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client: ea_forum
project_id: curated
narrator: not_t3a
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Ethical philosophy often tries to systematize. That is, it seeks general principles that will explain, unify, and revise our more particular intuitions. And sometimes, this can lead to strange and uncomfortable places.

So why do it? If you believe in an objective ethical truth, you might talk about getting closer to that truth. But suppose that you don’t. Suppose you think that you’re “free to do whatever you want.” In that case, if “systematizing” starts getting tough and uncomfortable, why not just … stop? After all, you can always just do whatever’s most intuitive or common-sensical in a given case – and often, this is the choice the “ethics game” was trying so hard to validate, anyway. So why play?

I think it’s a reasonable question. And I’ve found it showing up in my life in various ways. So I wrote a set of two essays explaining part of my current take. This is the first essay. Here I describe the question in more detail, give some examples of where it shows up, and describe my dissatisfaction with two places anti-realists often look for answers.

Original article:
https://joecarlsmith.com/2023/02/16/why-should-ethical-anti-realists-do-ethics

Narrated by Joe Carlsmith and included on the Effective Altruism Forum by TYPE III AUDIO.

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