//It’s worth noting that this is almost certainly an impossible thought experiment — one that couldn’t happen in any possible world. The moral facts are necessary — they’re true in all possible worlds. Thus, it couldn’t be the case that there were bizarre but true moral facts any more than it could turn out to be the case that 1+1 was equal to 2 in some far-off world. //
This is a non sequitur that misconstrues the objection. First, it's highly controversial whether the moral facts are necessary and a critic could object to that. But even if we assume they are necessary, the thought experiment could just ask whether you'd endorse the necessary moral facts, no matter what they were. You seem to be implicitly assuming the thought experiment doesn't accept that moral facts are necessary, which it doesn't need to do. As a result, it's a mistake to say there couldn't be any bizarre moral facts. Bizarre doesn't mean contingent or non-necessary. It could be that the necessary moral facts are bizarre, and require you to do things like scream at tables or convert all matter into bananas.
Your argument also seems to presume that you know what the substantive normative facts are, but this is something a thought experiment can challenge. That some facts may be necessary doesn't entail that they're self evident or that your judgments about them are infallible.
I think you've failed to show the thought experiment is impossible. And I don't think it is impossible. Yet I think you are at pains to argue that it's impossible even though it isn't because you don't have a good answer to it. If moral realism required us to torture everyone or spend all day screaming at tables, realists would be committed to doing so.
// First, it's highly controversial whether the moral facts are necessary and a critic could object to that. //
The fact that some proposition is controversial does not mean that one can't assume a view on it, particularly if they've argued for it at length. If non-naturalist moral realism is true, then the moral facts are necessary, and I've argued that it is.
//But even if we assume they are necessary, the thought expirement could just ask whether you'd endorse the necessary moral facts, no matter what they were. You seem to be implicitly assuming the thought expirement doesn't accept that moral facts are necessary, which it doesn't need to do. As a result, it's a mistake to say there couldn't be any bizarre moral facts. Bizarre doesn't mean contingent or non necessary. It could be that the necessary moral facts are bizarre, and require you to do things like scream at tables or convert all matter into bananas.//
No, it couldn't be that the moral facts command you to scream at tables. The moral facts necessarily don't say that -- they couldn't be different if we accept they're necessary. But also, as I explain at length, in the bizarre epistemic possibility that they required us to scream at tables, then our refraining from screaming at tables is built on partiality and ignorance -- this makes it seem especially clear that we do have good reason to scream at tables if, in fact, the moral facts command it.
//Your argument also seems to presume that you know what the substantive normative facts are, but this is something a thought expirement can challenge. That some facts may be necessary doesn't entail that they're self evident or that your judgments about them are infallible.//
I don't claim they're infallible -- being radically mistaken is a genuine epistemic possibility, much like we could be mistaken about the mathematical facts. However, thought experiments that we have good reason to think are metaphysically impossible can't be used as objections -- just like you can't have thought experiments about the area of a square circle. Yetter Chappell argues persuasively that it's near impossible that the moral facts could be bizarre in the following article -- worth reading https://www.philosophyetc.net/2021/10/ruling-out-helium-maximizing.html.
//No, it couldn't be that the moral facts command you to scream at tables. The moral facts necessarily don't say that -- they couldn't be different if we accept they're necessary. //
Why not? Do you have an objection or are you just asserting the contrary? If the latter, on what basis? Is there a logical contradiction of some kind in it being morally necessary to scream at tables? If so, what's the logical contradiction? If not, then on what grounds do you claim it's not possible for screaming at tables to be a necessary moral fact?
I agree that if moral facts are necessary that they couldn't be any different than they are. But that is compatible with it being morally necessary to scream at tables. It seems very strange for you to say they couldn't be different than they are as though there were some kind of refutation, when the very point being made is a challenge as to what the moral facts are. The hypothetical is predicated on an epistemic consideration, not a metaphysical one. That is, I am not granting that as a matter of fact, there are necessary moral facts, and they include moral facts {A, B, C}, but then I am asking us to consider the hypothetical possibility that the moral facts are instead {D.} That wouldn't make any sense, since if I accepted that they're necessarily {A, B, C}, then they couldn't be {D}, even in principle.
But that's not where the hypothetical derives its force - from accepting a particular claim of necessity, then asking you to entertain an alternative claim to necessity. Rather, the argument can appeal to the epistemic possibility that you and others have failed to identify what the necessary moral facts are. And unless you are infallible, that remains an open possibility. Now, I'll grant that if you can demonstrate some kind of logical contradiction between the truth of moral realism and it being morally necessary to scream at tables, that you can show the latter cannot be one of the moral facts. But I very much doubt you can do so without appealing to the very premises I reject, leaving you with an argument that is, at worst, question-begging or mere assertion, and at best, an argument that only has appeal to someone who already accepts your substantive normative claims. Either way, I doubt you have a winning hand here.
To be honest, I think you are question-beggingly assuming that your substantive normative moral conclusions are necessary, something I don't think you're entitled to do when considering the hypothetical.
With respect, I suspect you are trying to avoid the force of the hypothetical because the implications are devastating, but I don't think you're even remotely successful: your position requires something that involves some combination of
(1) question begging. In particular, you are now appealing to claims you've argued for elsewhere but you're not entitled to appeal to to resist the force of the hypothetical. After all, if you're permitted to appeal to positions you have argued for, but have not convinced others of - then so am I, in which case I will appeal to my own position, which entails that non-naturalist moral realism is unintelligible, in which case you're mistaken about moral realism outright. After all, I've argued for that elsewhere!
What you're doing is effectively making your current position contingent on other contested positions that you hold. And that's fine, but if your reasoning as to why such-and-such a claim isn't possible requires us to buy into the rest of your philosophical views, why should we do that? We could then move the hypothetical over to those, ask you to consider a hypothetical in which those views are wrong, and then, once you're doing so, ask you to consider the current hypothetical. What are you going to do? Insist you can't do that, either? Is your entire philosophical position necessary? This isn't an appropriate way to escape a hypothetical. I could just as readily say that because I've argued for illusionism elsewhere, that therefore I'm correct that it's not possible for there to be qualia, You wouldn't take that seriously, and you shouldn't. Yet you're helping yourself to exactly that move here.
//But also, as I explain at length, in the bizarre epistemic possibility that they required us to scream at tables,//
I deny that it's bizarre, outright. It may seem bizarre to you, but it wouldn't if you had a strong subjective moral preference to scream at tables, but no similar inclination to impartially maximize utility. What seems bizarre or not to you, morally speaking, is contingent on your personal moral attitudes, preferences, and sentiments; it is very much a contingent matter; your judgments about what's morally "necessary" are ironically completely beholden to contingent features of your human psychology and enculturation.
//But also, as I explain at length, in the bizarre epistemic possibility that they required us to scream at tables, then our refraining from screaming at tables is built on partiality and ignorance -- this makes it seem especially clear that we do have good reason to scream at tables if, in fact, the moral facts command it. //
This strikes me as a total capitulation to the objection, which should have been construed as epistemic in the first place. By initially misframing the objection, you give the misleading impression that you’ve refuted the actual argument, but now can make a lesser concession to a weaker form of it.
In the "bizarre" epistemic possibility that the moral facts required you to torture everyone forever, or convert all matter into bananas, and you had the power to do so, would you do it? If so, this is all that critics like me need to establish to raise doubts about your position.
//However, thought experiments that we have good reason to think are metaphysically impossible//
I don’t agree that we have good reasons to think it’s metaphysically impossible that it’s morally necessary to scream at tables. And if you’re entitled to appeal to extraneous arguments, so am I, and I’ll simply appeal to contrary arguments. Again, you’re not entitled to help yourself to dialectical double standards.
//Yetter Chappell argues persuasively//
I don’t think Yetter Chappell has argued persuasively. I’ve argued persuasively that your position is false - do you accept such an assertion? If not, then why should I accept that Yetter Chappell has argued persuasively for something?
I’ve read the blog you linked, and all of Carlsmith’s entries on metaethics. I agree much more with Carlsmith than with Yetter Chappell, and do not think Yetter Chappell’s objections are persuasive.
Yetter Chappell states: “Furthermore, in addressing the question why helium-maximizing would be so misguided, I think the answer, "because people are what really matter!" is better than "because there's no way I would ever care about helium so much!"”
This does not strike me as a good objection. It just seems question begging. We could run into helium maximizers who could make the exact same kinds of appeals to their moral intuitions, and they might even outnumber us, and display an extraordinary expertise in moral philosophy on top of that. I see no reason to prioritize the moral intuitions of people-matter intuiters over helium-matters intuiters.
There's a persistent tendency for your local arguments to rely on the presumption that extraneous arguments have been settled in your favor, even though many of the rest of us have not conceded to these other arguments and don't find them persuasive. This isn't a great way to argue - your arguments here seem to only work if we already buy into much of the rest of your philosophical views, which of course I don't! Imagine we flipped the tables, and you were raising objections to some specific argument I made. Then, instead of addressing your objections, I punted by claiming that as Carlsmith persuasively argued in some blog post, you're wrong about some background assumption you're appealing to to resist my argument, even though you'd already read Carlsmith's post and didn't agree with it. Imagine how unsatisfying it'd be to be in that situation - I'd simply be presuming not only that my current argument is correct, but also that I've won a bunch of other arguments that you don't think I've won at all.
Yet this is how you seem to argue here and elsewhere. Philosophy is a holistic enterprise, and we are all in a position not only to reject any given argument, but all the background philosophical assumptions and arguments that have led you to endorse that argument. You seem to ignore this, and present your positions in specific blog posts as if much of the rest of the relevant philosophical literature has settled in a way favorable to your position. With respect, it comes off as far too hasty and overconfident. I would encourage you to be more receptive not only to local differences in philosophical positions, but in far broader and more fundamental philosophical disagreements serving as contested territory as well.
FWIW, I am not sure if you appreciate just how fully I reject the framework in which you operate: I not only reject most of your substantive philosophical positions, but the metaphilosophical framework in which they appear to be made. I think much contemporary analytic philosophy is fundamentally and wildly misguided, and that the result is an entire discipline that reliably fails to produce substantive answers to the questions it has set for itself.
My friend. One only needs to read this blog to confirm that you are a moral fetishist
//It’s worth noting that this is almost certainly an impossible thought experiment — one that couldn’t happen in any possible world. The moral facts are necessary — they’re true in all possible worlds. Thus, it couldn’t be the case that there were bizarre but true moral facts any more than it could turn out to be the case that 1+1 was equal to 2 in some far-off world. //
This is a non sequitur that misconstrues the objection. First, it's highly controversial whether the moral facts are necessary and a critic could object to that. But even if we assume they are necessary, the thought experiment could just ask whether you'd endorse the necessary moral facts, no matter what they were. You seem to be implicitly assuming the thought experiment doesn't accept that moral facts are necessary, which it doesn't need to do. As a result, it's a mistake to say there couldn't be any bizarre moral facts. Bizarre doesn't mean contingent or non-necessary. It could be that the necessary moral facts are bizarre, and require you to do things like scream at tables or convert all matter into bananas.
Your argument also seems to presume that you know what the substantive normative facts are, but this is something a thought experiment can challenge. That some facts may be necessary doesn't entail that they're self evident or that your judgments about them are infallible.
I think you've failed to show the thought experiment is impossible. And I don't think it is impossible. Yet I think you are at pains to argue that it's impossible even though it isn't because you don't have a good answer to it. If moral realism required us to torture everyone or spend all day screaming at tables, realists would be committed to doing so.
// First, it's highly controversial whether the moral facts are necessary and a critic could object to that. //
The fact that some proposition is controversial does not mean that one can't assume a view on it, particularly if they've argued for it at length. If non-naturalist moral realism is true, then the moral facts are necessary, and I've argued that it is.
//But even if we assume they are necessary, the thought expirement could just ask whether you'd endorse the necessary moral facts, no matter what they were. You seem to be implicitly assuming the thought expirement doesn't accept that moral facts are necessary, which it doesn't need to do. As a result, it's a mistake to say there couldn't be any bizarre moral facts. Bizarre doesn't mean contingent or non necessary. It could be that the necessary moral facts are bizarre, and require you to do things like scream at tables or convert all matter into bananas.//
No, it couldn't be that the moral facts command you to scream at tables. The moral facts necessarily don't say that -- they couldn't be different if we accept they're necessary. But also, as I explain at length, in the bizarre epistemic possibility that they required us to scream at tables, then our refraining from screaming at tables is built on partiality and ignorance -- this makes it seem especially clear that we do have good reason to scream at tables if, in fact, the moral facts command it.
//Your argument also seems to presume that you know what the substantive normative facts are, but this is something a thought expirement can challenge. That some facts may be necessary doesn't entail that they're self evident or that your judgments about them are infallible.//
I don't claim they're infallible -- being radically mistaken is a genuine epistemic possibility, much like we could be mistaken about the mathematical facts. However, thought experiments that we have good reason to think are metaphysically impossible can't be used as objections -- just like you can't have thought experiments about the area of a square circle. Yetter Chappell argues persuasively that it's near impossible that the moral facts could be bizarre in the following article -- worth reading https://www.philosophyetc.net/2021/10/ruling-out-helium-maximizing.html.
//No, it couldn't be that the moral facts command you to scream at tables. The moral facts necessarily don't say that -- they couldn't be different if we accept they're necessary. //
Why not? Do you have an objection or are you just asserting the contrary? If the latter, on what basis? Is there a logical contradiction of some kind in it being morally necessary to scream at tables? If so, what's the logical contradiction? If not, then on what grounds do you claim it's not possible for screaming at tables to be a necessary moral fact?
I agree that if moral facts are necessary that they couldn't be any different than they are. But that is compatible with it being morally necessary to scream at tables. It seems very strange for you to say they couldn't be different than they are as though there were some kind of refutation, when the very point being made is a challenge as to what the moral facts are. The hypothetical is predicated on an epistemic consideration, not a metaphysical one. That is, I am not granting that as a matter of fact, there are necessary moral facts, and they include moral facts {A, B, C}, but then I am asking us to consider the hypothetical possibility that the moral facts are instead {D.} That wouldn't make any sense, since if I accepted that they're necessarily {A, B, C}, then they couldn't be {D}, even in principle.
But that's not where the hypothetical derives its force - from accepting a particular claim of necessity, then asking you to entertain an alternative claim to necessity. Rather, the argument can appeal to the epistemic possibility that you and others have failed to identify what the necessary moral facts are. And unless you are infallible, that remains an open possibility. Now, I'll grant that if you can demonstrate some kind of logical contradiction between the truth of moral realism and it being morally necessary to scream at tables, that you can show the latter cannot be one of the moral facts. But I very much doubt you can do so without appealing to the very premises I reject, leaving you with an argument that is, at worst, question-begging or mere assertion, and at best, an argument that only has appeal to someone who already accepts your substantive normative claims. Either way, I doubt you have a winning hand here.
To be honest, I think you are question-beggingly assuming that your substantive normative moral conclusions are necessary, something I don't think you're entitled to do when considering the hypothetical.
With respect, I suspect you are trying to avoid the force of the hypothetical because the implications are devastating, but I don't think you're even remotely successful: your position requires something that involves some combination of
(1) question begging. In particular, you are now appealing to claims you've argued for elsewhere but you're not entitled to appeal to to resist the force of the hypothetical. After all, if you're permitted to appeal to positions you have argued for, but have not convinced others of - then so am I, in which case I will appeal to my own position, which entails that non-naturalist moral realism is unintelligible, in which case you're mistaken about moral realism outright. After all, I've argued for that elsewhere!
What you're doing is effectively making your current position contingent on other contested positions that you hold. And that's fine, but if your reasoning as to why such-and-such a claim isn't possible requires us to buy into the rest of your philosophical views, why should we do that? We could then move the hypothetical over to those, ask you to consider a hypothetical in which those views are wrong, and then, once you're doing so, ask you to consider the current hypothetical. What are you going to do? Insist you can't do that, either? Is your entire philosophical position necessary? This isn't an appropriate way to escape a hypothetical. I could just as readily say that because I've argued for illusionism elsewhere, that therefore I'm correct that it's not possible for there to be qualia, You wouldn't take that seriously, and you shouldn't. Yet you're helping yourself to exactly that move here.
//But also, as I explain at length, in the bizarre epistemic possibility that they required us to scream at tables,//
I deny that it's bizarre, outright. It may seem bizarre to you, but it wouldn't if you had a strong subjective moral preference to scream at tables, but no similar inclination to impartially maximize utility. What seems bizarre or not to you, morally speaking, is contingent on your personal moral attitudes, preferences, and sentiments; it is very much a contingent matter; your judgments about what's morally "necessary" are ironically completely beholden to contingent features of your human psychology and enculturation.
//But also, as I explain at length, in the bizarre epistemic possibility that they required us to scream at tables, then our refraining from screaming at tables is built on partiality and ignorance -- this makes it seem especially clear that we do have good reason to scream at tables if, in fact, the moral facts command it. //
This strikes me as a total capitulation to the objection, which should have been construed as epistemic in the first place. By initially misframing the objection, you give the misleading impression that you’ve refuted the actual argument, but now can make a lesser concession to a weaker form of it.
In the "bizarre" epistemic possibility that the moral facts required you to torture everyone forever, or convert all matter into bananas, and you had the power to do so, would you do it? If so, this is all that critics like me need to establish to raise doubts about your position.
//However, thought experiments that we have good reason to think are metaphysically impossible//
I don’t agree that we have good reasons to think it’s metaphysically impossible that it’s morally necessary to scream at tables. And if you’re entitled to appeal to extraneous arguments, so am I, and I’ll simply appeal to contrary arguments. Again, you’re not entitled to help yourself to dialectical double standards.
//Yetter Chappell argues persuasively//
I don’t think Yetter Chappell has argued persuasively. I’ve argued persuasively that your position is false - do you accept such an assertion? If not, then why should I accept that Yetter Chappell has argued persuasively for something?
I’ve read the blog you linked, and all of Carlsmith’s entries on metaethics. I agree much more with Carlsmith than with Yetter Chappell, and do not think Yetter Chappell’s objections are persuasive.
Yetter Chappell states: “Furthermore, in addressing the question why helium-maximizing would be so misguided, I think the answer, "because people are what really matter!" is better than "because there's no way I would ever care about helium so much!"”
This does not strike me as a good objection. It just seems question begging. We could run into helium maximizers who could make the exact same kinds of appeals to their moral intuitions, and they might even outnumber us, and display an extraordinary expertise in moral philosophy on top of that. I see no reason to prioritize the moral intuitions of people-matter intuiters over helium-matters intuiters.
There's a persistent tendency for your local arguments to rely on the presumption that extraneous arguments have been settled in your favor, even though many of the rest of us have not conceded to these other arguments and don't find them persuasive. This isn't a great way to argue - your arguments here seem to only work if we already buy into much of the rest of your philosophical views, which of course I don't! Imagine we flipped the tables, and you were raising objections to some specific argument I made. Then, instead of addressing your objections, I punted by claiming that as Carlsmith persuasively argued in some blog post, you're wrong about some background assumption you're appealing to to resist my argument, even though you'd already read Carlsmith's post and didn't agree with it. Imagine how unsatisfying it'd be to be in that situation - I'd simply be presuming not only that my current argument is correct, but also that I've won a bunch of other arguments that you don't think I've won at all.
Yet this is how you seem to argue here and elsewhere. Philosophy is a holistic enterprise, and we are all in a position not only to reject any given argument, but all the background philosophical assumptions and arguments that have led you to endorse that argument. You seem to ignore this, and present your positions in specific blog posts as if much of the rest of the relevant philosophical literature has settled in a way favorable to your position. With respect, it comes off as far too hasty and overconfident. I would encourage you to be more receptive not only to local differences in philosophical positions, but in far broader and more fundamental philosophical disagreements serving as contested territory as well.
FWIW, I am not sure if you appreciate just how fully I reject the framework in which you operate: I not only reject most of your substantive philosophical positions, but the metaphilosophical framework in which they appear to be made. I think much contemporary analytic philosophy is fundamentally and wildly misguided, and that the result is an entire discipline that reliably fails to produce substantive answers to the questions it has set for itself.