How do moral anti-realists decide what to do?
I know there's something out there, like Mackie. Could be some interesting answers, out there
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Sign up to join this communityHow do moral anti-realists decide what to do?
I know there's something out there, like Mackie. Could be some interesting answers, out there
Mackie is well known for arguing for a world without values, but that he claims "moral requirements are reasons for action that are unconditional upon the agent's desires" (Moral Relativism and Reasons for Action p50). So a follower of him would want to answer by explaining how we know our desires, and why it is that what is conditional upon our desires can motivate action, not moral ones.
Can Mackie's "reasons for action" motivate action if there are no values? Bart Streumer suggests that the error theorist's argument against values might also apply to all normative judgments, including reasons for belief, and reasons for action.
However, Streumer suggests that, instead of giving up on error theory, we accept that we can't believe it.
I'm not sure why there was a sarcastic comment about it being self contradictory. In all honesty, few philosophers would hold the belief that moral knowledge is trivially impossible, let alone that the belief we have moral knowledge is.