#letshaveadiscussion

Everyone’s talking about how heart breaking Makkari’s wail was when Druig was thrown by Ikaris but have you seen this? Look at our Speedster’s face. This is really heart breaking for me. She’s losing her family. She thought she lost her love. 

Though my stance isn’t simple, one can accurately describe me as a moral realist. I am, however, a realist of a wholly different shade than the common realist or more accurately, the realist people most often confront: a Christian substantive realist who believes there are procedures for answering questions because there are moral truths that exist independently of these procedures; they add that those truths derive from god. This sort of realism is flawed.

From a metaethical view, I subscribe to procedural realism, which basically states the exact opposite: because there are correct procedures for arriving at moral truths, we can thus answer moral questions. One example of this procedure is Kant’s CI procedure, which would have us will a moral deed as if it were a law of nature. Another, more modern, example is moral pluralism, which would have us employ as many views, theories, and approaches as necessary when solving a moral dilemma. This last procedure isn’t compatible with Kant’s CI procedure and it makes sense.

Utilitarianism, for example, doesn’t work on an overall scale. It can, however, work on a smaller scale. Summon to mind an employee who’s performance is causing others to pick up his slack. Do you, in that moment, think of the employee and his family—assuming he has one to provide for or do you think of your staff, production, profits, and so on? Most managers, though in the majority of cases unconsciously, will act like a utilitarian would. Other approaches, like Aristotle’s virtue ethics or Scanlon’s contractualism, would be virtually useless in this regard.

Along the lines of pluralist thinking, I think the approach that has the broadest application in our world is Singer’s consequentialism. Morality, because it operates also on a social level, is often conflated with so called appropriate and inappropriate social behavior. Think of a dispute between neighbors, for instance. Is there something immoral about one neighbor drawing something vulgar and taping it to his neighbors door? I don’t think so. Sure, the person may be offended and disgusted, but that’s not an act that can be labelled moral or immoral. Actions falling in the purview of morality have higher stakes.

Consequentialism works on the social and moral levels and thus, cuts through both in one swift stroke. Strictly speaking, it would have us think of the consequences of all our actions regardless of whether they have moral underpinnings. The neighbor’s vulgar drawing would only continue a dispute. Also, it can lead to acts that do have moral implications. Studies have found that most murders have nothing to do with psychopathy or mental or neurological impairment; they’ve found that most murders are driven by the fact that someone got offended. Thus, if one neighbor offends the other with what seems like a mundane act, potentially fatal outcomes can arise.

Tangentially, this conflation has led people to conclude that morality is relative or even subjective. Relativism, if normative, is more aptly called subjectivism since it claims that morality is subject to the individual. Non-normative relativism doesn’t state this. It indeed recognizes moral universals, but it holds that someone’s view of morality is shaped by their upbringing, culture, education, and so on. Procedural realism isn’t incompatible with this view. There is a layer at which morality appears this way. When thinking of procedures, however, one can see how views like this are supplanted.

Given your culture, you may hold that there’s nothing immoral about mutilating a woman’s genitals so that she doesn’t enjoy much sexual pleasure. I may hold the exact opposite. Who’s right? Only a procedure can tell us who’s right and objectively speaking, it’s no doubt that the latter view will prevail given any procedure.

Given all of this, it follows that I’m a moral realist. For one, when we consider the functional aspect of morality, we’ll notice that even the most hard-nosed anti-realist behaves as though morality is a thing. In describing morality, I often compare it to tables and chairs. Morality is a contingent entity; it is not a necessary, self-existent entity. Morality requires an agent with near-human, parallel to human, or greater than human cognitive capacity. We can certainly imagine an alien civilization with a system akin to morality. Once the system is built, it can be said to exist like tables and chairs exist. We shouldn’t think of morality as existing in some realm like Plato’s ideas. We should think of it as existing in the same way we think of tangible ideas that have real world effects as existing. And given the functional aspect, there’s no way we can dispose of thinking of morality as actual. The only route available would be to take an eliminativist approach and hold that since moral language is outdated, we shouldn’t make use of it.*

Hopefully you see that my answer to the second question follows from my answer to the first. Given procedures, we can answer moral questions; given that we can answer questions and even dilemmas, it follows that there's a right and a wrong way to act. Also, given consequentialism, we are to account for the consequences of our actions; if one's action benefits the self but harms others, we should consider a more optimal action--assuming such an option is available. And that is precisely what makes morality difficult to discuss: there isn't always a most optimal option; at times we are left choosing from options that are optimally emaciated though there's one that's slightly more beneficial than the others. One example is self-defense murder; any moral agent wouldn't want to murder their attacker, but if it means dying at the hands of this attacker, it is the best option--though not most optimal. The most optimal would be if both of you survive regardless of injuries, but in a fight/non-flight situation, sometimes it's either kill or be killed.