That has got nothing to do with the paradox.

Yes, it’s the dominant strategy.

Two boxers hate having fun. That’s just science.

Whys it sad to be right?

@@aaronchipp-miller9608 It isn't right, two-boxers will lose pretty much all of the time.

Duh

Literally none of what you said there is true - you clearly just don't understand the problem.

(2) Huemer also says that he doesn’t generally say moral realism is intuitive, but that he instead appeals to more specific intuitions. However, he then presents intuitions that are ambiguous. His first example: “If most of society approved of torturing babies, would it be alright to torture babies? He goes on to say that most people find it intuitive that you shouldn’t torture babies even if most of society approved of it. Well, I don’t know what he means by “shouldn’t.” This is a normative term. Does it presuppose realism, or does it not presuppose realism? Without knowing what Huemer means by this, he’s not entitled to say whether most people would share this intuition. Huemer, and other moral realists, often do not disambiguate the normative and metaethicale elements in their examples. For instance, I don’t have the view that if most of society approved of torturing babies that it would be alright to torture babies. Yet this has nothing whatsoever to do with my views as a moral antirealist. So what does that intuition have to do with realism? Also, why would it matter if most people thought it was objectively wrong? That is, what if most ordinary people were moral realists about this? That would at best be incredibly weak evidence of realism. He then says that this is supposed to show “subjectivism is wrong.” What does he mean by subjectivism? I can be an individual subjectivist but still think that whether it’s okay to torture babies has to do with *my* moral standards, not society’s. So an individual subjectivist could reject the claim he presented. So could a noncognitivist or an error theorist. And someone could agree with the claim and be a realist or an antirealist. So responses to the claim he presents about torturing babies are not necessarily indicative of any particular metaethical stance, other than probably being a decent signal that you reject cultural relativism. However, if you asked ordinary people a question like this, they may struggle to understand it (a topic I study and have evidence for), so it’s not clear even then whether Huemer is in a good position to say what most people would find intuitive. That’s an empirical question, and to my knowledge Huemer has not conducted any empirical research on this question. For what it is worth, there is empirical research on whether ordinary people are realists or relativists, and the latest and most rigorous studies find that there are more moral relativists than there are moral realists. So Huemer’s claims about what people find intuitive may simply be false. The reason it’s easy for Huemer to present an intuition the way he has and suggest most people would find it intuitive has largely to do with normative entanglement: conflating metaethical and normative considerations. An ordinary person, when confronted with questions about baby torture, is not going to have an easy time drawing a distinction between their normative stance towards this (which is probably to morally object to it) from their metaethical stance (which has to do with whether it is stance-independently true); indeed, most people probably don’t even have any stance of the latter kind, and as such their response to such situations is simply not diagnostic of them being a moral realist. It is best construed as evidence that they don’t like baby torture and think it’s really immoral. But I’m a moral antirealist, and I don’t like baby torture and think it’s really immoral. That’s completely consistent with being an antirealist. I just don’t think it’s *stance-independently true* that it’s immoral. There is no good evidence that most people consistently judge that issues like this are stance-independently wrong. See this paper: Pölzler, T., & Wright, J. C. (2020). Anti-realist pluralism: A new approach to folk metaethics. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 11(1), 53-82. I can provide other references to anyone reading this. What you’ll find here is that across a variety of measures a majority of participants favor antirealist responses, with relativism representing the most common response. Yet Huemer is claiming that most people’s intuitions are inconsistent with relativism/antirealism. He presents no empirical evidence to support this claim, and yet there is empirical evidence against it.

(3) Huemer goes on to say, “Hey, is it false that torturing babies is wrong? … No. It doesn’t seem false.” He then claims that this kind of reasoning can be used to refute error theory. Yet notice a problem here. Yet error theories typically treat moral claims as cognitivistic, and the most prominent form treats them as realist. Huemer seems to be assuming that if one would not judge that it’s false that torturing babies is wrong, that this suggests error theory is wrong. Firstly, a noncognitivist could say this, so the reaction he gave is consistent with a prominent form of antirealist. But second, and most importantly, error theory relies on empirical claims about the meaning of moral claims, or at the very least a presupposition about the metaethical commitments implicit in a given moral claim. Huemer seems to presume moral claims are best understood in line with the claims moral realists make, yet never makes this explicit. For some reason, Huemer frequently makes normative claims like “X is wrong,” and then, without being clear on what this means, presumes that this is to be understood in line with a moral realist’s interpretation of such claims. That is, it is taken to mean something like “X is stance-independently wrong.” Why do this? Why not make the metaethical presuppositions explicit? After all, I don’t simply reject realism, I also reject that we can simply presume without disambiguation that “X is wrong” *just means* “X is stance-independently wrong.” It may mean that, it may not. One isn’t entitled to simply presume.

(4) He then says “The particular versions of antirealist are incompatible with some specific intuitions that are pretty widely shared.” Error theory isn’t based on an intuitive response to widespread normative moral claims. It actually presumes that people are implicitly committed to realism and then argues that realism is false based on arguments/reasons that may or may not be shared by ordinary people. Huemer didn’t even address noncognitivism, and I’ve cited empirical research that shows relativist/subjectivist intuitions are actually very common in the very society Huemer is from. So Huemer has done almost nothing to refute error theory, noncognitivism, or subjectivism/relativism. I mean no disrespect to Huemer, but his objections are incredibly weak, and can be easily challenged by antirealists.

(5) Huemer says in response to a summary of my views that “You should be able to test it by just taking statements that that view implies should be good statements and then seeing how they sound” Sure. Give me some statements. I guarantee they will sound fine to me. That is, you aren’t going to present any account of subjectivist moral statements that “sound wrong” to me in a way that makes it seem that my antirealist position is counterintuitive or misdescribes language. Huemer gives us a statement: “If I approved of torturing babies, then it would be okay for me to torture baibes.” Huemer says “That seems false.” It does not seem false to me. Huemer then says “I’m not an egomaniac. I don’t think that me of approving of torturing babies would make it alright. That’s insane.” What does he mean? I don’t think that if I think it’s okay to X, then it is okay to X, and that somehow my thinking that in virtue of approving of X that I make it true that X is good or morally okay. Rather, I just think there are facts about what my goals are, and facts about what actions would be consistent with those goals. My preferences or desires don’t create free-floating moral facts. Huemer then says, “I’m using alright in the ordinary English sense…whatever that is.” Notice a few things. First, whatever “alright” means in the ordinary English sense is an empirical question, and it seems doubtful Huemer (or I) know what that sense is. Second, it may turn out that there is no uniform and consistent ordinary meaning of “alright.” That is, it could mean different things for different people or in different situations or with respect to different moral and nonmoral issues. Words may not have rigid and fixed meanings. If so, then which of the many senses of “alright” would Huemer be pointing to? He then says that we just found out that the ordinary English sense of “alright” is not subjectivist. Why, then, did Polzler and Wright find that, across multiple paradigms they found the following rates of subjectivism/relativism among participants: Abstract paradigms Theory Cultural relativism: 27% Individual subjectivism: 7% Comparison Cultural relativism: 46% Individual subjectivism: 28% Metaphor Cultural relativism: 53% Individual subjectivism: 19% Disagreement Cultural relativism: 19% Individual subjectivism: 47% Total Cultural relativism: 36% Individual subjectivism: 25% Note that when you consider the total for both cultural relativists and individual subjectivists across all measures in this study, you get 61% favoring relativist/subjectivist responses. Yet Huemer is claiming that we “found out” that it’s not the case that the ordinary understanding of moral claims is not relativist. If so, then why did this study find that a majoriy favored antirealist views like this? And why do other recent studies, such as Taylor Davis’s paper? Why do other studies reveal very high rates of relativist responses, including Beebe, Sarkissian et al, Wright, Grandjean and McWhite? Why do I find very high rates of relativism in my studies? And why, when I teach on this topic, do most of my students report being relativists? On what basis is Huemer claiming that ordinary people don’t think and speak about moral issues like relativists? Facts about what ordinary people think about metaethics are *empirical* questions. And the data is not on Huemer’s side. What’s more, I myself have taught on the topic and have routinely encountered moral relativists on college campuses. Maybe they aren’t representative of humanity as a whole, and I would agree that they’re probably not. But whatever intuitions Huemer has, he has even less justification for generalizing about people from other cultures and societies than for people from the US. And yet our data on the US suggests that many people in the US may very well endorse moral relativism.

(6) Huemer says, “I take it that a standard debate is to be formulated using the ordinary English sense of these normative terms…” But Huemer doesn’t know what the ordinary English sense of these normative terms is. That’s an empirical question. And Huemer neither conducts nor cites any empirical research on what people mean when using ordinary English normative terms. Yet he seems to be comfortable either thinking armchair philosophical methods are adequate to discern what the ordinary m meaning of these terms is…maybe he’d be right. But I don’t know what method Huemer appeals to when making claims about what ordinary people mean. If it’s not empirical, it’s unlikely I’d accept it as a legitimate method. And if it isn’t, does he have an argument for why we should accept the non-empirical method he employs? It seems Huemer, and many other philosophers, believe that they can appeal to armchair philosophical theorizing to make substantive claims about what nonphilosophers think and what they mean when they speak without engaging in any empirical research to confirm that these claims are true. This strikes me as absurd. Imagine if psychologists “studied” other facts about how people think, or if linguists studied facts about linguistic practice, without actually studying real-world instances of people thinking or using the language. This would hopefully strike most of us as ludicrous. Imagine, for instance, a psychologist who didn’t actually conduct studies, but just *thought about* how human personality was, and then presented theories of human personality based on their intuitions and thinking. Would you take that seriously?