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According to moral realists, moral facts and properties exist which are independent of a subject's thinking, belief or feeling. Of an act such as Lucy slugging her brother Linus as and when she feels crabby, it can be said that the act is wrong. A statement that Lucy's act is wrong is not merely a statement about Linus's belief or Lucy's feeling of guilt. It involves a claim about the properties of Lucy's action - a claim that can be true or false. If two persons disagree about whether Lucy is wrong to slug Linus whenever she feels like it, one of them is wrong.
In contrast, moral subjectivists, who are opponents of moral realism, are of the view that moral judgements depend on the perception of the subject.
Moral subjectivists, such as David Hume, may be non-cognitivists who take the view that claims about right and wrong resemble expressions of emotions, which cannot be true or false. Strictly, not all moral subjectivists are non-cognitivists, as moral subjectivists may think moral opinions can be true or false to particular individuals and may not regard them as mere sentiments.
Moral sceptics are another group of opponents of moral realism. There are different forms of moral scepticism. Moral sceptics may be sceptical about the existence of an objective standard of morality; or they may be sceptical that such an objective standard can be known. Moral sceptics of the first sort - a more severe form of scepticism - are necessarily moral subjectivists.
Another stance on morality is moral relativism. Moral relativists may be relativistic in different manners: the emotive meta-ethical relativism of Bertrand Russell, for example, is essentially non-cognitivism, while cultural relativists think that each culture has its own standard of right and wrong. Cultural relativism is a form of moral subjectivism.
I shall demonstrate that moral dialogue for moral subjectivists is gravely limited. As soon as moral subjectivists attempt to hold another person to their moral standards independent of the person's belief, thinking or feeling, they must give up their moral subjectivism. Moral subjectivists are likely to hold another person to their moral standards paradoxically when they insist on certain corollaries arising out of the nature of morality being subjective. I shall explore the problems of...