Moral Realism Will Make You Miserable

One of the downsides of philosophy is that it seduces some clever people into coming up with systems of ethics that their creators believe are objective. These creators devise arguments to convince others that they are right, producing a following of believers. This is an exciting accomplishment. Not only does it provide solutions to many difficult decisions one has to make in life, but it also allows one the satisfaction of knowing that one is morally superior.

Curiously, however, these clever people come up with conflicting “objective” ethical systems. In Western philosophy, this problem goes back to the ancient Greeks. Socrates’ student Aristippus declared physical pleasure to be good. His other student, Antisthenes, declared it to be bad. Epicurus claimed that mental pleasure is better than physical pleasure. Zeno of Citium insisted that virtue was the only good. Since then, many additional systems have been spawned, each with adherents insisting that theirs is objectively correct and the others are objectively wrong. Yet, they seldom convince anyone to change sides. Isn’t that odd since they all agree that morality is objective?

They certainly can’t all be right. In fact, if it’s true that there is a system of ethics that is objectively correct, most of them would have to be wrong, making them unwitting advocates for immorality. 

But that’s not the worst part. 

The worst part is that firmly believing some things are objectively good while other things are objectively bad will make you miserable. 

First, you’re going to get caught up in endless judging of things. Is this good? Is this evil? Then you must judge your judging, being ever-vigilant from falling into error. 

From this judging you’re going to find that there are a lot of bad things, most of which you can’t do anything about. Of the ones you can do something about, there are so many of them you can hardly address any of them. And of the good things, the situation is much the same. There are more good things than you have time to chase after. 

On top of this, your efforts to convince others to share your beliefs will typically fail. You will end up in one frustrating argument after another trying to dissuade people who think what you know to be “objectively” bad is instead good, and what you think is “objectively” good to instead be bad.

Such a situation you must then judge as bad; indeed, hopeless.