Moral realism is the belief that there are objective moral facts that can be acted upon. Anti-realists oppose this view and believe that moral statements are based on personal beliefs and emotions. To determine if a moral claim is true, moral realists evaluate its real-world relationships and perform a cost-benefit analysis. The validity of each claim must be thoroughly checked before making a judgment.
Moral realism is a philosophical view that states that there are moral facts that can and should be acted upon. This kind of philosophy depends on a number of different variables and questions, which need to be answered for moral realists to accept the moral fact. Ultimately, the goal of moral realism is to determine objective moral values. This is done by answering the question: if there are moral facts, how can they be discovered?
Moral realism, while having a significant following, has other forms of philosophy that stand in direct opposition to its stated claims. Those who question moral realism are referred to as anti-realists. These people have significant problems with the theories posed by moral realists and wish to adhere to other types of philosophy. Anti-realists are often further divided into a number of subcategories.
The first step in moral realism is that some moral statements are true. This assumes, of course, that such things can be valued. For example, saying “Murder is wrong” is a statement that moral realists would have to determine whether or not it is true. To do this, they would first have to decide whether the truth of the sentence can be assessed.
If the moral claim can be evaluated, the next step in determining whether it is true is to look at its real-world relationships. For example, moral realism can perform what amounts to a cost-benefit analysis to determine if murder is wrong. What harms the individual? What harms society? How are they quantifiable? Are there advantages or positives to murder? All of these questions need an answer.
If the answer reveals that there is a real-world relationship, then in the mind of a moral realist there are other quantifiable claims that have absolute moral authority. Therefore, moral realism claims that it is possible to make judgments about these issues, based on the validity of the moral claim. However, before a judgment can be made, each claim must be thoroughly checked.
The antirealists’ opposition to moral realism can best be explained by the feelings of the noncognitivist. These individuals believe that moral statements can only be accepted or rejected based on their own personal beliefs, convictions, and emotions. Therefore, there may really be no way to objectively answer the question of whether there is a real-world relationship that can be linked to a moral claim.
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