Moral Luck and Messy Ethics: An Argument against Moral Realism
Lately I've been thinking about how much of a mess our moral intuitions and normative ethics in general are, and whether this fact could be developed into an argument against moral realism. While I am not sure enough about the thoughts I have on this topic to claim that they constitute a successful argument, I want to share them and see how they might be best developed here. First, let me expand on what I mean when I say that morality is a 'mess': Consider moral luck: One of the fundamental principles of morality that we all take for granted in our ordinary moral practice is that factors completely outside of our control should not be relevant to our moral standing. People cannot be assessed for what is not their fault and is instead just a matter of pure luck (Call this the 'control principle'). And, indeed, this moral judgement is clearly reflected in our criminal justice system: we treat murder worse than attempted murder, which i...