From: poteejc@okstate.edu
Date: Tue Oct 22 2002 - 00:15:38 BST
Comrades:
First a few definitions for those that may not know: (I apologize for thier length)
Moral realism is the view that there are facts of the matter about which actions are right and which wrong, and about which things are good and which bad. But behind this bald statement lies a wealth of complexity. If one is a full-blown moral realist, one probably accepts the following three claims.
First, moral facts are somehow special and different from other sorts of fact. Realists differ,however, about whether the sort of specialness required is compatible with taking some natural facts to be moral facts. Take, for instance, the natural fact that if we do this action, we will have given someone the help they need. Could this be a moral fact - the same fact as
the fact that we ought to do the action? Or must we think of such a natural fact as the natural ‘ground’ for the (quite different) moral fact that we should do it, that is, as the fact in the world that makes it true that we should act this way?
Second, realists hold that moral facts are independent of any beliefs or thoughts we might have about them. What is right is not determined by what I or anybody else thinks is right. It is not even determined by what we all think is right, even if we could be got to agree. We cannot make actions right by agreeing that they are, any more than we can make bombs safe by agreeing that they are.
Third, it is possible for us to make mistakes about what is right and what is wrong. No matter how carefully and honestly we think about what to do, there is still no guarantee that we will come up with the right answer. So what people conscientiously decide they should do may not be the same as what they should do.
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Version 1.0, London: Routledge
Intrinsic comes into play when comparing intrinsic and contingent vaules. Contingent (instrumental) values are valued only in what we can get out of it (rough definition, I know). Intrinsic values are valued in and of themselves. I just finished a class meeting where we were discussing moral realism and anti-realism. Most of the people tht we have looked at, when embracing realism, have based morality upon contingent factors (things could be different, and thus morality would be different). I raised the question at the end of class period about if there are/were any conceptions of moral realism that were intrinsic. Well, the answer was pretty bleak. I think he said there were a few people (Gewirth was the name he mentioned, I'll look him up). But the thought occured to me that the MoQ might qualify as well for intrinsic moral realism. But I have not spent too much time thinking along those lines, and was hoping that someone could assisst in this conumdrum.
still,
james
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