Great Essay! I am not from the impersonal camp but I'd like to offer a defense in their name to your trenchant analysis where you observe, "from general principles they find intuitive.". I would just add "and internally consistent.". Let's give them that much.
How does the personal camp currently depart from a simplistic Boo-Hurrah affair which carries no moral force whatsoever?
This paper is just an assertion of internalism about reasons--the view that an agent has a reason to PHI only if PHI-ing serves one or more of that agent's desires (or motivations, or pro-attitudes). This is what the whole reasons internalism/externalism debate is about. You say that, for any impersonal moral claim, "I or anyone else can legitimately ask: 'Oh yeah? And why should I care about that?' And what will your answer be?" The answer will be the reasons the impersonalist (as you call them) cited in their article or argument for their conclusion (e.g., the child will drown and it will cost you little to save them, an animals suffering is enormous compared to the pleasure of eating their flesh, etc.). Inevitably you will reply "But I don't care about that!" But you asked for a *reason* you ought to care and the impersonalist provided one. You then made a psychological claim about yourself, namely, "I don't care!" Well, yes, we impersonalists understand that you don't care. Our point is that you are being insensitive to the reasons for action there are--the reasons we cited. That's what makes you a bad person. You can't get yourself to care about the things you ought to care about. No doubt, you disagree. But the larger point here is: there is already a well-developed philosophical literature about precisely this issue. Externalists claim that there are reasons for action that don't make contact with every agent's motivations--external reasons. Internalists claim no reasons are like that. You can't settle this debate merely by asserting that one side is correct.
Great Essay! I am not from the impersonal camp but I'd like to offer a defense in their name to your trenchant analysis where you observe, "from general principles they find intuitive.". I would just add "and internally consistent.". Let's give them that much.
How does the personal camp currently depart from a simplistic Boo-Hurrah affair which carries no moral force whatsoever?
This paper is just an assertion of internalism about reasons--the view that an agent has a reason to PHI only if PHI-ing serves one or more of that agent's desires (or motivations, or pro-attitudes). This is what the whole reasons internalism/externalism debate is about. You say that, for any impersonal moral claim, "I or anyone else can legitimately ask: 'Oh yeah? And why should I care about that?' And what will your answer be?" The answer will be the reasons the impersonalist (as you call them) cited in their article or argument for their conclusion (e.g., the child will drown and it will cost you little to save them, an animals suffering is enormous compared to the pleasure of eating their flesh, etc.). Inevitably you will reply "But I don't care about that!" But you asked for a *reason* you ought to care and the impersonalist provided one. You then made a psychological claim about yourself, namely, "I don't care!" Well, yes, we impersonalists understand that you don't care. Our point is that you are being insensitive to the reasons for action there are--the reasons we cited. That's what makes you a bad person. You can't get yourself to care about the things you ought to care about. No doubt, you disagree. But the larger point here is: there is already a well-developed philosophical literature about precisely this issue. Externalists claim that there are reasons for action that don't make contact with every agent's motivations--external reasons. Internalists claim no reasons are like that. You can't settle this debate merely by asserting that one side is correct.