omething more powerful than philosophical argumentation is on display here. You can’t argue someone into seeing the Grand Canyon’s beauty. But you can point and say, “Look.”
Perhaps morality is like that. Encounters with both betrayal and loyalty, selfishness and self-sacrifice, greed and generosity—these are the experiences that shape our moral views. Philosophy simply refines them.
This means that weighing the validity of moral realism is never merely an academic exercise. It’s one of the most urgent and consequential tasks we can undertake.
If moral realism is false, then our deepest moral convictions—about justice and kindness, oppression and cruelty—are just preferences. How we treat others is negotiable. The Holocaust isn’t evil, and the abolition of slavery isn’t progress. All this leaves victims of abuse, persecution, and exploitation not only with the pain of their suffering but also with the silence of a universe incapable of calling it wrong.
But if moral realism is true—if there really is a moral structure to the universe independent of human opinion—then the picture changes completely. Our longing for justice is not naive. Charity and love are truly good, and cruelty and deceit are truly bad. Each human being has inestimable worth.
In this way, The Good, the Right, and the Real is not only a philosophical argument but also a gentle plea for moral attention….
'If moral realism is false, then our deepest moral convictions—about justice and kindness, oppression and cruelty—are just preferences. How we treat others is negotiable. The Holocaust isn’t evil, and the abolition of slavery isn’t progress. All this leaves victims of abuse,…
— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) September 22, 2025