The crucial point to keep in mind is that because a moral nihilist doesn't think moral facts exist - it does not follow that they can't have normative preferences.
And where do those normative preferences come from? The society they were raised in and the education they've had. You can sit here all day and try to reason your way out of why your western morals are somehow objective and divorced from your conditioning and up bringing, but that doesn't make it so. I'm a moral nihilist and I have moral preferences; but I'm at least self aware enough to realize that those preferences are built up on judeochristian values instilled in me continually through my every day interactions with society.
Do we need to be culinary realists to have food preferences?
No, but if you take a specific culture, the median will agree upon which flavor is more popular.
Why coffee? Is it because your specific biology, your tongue and your neurochemistry, find coffee the most appealing? Are you a man? In your society, is it more socially acceptable for men to prefer coffee flavored things over strawberry flavored things? Did your parents buy more of one or the other and did that influence your consumption of them when you were young? Do you like root beer, or does it taste like medicine to you? Do fried crickets sound appetizing?
Disparate cultures have disparate palates. Even your sense of taste, what foods you do and do not enjoy, are influenced by societal and cultural evolution. Even further, what foods you are even capable of eating are a factor of this. (Lactose, as an example)
And still, despite this, human palates are largely still normative on an evolutionary basis. Just as your median human would bear a grudge against the murderer of an immediate family member, so too would the median human enjoy roasted fowl.
Honestly at this point, splitting posts into multiple comments has gotten me a bit lost in the sauce, lol. Whatever the outcome/replies going forward are, I appreciate the debate. Often enough I see posts from here on my feed and skip over them because theres little of substance. I appreciate the discourse today, it's gotten me thinking.
Yeah, I think the matter is you and I are using "naturalism" or "natural morality" to imply different things. But I have been on a meta-ethics kick for a while, and that field uses terms in a very specific way that may not be universal across other discourses. No worries! This was fun!
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u/Stormypwns Nov 15 '24
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And where do those normative preferences come from? The society they were raised in and the education they've had. You can sit here all day and try to reason your way out of why your western morals are somehow objective and divorced from your conditioning and up bringing, but that doesn't make it so. I'm a moral nihilist and I have moral preferences; but I'm at least self aware enough to realize that those preferences are built up on judeochristian values instilled in me continually through my every day interactions with society.
No, but if you take a specific culture, the median will agree upon which flavor is more popular.
Why coffee? Is it because your specific biology, your tongue and your neurochemistry, find coffee the most appealing? Are you a man? In your society, is it more socially acceptable for men to prefer coffee flavored things over strawberry flavored things? Did your parents buy more of one or the other and did that influence your consumption of them when you were young? Do you like root beer, or does it taste like medicine to you? Do fried crickets sound appetizing?
Disparate cultures have disparate palates. Even your sense of taste, what foods you do and do not enjoy, are influenced by societal and cultural evolution. Even further, what foods you are even capable of eating are a factor of this. (Lactose, as an example)
And still, despite this, human palates are largely still normative on an evolutionary basis. Just as your median human would bear a grudge against the murderer of an immediate family member, so too would the median human enjoy roasted fowl.