Moral realism vs anti-realism (Philosophy HL)

The big idea: Say out loud: 'torturing a child for fun is wrong.' It feels like a plain fact — as solid as 'the Earth orbits the Sun.'

But here's the puzzle. That the Earth orbits the Sun is true whether or not anyone believes it. Is 'cruelty is wrong' true in the same way — true out there, independent of us? Or is it more like 'chocolate is delicious' — true for people, but really about them, not the world?

This is the central split of meta-ethics: moral realism versus anti-realism.

Start with the side that matches how morality feels from the inside.

Objectivism: moral facts are real: The objectivist says some moral claims are simply true, whoever you are and whatever your culture. 'Genocide is wrong' isn't true just for us — it would still be wrong even if a whole society approved of it. On this view morality is discovered, like the truths of maths: we find that cruelty is wrong, we don't vote it into being. This fits our deepest reactions — we don't just dislike torturing children, we think it's really, mind-independently wrong.

Checkpoint — realism: In one line: moral realism says some acts are just wrong — true for everyone, whatever anyone believes. Hold that; now the challenge from the other side.

The opposite camp asks the awkward question realism keeps dodging: where could a moral fact live?

Subjectivism: morality is about us, not the world: The subjectivist says: look for wrongness in the world and you never find it. You can measure the act — the force, the harm — but 'wrong' isn't a property out there like mass or colour. So when you say 'cruelty is wrong', you're really expressing a human attitude — strong disapproval — not reporting a fact. Morality is invented: real and important, but a feature of us, not of the universe. Different beings with different feelings might have built it differently.

Go further — higher-level insight: See the trade-off, and you've got the whole debate. Realism explains why some things feel absolutely, non-negotiably wrong — but owes us an account of what a 'moral fact' is and how we detect it. Anti-realism has no spooky facts to explain — but struggles to say why a society approving of genocide would be mistaken rather than just different. Naming that exact trade-off is the top-band move; each side's strength is the other's weakness.

Checkpoint — anti-realism: In one line: anti-realism says there are no moral facts out there — 'wrong' expresses our attitude, not a feature of the world. Two rival pictures now sit side by side.