Moral realism doesn't help you (much)

Moral nihilism, uh, the belief that moral facts don't exist, or at least that's how I'm going to define it here. Lord Hawkeye gives the impression that he does believe the moral facts exist. I'm not certain that he really does. A couple of his remarks about the utility or merits of morality have me wondering whether he's actually a moral realist or not. But I'm going to operate on the assumption that he really believes that moral facts exist, for now at least.

Here's my understanding of what Lord Hawkeye said in, uh, over the course of a couple of recent videos. I think this is his position. He believes that when moral nihilists argue against him about the existence of moral facts, there's something inconsistent about them doing so. On his view, moral nihilism holds that there's no such thing as objectively preferable human behavior or human beliefs. And this being the case, the nihilist has no grounds from which to oppose Hawkeye's mistaken belief that moral facts do exist. Uh, why should they care? Why should the nihilist care?

So, the mistake I believe Hawkeye is making is that he's neglecting the role of subjective value or of subjective preferences. He's right that moral nihilists can't appeal to objectively preferable behavior or beliefs; there's no such thing. But moral nihilists can be and are motivated by their subjective values. For instance, I value truth. I enjoy the challenge of persuading others about what I take to be the truth. I value the way that my own knowledge increases through these efforts and that my own false beliefs are highlighted and can be discarded. This, on its own, is reason enough to try to correct you about your mistaken view—uh, mistaken in my opinion, of course—about the existence of moral facts.

But there are plenty of other reasons I'd be interested in trying to correct your error, as well as valuing the truth. Uh, valuing truth, personally, I believe that you also value truth. Okay, if I can provide you with what you value while pursuing my own project towards knowledge, then that's a bonus because I value helping people out. So, I hope you can see how no assumption of moral facts, uh, or of universally preferable human behavior or beliefs, uh, is necessary for me to have reason to try to convince you that you're mistaken about the existence of moral facts. There's no inconsistency in me trying to do so.

Moral realism, I think, seems to promise a firm ground for moral feelings. In a way, this does provide one thing that moral nihilism doesn't. I suppose it can be a comfort to believe that your opinions reflect universal truths. But when it comes to persuading others or challenging behavior that you don't like, moral realism is useless. When we discuss moral questions, the best we can do in any situation is try to demonstrate that our intelligence's position on the situation in question is not consistent with some more foundational moral stance that they have.

For instance, doing x may be in conflict with a person's preference to minimize suffering. Notice that it's not necessary to assume that moral facts exist in order to have a discussion of this sort. That assumption doesn't strengthen our position in the slightest. So, uh, to summarize: moral facts, there's no good reason to suppose they exist. And while it can be comforting for some to believe that they do, uh, moral realism doesn't help you persuade people whose behavior you'd like to change.