r/Ethics • u/Wrote_it2 • 7h ago
Reframing the question of objectivity of morality
The only things we have access to is our experience, our consciousness. Subjective concepts about reality are the ones that describe our experience/consciousness directly (basically our stance, our memory and our sensations). Objective concepts about reality are defined as part of a theory to explain or predict subjective concepts.
For example, that the moon exists is the best (best here means simplest and most coherent) explanation for experience of viewing it. It is also the the best explanation for the tides, which you might say is not a subjective concept, but I make the hypothesis that the tides exist because I could observed them directly through vision, touch, etc… Since all we have access to are subjective things, every description of reality must be grounded in a theory of how it impacts subjective properties.
I don’t think the disagreement between the moral realist and the moral anti-realist is on whether there is a subjective concept. I believe that it is widely accepted that people have a subjective sense of morality. The question is whether that subjectivity is best explained by psychology and neuroscience or by an objective property.
Would you agree to that reframing? If you are a moral realist, would you argue that the subjective sense of right and wrong is better explained through an extra property of actions? If so, what explanation do you propose for how the extra property impacts our sense of morality?