First, some info from Wiki:
"Philosophical theories on the nature and origins of morality (that is, theories of meta-ethics) are broadly divided into two classes:
Moral realism is the class of theories which hold that there are true moral statements that report objective moral facts. For example, while they might concede that forces of social conformity significantly shape individuals' "moral" decisions, they deny that those cultural norms and customs define morally right behavior. This may be the philosophical view propounded by ethical naturalists, however not all moral realists accept that position (e.g. ethical non-naturalists).[7]
[/b]Moral anti-realism, on the other hand, holds that moral statements either fail or do not even attempt to report objective moral facts. Instead, they hold that moral claims are derived either from an unsupported belief that there are objective moral facts (error theory, a form of moral nihilism); the speakers' sentiments (emotivism, a form of moral relativism); or any one of the norms prevalent in society (ethical subjectivism, another form of moral relativism).[b]
Theories which claim that morality is derived from reasoning about implied imperatives (universal prescriptivism), the edicts of a god (divine command theory), or the hypothetical decrees of a perfectly rational being (ideal observer theory), are considered anti-realist in the robust sense used here, but are considered realist in the sense synonymous with moral universalism."
I was recently in a debate about veganism with a moral anti-realist, and I realized I didn't have a good reason to give him to persuade him to go vegan. He argued that all a person's morals are simply constructs they create to fit their actions and upbringing, and that nothing has an absolute moral value. Therefore animals have no moral value, and veganism has no moral basis. There is no reason to not eat animals, because animals only have the value you assign to them. When I told him that humans assign value everyday, AKA why there is punishment for murdering a human, he replied that values and laws are assigned only for us to 'cover our own asses', and that there is no more value in a plant than in an animal. I was taken back, because I had never dealt with this philosophical approach before, and I am not sure what to think.
Thoughts?
