I think conspiratorial rationalizations are never "sufficient ... to justify suffering" and mass murder. :brow: — 180 Proof

Exactly. @Cartesian trigger-puppets has misunderstood what the term 'justify' means. One does not justify to one's self (other than perhaps to rehearse a justification to one's community). The Nazi was wrong and the Second World War proved as much. They attempted to justify their actions to their larger community, and failed so monumentally that it is now illegal to even deny they tried.

Im not justifying norms. Im asking what moral or normative terms mean on a realist construal. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

What or who would a "realist construal" be?

I suspect he’s asking about the meta-ethics that is comparable to mathematical realism, whereas yours is comparable to something like mathematical formalism, which is a type of mathematical antirealism. — Michael

:up:

I think you are right about @Cartesian trigger-puppets, and I and others seem to mean something like formalism (to meet the minimum standard anyway), but I'd like them to acknowledge it, defining what they mean by 'real.'

I feel the hard edges of scientism would be much reduced if the 'science' they were 'istic' about was a little more expansive in scope. — Isaac

:up:

I'd expect biology and psychology to be fronts that could support a 'fancier' moral realism...if that was actually needed. But, as I think we both agree, it's a simple fact about the world that we have norms.

Another issue probably in the background here is cultural relativism.

I believe the common meaning would be something like ‘actually existing rather than imagined’ but there are many different meanings. I would use a similar meaning using the term generally speaking. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Do I only imagine that murder is proscribed ?

My hunch is that you want to say something like "humans in general only imagine that murder is wrong." This is like saying that everyone drives on the wrong side of the road.

Unless it's you who are the precisely the kind of theological moral realist who needs a god or an elementary particle to make it wrong.

They reveal to us the many cracks in the foundation we require to even attempt to make sense of this place. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Do they reveal truths ? Are we in the same place ? Is it good to know truth ? Good to have reasons for our beliefs ? Wait a minute....is the philosopher implicitly a moral realist ?

Another issue probably in the background here is cultural relativism. — Pie

Yes, I think people are, wary of relativism ("the Nazis were right, from their perspective"), but it's never something I've found in the least worrying. I'm embedded in a culture (and I'm probably wired with several moral-like beliefs from birth, like any other human). So the idea of some Nazi thinking they're right seems to hold no concern. They weren't right, there's no doubt about that, and the fact that they thought they were doesn't seem to have any bearing on the matter.

Do I only imagine that murder is proscribed ? — Pie

Perhaps one also imagines the cell in which one would be placed after being convicted of this imaginary social proscription?

Yes, I think people are, wary of relativism ("the Nazis were right, from their perspective"), but it's never something I've found in the least worrying. I'm embedded in a culture (and I'm probably wired with several moral-like beliefs from birth, like any other human). — Isaac

It also doesn't bother me. While a philosopher (and his less pleasant cousin, the sociopath) might be able to see around some of the tribal norms more than others, he or she is still mostly reliant upon them. To strive to be reasonable is to be willingly captured by Enlightenment autonomy norms.

The OP doesn't want to admit it, but it sure looks likes a demand for justification, which implicitly invokes this autonomy norm, for which he can't find a source in his telescope yet, I presume.