it's no more rational to criticize either man for his belief about murder than for his belief about the flavor of ice cream.”
What proposition are you representing with the label “anti-realism” here? If anti-realism is about stance independence or dependence, the consequent doesn’t follow. Subjectivists can criticize others for not sharing their views without being irrational. They just can’t base the criticism on stance-independent norms. E.g., “your stance on murder will have the following consequences, which you claim you don’t want and will not occur,” or “your stance on murder and your stance on [something else] are logically contradictory.”