Moral realism

[Philip Dragoumis]

Moral realism is a theory that states that moral values not only are
objective and discoverable but are like non-moral properties like
squareness and roundness. It is a theory that I believe in and I would
like other people's views on.

The way I look at it moral values as well as aesthetic ones fall into two
categories: Williams' thick and thin notions. The thin notions like right
and wrong, good and bad do not fall under the scope of moral realism. They
are too vague.

It is the thick notions that are the interesting ones. Examples are
Brutal, courageous, tacky. These notions denote what I would term moral
properties. The only way you can explain to someone what it is to be
brutal or commit a brutal action is to show them an example of brutality.
You can't break this term down any further.

In an Aristotelian fashion, people learn what it is to be brutal by forming
connections when shown sequences of brutal things. The fact that something
is brutal entails that is wrong and by making the connection enough times
from being exposed to it, we get moral learning.

A philosopher called Mccdowell claims that moral values are like colours.
They have secondary objectivity. This means that they are not independent
of perception itself but they are independent of any particular person's
perception. A sound needs the ability of a sense of hearing to be heard
but not necessarily mine or yours to be heard. My view goes one step
further to claim that moral values have primary objectivity and do not rely
on perception at all. We are exposed to moral properties which can be
ascribed to actions just as other non-moral properties and these have an
effect on us. Thick notions do not need to rely on our sense of perception
to continue to be moral properties just as a square does not rely on
perception to continue to still have its property of squareness.

[Brendan McGrath]

Philip Dragoumis wrote:
>
> Moral realism is a theory that states that moral values not only are
> objective and discoverable but are like non-moral properties like
> squareness and roundness. It is a theory that I believe in and I would
> like other people's views on.
>

In an Aristotelian fashion, people learn what it is to be brutal by
forming
> connections when shown sequences of brutal things.
>

> It is interesting here that you have choosen to use Aristotleian theory, as Aristotle taught that the nature of a thing was contained within its function, Aristotle did not follow Plato in his theory of forms, which lends itself toward the transendent realm of objectivity. More over Aristotles third man argument against the theory of forms has long held a certian amount of weight.

> The fact that something
> is brutal entails that is wrong and by making the connection enough times
> from being exposed to it, we get moral learning.

This type of resemblance nominalism, how ever convincing still falls
prey to a vicous
and fatal regress, the idear that by recognizing a thing as being of a
certian type by referance to a group of exmplar items, mmmmm, but what
identifys these things as being part of the exmlpar group.

to put it simply to say that somthing is red simply because it
resembales other red things, in virture of what do those other "red"
things qualify as being red? by referance to a higher order of red
things, and so on Ad infinitum? :-(

BIBLOGRAPHY
D.M Armstrong 1989 nominalism and realism
B. Russell The world of universals

[Martin Dann]

In article <336582...@student.canterbury.ac.nz>, Brendan McGrath
<bd...@student.canterbury.ac.nz> writes

Philip was right. How else do you suppose that we learn that something
is red, other than being shown red things and then learning to compare
new experiences to our existing knowledge? Things are red because that
is what we call that colour, not by reference to any "form" of red.
Behaviour is brutal because that is what we have learned to call that
particular behaviour. I think there is more to understanding why
"brutal" should be "wrong", but that's for another time!

Cheers,
--
Martin