The meta-ethical semantics between moral realism and moral anti-realism
I classify myself as a moral subjectivist. As a moral subjectivist, I am committed to these three propositions:
1. Moral statements are truth-apt.
2. Some moral statements are true.
3. The truth-aptness of moral statements are dependent upon the subject they are indexed to.
The robust form of moral realism is committed to accepting the following three theses (taken from the Wikipedia article on Anti-realism).
1. The Semantic Thesis: Moral statements have meaning, they express propositions, or are the kind of things that can be true or false.
2. The Alethic Thesis: Some moral propositions are true.
3. The Metaphysical Thesis: The metaphysical status of moral facts is robust and ordinary, not importantly different from other facts about the world.
As a moral anti-realist, I am committed to denying at least one of these theses. I accept both the semantic and alethic theses, but deny the metaphysical thesis. This makes my position, as a moral subjectivist, seemingly compatible with (at least not contradictory to) moderate to minimalist forms of moral realism. It is worth noting that this contention between the delineating forms of moral realism (robust, moderate, minimal) is a matter of contention between moral realists themselves which has made the task of classifying and defining moral realism quite problematic.
I am only concerned with the proponents of moral realism who accept the metaphysical thesis, or the proponents of moral realism who are committed to the same theses as proponents of moral subjectivism, but are otherwise operating under a different meta-ethical semantics. In order to elucidate the key differences between these forms of realism and moral subjectivism—a form of anti-realism—I will first flesh out what is meant by the three propositions that I am committed to. Second, offer a proper representation for what a moral realist likely means by the propositions we both accept. Third, analyze the semantic structure of each ethical theory's moral language with an emphasis on identifying any distinctions between the meaning structures therein. Finally, offer my take for why such distinctions matter and what ultimately makes my position more convincing, in my opinion.
The first proposition is the acceptance of the semantic thesis, which makes my view a form of cognitivism; the view that moral statements express true or false propositions. A large factor here has to do with which theory of truth we have subscribed to. While both moral realists and moral subjectivists agree that moral statements are apt for truth or falsity, moral realists use language that implies such moral statements are apt for robust truth or falsity insofar as the truth-aptness of the statement is based upon how well it refers to the world.
This comes from subscribing to the correspondence theory of truth; that words and thoughts can only be true if they correspond with empirical reality. It is because of this empirical reference, moral realists say, that many moral statements are found to be objectively true. Whereas moral subjectivists determine the truth-aptness of moral statements based upon indexicals. That moral statements express a belief which is a state of mind that is cognitive and can be determined true or false based upon the coherence between the speaker and the statement and specific context indexed to it. A statement is based upon internal consistency between a network of beliefs and dependent on the time, location, individual, etc, in which the statement is indexed next to.
The second proposition is the acceptance of the alethic thesis, which makes my view one that opposes error theory, which claims that all moral statements have truth value and that the truth value of each moral statement is false; one which opposes robust forms of moral realism, which claims that moral statements are true insofar as they have a reference-fixing relationship to the objective (mind-independent) facts of the physical world.
J. L. Mackie was probably the best known moral error theorist, which, similar to a moral realist, would likewise accept the semantic thesis that moral statements are cognitive on the basis of empirical contingencies, such as a reference-fixing relationship to the objective facts of the world. Mackie and other error theorists likely also subscribed to a version of the correspondence theory of truth. Whereas a realist believes moral statements are indeed true based on objective moral values or properties to which we may gain epistemic access to, the error theorist, on the other hand, believes that moral statements indeed have such empirical, objective criteria to meet for them to be considered true, however, they go on to say that no such objective moral values or properties of the world exist—that, therefore, all moral statements must then be false. I agree that objective moral values don't seem to exist, although I disagree that such things are necessary requisites for truth.
This takes us to the third proposition, whereas moral realism and error theory alike subscribe to the correspondence theory of truth, which defines truth as that which is empirically testable and best corresponds with such empirics; moral subjectivism, on the converse, subscribes to the coherence theory of truth, which defines truth as that which is universally consistent with the whole of a system of beliefs or propositions—such as the ideas and theories contained within a paradigm.
This makes sense seeing that subjective morality would actually be contained within the system of beliefs of the individual subject, rather than the subjects external environment. While many may push back that such psychological states are reducible to emotions and desires, which are innate processes that arise from the subcortical circuitry of the brain—thus non-cognitive; our lacking moral agency with regards to these primitive states notwithstanding, from which cognitive states of consciousness emerge and are necessarily granted epistemic access to theses otherwise private contents of the mind. In other words, though the subject may not be the author of her desires and primitive emotional attitudes, she is nonetheless cognizant of the truth of her desires and emotions and therefore they are the truth-makers to which her subsequent thoughts and statements—her truth-bearers —are dependent upon.
So when I make a statement, it stands as the truth-bearer that is dependent upon indexicals which are reducible to the truth-makers of my being, of which I am cognizant of as emergent drivers and motivators of action that are out of my control, but such actions are however restricted and guided based upon my attitude, evaluation, reflexes and beliefs in the total context of a specific place, time, intention, etc. For example, when I make the statement, "Eating meat is immoral," the truth-bearers of this statement are dependent upon the actual existing context. It is dependent upon being indexed to the individual subject ("To me, eating meat is immoral"), the specific attitude of the subject whenever the statement was expressed ("I disapprove of eating meat"), the point in time ("At this moment, I disapprove of eating meat"), the locality of the subject ("In 21st century North America, I disapprove of eating meat"), and a host of contextual effects such as my current set of values, past experiences and future expectations.
It becomes a principle that holds true within a system of beliefs and values so long as I am consciously aware of consistency and/or ignorant to idiosyncrasies, inconsistencies, cognitive dissonance, etc. I hold the principle for being against eating meat because it is a coherent summary of my beliefs and preferences that I hold. For instance, all of the following propositions are a part of the coherent whole of this belief.
1. I exist as a subject of experience.
2. I desire to avoid the experience of suffering.
3. I desire to maximize the hedonic utility of my experience.
4. Other beings exist.
5. Other beings have an experience.
6. Other beings desire to avoid the experience of suffering.
7. Other beings desire to maximize the hedonic utility of their experience.
8. I have a positive attitude towards sentient beings.
9. I have the ability to relate with sentient beings.
10. I am able to emphasize with their experience.
11. Beings are able to synergize their experiences.
12. Beings who are mutually altruistic maximize their experiences to a greater degree.
13. If all beings shared similar systems of beliefs and morals, then all beings would synergize to maximize their experiences.
14. All sentient beings have various levels of moral worth.
15. Producing meat for my consumption necessitates the suffering of a sentient being.
16. My consumption of meat creates a demand for more meat production.
17. There are healthy alternatives that maximally reduce the meat, or products that come from industrial meat production, that I consume as much as practicable.
Some problems with moral subjectivism include: the inability to disagree with the moral statements of others, moral infallibility, the ability for two subjects to hold contradicting values or beliefs and also both be right, and the ability for any moral act to be justified based upon one individuals attitudes towards it.
1. The inability to disagree with the moral statements of others.
It is true that subjective morality would change the meaning structures of evaluative sentences. For example, the statement, "Murder is wrong" would have to consider all of the contexts of surrounding indexicals such as the following.
1. Murder of the innocent is wrong.
2. Murder is wrong on Cynthia's view.
3. Murder based on race committed in the 21st century is wrong.
4. Painful murder is wrong.
What this means is that by my assertion that, "Murder is wrong" does in no way dictate that murder is wrong for you. Both you and I can both hold the belief that murder, for me, is wrong and that murder, for you, is not wrong—and both be correct in our descriptions. I fail to see the problem here. It seems that our genetic similarities have given us certain predispositions towards convergence on many moral or evaluative issues. It seems that we both influence are influence by others socially and this has led to patterns of behavior converging on many levels (such as basic human rights).
If we assume the truth of moral subjectivism for argument, then it would seem counter productive to allow for certain values to be dictated by a few or by one individual—and that is what moral claims would be when erroneously directed to control another moral agent. If we all have different beliefs and values, it does not follow that, therefore, we cannot converge or change our minds. What made such dramatic distinctions between various cultures and people was the geographic isolation and lack of interaction before the reach of communication technology. With a constant flow of interactions between a global network of agents and with such established structures as democracy, there will be synergies and convergence.
We relate to one another and thus we are able to influence others and become influenced by them. I may not be able to dictate for you what is right or wrong, but I can share my experiences and perspectives with you—as well as make consistency arguments from within your own moral system and/or make reductio arguments that go against the grain of social norms. In other words, we are able to more naturally influence and become influenced by each other rather than by dictatorships and revolutions. We cam use our moral systems and values judgements to influence the construction of society and constrict overall unwanted behavior as well as normalize wanted behavior.
2. The infallibility of moral agents.
This is not a problem as it would be with objective moral values because each moral subject has been conditioned both genetically, culturally and societally to adopt certain behavioral proclivities and stiffle others that have not been completely selected out of the gene pools by virtue of being removed from society. We all are necessarily self interested and that pressure overcomes many individuals proclivities towards performing undesirable behaviors. Self preservation being a necessary genetic predisposition for genetic survival and reproduction. We all have the capacity to change, sometimes dramatically depending upon the environmental pressures applied. We possess persuasive forces such as logic and rhetoric and sculpt ourselves from those around us who happen to have the most attractive qualities. This all changes constantly and on all levels. We may possess infallibility when it comes to expressing our personal attitudes and opinions, but we are constantly changing and being changed by our environments.
3. The ability for two subjects to hold contradicting values or beliefs and also both be right.
This too is only a problem with objective morals and values. There are no external properties from which to base a standard of ethics or to appeal to for what is ultimately right or wrong. Two subjects of course are able to hold two mutually incompatible values or beliefs and both be right. Just like two people can have to different favorite flavors of ice cream and still accurately describe their favorite one. Aesthetic values and moral values change and influence others to change. No one individual needs to be objectively correct with such regards, but one can be powerfully influential.
4. The ability for any moral act to be justified based upon one individuals attitudes towards it.
This is another problem issue that is only a problem with an objective perspective of ethics. The earth isn't flat or round because I believe it to be, such would be the case if morals and values were external properties of the world. If evaluative statements are just expressions of our attitudes and feelings towards things, then they are true by virtue of my belief that they are. The fact that I, right here and right now, hold certain attitudes towards things which includes what beliefs I have, is a description of the contents of my own mind and there is nothing I can be more certain about. As my beliefs are justifications for the truth of me having my beliefs and not a justification for what will be accepted by my social environments or to justify how my behavior affects others, it is not necessarily justified within any other moral system other than my own and therefore carries the same persuasive impact as if it were a fallacious appeal to emotion or appeal to self-athority.
Source for the comparison between minimal moral realist and moral subjectivism:
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2007/entries/moral-anti-realism/
I appreciate critical feedback so long as arguments are provided.
1. Moral statements are truth-apt.
2. Some moral statements are true.
3. The truth-aptness of moral statements are dependent upon the subject they are indexed to.
The robust form of moral realism is committed to accepting the following three theses (taken from the Wikipedia article on Anti-realism).
1. The Semantic Thesis: Moral statements have meaning, they express propositions, or are the kind of things that can be true or false.
2. The Alethic Thesis: Some moral propositions are true.
3. The Metaphysical Thesis: The metaphysical status of moral facts is robust and ordinary, not importantly different from other facts about the world.
As a moral anti-realist, I am committed to denying at least one of these theses. I accept both the semantic and alethic theses, but deny the metaphysical thesis. This makes my position, as a moral subjectivist, seemingly compatible with (at least not contradictory to) moderate to minimalist forms of moral realism. It is worth noting that this contention between the delineating forms of moral realism (robust, moderate, minimal) is a matter of contention between moral realists themselves which has made the task of classifying and defining moral realism quite problematic.
I am only concerned with the proponents of moral realism who accept the metaphysical thesis, or the proponents of moral realism who are committed to the same theses as proponents of moral subjectivism, but are otherwise operating under a different meta-ethical semantics. In order to elucidate the key differences between these forms of realism and moral subjectivism—a form of anti-realism—I will first flesh out what is meant by the three propositions that I am committed to. Second, offer a proper representation for what a moral realist likely means by the propositions we both accept. Third, analyze the semantic structure of each ethical theory's moral language with an emphasis on identifying any distinctions between the meaning structures therein. Finally, offer my take for why such distinctions matter and what ultimately makes my position more convincing, in my opinion.
The first proposition is the acceptance of the semantic thesis, which makes my view a form of cognitivism; the view that moral statements express true or false propositions. A large factor here has to do with which theory of truth we have subscribed to. While both moral realists and moral subjectivists agree that moral statements are apt for truth or falsity, moral realists use language that implies such moral statements are apt for robust truth or falsity insofar as the truth-aptness of the statement is based upon how well it refers to the world.
This comes from subscribing to the correspondence theory of truth; that words and thoughts can only be true if they correspond with empirical reality. It is because of this empirical reference, moral realists say, that many moral statements are found to be objectively true. Whereas moral subjectivists determine the truth-aptness of moral statements based upon indexicals. That moral statements express a belief which is a state of mind that is cognitive and can be determined true or false based upon the coherence between the speaker and the statement and specific context indexed to it. A statement is based upon internal consistency between a network of beliefs and dependent on the time, location, individual, etc, in which the statement is indexed next to.
The second proposition is the acceptance of the alethic thesis, which makes my view one that opposes error theory, which claims that all moral statements have truth value and that the truth value of each moral statement is false; one which opposes robust forms of moral realism, which claims that moral statements are true insofar as they have a reference-fixing relationship to the objective (mind-independent) facts of the physical world.
J. L. Mackie was probably the best known moral error theorist, which, similar to a moral realist, would likewise accept the semantic thesis that moral statements are cognitive on the basis of empirical contingencies, such as a reference-fixing relationship to the objective facts of the world. Mackie and other error theorists likely also subscribed to a version of the correspondence theory of truth. Whereas a realist believes moral statements are indeed true based on objective moral values or properties to which we may gain epistemic access to, the error theorist, on the other hand, believes that moral statements indeed have such empirical, objective criteria to meet for them to be considered true, however, they go on to say that no such objective moral values or properties of the world exist—that, therefore, all moral statements must then be false. I agree that objective moral values don't seem to exist, although I disagree that such things are necessary requisites for truth.
This takes us to the third proposition, whereas moral realism and error theory alike subscribe to the correspondence theory of truth, which defines truth as that which is empirically testable and best corresponds with such empirics; moral subjectivism, on the converse, subscribes to the coherence theory of truth, which defines truth as that which is universally consistent with the whole of a system of beliefs or propositions—such as the ideas and theories contained within a paradigm.
This makes sense seeing that subjective morality would actually be contained within the system of beliefs of the individual subject, rather than the subjects external environment. While many may push back that such psychological states are reducible to emotions and desires, which are innate processes that arise from the subcortical circuitry of the brain—thus non-cognitive; our lacking moral agency with regards to these primitive states notwithstanding, from which cognitive states of consciousness emerge and are necessarily granted epistemic access to theses otherwise private contents of the mind. In other words, though the subject may not be the author of her desires and primitive emotional attitudes, she is nonetheless cognizant of the truth of her desires and emotions and therefore they are the truth-makers to which her subsequent thoughts and statements—her truth-bearers —are dependent upon.
So when I make a statement, it stands as the truth-bearer that is dependent upon indexicals which are reducible to the truth-makers of my being, of which I am cognizant of as emergent drivers and motivators of action that are out of my control, but such actions are however restricted and guided based upon my attitude, evaluation, reflexes and beliefs in the total context of a specific place, time, intention, etc. For example, when I make the statement, "Eating meat is immoral," the truth-bearers of this statement are dependent upon the actual existing context. It is dependent upon being indexed to the individual subject ("To me, eating meat is immoral"), the specific attitude of the subject whenever the statement was expressed ("I disapprove of eating meat"), the point in time ("At this moment, I disapprove of eating meat"), the locality of the subject ("In 21st century North America, I disapprove of eating meat"), and a host of contextual effects such as my current set of values, past experiences and future expectations.
It becomes a principle that holds true within a system of beliefs and values so long as I am consciously aware of consistency and/or ignorant to idiosyncrasies, inconsistencies, cognitive dissonance, etc. I hold the principle for being against eating meat because it is a coherent summary of my beliefs and preferences that I hold. For instance, all of the following propositions are a part of the coherent whole of this belief.
1. I exist as a subject of experience.
2. I desire to avoid the experience of suffering.
3. I desire to maximize the hedonic utility of my experience.
4. Other beings exist.
5. Other beings have an experience.
6. Other beings desire to avoid the experience of suffering.
7. Other beings desire to maximize the hedonic utility of their experience.
8. I have a positive attitude towards sentient beings.
9. I have the ability to relate with sentient beings.
10. I am able to emphasize with their experience.
11. Beings are able to synergize their experiences.
12. Beings who are mutually altruistic maximize their experiences to a greater degree.
13. If all beings shared similar systems of beliefs and morals, then all beings would synergize to maximize their experiences.
14. All sentient beings have various levels of moral worth.
15. Producing meat for my consumption necessitates the suffering of a sentient being.
16. My consumption of meat creates a demand for more meat production.
17. There are healthy alternatives that maximally reduce the meat, or products that come from industrial meat production, that I consume as much as practicable.
Some problems with moral subjectivism include: the inability to disagree with the moral statements of others, moral infallibility, the ability for two subjects to hold contradicting values or beliefs and also both be right, and the ability for any moral act to be justified based upon one individuals attitudes towards it.
1. The inability to disagree with the moral statements of others.
It is true that subjective morality would change the meaning structures of evaluative sentences. For example, the statement, "Murder is wrong" would have to consider all of the contexts of surrounding indexicals such as the following.
1. Murder of the innocent is wrong.
2. Murder is wrong on Cynthia's view.
3. Murder based on race committed in the 21st century is wrong.
4. Painful murder is wrong.
What this means is that by my assertion that, "Murder is wrong" does in no way dictate that murder is wrong for you. Both you and I can both hold the belief that murder, for me, is wrong and that murder, for you, is not wrong—and both be correct in our descriptions. I fail to see the problem here. It seems that our genetic similarities have given us certain predispositions towards convergence on many moral or evaluative issues. It seems that we both influence are influence by others socially and this has led to patterns of behavior converging on many levels (such as basic human rights).
If we assume the truth of moral subjectivism for argument, then it would seem counter productive to allow for certain values to be dictated by a few or by one individual—and that is what moral claims would be when erroneously directed to control another moral agent. If we all have different beliefs and values, it does not follow that, therefore, we cannot converge or change our minds. What made such dramatic distinctions between various cultures and people was the geographic isolation and lack of interaction before the reach of communication technology. With a constant flow of interactions between a global network of agents and with such established structures as democracy, there will be synergies and convergence.
We relate to one another and thus we are able to influence others and become influenced by them. I may not be able to dictate for you what is right or wrong, but I can share my experiences and perspectives with you—as well as make consistency arguments from within your own moral system and/or make reductio arguments that go against the grain of social norms. In other words, we are able to more naturally influence and become influenced by each other rather than by dictatorships and revolutions. We cam use our moral systems and values judgements to influence the construction of society and constrict overall unwanted behavior as well as normalize wanted behavior.
2. The infallibility of moral agents.
This is not a problem as it would be with objective moral values because each moral subject has been conditioned both genetically, culturally and societally to adopt certain behavioral proclivities and stiffle others that have not been completely selected out of the gene pools by virtue of being removed from society. We all are necessarily self interested and that pressure overcomes many individuals proclivities towards performing undesirable behaviors. Self preservation being a necessary genetic predisposition for genetic survival and reproduction. We all have the capacity to change, sometimes dramatically depending upon the environmental pressures applied. We possess persuasive forces such as logic and rhetoric and sculpt ourselves from those around us who happen to have the most attractive qualities. This all changes constantly and on all levels. We may possess infallibility when it comes to expressing our personal attitudes and opinions, but we are constantly changing and being changed by our environments.
3. The ability for two subjects to hold contradicting values or beliefs and also both be right.
This too is only a problem with objective morals and values. There are no external properties from which to base a standard of ethics or to appeal to for what is ultimately right or wrong. Two subjects of course are able to hold two mutually incompatible values or beliefs and both be right. Just like two people can have to different favorite flavors of ice cream and still accurately describe their favorite one. Aesthetic values and moral values change and influence others to change. No one individual needs to be objectively correct with such regards, but one can be powerfully influential.
4. The ability for any moral act to be justified based upon one individuals attitudes towards it.
This is another problem issue that is only a problem with an objective perspective of ethics. The earth isn't flat or round because I believe it to be, such would be the case if morals and values were external properties of the world. If evaluative statements are just expressions of our attitudes and feelings towards things, then they are true by virtue of my belief that they are. The fact that I, right here and right now, hold certain attitudes towards things which includes what beliefs I have, is a description of the contents of my own mind and there is nothing I can be more certain about. As my beliefs are justifications for the truth of me having my beliefs and not a justification for what will be accepted by my social environments or to justify how my behavior affects others, it is not necessarily justified within any other moral system other than my own and therefore carries the same persuasive impact as if it were a fallacious appeal to emotion or appeal to self-athority.
Source for the comparison between minimal moral realist and moral subjectivism:
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2007/entries/moral-anti-realism/
I appreciate critical feedback so long as arguments are provided.
Comments (67)
This is not strictly true though. What we perceive as desires and emotions are constructions, models we build from physiological inputs and socially mediated expectations.
https://www.affective-science.org/pubs/2017/barrett-tce-scan-2017.pdf
It makes it difficult to qualify a truth-maker, as no-one could actually establish what was the case.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
Quoting Isaac
I understand that our perceptions are constructed from the nervous system as energy within our environments stimulate the sensory receptors of our neurophysiology which discharge electrochemical signals to our brain that we interpret as sense data. This was not my point.
My point was that we have desires and that we experience emotions, though we seem to not have much control over these things (e.g., we don't choose to desire things that are pleasing to us, we just naturally do), we are aware of them. We are aware of their presence and of the phenomenological being inside our minds. We are aware of our attitudes and our beliefs and we are sure from moment to moment that we are the subjects of such experiences. If you believe in ghosts, it matters not whether or not you are correct in this belief, my point is that you have the most certain knowledge that you in the moment hold such beliefs because you have private epistemic access to the states of your own mind.
Quoting Isaac
The content of your mind is the very being of your existence. It can be said to be true because it simply is.
I understand that the human nervous system creates the human mind. Im simply saying that this is not something that we control but we do experience it and therefore know the truth of these experiences. Even if they are all completely delusion, we would know that they are a part of our being.
That's what the paper disproves.
What the paper suggests is that the brain organizes emotion concepts from memories of past experiences to guide our actions and give our sense-datum meaning; that instances of emotion are constructed by networks of the brain.
What it does not say is that we have voluntary control of how and when these experiences emerge. I do concede that we are capable of some emotional control. Emotions are a reflection of reality and desires are an internal driving force within the agent to interact with reality (either altering it, or regulating it in some way). We do not control such things. For example, if you stumble upon a venomous snake, you may experience the emotional state of fear which comes from your desire to live and avoid pain. Now, we can moderate such emotions and desires do change with time, as with everything else, but we do not have the ability to just will fear away or keep it from emerging, nor do we have the ability to simply not desire things or keep desires from emerging.
Again, this is exactly what the paper disproves. We do not necessarily have the emotion 'fear' deriving from our desire to live and avoid pain. We construct the emotion 'fear' as a model of physiological interoceptions and part of the construction of that model will be other experiences (which we obviously can control), social influences (which we obviously can control), upbringing (which we obviously can control - as a society at least) and the cognitive process of construction itself (which we may be able to control - the jury's still out).
Desire is most likely to be the same thing (although, to my knowledge only a little work has been done on desire, not sufficient to draw any strong conclusions). It's certainly a reasonable theory, given the work on both emotion and perception, that 'desire' is also a constructed model. We don't uniquely 'desire' that ice-cream, we sense a slew of physiological and external data and look for an explanation which makes sense, but since the data underdetermine the theory, 'desiring' an ice-cream is an interactive predictive model, not a 'discovered' state. We don't 'find ourselves' to be desiring of an ice-cream, we create that desire in an interactive process between our desire modelling pathways, our physiology and the external world.
The point of all this for ethics is that with individual subjectivism, it's not possible to use truth-based models of 'right' and 'wrong' because those feelings are constructed, not discovered. They can't act as truth-makers because a pre-conception about their truth value (which may be situationally mediated) will form part of the construction of the feeling 'this is right'.
Subjectivism in metaethics is the view that moral statements are truth apt and their truth makers are subjective states.
You can be a subjectivist and believe no moral statement is true. (For instance, one might believe that the relevant subjective states simply do not exist; for an analogy, subjectivism about pain is the view that pain is a subjective state, however one could hold that view consistent with believing that in fact no one is in pain).
Trust me, I'm an expert (psst, Isaac isn't - he's one of those standard-issue science background people who then arrogantly thinks they can sort out philosophy for those philosophy dummos).
Individual subjectivism is false. If it was true, then my approving of raping j, would entail that it is right for me to rape j. But that's clearly false - false that my approving of it entails its rightness.. Thus individual subjectivism is false. Indeed, insane.
You are an individual subjectivist because of a basic error in your reasoning. You are confusing the cause of a belief or impression with its truth conditions.
Here's what you've done: you've started out with some psychological/biological theory about how we've come to have moral beliefs and feelings, yes? Then, satisfied that our moral beliefs and the statements we use to express then have been fully explained, you conclude that such beliefs and statements must be 'about' their subjective causes and thus have subjective states as their truth makers.
It's a rookie mistake. You need to recognize it now, as a matter of urgency, or your metaethical theorizing will go nowhere.
I have little time for contemporary metaethicists, but they do at least recognize the falsity of the kind of view you are defending.
Quoting Bartricks
I'm not conflating anything. Subjectivism, like realism, can be a form of cognitivism. Just as you describe subjectivism here:
Quoting Bartricks
Realism in metaethics comes in a few different forms, each with a different set of commitments. The minimalist form of moral realism shares the commitments that moral subjectivisim is committed to and thus minimalist moral realism is compatible with moral subjectivisim. Both agree that moral statements are truth apt and that at least some of these moral statements are true. The difference is that with moral subjectivism the truth-makers are the subjective states of the individual indexed to the moral statements (the moral statements are thus the truth-bearers).
A robust form of moral realism, on the other hand, has additional commitments such as the truth of moral statements (the truth-bearers) being contingent upon the property of mind-independence or a correspondence with objective facts (the truth-makers) rather than subjective states. This description is not just my personal opinion, but also a reflection of descriptions from the SEP.
Moral realists are those who think that, in these respects, things should be taken at face value—moral claims do purport to report facts and are true if they get the facts right. Moreover, they hold, at least some moral claims actually are true. That much is the common and more or less defining ground of moral realism (although some accounts of moral realism see it as involving additional commitments, say to the independence of the moral facts from human thought and practice, or to those facts being objective in some specified way).
Quoting Bartricks
I'm aware of the non-cognitivist forms of moral subjectivism.
Quoting Bartricks
Individual subjectivism holds that if the statement, "I approve of raping j," reflects the truth about your attitude towards the raping of j, then the statement is true, thus 'right,' if and only if you are the subject that the statement is indexed to. So, it cannot be the case that you, an individual subject of a specific instance in time, would hold contradicting evaluations with regard to the same act in all the same context (raping of j).
You could either approve, disapprove, or otherwise withhold any judgement. This of course could change once any contextual variables are changed such as instance of time, epistemic state, the configuration of experiential information, social or physical environment, etc. Even if you have an erratic attitude towards the act of raping j, you would never simultaneously hold a contradictory view in any one instance wherein all contextual variables remain unchanged. One of the following arguments accurately represents your view of raping j, in a specific instance of time wherein all contextual variables are held constant.
P1. If I approve of the raping of j, then the raping of j is morally justified according to moral subjectivisim.
P2. I approve of the raping of j.
Therefore, C. The raping of j is morally justified according to moral subjectivisim.
Or, as an alternative:
P1. If I approve of the raping of j, then the raping of j is morally justified according to moral subjectivisim.
P2. I do not approve of the raping of j.
Therefore, C. The raping of j is not morally justified according to moral subjectivisim.
The truth value of each moral statement is dependent upon the subjective state of the individual it is indexed to. Moreover, it is dependent upon the specific subjective state of the individual as it was within a specific arrangement of variables. Therefore it is possible to hold a particular subjective belief in one moment, and then, in the next moment (perhaps after a brief reflection), hold another particular subjective belief—even if the subsequent subjective belief is antithetical to the previous one.
It would be in violation of the law of identity to state otherwise, because, as I'm sure you would agree, just as our physical form undergoes constant fluctuations with regards to the microscopic materials that make up the whole of our bodies and likewise the whole of our surrounding environment (e.g., electron exchange, or ET reactions in biological terms); in the same way, our subjective states are also undergoing constant fluctuations with regards to the influence that continuous streams of information have on us as we process inputs from moment to moment.
Just as Heraclitus said, "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man," so too, no moral propositions must necessarily retain the same truth value, for its not the same moral proposition (one that was indexed to a specific subject in a specific subjective state) and the individual has not necessarily the same subjective states (at the moment the proposition was stated).
Quoting Bartricks
No, I am an individual subjectivist because I believe that there are cognitive subjective states, such as beliefs, and that these cognitive subjective states are the truth-makers of moral statements because it is the truth of such moral statements to which they are the bearers of. The existence of our subjective states necessitates the truth of such evaluative statements that express our attitudes towards a specific act (of a specific arrangement of contextual variables). Such statements, of a particular context with all variables held constant, have a mereological sum which would be then be the truth-maker with regards to truth conditional semantics; however, as the subject to which these statements are indexed to, the subject to which these statements are but mere linguistic representations that express the subjective state of the individual subject, these statements themselves are the truth-bearers, semantics notwithstanding, because they necessitate the existence of the individuals subjective states that only they have epistemic access to.
Quoting Bartricks
An individual moral agent possess a certain configuration of subjective states. Some of these subjective states are cognitive evaluations (normative or moral beliefs). When a moral agent forms a concept of a thing (concrete or abstract) that represents an event which affects the phenomenology of the agent itself, it thus provokes a process of introspection within the agent, which is followed subsequently by the agents subjective evaluations of the concept. We have private epistemic access to these subjective states and evaluations both as they emerge and as they evolve over time as the agent adapts to the changing circumstances that form the setting of an event and perceived value an event subjectively entails. Even as our subjective states are undergoing constant changes due to fluctuating contexts, they are nonetheless part of our being—our nature or essence. The existence of our subjective states necessitate the truth of evaluative propositions that describe the contents of our subjective states because it is a part of the essence of such evaluative propositions that they are true if our subjective states exist.
Quoting Bartricks
This may be true. I am certainly capable of being wrong and it would not surprise me if, in fact, I was in error somewhere within this meta-ethical theory I've constructed. This is precisely why I have given my arguments to support my view as being the case, so that others may analyze my arguments and bring to my attention any inconsistencies found therein. You have done a miserable job at pointing out where my logic has failed because it is not persuasive to simply assert that I am confused, in error, wrong, insane, making a rookie mistake, etc, without providing any elucidation as to where the error is. If you wish to do so then, first accurately represent my views and then, if it is a logical problem, next show me which propositions form the contradiction.
So far, all that I have been made aware of are problems such as, "No objective moral standards," or, "Morals and values would then be idiosyncratic or arbitrarily determined," or, "Then anything is morally justified so long as I believe it to be"—as if to completely ignore the conditional requisite that any moral status only pertains to the individual subject that the statement is indexed to.
It may help matters immensely if we could agree on, or at least understand the specific definition of terms that are notorious for their philosophical ambiguity. Such as, what do you mean when you say something is true? What theory of truth are you subscribed to? What form of moral realism are you referring to? Do you not foresee the problems we will have by neglecting to first hash out the semantics here?
Quoting Isaac
I think we are likely using the term 'construct' to mean very different things. When I hear you say, "An emotion is constructed," what I take that to mean, and what seems to be the psychophysiological and neuroscientific meaning of the term, is that emotions are conceptual constructs; that emotions are concepts that are constructed by the brain.
I understand that the brain 'constructs' concepts from the integration of different senses into one perceptual experience. I understand that sensations are 'constructed' when a physiological stimulus (which is a detectable change to the physical or chemical structures of our internal or external environments) occurs, which is whenever a sensory organ (a network of sensory cells) responds to a physical signal.
A physical signal, for instance, could be the information,
or stimuli, in the form of light emitted from a smartphone or computer screen. The light functions as a detectable change in our environment as it enters the iris and excites the photoreceptor cells located in the retina. As a result, electrical and chemical events (such as depolarization) occur within the cells which trigger nerve impulses through the fibres of the optic nerve to the visual cortex of the brain where the sensory inputs are then processed into visual information.
Our brain is constantly receiving and processing the energy in a physical stimulus into information in the form of an electrical signal. This process is known as sensory processing: signal detection, collection, transduction, processing, and action. Such as with the above example of the visual system, whereby sensory cells in the retina convert the physical energy of light signals into electrical impulses that travel to the brain and 'construct' our visual experiences.
The brain processes every stimulation you ever experience. Every visual experience due to light energy stimulating the photoreceptors of your eye; every auditory experience due to sound waves of vibrating air molecules which stimulate the auditory nerves of your ear drum; every olfactory experience due to odors that bind to receptor cells in the nasal cavity; every gustatorial experience due to chemical reactions with taste receptors located in the taste buds of your mouth; and every somatosensorial experience due to receptor cells responding to chemical, thermal or mechanical stimulations, including noxious stimuli that produce the experience of pain. So, experience is ultimately constructed from neuronal stimulation.
All neurons have the same genetic coding, but as the brain and nervous system develops through our experiences in life (especially in early life), neurons change as they undergo specific gene activations. Our experiences likewise affect the formation of synapses that connect neurons and establish different pathways for brain function. These pathways control how we respond to what we experience each day. So, our experiences are 'constructed' from the stimulation and integration of neurons, which are affected by our experiences by virtue of environmentally specific gene activations, as well as affecting the formation of synaptic pathways which are essential to the transmission of nervous impulses that enable the communication of information between cells, which also play a role in the storage of information resulting in memory.
What is meant by the term 'construct' is not our conscious building or formation of concepts by putting together parts of our experiences; but rather what it is meant to describe is how our experiences have, since before our birth, 'constructed' our concepts of the world by affecting the development of the brains physiological architecture. Consider the following excerpts from Harvard University.
"Brains are built over time, from the bottom up. The basic architecture of the brain is constructed through an ongoing process that begins before birth and continues into adulthood. Simpler neural connections and skills form first, followed by more complex circuits and skills. In the first few years of life, more than 1 million new neural connections form every second.* After this period of rapid proliferation, connections are reduced through a process called pruning, which allows brain circuits to become more efficient."
"The interactions of genes and experience shape the developing brain. Although genes provide the blueprint for the formation of brain circuits, these circuits are reinforced by repeated use. A major ingredient in this developmental process is the serve and return interaction between children and their parents and other caregivers in the family or community. In the absence of responsive caregiving—or if responses are unreliable or inappropriate—the brain’s architecture does not form as expected, which can lead to disparities in learning and behavior. Ultimately, genes and experiences work together to construct brain architecture."
"Cognitive, emotional, and social capacities are inextricably intertwined throughout the life course. The brain is a highly integrated organ and its multiple functions operate in coordination with one another. Emotional well-being and social competence provide a strong foundation for emerging cognitive abilities, and together they are the bricks and mortar of brain architecture. The emotional and physical health, social skills, and cognitive-linguistic capacities that emerge in the early years are all important for success in school, the workplace, and in the larger community."
—The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University
The brain 'constructs' emotional concepts on a subconscious level and the feelings associated with each emotion may emerge whether we want them to or not. The brain 'constructs' emotions differently based on a number of factors including past experiences, current context, if your tired or rested, if your hungry or quenched, etc. We don't have direct executive control over our emotions, let alone our desires, but there is a role of executive function in emotion regulation. We cannot control which emotions surface within us, but we can use our conscious control of cognitive processes (i.e., executive function) whereby a deliberate effort with which the brain actively modulates information processing in order to try and regulate our emotions by changing their expression or their trajectory.
I would say that we are capable of some emotional regulation such as the frequency, intensity, duration or even to a degree which type of emotional responses we have (such as feeling frustrated rather than angry), but that is the limit to any emotional regulation strategies. So it isn't WE who construct the emotion 'fear,' but the subconscious, non-executive states of our brain.
It is true that a part of the subconsciouses 'construction' of emotion concepts come from other experiences—but we do NOT obviously have control over our experiences. Do you 'construct' which experience you will have from moment to moment so that they are exactly the right ones you planned on experiencing? No, that is absurd and the kind of control in which I was referring to initially.
It is also true that part of the subconsciouses 'construction' of emotion concepts come from social influences—but we do NOT obviously control these either. Did you have control over which figures were role models for you as a child? Do you control how others influence your feelings on a day to day basis? Do you never-ever-ever feel anger or fear as a result of social interaction?—if no, then why didn't you control it?
It is also true that part of the subconsciouses 'construction' of emotion concepts come from our upbringing—but it is not only NOT obvious that we can control these things, but NOT obvious that we have any control over these situations at all. We emerge in society and within our families without our consent nor our apprehension to what has or will happen to us therein. Since before our birth, our environment has continously influenced our physiological and neurological development. What is more, our genetic predispositions have been influenced in their development over the entire genetic lifetime of, at least, every ancestor in the evolutionary history of life on this planet.
And when you add, "As a society at least," it shows that you are not using the term 'construct' in the way that I am. What you mean by saying, 'We construct,' is more or less the same as saying, 'The processes of the brain construct,' or, 'The human race constructs,' or, 'A psychological construct,' etc, not the deliberate efforts of our conscious executive control over our cognitive processes—that I am speaking of.
Even if I were to grant that we do possess such executive control over our subjective states, it would nevertheless fail to deliver an adequate objection for the premise that our subjective states exist and thus necessitates the truth of our evaluative propositions that describe our subjective states. When I said that we may not have much control over these subjective states, it was to make it clear that irregardless of our lack of understanding with regards to subjective states such as emotions, and especially desires, these subjective states do exist and we know that they do because we have the epistemic access to the content of our own experiences, we know the phenomenological reality of our own qualia (the individual instances of subjective, conscious experience).
Which is the stronger epistemic state: the reality purported of the theory of constructed emotion, or the fact that you hold a belief of that reality as a cognitive part of your subjective states?
You're confusing active inference modelling with synaptic pruning, they're not that same thing.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
No, many of the processes are deliberate and conscious.
Have a look at Carmen Morawetz's meta-analysis here - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27894828/. Out of the nine regions they identified as active in both emotional valence and category control there was consistent activity in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex both of which are associated with conscious control and modulation. In addition, both the cingulate cortex and the temporoparietal junction which also show involvement in a large number of emotional assessments are know to be highly modulated by experience and prior assessment.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
It would, because one of the feedback processes involved through the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, as Morawetz shows, is to modulate emotional valence via our evaluative processes. The very act of attending to emotional valence changes the emotional valence assessment. In fact, as shown only recently by Ralf Wimmer https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26503050/ the PFC can even modulate signals from the thalamus, affecting directly the interoceptive sensations that we use as data of the inference models.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
There is no "individual instances of subjective, conscious experience". There's never been any demonstration of the existence of such a thing and every study I've read on the subject has shown the concept to be shaky at best, if not completely fabricated. You construct your 'individual instances of subjective, conscious experience' in the process of introspection by selective attention, what type of experience you come up with will depend on what you're looking for at the time. It's like trying to give a judgement about the quality of piece of equipment - if you're in a good mood, like the manufacturer or want to please them, you'll hit on all the good points, if not you'll hit on all the bad ones. All those elements are there anyway, but you filter them according to your objective. The same's true of introspection. You don't just get an exhaustive and unbiased readout of your subjective mental states at the time, you find what you want to find.
Yes you are, because you are saying that a commitment to moral realism is part and parcel of moral subjectivism. That's false. It's no different from, say, conflating incompatibilism about free will with libertarianism (libertarianism being the combination of incompatibilism and realism about free will).
Subjectivism in ethics is a view about what truth-makers of moral statements are. It is 'not' a view about whether those truth-makers exist.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
Well, actually no. But you're missing the point. The point is that realism is distinct from subjectivism.
There's a theory about what Dodos are. That's a theory about what the truth-maker of "that's a real live Dodo" would be. Then there's whether there are any Dodos. That's a theory about whether any statements of the "that's a real live Dodo" kind are true.
Subjectivism is a theory of the first kind - it is a theory about what the truth maker of "that's immoral" would be. Realism is the view that "that's immoral" is sometimes true. Again, you are just conflating these two kinds of theory
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
Er, what? That's really confused. I am not talking about non-cognitivism! I am talking about subjectivism. Why are you not getting this? It's simple.
I gave you the example of pain to try and show you how painfully simple this is.
Subjectivism about pain is uncontroversial, right? Pain 'is' a subjective state.
Does it follow that it exists? No. It is entirely possible that no-one is in pain right now. In which case pain does not exist and no statement of the "I am currently in pain" kind would be true.
Thus, subjectivism about pain does not entail that pain exists.
The same applies to subjectivism about morality. It is NOT equivalent to realism. If it were it would be logically impossible for subjectivism to be true, and yet for nihilism to be true. Yet the two are compatible.
This has nothing - nothing - to do with non-cognitivism. Nothing.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
Okay, sod you then. If you find yourself unable to follow my criticisms, then I'm afraid you're simply not very good at metaethics.
Quoting Isaac
I'm talking about consciousness in general. Our external and internal environments affect our conscious experience and the physical structure of the brain. We do not control all of our internal, nor all of our external environmental interactions. That is all I am saying.
Quoting Isaac
The term "many" is ambiguous. If you mean, "A large number of," then I agree; however, if you mean, "The majority of," then I'm not so sure. Either way, as long as we agree that we are not in control of all of them, then my point stands. This is becoming quite tangential to the OP at this point.
Quoting Isaac
How does this have anything to do with the premise
(...our subjective states exist and thus necessitates the truth of our evaluative propositions that describe our subjective states)?
Quoting Isaac
What do you mean there is no individual instances of subjective conscious experience? It is the stream of empirical data that you are constantly receiving in your conscious states. Who denies that? Notice the contradiction formed by your own statements: "There is no individual instances of subjective, conscious experience," and, "You construct your 'individual instances of subjective, conscious experience' in the process of introspection by selective attention, what type of experience you come up with will depend on what you're looking for at the time."
You do admit that we do not possess absolute control of our conscious states. That is all my point was about. This is tangential to the OP.
If you smoke weed, your mind is very evil, where you have deep thoughts is a slanted torque generated by you 'coming off wrongly'(Excuse me as I struggle to find a word for a clear image I have in my head; coming off wrongly' is what I'm referring to).
Evil is stupidity concerning a core; where the center of the screen is not this full-stop. Yet, it is considered so, which sometimes generates torque through slanted thought.
We can be evil freely, but something punishable is achieved that way on most occasions.
Quoting Bartricks
No, I am saying that the form of subjectivism that I have subscribed to is committed to the statement, "At least some moral statements are true," and that does not necessarily entail that I am a realist.
Quoting Bartricks
That is the problem. I'm saying that some moral statements are true—not that they 'exist'. Same goes for pain, it may not necessarily exist but it is true that I feel pain. The only reason I brought up non-cognitivism is because you mentioned:
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
Now, I would have said error theorist if you would have said all moral statements are false, but you instead said that none were true. I take that to mean that they have no truth value, thus non-cognitive.
I'm sorry, but what does this have to do with the OP? Just to be clear, I don't understand what you are trying to say, but you have mentioned nothing relevant to the OP.
You used the word moral a few times incorrectly, I was roughly (very roughly) correcting you. Fret not, I shall create a proper response in short coming.
Words and thoughts need not correspond with empirical reality to be true, I can say something and your experience of this statement, asks for you to correspond - we do not need a third party - only agreement with our intellects(i.e. we need to be on a similar level intellectually). Intellect itself must correspond to empirical reality.
Where you are perceiving things negatively(i.e. focusing on truth-aptness and not lie-aptness) when you've tried to take a leap forward, you've took a few steps back.
Quoting ghostlycutter
Strange that your comment did not state it as plainly. Could you please show me exactly where I misused the term? I sometimes use moral when I should have used normative or evaluative. I didn't use the word 'evil' either as that is synonymous with immoral but with implies other things as well.
Quoting ghostlycutter
'Lie-apt', if we really want to use such a term, would be the same as truth-apt because for a moral statement to be false in a deceitful way (concealing or misrepresenting the truth) it would necessarily have to be truth-apt in order to be 'lie-apt' in the first place. Your statement, "Morality as prescribed by the OP is false, and thus the OP begets a negative response from someone who is moral," is not an argument. It's merely an assertion and thus unworthy of consideration. Perhaps you would like to provide an argument to back up your assertion and then I will consider your logic.
Quoting ghostlycutter
I agree. I do not subscribe to the correspondence theory of truth, but rather to the coherence theory of truth. Perhaps you are confusing my arguments for those of one of my interlocutors since I argue against the notion of an empirical standard for truth. Analyzing each others statements is more of a form of logical truth rather than empirical. Experiencing patterns of human scribbling does nothing without any semantic correspondence between you and I, and such semantic correspondence requires a particular syntactic conformity as well in order to be mutually intelligible.
Quoting ghostlycutter
How is truth-aptness negatively connotated and lie-aptness not? Why do you speak in riddles? It is as if you speak to me from the shadows and fear to step into the transparency and light.
Whether meant or not, it's not clearly speaking it's half jibberish to me(though understandable and if I repair some of it, shows your intellect).
I'm glad you agree, perhaps I misread.
Basically, how can you use the term moral without directly associating morality (good and evil)? If we're to engage in discussion about anything to do with morals, surely it's wise to understand them properly.
I defined good as beneficence concerning a core, and evil as stupidity(or maleficence) concerning a core. The center of vision is where it is callibrated to be originally, evil is purposely misjudging the center. Is it punishable? No. Yet, if we are to do something bad, it's the only way to do it.
Imagine laws are a core, if we are to break them, what exactly are we doing if not purposely misjudging the core?
So evil is not punishable but it is the way to do something which is. Evil can also be something petty such as a monster in a game or generating torque from disalignment - I dunno.
Now that I have shown you proper interpretation of good and evil, are the standards of this discussion still the same or have they improved?
And I'm telling you that if you include that claim then you are a 'subjectivist realist' about morality.
Two points then, that you seem incapable of understanding.
Point 1: nobody, but nobody, uses 'subjectivism' about morality to include a commitment to realism. It is 'compatible' with realism, but it does not include a commitment to it. Of course, you are free to use words however you like, but it is misleading and silly to use the term in the way you are and it just makes you seem confused (and you are, clearly).
Point 2: if you think some moral statements are truth apt and some of them are true, then you think their truth conditions obtain. And so you are therefore a moral realist. For you believe morality exists. For by your own lights, morality itself is the truth conditions of moral statements.
You don't think that if you're a non-cognitivist. But you do if you think moral statements are about the world. Which you do if you're a subjectivist. They're 'about' subjective states. They don't 'express' them, they 'describe' them.
And the view is patently absurd, as I have already explained to you using arguments you have said nothing about and don't seem to understand.
As for your attempts to defend the view - you presented two arguments, both question begging and clearly unsound, and one not even for your kind of view!
Quoting ghostlycutter
I don't remember making the claim that, "Lie-aptness is unimportant," as you are implying here.
Quoting ghostlycutter
Let's just cut through the gibberish and state an intelligible proposition. I know that you are capable of doing so. As far as I know, 'lie-aptness' is a term unique to you—or, at least alien to me—so it does little to move the conversation forward. Could you please just isolate the propositions that I have made that form any false claims and provide an argument (reasons to believe that they are false) to support your own claim.
Quoting ghostlycutter
This is, again, not an argument. I understand your claim, namely that, "[I] used the word moral a few times incorrectly," but you offer no examples, no supporting evidence, and no line of reasoning for me to analyze and assess the logical pattern of. This is a question. And to answer it; yes, you can use the term moral without directly associating morality. For example, the interrogative statement, "What does moral mean?". We do not yet understand morals properly, let alone the meaning of moral terms. This is why we are engaging in meta-ethical discussion right now. Now, could you show me which propositions I have made that are false?
I define morality as a system of principles and values used to determine the goodness or badness of an outcome, or the rightness or wrongness of an act or behavior.
Quoting ghostlycutter
What does 'beneficence concerning a core' mean to you?
Quoting ghostlycutter
No. Your language is esoteric. This conversation has just gotten even more confusing because instead of providing much-needed elucidation and disambiguation to your previous comments, you have otherwise provided additional terms that are unintelligible to me.
You keep bringing up laws and I don't understand why. I understand that laws have a moral purpose but they are not a part of moral philosophy. Moral philosophy is usually a discussion of either metaethics, applied ethics, and normative ethics. The former being the case with the OP.
Quoting Bartricks
So, these sources are wrong?
—Wikipedia
—Philosophybasics
[quote="Joyce, Richard, "Moral Anti-Realism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
—Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Quoting Bartricks
Regarding point one, I am not necessarily committing myself to moral realism. I do not think that moral statements can be immutable truths, nor do I think that they exist (at least in an empirical or objective way), but rather I think they can nonetheless be true, and that such moral statements are made true by the attitude of the subject they are indexed to. I think that 2 + 2 = 4 is a true mathematical statement. I do not necessarily think that 2 + 2 = 4 exists as a natural, or otherwise supernatural property. As I made clear many days ago, we are fundamentally arguing past one another because we are operating under different assumptions about the nature and definition of truth. You obviously hold to the correspondence theory, I to the coherence theory, and you have yet to address this point, btw.
Regarding point two, no, I am not a moral realist, though I see how one could see me as a minimalist realist. I'm not even sure if a minimalist realist even counts as a realist. I think the truth conditions obtain, yes. However, I think that the truth conditions of moral propositions obtain by virtue of its coherence with a specified set of propositions, not that the truth conditions of moral propositions obtain by virtue of corresponding with objective features of the world. Is it true that you have thoughts? Is it true that you have individual instances of subjective, conscious experience? Is it true that you hold subjective states such as beliefs and emotions? Do these things have to necessarily exist to be true?
I hope to get past this notion that I believe that morality exists. Perhaps we should disambiguate the term 'existence' as well as the term 'truth'.
That source is wrong, yes. Wikipedia is not peer reviewed. It's written by people like you: non-experts who only half-understand what they're writing about.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
That one is a bit confused (the bit where it talks about immutable truths is the confused bit). Note, though, that it does not assert that realism is an essential component of moral subjectivism. That you think otherwise doesn't bode well for your comprehension skills. So, ignoring the first sentence - which is confused - the second and third sentences just say what I said, namely that subjectivism in ethics is the view that the truth-makers of moral statements are subjective states. It doesn't say that subjectivism is the view that some moral statements are true. Learn to read more carefully!
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
I have no issue with what Joyce has said there. It's absolutely right. And he has not contradicted anything I have said or confirmed anything you have said.
If one is not a non-cognitivist and not a moral error theorist, then one is a moral realist.
That's correct. Another way to put it: if you think moral statements are truth apt and some of them are true, then one is a moral realist.
What you seem singularly incapable of grasping is that one can be a moral subjectivist and an error theorist. Once more: that would be impossible if 'realism' was an essential commitment of subjectivism. Yet it is possible. I have described how. If one is an individual subjectivist, then the systematic absence of the relevant subjective state would suffice to make one a moral error theorist; if one is an inter-subjectivist, then the absence of the relevant community would make one an error theorist; and if one is a divine command theorist - so, one identifies the truth-makers of moral statements with the subjective states of a god - then one would be an error theorist if one thought the god did not exist.
So, once more, metaethical subjectivism is 'not' a form of moral realism. One can be a subjectivist and a realist, but the two are distinct: one is a view about morality's ingredients, the other is a view about whether morality exists.
I understand that Wikipedia is not academically peer-reviewed, but those particular statements were cited by two academic sources:
1. Richard Brandt (1959). Ethical theory; the problems of normative and critical ethics. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
2. Harrison, Jonathan (2006). Borchert, Donald M. (ed.). Encyclopedia of philosophy (2nd ed.). Detroit: Thomson Gale/Macmillan Reference USA.
The reason I referenced the SEP article was because it highlights the problems we are having. And how does this not contradict you: "To deny both noncognitivism and the moral error theory suffices to make one a minimal moral realist. Traditionally, however, moral realism has required the denial of a further thesis: the mind-dependence of morality," this implies that traditional moral realism does not merely state that some moral statements are true, but must be true independent of human thought or opinion. In other words, mind-independent or objective. This is why I was attracted to a subjective view because I find it more plausible that morality lie within our subjective states rather than as a property of the external world.
Perhaps I am making a mistake in using the term 'truth' and I did admit as much to you much earlier. I am still trying to figure out which theory of truth best fits my moral outlook and which ones I may adopt to discover a more satisfying one. If by making a statement of fact about my attitude toward a thing makes the truth of my moral judgments depend on a natural, however subjective, fact about the world, then maybe I am committing to a minimalist form of realism, or subjective naturalism, or something. Or, perhaps, I should just say that my attitude is what makes my statements express a moral goodness or other such evaluations within a subjective framework, rather than statements which are true.
You have succeeded in getting me to seriously doubt the consistency of my moral theorizing, or perhaps the meta-ethical position that best describes my views. You haven't given me any ideas for a better alternative theory, which would have been most convincing. I think my problems lie in my ignorance of the various theories of truth. I accept a correspondence theory in some contexts, coherence in others and have even considered some pragmatic theories of truth, but I find none completely satisfactory.
If I am in error here, it certainly was no aid to persistently insist upon misrepresenting me. If by saying that, "At least some moral statements are true," does indeed necessarily commit me to realism, it still is not an accurate representation of what I was saying. You could have been much more effective by using the terms that I was using. I never made the statement that I am committed to realism so why would I give credence to any point you make asserting just that? If you would have said that subjectivism is not committed to the statement that some moral propositions are true (and I'm aware that you have said that, but disproportionately so) it would have stuck with me a bit better. It was with such thought in mind, as I read more strictly academic sources that I have access to, that I began to form greater uncertainty.
Not that it is your duty to correct me, just that you seemed to be genuinely trying to and your approach is unnecessary antagonistic insofar as it doesn't explicitly represent the interlocutors actual words, uses small minded and defamatory language such as 'stupid,' 'insane,' and so on, merely makes—or restates—an assertion, all of which make you seem much less like you know what you are talking about and much more like the troll that some accuse you of being. It is hard to really consider what someone is saying whenever you think (or are suffering from confirmation bias) that they may be a troll.
I will have to reassess my position here and find more academic sources to do more reading with. If you have any suggestions, I would appreciate it and prioritize them first.
That is incredibly dishonest of you. They did NOT say such things. Someone who wrote that wikipedia entry said those things - someone who is clearly NOT a professional philosopher. It is not something anything either of those philosophers said. Christ! I just went to the shoddy wikipedia article from which you seem to be getting your information (again: wikipedia is not written by professional philosophers....it's written by people like you, who lack any concern to get things correct!)
This is the quote from Brandt:
"[Objectivism and subjectivism] have been used more vaguely, confusedly, and in more different senses than the others we are considering. We suggest as a convenient usage, however, that a theory be called subjectivist if and only if, according to it, any ethical assertion implies that somebody does, or somebody of a certain sort under certain conditions would, take some specified attitude toward something."
Okay? Nowhere there does he conflate subjectivism with realism.
This is the quote from Harrison:
"A subjectivist ethical theorist is a theory according to which moral judgements about men or their actions are judgements about the way people react to these men and actions - that is, the way they think or feel about them."
Same again. No conflation of subjectivism with realism. So a) stop dishonestly pretending that what you're quoting is coming from professional philosophers. It isn't. It's wikipedia - which is shite where philosophy is concerned because virtually everything on it is written by non-philosophers who only half understand what they're saying.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
How on earth does that contradict what I said???
Moral subjectivism is a view about the truth-makers of moral statements. It is the view that they are subjective states.
It is NOT the view that some moral statements are true. That's a distinct claim.
There's what would make "Here is a live Dodo" true, and then there's whether it is true.
I do not know how you can not see the difference.
As for what to replace these views with: divine command theory. Which is a form of subjectivism, but one that does not succumb to the criticisms that refute individual and collective forms of subjectivism.
When we judge an act to be wrong, we are not simply describing our own negative attitude towards it. After all, if we were, then if I approved of Xing, it would necessarily be right for me to X. Yet it isn't.
Our judgements are not, then, about our own subjective states. Our subjective states are 'not' the truth-makers of our moral beliefs.
Nevertheless, when we judge an act to be wrong we are judging that there is a proscription against doing it; and when we judge an act to be right we are judging that there is a prescription enjoining us to do it.
Only subjects - minds - can issue prescriptions and proscriptions.
Thus, the subjectivist is correct in thinking that subjective states are the truth makers for moral propositions. But the individual and collective subjectivists are wrong in thinking that it is 'our' subjective states that are those truth makers.
No, the subjective states that are the truth makers of moral propositions are the subjective states of someone other than any of us.
That subject - the subject whose subjective states are the truth-makers of all moral propositions - would be God.
Note, that too is not a form of moral realism, for it is once more a claim about what it would 'take' for any moral proposition to be true and does not incorporate the additional claim that some 'are' true.
Obviously some are true and thus God exists. But one could agree with everything I have said above and conclude that as God does not exist, no moral propositions are true.
Quoting Bartricks
I meant that Wikipedia cited these authors. The citations are right there on the page if you don't believe me. I'm not being dishonest, perhaps I could have written that a little more clearly. Wikipedia clearly cited these authors, whether or not these citations are accurate representations of what these authors actually said is another issue.
Quoting Bartricks
If I lacked any concern to get things right, then why would I tolerate interacting with you? Your rhetoric is hardly tolerable, but there is at least a smidge of knowledge somewhere in you and it is that reason alone that I even read your comments. I am quite concerned about getting things right, even if I must endure such impudence.
Quoting Bartricks
I agree that the citation seems questionable at best but if you would actually read what I was saying, then you would see that I merely stated that they are used as a citation. I said 'they' cited, as in Wikipedia cited these authors. Notice that I won't assume intellectual dishonesty here with you, but that you could have done a better job of reading what I said and I probably could have been more clear. I did clearly say that the authors were cited, though.
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
I'll consider your suggestions when I'm less irritated by your demeanor. As of now, I'm starting to think that you really are just a troll. Note that I didn't bother to carefully read your arguments, a symptom of sharing dialogue with an insufferable interlocutor, so I will withhold any comments until I have the energy and patience to assess them critically.
My previous comment should be read in the context of a capitulation. I was explaining myself more than I was criticizing you.
Well, you're clearly very sloppy: the authors are referenced for claim 3, not claim 2. And if you'd taken the trouble to read the relevant quotes from the authors that were given in support of that claim, you'd have noticed that they in no way make realism a commitment of subjectivism. Why? Because it isn't. And I've explained why umpteen times.
Yes, I admit that was sloppy of me. I am doubtful that the second claim is true because im not entirely sure what im committed to by saying that some moral statements are true. I have to explore a few questions more thoroughly. Questions such as: "Can some moral statements be considered true under a coherence theory of truth, or under a pragmatic theory of truth?" for example.
If I maintain the view of moral subjectivism by retracting the second claim (that some moral statements are true) but leaving all else the same, what other objections would you raise? You seemed to be more interested in showing how my philosophical language was erroneous rather than refuting the overall thesis of my theory. Perhaps it would be easier to just ask you a few questions.
On your view:
Are beliefs considered to be a part of an individual's subjective states? If so, can such beliefs be cognitive?
Can there be facts about an individual's subjective states? (Consider the following excerpt from Dwayne H. Mulder, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.)
b. Objectivism, Subjectivism and Non-Cognitivism
Philosophical theories about the nature of morality generally divide into assertions that moral truths express subjective states and assertions that moral truths express objective facts, analogous to the fact, for example, that the sun is more massive than the earth.
So-called subjectivist theories regard moral statements as declaring that certain facts hold, but the facts expressed are facts about a person’s subjective states. For example, the statement “It is wrong to ignore a person in distress if you are able to offer aid” just means something like “I find it offensive when someone ignores a person in distress….” This is a statement about the subject’s perceptions of the object, not about the object itself (that is, ignoring a person in distress).
Do you find anything wrong with this author's description here?
I remember you offering one such objection that went something like: 'If moral subjectivism is true, then my belief that raping J is good would make raping J a moral thing to do. Raping J is not a moral thing to do. Therefore moral subjectivism is false.' Forgive me if I have misrepresented your argument here.
The problem with the above argument is that it fails to acknowledge the metaethical semantics of subjectivist moral theories (such as Dwayne H. Mulder acknowledged in his article). With this in mind, the statement, "Raping J is good," simply means something like "I find it morally acceptable to rape J" which is simply a description of the authors subjective states. This description seems to be truth-apt, and at least a psychological fact, but I suppose im uncertain whether or not it is true.
You're missing the point. Subjectivism and realism are different kinds of theory. Subjectivism is a theory about what something - in this case, morality - is 'made of'. It's not an existential theory. Realism is an existential theory. They're different kinds of theory.
Once more: there's no logical inconsistency between being a subjectivist and a nihilist. This seems to be something you're not grasping. You think the issue here is about truth and what it consists in. No, that's not the point. The point is that subjectivism is not a theory about what exists!!
This: 'banana cakes are made of flour and bananas and eggs' is not a theory about what exists, right? I have literally just expressed that theory. Do you now conclude that I own a banana cake? No, that'd be nuts. Why would it be nuts? Because saying 'banana cakes are made of flour and bananas and eggs' is not equivalent to saying "i have a banana cake" or banana cakes exist. I mean, how can I make this clearer? I used Dodos earlier, precisely because no-one thinks they exist. We can still talk about one is, right? How do you not see this?
Likewise, subjectivism is a theory - or family of theories - about what morality is made of. it is not - not - a theory about what exists. So you are like someone who, when asked about the ingredients of banana cakes, keeps replying "banana cakes are made of bananas and flour and exist".
I literally do not see how you cannot see the difference. Theories about what exist: morality exists (realism); morality does not exist (nihilism). And morality isn't in the business of existing, as it's a practice we engage in (expressivism).
Theories about what morality is made of: subjectivism (morality is made of subjective states); naturalism (morality is made of natural objects, properties and relations); non-naturalism (morality is made of non-natural objects, properties and relations).
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
Yes, beliefs are subjective states. Only subjects - minds - can believe things. A belief is a state of mind - a state of a subject. Beliefs are subjective states.
I do not know what you mean by 'cognitive'. Can you ask the question again without using the word cognitive?
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
Yes, of course.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
Yes and no. Those two paragraphs do not say quite the same thing.
First, however, some philosophers would classify non-cognitivism as a kind of subjectivism. That author may be one of those, however the way they have expressed themselves is actually quite clumsy.
There is a difference between describing a subjective state ("I am excited") for instance, and 'expressing' a subjective state ("Yippee!").
Now, what does it mean to say that "moral truths express subjective states"? If the claim is that moral truths are 'about' subjective states such subjective states will operate as their truth makers, then the claim is correct. However, then 'express' wasn't really the right word (why not 'describe' or 'are about' - that would be clearer). If, on the other hand, the author is saying that 'moral truths' (and the inverted commas are now needed) are disguised expressions of attitude, then no. For now their definition of subjectivism would make expressivism a form of subjectivism - which, like I say, is not objectionable in itself, it is just not how I and many other philosophers would use the term).
What the second paragraph says is approximately correct, although again, poorly expressed.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
The statement in question, if it means what the author has just said it means, is not "about the subject's perceptions of the object", but the subject's 'attitudes' towards it.
Anyway, I have already said what subjectivism means. Subjectivism is the view that a) moral propositions are truth-apt and b) their truth makers are subjective states.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
That was an objection to individual subjectivism. (Subjectivism is the name of a family of views, that includes my own - divine command theory). So, I am a subjectivist. My objection was to 'individual' subjectivism.
If individual subjectivism is true, then the truth makers of any moral utterance you make is some of your own subjective states. That's just true by definition.
So, let's just say - for the sake of argument - that 'wrongness' describes a certain attitude of disapproval (perhaps universal disapproval) and rightness approval (a certain universal approval, say).
Okay, well then by definition if Tim universally approves of rape, it will be right for Tim to rape.
That's clearly not true. Therefore that kind of subjectivism is false.
And we can run the same argument for any other of an individual's subjective states.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
I haven't the faintest idea what you're on about. You're clearly confused - you're confusing non-cognitivism and subjectivism. Stop that.
Which premise is false in this argument:
1. If what makes a moral statement "Xing is right" true is my having attitude Y towards X, then if I have attitude Y towards the act of raping Jane, then the staement "Raping Jane is right" will nessarily be true if I say it.
2. If I have attitude Y towards the act of raping Jane, then the statement "raping Jane is right" will not necessarily be true if I say it
3. Therefore, what makes a moral statement "Xing is right" true is not my having attitude Y towards X.
Don't try and be clever. Just say which premise is false.
When you say that subjectivism is a theory about what something is 'made of', are you saying that morality (according to subjectivism) is made of our attitudes, feelings, or other psychological states? If so, is individual moral subjectivism not a form of individual moral relativism wherein moral values are relativized to the individual subject? I understand that realism is a family of theories about what exists and im not debating that, but rather I am trying to understand how something must necessarily exist in order to be considered true.
Additionally, subjectivism is a form of anti-realism (the denial of moral realism), which traditionally holds—in the case of morality—that morality exists mind-independently, and can thus be considered a thesis that rejects the view that morality exists mind-independently. This is what I understand to be the case as described in the following:
[quote="Joyce, Richard, "Moral Anti-Realism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ;https://stanford.library.sydney.edu.au/archives/win2014/entries/moral-anti-realism/#ChaMorAntRea"]Traditionally, to hold a realist position with respect to X is to hold that X exists in a mind-independent manner. On this view, moral anti-realism is the denial of the thesis that moral properties—or facts, objects, relations, events, etc. (whatever categories one is willing to countenance)—exist mind-independently. This could involve either (1) the denial that moral properties exist at all, or (2) the acceptance that they do exist but that existence is (in the relevant sense) mind-dependent.[/quote]
I understand that subjectivism/objectivism and realism/ relativism are orthogonal to each other, but a subjectivist can take a relativist form as well as an absolutist form. For example, individual subjectivism would be relativized to each individual so that the moral values held by each individual are equally good and, as Richard Joyce describes below, in the context of subjectivism, moral subjectivism "...denotes the view that moral facts exist and are mind-dependent...".
[quote="Joyce, Richard, "Moral Anti-Realism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ;https://stanford.library.sydney.edu.au/archives/win2014/entries/moral-anti-realism/#ChaMorAntRea"]5. Subjectivism
To deny both noncognitivism and the moral error theory suffices to make one a minimal moral realist. Traditionally, however, moral realism has required the denial of a further thesis: the mind-dependence of morality. There is no generally accepted label for theories that deny both noncognitivism and the moral error theory but maintain that moral facts are mind-dependent. Here I shall use a term as good as any other (though one used not infrequently in other ways): “subjectivism.” Thus, “moral subjectivism” denotes the view that moral facts exist and are mind-dependent, while “moral objectivism” holds that they exist and are mind-independent.[/quote]
Conversely, subjectivism can take an absolutist form such as with divine command theory wherein the truth or falsity of moral value judgements rests ultimately on the subjective states of a single omnipotent being—thus mind-dependent and absolute, or non-relative.
It seems to me that there are multiple accounts for what theories under 'subjectivism' may entail. I may of course be wrong and your explanation did help open my eyes to a specific account, but now I just need to understand how your account makes ones like these obsolete, or how I am misinterpreting what is being said here.
Quoting Bartricks
I understand and this helps, but what am I getting wrong about subjectivism as a form of relativism, or as a type of anti-realism?
Quoting Bartricks
Cognitive in the sense that they convey information rather than being entirely emotive in which they only convey an emotion. For example, if I say, "Apples are delicious," I am making a statement which is phrased objectively insofar as it is declarative and truth-apt. It is cognitive because it is conveying information, but it is also emotive since when I say it, what I actually mean to say is something like, "I believe that apples are delicious," which is phrased subjectively and with emotive meaning since the truth-aptness rests upon whether or not I hold such a belief and that it is conveying how I feel.
Quoting Bartricks
Forgive my imprecision of language, I did mean to say individual subjective morality and not simply subjective morality.
Quoting Bartricks
This is where I would say Tim's approval (not sure why his approval must be universal rather than particular here) of rape is an expression of individual relativism (meaning it is right insofar as it is approved by Tim) but seeing that society does not operate on such a premise —be it true or false—but rather on a culturally relativistic premise with deontological installations such as social contracts, human rights, and other such normalized standards for conduct that stigmatize and denormalize such individualized moral standards.
When you say, "It is clearly not true that it is right for Tim to rape," what makes it 'clearly' not true? How do we know that rape is immoral?
Quoting Bartricks
It depends on which metaethical semantics we interpret these statements under. That is the point of metaethics is it not? Under the metaethical semantics of individual subjective morality, premise 2 is false because if you have attitude Y towards the act of raping Jane, then the statement "raping Jane is right" must necessarily be true if you say it because it is an analytic truth. It is a true statement derivable from a tautology by putting synonyms for synonyms.
If by having the attitude Y towards the moral statement X is what makes the moral statement X true (on individual subjective morality), then the moral statement X is true by having the attitude Y towards it. It is true by definition because having the attitude Y is analytically equivalent to the moral statement X being true. It is reduced to a tautology. If the terms 'P' (Having a positive attitude towards) and 'Q' (That which is morally right) are defined as synonymous with one another, then 'P' is logically equivalent to 'Q'. It would be the same for divine command theory:
If 'P' (is commanded by God), then 'Q' (has the status of being morally good). Because everything commanded by God, by definition, has the status of being morally good, then 'P' is analytically equivalent to 'Q'. Of course this is only the case under the metaethical semantics of divine command theory.
Not 'ours' necessarily (that's individual subjectivism specifically), but if you drop the 'ours', then yes.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
Yes. But one could be an objectivist relativist too. So although subjectivism entails moral relativism, moral relativism does not entail moral subjectivism.
Confusion here is easy as most moral objectivists reject relativism. But nevertheless, moral objectivism is compatible with relativism.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
I don't think you do properly understand this, as you keep conflating subjectivism with realism, even though they're different claims. One is a claim about what makes moral statements true, the other is the claim that some of them 'are' true.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
This is confused. The opposite of subjectivism is indeed objectivism. But the opposite of relativism is not realism, but absolutism.
Incidentally, Joyce is just once philosopher who works in this area and his coining of the term 'minimal' realist to denote a subjectivist realist is grossly misleading. There's nothing minimal about the realism.
Again, take my example of pain. If I am in pain, does my pain exist? Is it real? Yes. It's as robustly real as anything. Yet it exists subjectively. And anything that exists subjectively is mind dependent.
So note a silly implication of what Joyce has said - it means that pain is only real 'minimally'. Now, that's just silly. Offensive, even. Tell someone who is in pain that their statement "I am in pain" is only 'minimally true' and see what they say!!
Here's another silly implication. It would mean that a divine command moral realist such as myself, only thinks that morality is 'minimally' real. No I don't - I think it is as real as anything!!
In terms of how 'real' I take morality to be, there is no difference between me and a realist objectivist.
So Joyce, much as I respect some of his work, is being unhelpful here in advising us to use the wholly unnecessary and misleading term 'minimal realist' (a term, incidentally, that no-one else uses in this area) to talk about that which exists subjectively.
Pain is real. It is not 'minimally real'. It is as real as the room I am sat in. But the room I am sat in does not exist as my subjective states, whereas pain does. See? No difference in degree of reality, just location of constituents. So, again, attaching 'minimal' to 'subjective' when the subjectivist is a realist is grossly misleading.
Note too that Joyce is not contradicting anything I have said, all he is doing is misleadingly and unnecessarily appending the word 'miminal' to realism when the realist is a subjectivist.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
Moral subjectivism entails moral relativism. Moral relativism is not a form of anti-realism. It is not a form of realism at all, any more than subjectivism is.
Subjectivism is a theory about what morality is made of.
Relativism is a theory about how morality 'behaves' for want of a better word.
Realism is an existential theory about whether or not something exists.
Subjectivism entails relativism, but relativism does not entail subjectivism.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
I was just being kind to the individual subjectivism in attributing to them a slightly more plausible view - a characteristic of moral norms seems to be that they are universal, and so it would be slightly more plausible for an individual subjectivist to identify attitudes that are universal in their scope with the truth makers of moral statements rather than other attitudes. So, there is a difference between disapproving of Tim doing X, and disapproving of 'everyone' doing X, and we might find it useful to come up with a way of quickly conveying to others that we have the latter attitude and not the former - and thus we have this word 'wrong' to do so (whereas when our attitude of disapproval is more particular, we can just say "I disapprove').
When attacking a view it is best to address yourself to the strongest version of the theory - that is, the most plausible - and that's what I was doing.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
I do not understand what you mean. Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
Waffle. That first sentence - "It depends on which metaethical semantics we interpret these statements under" - is nonsense. I said stop trying to be clever.
It is a deductively valid argument, yes? So you need to deny a premise. Like I say, don't try and be fancy. Stop using words like 'semantics' and 'metaethics'. Plain English.
Now, premise 1 is true by definition - it just describes a kind of individual subjectivism. So you can't deny 1 .
It has to be 2 then.
Yet 2 is self-evidently true.
There are reasons why philosophers don't defend individual subjectivism. That argument being one of them.
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
Im not trying to be clever. Semantics has to do with how words convey information to us as we draw meaning from them and how meanings can change based on their contextual relations to other words, or within different syntactic structures. Metaethics makes an effort to understand the meanings of moral terms used in ethical discourse: whether they convey information, whether they capable of being true or false, and if so what would make them true. Ethics uses a special kind of discourse wherein declarative statements seem objective and cognitive intuitively but upon further investigation it becomes less and less apparent that this is the case. Ethical language can be descriptive, emotive, evaluative, directive, critical, etc, and the meaning we draw from ethical statements can be interpreted differently based upon a number of theories about what it is that ethical statements are actually expressing.
Could we not interpret the meaning of these statements differently based upon which metaethical theories we adopt as a frame of reference? Subjective or objective, relative or absolute, cognitive or non-cognitive, etc.
Yes, the argument is deductive and logically valid, but it is not necessarily sound. Premise 2 is not axiomatic or self evident as it is a contention within metaethical discourse which we are taking part in. It is also not a strong representation of individual moral subjectivism.
1. If what makes a moral statement "Xing is right" true is my having attitude Y towards X, then if I have attitude Y towards the act of raping Jane, the statement "Raping Jane is right" will necessarily be true if I say it.
2. If I have attitude Y towards the act of raping Jane, then the statement "raping Jane is right" will not necessarily be true if I say it
3. Therefore, what makes a moral statement "Xing is right" true is not my having attitude Y towards X.
This would be a much stronger representation:
1. If having a positive attitude towards an act makes it morally right (in the context of individual subjective morality) for the person having the attitude, then it is morally right if and only if it is indeed the case that they hold such a positive attitude and that the attitude accurately conveys how they feel.
2. It is indeed the case that they hold such a positive attitude and that the attitude accurately conveys how they feel.
3. Therefore, by having a positive attitude towards an act makes it morally right (in the context of individual subjective morality) for the person having the attitude.
Notice that so long as the definition of that which is morally good is that which a person has a positive attitude towards, then premise 2 is, by definition, self-evidently true. Furthermore, so long as the definition of that which is morally good is that which a person has a positive attitude towards is maintained through the interpretation of your argument, then premise 2 forms a contradiction. Namely, that it both is and is not the case that that which is morally good is that which a person has a positive attitude towards.
So, unless you can provide an argument for why the statement "raping Jane is right" will not necessarily be true if I say it (in the context of individual subjective morality), then what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
You must answer the epistemic question: "How do we know that rape is immoral?" Which will either be met with claims that it is self-evidently true whenever there is moral disagreement between individuals, cultures, societies and over history, or met with an argument which is circular, or met with an argument that requires an infinite regress of subsequent supporting arguments. None of these are acceptable justifications and are thus unfounded and can be just as easily dismissed.
As I see it, your "index" of references constitutes an endless search of grounding, any proposition that can be conceived being duly contextually contingent upon other conditions, and those still deferring to others. Such is the plight of coherence theory: an endless stream of inquiry and deference (and difference?). And correspondence's indefensible claim about some foundation is no more than a metaphysical vacuity.
But all this is undone by the absolute that lies embedded in the world, and this is metavalue. Our entanglements in our affairs are complex, but value as such is unassailable, not defeasible in any conceivable way. It may be morally defensible to torture based on some utilitarian justification, but this would be a contingent justification, and does not touch the "giveness" of the experience of being tortured. No context can touch this.
I do not know what the pain of a lighted match on my finger IS, and language cannot give this to me. this is why Wittgenstein turned his chair to the wall when ethical discussions turned to foundational talk. A don't really agree with this "passing over in silence" about such things, though. Levinas puts ethics as first philosophy, freely acknowledging the metaphysics ethics presents.
All moral subjectivists refuse to reckon with that lighted match.
No, don't be silly. It is self-evident. If Tim approves of raping Sarah, that does not entail that it is morally right for Tim to rape Sarah, does it?
Moral norms and values obviously transcend our own, both individually and collectively. That's why moral philosophy exists. If morality appeared to be individually subjective, then a course on moral philosophy would be as stupid as a course on 'are you in pain?' And if morality appeared to be collectively subjective, then sociology would solve moral problems and we would recognise this and would not need to bother with normative theorising.
Anyway, individual ethical subjectivism and collective ethical subjectivism are demonstrably false. Nobody defends them. They're only mentioned for the purposes of rejection. If you want to get good at metaethics the first thing you need to do is understand why those views are false, not continue foolishly trying to defend them.
Quoting Bartricks
According to individual ethical subjectivism, to say that a subject approves of an act IS to say that it is moral, but it is only moral relative to the subject if and only if it the subject indeed approves of the act.
It is not self-evident. A self-evident proposition would be something like, "Conscious experiences are happening," or, "A whole is greater than, or equal to, any of its parts," since to say otherwise produces a contradiction by virtue of how we define the terms of such propositions. A well-known analytical proposition would be, "A bachelor is an unmarried man," since a bachelor is by definition an unmarried man, or, a well-known metaphysical proposition such as, "There is something rather than nothing," since the proposition is a fundamental assumption that we necessarily must presuppose in order to even engage in metaphysical discourse or thought.
The proposition, "Rape is immoral," cannot be demonstrated to produce a contradiction nor is it a fundamental presupposition necessary for discussion or thinking about morality. You can only either beg the question by using a circular argument (e.g., rape is immoral because rape is bad), or appeal to a series of unjustified premises to support it ad infinitum by accepting an infinite regress argument (the truth of proposition P is holds only by P², which holds only by P³, which holds only by P?, and so on, ad infinitum), or just not be willing to discuss the rationality of the proposition at all by maintaining dogmatism—or relying on faith.
I'm happy to concede this point, if and only if you can demonstrate the truth of your claim by evidence or sound argument.
Quoting Bartricks
What is the argument for that?
Quoting Bartricks
I'm not sure what you mean by 'collectively subjective' and since I'm not holding the position that morality is intersubjective, or to come from anything other than the interior of individual consciousness, then this is either a misrepresentation or a term you must necessarily define to make this statement clear. Disambiguation notwithstanding, it is not clear that sociology would solve moral problems if they were subjective.
Quoting Bartricks
If individual ethical subjectivism is demonstrably false, then it's falsity must be capable of being demonstrated, shown or proven. You have done none of the above and it is certainly not clear that it is false. Premises such as, "Nobody defends it," are merely appeals to the people (i.e., argumentum ad populum), which is fallacious reasoning that I will not accept because it does not logically imply the conclusion. If such views are false, I very much wish to understand why and you have not yet demonstrated that this is indeed the case. I am not so much defending them as I am demanding an accurate representation of them be refuted by virtue of countervailing proof—be that evidence or sound argument. Could you please present which two statements (under a proper interpretation of individual ethical subjectivism) form a contradiction? Or, which terms form an equivocation? You claim that individual ethical subjectivism is demonstrably false, thus conceivably proven false, so then you hold the burden of proof which can only be satisfied by substantiating the truth of a negation to any of the propositions it holds.
Quoting Bartricks
Is false.
You think that if you approve of raping Jane, then necessarily it is morally right for you to do so.
That's absurd. You stand refuted.
It is self-evident to reason that if A is bigger than B, and B is bigger than C, then A is bigger than C.
It is self-evident to reason that arguments of this kind:
1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q
are valid - that is, their conclusions are true if their premises are.
And it is self-evident to reason that if you approve of raping Jane, it does not follow of necessity that it is actually morally right for you to do so.
Now, you can double-down if you want and insist that it is in fact right, but that's no different in terms of rational credibility than just insisting that the above argument form is invalid because you have a theory that says it is.
Quoting Constance
I'm not sure if I understand what you mean. When I consider indexicals, I am considering the meaning of ethical language as described by a specific metaethical view (metaethical subjectivism in this case; a contingency for the truth-aptness of moral statements upon the attitude of the individual subject indexed to the statement), since such views seem to describe their meanings in a way that is both novel, thus necessarily requiring an alternative semantics, and in a way that maintains a reflection to its context. Since the view is a metaethical thesis that goes beyond the foundational metaphysical, epistemological, semantic, and psychological understandings of morality with regards to how we think, speak, and practice morality, it is important that while we suppose new theories about what morality is, or what of it can be known, or the role it plays in human behavior, etc, that we also consider how this could potentially change the foundational meanings that moral terms express.
In doing this, I have simply considered how the metaethical semantics of individual ethical subjectivism may effect the reference of certain linguistic expressions in such a way that must shift from a context that is definite, regular, or consistent over time and doesn't consider the continuing development of a subjects subjective identify, over to a context of contextual dynamics considering all interrelated conditions such as: historical subjectivity, social influences on behavior—conditioning as well as processes of compliance, identification, and internalization that factor in changing attitudes, the specific configuration of physical environmental influences and the corresponding internal neuropsychological responses, etc. All of which must be relativized to a specific attitude of a specific subject within a specific spatiotemporal configuration who has a specific history of conscious and subconscious experiences, and so on. We are never the same person because we are constantly changing both physically and psychologically, therefore our attitudes and likewise our morality if we consider an individual subjective view is never fixed and undergoing constant fluctuations at all times that may from moment to moment influence measurable changes in our moral outlook. I have simply come to the conclusion that our attitudes are reflections of our moral outlook but only relative to a moment in time or within a specific frame of reference unique to a sequence of experiences throughout the totality of our experiences since the emergence of our consciousness.
I suspect that in order to understand the framework in which individual ethical subjectivism makes sense, it is necessary to realize that linguistic expressions are but signals that semantically refer to a unique frame of reference to an experienced event in the absolute context in which it was experienced as it occurred.
Quoting Bartricks
Just to be clear, you are the referent subject within the argument, not I. And, I think that if we consider the meanings which moral terms express under the interpretation of individual ethical subjectivism, then a subject's approval of an act is by definition what makes the act morally right. This would be analytically true and self-evident in the same way that being an unmarried man is by definition what makes the man a bachelor. I accept the reductio entailed by the view so long as the view remains otherwise consistent and with no competing views to consider. But, to be precise, the reductio entailed by the view would be that, "If we consider the meanings which moral terms express under the interpretation of individual ethical subjectivism, then a subject's approval of an act is by definition what makes the act morally right," which is a considerably less difficult bullet to bite because it is not a statement about what is moral to any other subject other than the one in which the statement is indexed to.
Quoting Bartricks
I never challenged the validity of your argument, but rather it's soundness. Modus ponens is indeed a valid deductive argument form. It is also tautological in nature which can be said to soften it's persuasive force, but nonetheless reinforced my initial belief that was lost once I realized that the metaethical semantics proposed by individual ethical subjectivism which produced the analytic truth of the arguments I've presented for you were also tautologous as well. That I think would be a better objection to the argument.
It is only self-evident to reason using arguments in the form of modus ponens ("if P then Q")—first, only if it already sound (if the conditional statement is accepted), and then if and only if the antecedent (P) holds by virtue of being true by definition when inferring to the consequent (Q), such as, "If P, then Q" whereby the terms of antecedent have been defined in such a way that they are analytically equivalent to the terms of the consequent (e.g., if the term 'morally right' has been semantically equalized to the term 'approved of by the subject'); or if the antecedents negation can not be demonstrated to produce a contradiction when inferring to the consequent (e.g., "If there is sunlight outside, then it is daytime; there is sunlight out; therefore, it is daytime," and the negation, "If there is no sunlight out, then it is daytime, there is no sunlight out; therefore, it is daytime".) Perhaps I can formalize a better example.
Modus ponens structure:
If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q
If the antecedent holds, then the consequent may be inferred:
1. If there exists something, then the statement 'nothing exists' is false. (P = "There exists something" and Q = "The statement 'nothing exists' is false").
2. There exists something.
3. Therefore, the statement 'nothing exists' is false.
Demonstrating the antecedent's negation forms a contradiction:
1. If there does not exist something, then the statement 'nothing exists' is false. (P = "There does not exist something" and Q = "The statement 'nothing exists' is false").
2. There does not exist something.
3. Therefore, the statement 'nothing exists' is false.
The second argument forms a contradiction because if there does not exist something then the statement 'nothing exists' would be true, not false. To say otherwise is to say that it both is and is not the case that something must exist for the statement 'nothing exists' to be false.
Quoting Bartricks
No, it isn't under a proper interpretation of the metaethical semantics of individual ethical subjectivism. You are committing an equivocation fallacy otherwise. A self-evident truth can never be derived from an equivocation fallacy. And, modus ponens does not necessarily mean that the inference is a self-evident truth. That is absurd. Consider the following:
1. If Earth orbits the sun, then Jupiter orbits the earth.
2. Earth orbits the sun.
3. Therefore, Jupiter orbits the earth.
This is a modus ponens syllogism and thus a valid argument structure. However, the consequent is false, therefore the argument is unsound. Definitely not a self-evident truth.
Quoting Constance
I don't understand this objection. What exactly do you mean by "refuse to reckon with"? I consider stimulus events such as objects or events that elicit a sensory response when a detectable change to the energy in the surrounding environment is registered by the senses. A stimulus triggers our nervous system whenever sufficient changes in the environmental energy is detected. These changes in the environmental energy act as information inputs insofar as they affect the level of voltage across the cell membrane of the neuron. This is called a change in the membrane potential of a neuron.
The membrane potential of a neuron is the difference in electrical charge between the inside and the outside of a neuron. This difference in electrical charge is due to the unequal distribution of ions between the inside and outside of the membrane. Ions are atoms that have lost or gained electrons and as a result either have a negative or positive charge.
A few of the ions that play an important role in the membrane potential of a neuron are positively charged sodium ions and negatively charged chloride ions which are more prevalent on the outside of the cellular membrane when the neuron is at rest. Also while at rest, there are positively charged potassium ions and many other negatively charged ions prevalent on the inside of the cellular membrane. At rest, the inside of the cellular membrane is mostly negative with the outside of the membrane mostly positive.
The inside membrane potential is regulated by a protein mechanism, which disproportionately influences which ions travel through ion channels. It uses energy to pump positively charged sodium ions out of the cell and pump negatively charged potassium ions into the cell. For every two sodium ions pumped out of the cell, three potassium ions are pumped into the cell which is how the inside of the cellular membrane maintains its overall negative charge.
An action potential is a momentary reversal of membrane potential which is the basis for electrical signaling in neurons. A stimulus event causes an influx of positive ions to enter the inside of the cell and once a threshold is passed, a sudden, fast, transitory and propagating change of the resting membrane occurs in the form of a nervous impulse. These impulses carry information in the form of a sensation to which we attach meanings to. These meanings are in constant fluctuation as well and can even develop enough differences over time to change the overall patterns of our perceptions.
The thing is, the energy of a stimulus event can be measured and reproduced so to enable us to test how a subject will respond to the same stimulus energy. And, what all the data points to is that while a physical stimulus event can be measured in such trials with a constant variable of energy, the subjects neuropsychological response and subsequent sensory perceptions and associated attitudes, on the other hand, will vary. It then seems likely that no source will produce the same response from us and that our experiences at the most fundamental level are arbitrary. If a stimulus event is held objectively constant, whatever information stored in such energy becomes distorted as it processes within the receiving subject. It seems as if the lighted match transmits a regularity of data which is uniquely processed into meaningful information through it's integration in the contexts of a complex system of dynamic neuropsychological structures tethering the mereology of individual conscious experiences that we identify as ourselves.
I can respond to your thoughts if you give me an account of what "absolute context" means.
The totality of physical and phenomenological variables as they were arranged and sequenced in a specific order, having a specific causal relationship between the physical universe and the subject of experience, both with regards to the subjects entire series of past experiences and the trajectory of their experience into the future. Everything that happened before an event and the deterministic flow of the universe into everything that will ever happen subsequent to an event.
Something along those lines. The idea is that everything is at all times in a state of fluctuation and thus nothing, no one, and no idea or feeling can ever be the same as it was a fraction of a second ago. It is a way of answering questions pertaining to individual subjective morality with regard to a subjects proclivity to change evaluative positions or moral views—and at times erratically, irrationally, and/or sporadically.
It's no specialized term. It's more a function of my linguistic incompetence in describing such abstract concepts.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
What is the relationship between subjectivity and empirical notions like the physical , neurophysiological facts and adeterministic universe? Are empirical facts the product of intersubjectivity? Are they social constructs, and if so, is s scientific truth adjudicated the same way as subjective moral truth?Does science progress through falsification or change the way the arts and politics do?
Quoting Joshs
Subjectivity is probably best understood as a psychological context about the way things are and also as the opposite of objectivity, which is the way things are independent from individual subjectivity. We can identify subjectivity if we consider the way things in the world are that have to do with our perceptions, feelings, or attitudes towards them. We can additionally identify subjectivity if we consider such things that are dependent upon our mental states to exist, such as a belief, a taste, or a perspective.
A few examples of things that exist objectively would be: an actual Christmas tree, an actual grizzly bear, and the actual moon. On the converse, a few contrasting examples of things that exist subjectively would be: the symbolic meaning of Christianity associated with a Christmas tree; the emotional state of fear associated with a close encounter with a grizzly bear; and our belief that there are little green men living on the moon.
Empirical notions is an interesting term. I suppose it could mean a vague idea or concept about the information we derive from sensory experience. Alternatively, it could mean to think about empirical evidence, or empirical-based theories.
In regards to your first example: 'the physical' is quite a broad term that can be modeled into empirical theories, but not necessarily. Whenever physics, for example, engages in non-empirical theorizing such as mathematical, or a priory, it can be modeled in a completely abstract way.
Consider the differences between classical 'Newtonian' physics and modern 'quantum' physics. While it is clear that classical physics corresponds exactly to the empirical state of the world since it mainly deals with phenomena at the macroscopic scale and phenomena at the macroscopic scale can largely be studied with only the basic human senses; whereas when it comes to quantum physics, on the other hand, phenomena behaves in ways of which seem to be fundamentally incompatible with the laws of classical physics.
This is due to the fact that modern physics largely deals with phenomena at the sub-microscopic level. At this level, the laws and observable regularities of classical physics become blurred or even broken. The laws and rules that govern classical physics seem to either be completely inapplicable or only approximately applicable with the laws and rules that govern modern physics.
Your second example regarding neurophysiological facts are indeed empirical facts since it is a study branching from both physiology and neuroscience to focus on the functioning of the nervous system. Thus, neurophysiological facts have to do with the structure and function of the nervous system such as how neurons receive and transmit information from a stimulus. However, the phenomenological content which emerges from the nervous system as a result of many cognitive processes occurring among the many regions of the brain, remain mired in subjectivity. There, the brain begins a process of refining the raw stimulus sense-data into useful information. Subjectivity may only be epistemically accessible to the individual subjective agent, thus it remains locked away and it most unfortunately is largely ignored within these sciences. There are the neural correlates, I suppose.
Your final example, a deterministic universe is a philosophical view that every event in the universe was determined by a preexisting chain of causal events. In other words, that there has been a cause and effect relationship between all the events that have ever occurred, are occurring, or will occur yet in the universe.
Determinism is more directly supported by virtue of a probabilistic confirmation rather than in the sense of empirical proof such as from experience and experimentation. Determinism is an interesting prospect for a relationship between what is subjective (human free will) and what is empirical (physical sciences). However, all in all, the determinism entailed by a deterministic universe seems to be more a notion of cause/effect rather than an empirical notion.
Quoting Joshs
I'm not sure if I understand the question. Intersubjectivity can be having a shared empirical definition of an object. When asked to imagine a tree, the empirical definition of the tree would correspond with an actual tree. The word 'tree' provides a shared meaning by virtue of linguistic construct that people can use as they interact with each other as a common resource for interpreting the meanings of social and cultural elements. This kind of forms a segue into your next question, however.
Quoting Joshs
I think that social constructs naturally develop within any social group. They may take the form of physical, empirical and otherwise objective material objects but the elements of a social construct are not represented as an objective feature of reality, but rather they are represented instead by their attached meanings. These meanings are not inherent to the physical material symbolizing such meaning, as such things are only meaningful because the individuals within the social group have adopted such meanings. For example, the notion of an event such as Christmas, or the connotations placed on such terms as democracy.
I don't understand the last question pertaining to scientific truth and subjective moral truth. Science is empirical, objective, a posteriori and subscribes to the correspondence theory of truth, whereas individual moral subjectivism is more theoretical or rational, and, of course, subjective, a priori, and seems to subscribe to the coherence theory of truth (alternatively, a pragmatic theory of truth may be subscribed to).
Quoting Joshs
I think such accounts described by Thomas Kuhn within his, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" are some of the best, certainly most influential, descriptions of the history and especially the development of science. Such accounts held by Kuhn was that science maintains periods of stable growth wherein the prevailing theories and models produce accurate predictions and moves the knowledge of science forward. These stable periods sometimes enter into a state of crisis as the prevailing theories and models become less accurate or are threatened by competing models which may become further punctuated by a revisionary into scientific revolutions.
Also, Kuhn's "Incommensurability thesis," seems to lean in the direction of scientific progression analogous to that of art or politics, perhaps. At least insofar as theories and models from differing periods throughout history (e.g., Aristotelian, Galilean and Newtonian) each seem to equally lack the quality of being similar and comparable to other theories and models.
So you relativize ethical good and bad, right and wrong, not to individual tastes, attitudes, moods, and general dispositions, but to a multitude of "selves" within the composite historical ethical agency. I suppose this is the logical consequence of taking Mackie's view. I mean, if objective ethics in the fabric-of-the-world sense he speaks of is out the window, then there are no standards at all can hold any ethical judgment accountable apart from those actualities that produce judgment that are causally immediate, that is, unmediated. Is it ethically defensible for Raskolnikov to murder the old lady? Of course, but then, which Raskolnikov are we referring to, for prior to his poverty he was just a starry eyed student who has not yet been so darkly driven. How many of him are there? And it is not diachronically determined, but synchronically as well, for the at any given time, Raskolniknov is a composite of dispositions the compete for relevance and application.
How does one ever make a determination as to what an ethical agency is when the concept is so fleeting and disjointed? It seems you pin the metaethical question, what is the nature of ethical goodness and badness? on unpinnable actualities.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
No. I mean to take the lighted match event phenomenologically. In fact, all of your above begs phenomenological questions. Certainly not that it is wrong, but it does not go to basic questions. At any rate: observe the scorching flesh as an empirical scientist would observe a slab of rock, studying it for its parts and their classifications. All you bring out is there, but then once this is exhausted, there is the pain, that is, pain simplicter. This is the metaethical "real" that is the material foundation for ethical attitudes and judgment. This is irreducible. (Not that the language used to talk about it is irreducible, but the injunction not to apply a flame to a living finger is. Wittgenstein would have agreed. He would just refuse to talk about it.)
For postmodern and phenomenological positions , it is incoherent to talk about the way things are independent from individual subjectivity, because subjectivity is merely a pole alongside the objective pole in the experience of the world. That is, objectivity is a derived product of subjective experience rather than the ‘opposite’ of it.
I think you did very well. I would have said the non linear, emergent, self organization of the subject in relation to the totality of information effecting them, but it has taken a long time to condense it down to this. Anyway good discussion and welcome aboard. :smile:
Quoting Joshs
The relationship is that new data must be organized into the main thrust of historical self organization. It must fit into established consciousness, This is the underlying dynamic regardless of what is encountered, be it ethics, morality, subjectivity , objectivity, etc, so its all relativistic. There is no empirical answer to your question, it is all individual responses. We are self organizing after all! , where consciousness = self organization. The responses are self interested, as they must achieve self organization – which entails preserving and advancing the self.
And If we do not achieve this it is disintegrative to our self organization - so it hurts! And If we succeed, it affirms our self organization, so feels good! :smile:
All we can do is plant a seed or two and wait to see if they sprout - unfortunately it cant happen overnight. :cry:
Its nice to find some agreement for a change anyway. :up:
Quoting Constance
That's pretty close. You see, I'm considering multiple things here. First, it seems as if morality is subjective insofar as it has subjective variability between individual subjects, just like there is aesthetic variability between individual subjects. What I mean by subjective variability is the range of possible values for any measurable or immeasurable characteristic, physical or psychological, both interchanges between multiple subjects and exchanges between an individual subject and the continuous fluctuations between their environment.
Second, it seems that in order for moral statements to be truth-apt they must be describing the psychological states of the individual subject who is expressing a belief or performing an act that is being described in the moral statement. For example, if a man named Andrew makes the statement, "Stealing is wrong," what that translates into is, "Andrew has a preference against stealing" or "Andrew has a negative attitude when it comes to stealing". Now, some psychological states are more cognitive and some are more emotive (e.g., a rational belief vs a irrational feeling) and this I have to hash out further.
As of right now, I'm running under the assumption that both moral and other evaluative statements can be considered propositions if and only if they are describing the psychological states of the individual subject they are indexed to. So, the statement from the previous example would be a description of Andrews psychological states and attitudes toward the act of stealing. Thus, it is a true statement that corresponds with the psychological fact that Andrew disapproves of stealing. As you can see, this is a translation of a descriptive declarative sentence structure that is describing the way reality is in an objective way, into a descriptive declarative sentence structure that is describing the way reality is perceived and evaluated in a subjective way. It is nonetheless a factual statement about the psychological states of the individual subject the statement is indexed to.
Alas, it seems that we must relativize morality down to the individual and translate moral statements under a proper interpretation of subjective metaethical semantics. However, a problem arises within the logic thus far, namely the imprecision of the term used to describe the individual subject. Here, we use the term 'subject' in two different contexts. So from now on the term 'philosophical subject' will be used when describing the individual subject who is a thinking and feeling entity with a conscious mind; and the term 'grammatical subject' will be used when describing the noun phrase of a proposition, being the element about which the statement is predicated.
Third, the imprecision lies in our failure to consider what I would call the mereological identity of the philosophical subject who is represented as the truth-bearing grammatical subject of the proposition. In other words, within the grammatical structure of the clause in the statement, "Andrew disapproves of stealing," the term 'Andrew' is the noun functioning as the grammatical subject to which the clause is predicated upon (the noun which the sentence is about) and the verb phrase 'Disapproves of stealing,' is the grammatical predicate of the clause in the statement that tells us what the subject is doing in the sentence. The problem is whether or not the grammatical subject of the statement accurately represents the philosophical subject that is indexed to grammatical predicate.
Since both the subject and the predicate of the statement contain contextual variables, the statement may be true or false depending on whether or not the values of these variables represent the full context and the actual state of affairs of the surrounding environment at the instant the statement was made. The grammatical subject may or may not be representative of the psychological subject to which the moral statement purports to describe the psychological states of. This would be a form of ambiguity and a potential for equivocation regarding the definition of the indexical term which functions as the grammatical subject and represents the philosophical subject. This is because the philosophical subject does not maintain fixed physiological or psychological states between phenomenological frames of reference which means that the identity of the philosophical subject must necessarily change between phenomenological frames of reference over the philosophical subjects composite history.
This has to do with what I called the philosophical subjects mereological identity. Mereological identity is the view that the identity of an object depends on the identity of the objects compositional parts. And, furthermore, that the sameness of an objects compositional parts is a necessary condition of the identity of the object as a whole. So, when it comes to an individual philosophical subject, not only does the grammatical subject rely on precise indexical content that may vary from context to context, but it must also capture the philosophical subjects indexical characteristics, which is its mereological identity with regards to the whole of its physiological and psychological parts. And, the philosophical subjects physiological and psychological mereology undergoes constant compositional fluctuations as an open physical and psychological system which renders novel phenomenological states.
That is, fluctuations occur both as a material system in which energy and mass is exchanged between the physical environment, and as an immaterial system in which perceptions, thoughts, memories, emotions, desires, etc, are exchanged between a philosophical subject and their subjective experiential environment, as well as, the social interchange between their intersubjective experiential environment.
This ultimately comes down to navigating around violations of the law of identity and the law of excluded middle. Allow me to explain in a bit.
When it comes to human behavior, there are a lot of factors which play a role in influencing how we behave. Some of these factors are abstract structures which may be psychological, sociological, cultural or even societal. Examples of such structures would include: assertiveness, your gender, your race, your sexual orientation, your language and your ethnicity, government entities, laws and institutions, etc. All of these things are constantly changing and thus constantly changing the way they influence your behavior. All of these things are also related, if not contingent upon the physical material of the environment which is all interconnected through causality and emerges from the same mereological simples of the quantum realm.
Consider the metaphysical thought experiment concerning the compositional identity of the ship of Theseus. Just as changing out the rotted planks of wood gives the ship a fundamentally new mereological identity, so too does the mereological identity of our body change with its physical composition constantly being exchanged with the physical composition of its environment. This would also be the case with our constantly changing psychological states.
I think that in order for moral statements to be truth apt, the truth aptness must be dependent upon the psychological states (which is represented by the grammatical predicate) of individual philosophical subject (which is represented by the grammatical subject) that the statement is indexed to. Furthermore, it is necessary for moral statements to be indexed as the grammatical predicates next to the grammatical subject which represents the specific mereological identity of the individual philosophical subject relative to the sum of its mereological parts and in context with the overall state of affairs surrounding it within its environment at a particular point in history.
We can think of the environment as a mereological whole or otherwise as a complex system within a larger more complex system, within a (perhaps infinite) number of subsequent systems that are not isolated and thus are undergoing physical exchange which emerges into chemical exchange and emerges into biological, psychological, and sociological interchange between various ecological systems and living intelligent systems of individual philosophical subjects who identify themselves with the present phenomenological frame of reference within a stream of conscious experiences.
Seeing that each individual philosophical subject seems to be undergoing these constant changes that fundamentally alters their identity, it would be violating the law of identity to not consider the totality of composite material and mental parts that define the identity of an agent. Therefore, it is necessary to specify all the contextual specificities which means relativizing to such degrees of precision in order to make the moral statement in question retain meaning and be capable of being true or false. Also, it would be a violation to the law of excluded middle if a moral statement could be both true and false when indexed next to the same generic grammatical subject without specifying any differential properties or compositions to the philisophical subjects mereological identify.
I'm considering both the law of identity and the law of excluded middle here. You have heard my arguments pertaining to the physical and phenomenological composition of an individual philosophical subjects mereological identity and from there you can hopefully appreciate why I have considered all the contextual factors that go into indexicals of a moral statement. Now, consider the law of excluded middle: this law of thought states that for every proposition, either this proposition or its negation is true. Just as with the problem of navigation around the law of identity by conceding the fact that the individual philosophical subject who in a moral statement is represented by the grammatical subject (what or who the sentence is about) relates to the action or attitude towards an act, which is represented by the grammatical predicate (what the subject is or is doing) of the moral statement, it is necessary to include the specific values of all the relative contextual variables that make up the mereological sum when considering the truth value of propositions within an argument.
To get a better idea, consider the following hypothetical: an 8-year-old girl named Misty believes in Santa Claus, thus the proposition, "Misty believes in Santa Claus," is true. In one years time, the now 9-year-old girl named Misty no longer believes in Santa Claus. Does this mean that the proposition, "Misty believes in Santa Claus," is now false, thus its negation is true? Or, does this mean that both the proposition and its negation are true?
I think neither option is the case because I think that these are two different propositions about the attitudes of two different individuals. The 9-year-old Misty who doesn't believe in Santa Claus is not the same individual as she was when she was an 8-year-old girl who did believe in Santa Claus.
This is the case with regards to our physical compositions as well. If we define a person as the individual with all of the properties and mereology of composite parts who stands before us, then that person would no longer meet the compositional criteria that once defined them. I assume you realize that we are quantum systems and are thus undergoing a constant state of energy and material exchange with the quantum systems which make up our environment. Just because we are unable to distinguish between such micro-level changes does not mean that they don't occur and subsequently alter the material composition which defined us a fraction of a second before.
Quoting Constance
I'm not sure that it is possible to do so on this logic. I am afraid that such is not a requisite capability and that the truth may be that we cannot.
Quoting Constance
Pain? So morality is reducible to a hedonistic unit representing negative utility? But, pain is also subjective. Some people associate the same stimuli that others report as pain, but as pleasure. Think of the masochist. Pain seems to be just as arbitrary and mind-dependent as any other psychological state.
Quoting Joshs
I intuitively agree with that statement. Let's see, a fact is that which has been proven to be the case with evidence. That which is empirical is a type of information which is gained on the basis of experience or observation. So, empirical facts are that which has been proven to be the case with evidence derived from experience or observation. The question is, then, whether or not facts, which have been proven with evidence that we can experience or observe, are indeed dependent on and a product of subjective organization?
Subjective organization would be the organization of our subjective states. To organize something is a process of arranging things systematically, such as thoughts or statements in a logical order. What is subjective pertains to the observing subject rather than the the object being observed. Subjective states include thoughts, ideas, feelings and beliefs which have the property of being perceived rather than having the property of being an objective feature of the world. So, subjective organization would be something like a cognitive process of arranging thoughts and ideas systematically and logically in order to gain a more holistic understanding of how sensory data that you already possess can be refined into novel information that is meaningful and useful.
I would agree that we can organize specific data a priory and then draw general conclusions from it such as with an inductive inference, that goes takes specific piece of data and generalizes it into a novel idea or inference. I also understand that such information is reliant on a posteriori data that is gathered through sensory experience which can be used in a top-down process in order to see whether or not a general idea or an uncertain assumption can be logically deduced to a more specific idea or a certain conclusion—or in other words, a fact.
If this is what was the point in question was, then yes, I accept that the statement is accurate. Is there a contradiction entailed somewhere by my affirming of those propositions?
Yes, I think there is. Your model maintains a fact-value distinction that can’t justify itself, according to analytically trained philosophers like Quine, Putnam and Rorty. All facts get their sense via larger valuative schemes within which they are ensconced. It is incoherent to talk about facts or sense data that is what it is independent of the perceiver.
“Contrary to popular opinion and many philosophical epistemologies, knowledge does not involve the union or synthesis of an already existing subject and an independent object.” Mark Taylor
Subjectivity doesn’t just organize and categorize data from an presumed independent world. The subject co-creates the object.
Quoting Joshs
Just to be clear, by affirming the propositions "Empirical facts are dependent on subjective organization," and "Empirical facts are a product of subjective organization," I have somehow contradicted myself? If so, I really would like to identify it. Could you please tell me which propositions form the contradiction?
Quoting Joshs
Could you elaborate on this?
Quoting Joshs
And, could you clarify what you mean by this?
Quoting Joshs
I don't talk about sense-data that is independent of the perceiver. That is indeed incoherent.
Quoting Joshs
I agree with you fundamentally here. Most, if not all the properties associated with an object (as we experience it) are perceptually constructed and cannot belong to an object in itself independent of perception.
Quoting Pop
I am curious as to why you doubt that I would accept such a statement. It seems to be the case to me. What have I said to make you think otherwise?
I didn’t mean that you contradicted yourself. I meant that your position may contradict an enactivist or postmodern account of subjectivity.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
I’m not sure whether you mean this in a Kantian sense or a postmodern sense. Kant recognizes that there is no direct apprehension of a world, and that is what our interpretive faculties are for. But he believes that our empirical interpretations and theories strive to approximate a presumed objective world.
The enactivista believe , by contrast, that our empirical models are not an attempt to adequately represent a pre-existing external world , but the production of a world. We invent worlds to pragmatically interact with. Some of these worlds are more useful to us than others in relation to our needs and goals.
Actually I thought we were fairly close, hence my paraphrasing. I think you put it quite well in your reply to Constance. In short, morality is a function of self organization, where the preservation and continuation of self is the main issue at play, where consciousness is an evolving process of self organization, where the self evolves in line with the self organization that is achieved. Morality being a self interested expression / reflection of the state of self organization achieved at any given time.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets :up:
If we take this to its logical conclusion, it means there is no consciousness independent world. It would suggest consciousness ( as self organization ) is fundamental. ultimate , and everything in between. This relates to the fine tuning of the universe argument, in that the universe is fine tuned to self organize. Change the laws of physics just a little and things cold not self organize, they could not integrate. In such a universe information could not be integrated, consciousness could not exist, and for all intents and purposes neither could the universe. Any thoughts?
Quoting Pop
It means that we cannot experience it as it is, if it is the case that it exists as this presupposed mind-independent world. This is necessarily the case because every bit of information we seem to receive from this assumed external reality comes to us by virtue of nervous impulses in the form of electrical and chemical signals. Every bit of information comes to us through nervous signals that travel from sensory neurons exited from receiving a stimulus to carry this information through each neuron via an electrical impulse and between neurons via chemical impulse as neurotransmitters travel across the synapse and signal to downstream neurons. This process of synaptic transmission continues over networks of interconnected neurons which carry the integrating information until it reaches the brain which processes the information and communicates with the rest of the body.
That is the extent to which we know this presupposed; external, mind-independent world. Internal neural transmission of information that begins at the point of a stimulus. It is all internal but corresponds with our perceptual experience of an external environment — which is also internally constructed.
The logic leads to agnosticism regarding the existence or non-existence of an external mind-independent world. Which unfortunately renders the rest of your theory into fundamental uncertainty which contaminates our metaphysical beliefs.
Either we cannot experience it, or what we experience is all there is, all that can be, and so what there is is not a singular thing, but just many different interpretations of it.
I can not say I like it, but that's where the logic seems to lead.
Edit; Yogic logic also ends in consciousness / panpsychism.
I have read practically nothing related to postmodernism. Not that I am biased against the movement. I like Chomsky quite a bit. I very much so doubt that it deserves all of the stigma that public intellectuals such as Jordan Peterson would mark it as. I read this abstract and it reminded me of Peterson's fixation with stories, archetypes, narrative inquiries and other approaches similar to phenomenology.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-011-9216-0
I wonder if this is why Peterson paints such an detestable picture of postmodernism, and perhaps these postmodern enactivista you have introduced me to.
Quoting Pop
It is these types of conclusions which I am most attracted to and philosophically motivated towards. Such conclusions that provoke so many philosophers into engaging in desperate; emotional, and motivated reasonings in order to try and escape from such a philosophical thesis (e.g., solipsism), thereby raising such vacuous objections that are analogous to, 'It just can't be,' to which they hurl towards them because they are so hard to accept or because they threaten our total disillusionment. For these objections are meaningless and well know to be meaningless by the philosophers who make them, which I find to be both ominous and enthralling.
I think we come closer to truth when we seek out such things that others steer clear of, if we instead of deliberately overlook, then decide to peer through the depths.
The allure of these depths is hard to resist. It is what makes philosophy exciting, as there is an element of risk to it. :naughty: I don't think its ultimately solipsistic. Solipsism suggests a singularity, whereas the universe is fundamentally relational. Self organization tends toward a singularity, but never manages to achieve it - always remaining an evolving process. I would say the nucleus of self organization is empty - there is no enduring self. The self evolves and emerges. A self is created entirely of non self. The relationship of self and other ( externalities ) is the gap they both emerge into - the relationship being the basis of emergence and evolution. So, this would exclude solipsism for me, but of course it is highly idealistic.
My broad impression is of a stuff that differentiates for a time ( our lifetime ) and then recombines only to differentiate as something else at a future time. Something like a whirlpool that forms for a time in a fast flowing stream, or a fluctuation created from fluctuations. What are your thoughts?
But is this not merely dismissive of the evaluative dimension? As if it presented no qualitatively distinct feature?
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
Isn't the same true for "the grass is green"? The moment you lift a predicative finger you are already "misrepresenting" the actuality for predication is not "out there" in the grass nor in the moral agent. But once you think like this, you "relativize" all predication to a language event, and the philosophical subject is always already (to borrow a term) a grammatical subject.
This is why I claim the only way to deal with metaethics is phenomenologically. Then the grammatical or, eidetic subject (putting aside transcendental egos and the like), is deemed part of the existential actuality of the philosophical subject.
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
Of course. This is Heraclitus' world, not Parmenides'. Phenomenological frames of reference are dynamic temporal unities, but then, this makes drawing boundaries arbitrary: what is the measure of a unity in a moral regard for something? I already alluded to this earlier in my calling the world unpinnable. But it seems to be a real problem: You hold that metaethical actualities are found in the determinate moment of thought, feeling, attitude, this is not sustainable in any definite way. Right now in my occurrent frame of dispositions to make moral judgments, I don't think I should return an ax I borrowed to its owner because he is having a mental collapse. But this occurrent state is conflicted, unresolved, and my judgment is fluctuating. This is a metaethical foundation of the ethical good?
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
Quoting Cartesian trigger-puppets
You have arrived at what I would call the radically qualified locus of ethical, or any, judgment. But where is the "ought" in this account? I mean, talk about attitudes and beliefs obviously does not simply bear upon but constitute ethical judgment, granted, but this is not foundational for it lacks the elusive ethical oughts and shoulds, apparently assuming that these have no reality to consider, and that a person's dispositions to have a moral regard for some possibility exhausts the ontology of ethics.
But what of value? That is, in an occurrent ethical disposition toward X, how is this a distinctly ethical affair? A passionate regard for doing or not doing something needs its counterpart in the object of what is being decided, and this goes to the thousand natural shocks the flesh and the mind is heir to, as well as its various and sundry blisses, interests, fascinations and so forth. The "real time" ouches and thrills, from the searing pains to the glorious love affairs: without these, no ethics, without that-which-is-the-object-of-my-desire, no desire, no caring. Not hedonics, but meta-hedonics, as once an affair is stripped of its incidentals, there remains the (awkwardly put) ethical "badness" of a finger exposed to flame; a non natural quality unaccounted for once the mereological parts you underscore are suspended, analytically set aside, that is.
Quoting Pop
You don't think what is ultimately solipsistic? Reality?
I think of solipsism as a Cartesian assumption about reality. I think that the most reasonable epistemic stance would be to, not so much deny the existence of other minds, but to acknowledge them as metaphysical postulations. I think the skeptical principle thereof should be extended beyond the uncertainty of Descartes; that "cogito, ergo sum," also contains fundamental presuppositions. Namely, that this stream of conscious experience unfolding must belong to us. The famous Cartesian statement, "I think, therefore I am," thus begs the existential question with the use of the pronoun 'I'. It seems I'm drifting off-topic, but I presume that you also accept epistemological solipsism? That we can only be certain of our own minds existence (I would say, "A minds existence"), and that we cannot be certain of the existence of the external world or of the existence of other minds. I think epistemic certainty here would be the radical position since I'm representing the strongest most easily defensible solipsistic position; that of epistemic uncertainty rather than a negative claim.
Quoting Pop
Yes, solipsism is necessarily monistic. Are you using the term 'singularity in scientific terms (e.g., gravitational singularity, space-time singularity)? As in, a singularity described by general relativity as a space-time event that occurs whenever a celestial body's density and gravitational field takes on an infinite value? It doesn't seem to be what you are saying, but I can't make sense of this objection unless you are referring to the initial singularity. Such a singularity simply means a point in which a property such as density becomes infinite as a result of infinite mass being compressed to a volume of zero. This seems to be the case with respect to the current state of the universe. But, not if you are using the term colloquially as, "The state, fact, quality, or condition of being singular,"
The universe is a singularity—that is, if we ignore the theoretical multiverse. Under these terms, the universe is a singularity which is surrounded by a cosmological horizon. A cosmological horizon is analogous to the event horizon of a black hole. The event horizon of a black hole is a surface of which we cannot see into, whereas the cosmological horizon of the universe is a surface of which we cannot see outside of. If this is your objection, then I am completely lost.
Quoting Pop
Is this from, "The Self-Organizing Universe: Scientific and Human Implications," by Erich Jantsch?
The evolution of the universe presupposes an emergence of the universe itself before evolutionary processes expanded outward with increasing complexity. First, an initial singularity, followed by (the big bang, presumably) the emergence of space-time, then followed subsequently by large-scale cosmological evolution, with self-organized patterns, symmetry, and regularity. The properties of physics began. Then, through processes of physical evolution, such physical entities developed with increasing complexity, which then gave rise to chemistry. With the emergence of chemistry came processes of chemical evolution, which developed into chemical entities which continued to increase in complexity. The complexity of these evolving chemical entities continued to increase and thereby rendered the emergence of biology. Biological entities gave rise to systems with even greater levels of entropy, which then gave rise to processes of biological evolution, followed subsequently by sociocultural evolution.
In simple terms, self-organization began from a singularly and has continued as a self-contained singular entity both expanding in volume and complexity. From a bottom-up perspective, quantum states combine to form subatomic particles. Subatomic particles then undergo nuclear fusion to combine and form atoms. Atoms combine as chemical or covalent bonds which forms them into molecules. Molecules may then interact to form organic compounds such as amino acids which can form into self-replicating DNA\RNA systems that make up cellular organelles. Cellular organelles are the composite parts of cells, which have the ability to self-organize into the tissues and organs comprising the human body. Humans then continue to self-organize by exhibiting self-organizing behaviors as we develop cultures, societies, civilization, language, economics, politics, etc.
Such a view is consistent with those of the sciences and thus is a reflection in terms of a unifying paradigm of self-organization. Everything from physical self-organization to cybernetic self-organization begins first from its emergence from a system of lower level of complexity.
I apologize if this was over-exhaustive.
There may be some unintended equivocation going on with your argument regarding a self-organizing universe and your segway into the self, as in the individual subject who is the object of its own reflective consciousness. That is a concept of the self or of self-hood in terms of such fields as philosophy, psychology, phenomenology, etc. When discussing the universe, we are generally talking about a physical system wherein a process is forming an overall order to the system which emerges from the interactions of the systems internal constituents which initially disordered the system.
Anyway, such are my thoughts.
Quoting Constance
I'm not sure what this is in reply to. It seems as if what you are trying to say here is: if I'm going to relativize to individual historical agencies then hedonism [follows]. Then you refer to my statements regarding the syntactic restructuring of evaluative statements. This seems detached and perhaps is simply an unfinished thought on your end. If not, then I must be too thick to make a connection.
Quoting Constance
It doesn't appear to dismiss the evaluative dimension to me. It simply is an observation and subsequent conjecture regarding the syntactic arrangement of moral language. In the example of Andrew's moral statement, "Stealing is wrong," the syntactic arrangement of words are such that the moral predicate gives the appearance of having similar linguistic functionality as other non-evaluative descriptive predicates. The statement, "Stealing is wrong," has a descriptive declarative sentence structure that is describing the way reality is in an objective way. The moral predicate, "...is wrong," is used seemingly without any incoherence the same way as ordinary predicates such as, "...is a sphere," within the the descriptive declarative sentence: "The earth is a sphere," or within an interrogative sentence, "Is the earth a sphere?" as well as the antecedent of a conditional, "If the earth is a sphere, then...". The problem seems to be that moral predicates may be grammatically different and perhaps not logically be predicates at all. This is where the correspondence theory of truth seems to get in the way of what can be considered 'moral facts'.
You see, the statement, "The earth is a sphere," contains a predicate that is properly grammatical and logical because it is a fact of the world that the earth is a sphere. It is empirically verifiable that the earth is a sphere, and in addition, we have, and for many centuries, defined the earth as having the property of being a sphere, thus it is analytically the case as well. So the predicate is logically deductive, both synthetically and analytically, to be factual. This is because it meets the requisite criteria for truth under the framework of the correspondence theory. It corresponds with reality in an objective sense, and therefore meets the demands of the robust realists metaphysical thesis. The earth has a corresponding ontology with which to logically ground it to the descriptive predicate "...is a sphere," in a way in which we have epistemic access to both analytical and empirical evidence for justification.
It seems, then, that either moral statements are not logical, thus not predicates at all—but utterances with emotive and rhetorical functions that express the speakers emotion and persuasive influence (a form of non-cognitivism) which does not and can not correspond with the world, thus is not factual or capable of being factual because it has no ontological basis. Alternatively, moral statements could be predicates that are capable of being represented as a moral fact that corresponds with some aspect of reality (be it natural or unnatural), but no such aspect exists, thus no moral facts exist. Therefore, all moral statements are capable of being true by virtue of being represented by some aspect of the world, as a moral fact, but since there are no such aspects all moral statements are false (error theory). Or, maybe, just maybe, moral statements are logical, and thus are predicates, so long as we subscribe to a different theory of truth (e.g., pragmatic theory of truth) and rearrange the syntax of moral statements so that their grammatical errors can be elucidated with a proper interpretation of individual subjectivist metaethical semantics.
As I said in the example, it seems that in order for moral statements to be truth-apt they must be describing the psychological states of the individual subject who is a) expressing a belief, or b) performing an act that is free of cognitive dissonance, such as the the one being described in the moral statement the individual subject is indexed to. In order to do this one must change the grammatical structure of the moral statement so that the moral predicate is embedded in the moral statement as a propositional attitude ("Andrew believes that stealing is wrong").
As I said in the same example, if Andrew makes that moral statement, "Stealing is wrong," then we could simply rearrange the moral predicate so that the sentence translate into, "Andrew has a preference against stealing" or "Andrew has a negative attitude when it comes to stealing". Therefore, the statement would have a descriptive declarative sentence structure, be truth-apt as a description of Andrews psychological states and attitudes toward the act of stealing, and possibly even be true with our subscription to a pragmatic theory, or a coherence theory of truth. It would then make the example statement a true statement insofar as it is consistent with the psychological fact, or that, by considering more practical dimensions, shift away from the correspondence theory's standards for truth and fact. Remove the requisite for truth away from empirical verification and the requisite for being a fact away from this presupposed contingency for ontological representation and epistemic justification. Instead, let what makes a statement factual and true be based upon peoples intentions and meanings when describing a statement as true.
It is true that you hold your beliefs and that stands as a grounds for ethics. It may be subjective, arbitrary, unpinnable, indeterminate, etc, however it nonetheless becomes structurally established and socially malleable. If Andrew disapproves of stealing, then he can articulate whatever normative reasons for the utility of abstaining from such an act. This may or may not strike others as to render the most desirable consequence, but it has thus far and with many. There may be fundamentally irreconcilable value judgements wherein such conflicts we cannot objectively determine who is ultimately right or wrong, but we can exercise democracy and render the totality of our collective experiences maximally 'Good' insofar as the vast majority of people are able to satisfy a substantial sum of their individual subjective preferences. It will not change what morality is if it simply is based on individual dispositions undergoing phenomenological fluctuations over an evolutionary ancestry of fleeting temporal frames which are met with influential forces such as historical background information, cultural constructs, punctuated equilibrium of social norms, societal structures, etc, emergent at the lower levels of the individual who is heavily influenced by structures at higher levels, such as government and culture, which are influenced by the individual, though in relative disparity, but influenced nonetheless.
I've barely scratched the surface of my reply to you here, but hopefully I have at least made my position more clear to you, since your position, though brilliant and eloquent, is yet unclear to me.
I came upon self organization in my own quirky way ( long story ). Jantsch is the originator, I haven’t read the book, but it is a well established concept in systems, and complexity theory. Currently Neil Theise is the loudest exponent. It caught my eye in abiogenesis theory, they all posit self organization as the cause of life, even God would have to self organize / self create to come into existence. :smile: You have done an excellent job of describing it. As you can see it is fundamental and thus ubiquitous. And it seems to fit as the cause and function of consciousness: “ I think therefore I am”, reduces down to” I am consciousness”. Consciousness is tricky to define as it is endlessly variable and open ended, but it can be defined in terms of its cause and function. So I am consciousness, with a little qualification becomes “I am an evolving process of self organization”.
I arrived at this about a year ago, and have been testing it ever since. It seems to work? My interest is phenomenology, psychology, belief systems etc, this big picture stuff is a little out of my league, but self organization is a concept I cant seem to let go of and want to see through in my own way. It is an extremely powerful concept in many ways, but most of all in that it seems to be a link between consciousness and a fundamental attribute of our universe, and this impression leads me to a panpsychic understanding.
It is a concept normally used in systems and complexity theory , as you have outlined. I use it out of that context, to test it. We can define consciousness as self organization, but we cannot define self organization ( due to it being fundamental ). The best I can do is state that organization creates a self. It hasn’t been applied to phenomenology or psychology, as far as I am aware, so I am keen to see how it might fit. I think the above expression works? A self is self organizing.
It is still a work in progress. Once I have integrated it, I will compare my notes with that of others, including Jantz, but in the meantime I don’t in the hope that my personal understanding might result in something novel.
I mean singularity in a colloquial sense. Solipsism implies a mind in a vat type of situation : “solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind” - WIKI. As you say, this is a Cartesian dualist concern. I can relate to the fear of solipsism as I grew up in such a setting. These days, as a monist, I see things as systems and evolving relational processes, so such impressions are no longer relevant. As above – I am an evolving process of self organization – I can not be certain of anything! :lol: But seriously, I think this is closer to the truth.
** In short yes , I think everything is mind dependent, but consciousness is a mental modeling of an external world ( composed almost entirely of external information ), so Solipsism in its extreme ( mind in a vat ) doesn't make sense to me. A highly idealistic reality sounds more apt.
Quoting Constance
When a speaker says, "The grass is green," they are making a statement in the form of a simple declarative sentence. A simple declarative sentence has a simple sentence structure consisting of both a grammatical subject, "The grass...," and a grammatical predicate, "...is green,". This sentence structure expresses a descriptive statement conveying qualitative information about the grammatical subject by the grammatical predicate without indicating approval or disapproval. The predicate, "...is green," is the logical affirmation of the chromatic quality of the subject, "The grass...," because the quality that is being predicated about the subject satisfies a correspondence form of epistemic justification by virtue of empirical evidence. This means that the predicate is both a synthetic and analytic truth because not only is it true by virtue of its meaning, but it is also true by virtue of the way the world is.
In simple terms, if we want to be certain about our beliefs, then we should seek justification for our beliefs. Even out simplest, most obvious beliefs such as, "The grass is green,". One way to justify our beliefs is to have good reasons for holding our beliefs. Your example is a good way to illustrate such a basic starting point:
1. I see that the grass is green.
2. Seeing that X implies that X.
Together, these beliefs seem to give us good reason to believe the proposition:
3. The grass is green.
There is, of course, a deep epistemic problem with our justification. Even if it seems that we have justified our belief (represented by proposition 3) through the combination of our supporting beliefs (represented by propositions 1 and 2), the justification of our belief that proposition 3 is justified is contingent upon the truth that our supporting beliefs (represented by propositions 1 and 2) are true, and thus they too must be justified. If in order for a belief to be justified, we are epistemically required to provide reasons in the form of additional supporting beliefs, and if these supporting beliefs likewise require subsequent justification from additional supporting beliefs, and this continues ad infinitum, then we are met with a problem known as infinite regress. This I fully appreciate and concede to. But, this problem does not render reason to be useless, nor does it mean that by utilizing reason as much as is possible and practicable that we cannot progress our understandings of the world. This is admittedly an appeal to possibility, but not in argument for truth, but rather for hope.
As the subject who is a conscious being and observer, you are an entity that can form relationships with other entities that exists outside yourself. These other entities are the objects, or the things observed by you. You are the observing subject and the grass is the object which is being observed. As you observe this object, your brain captures a high-resolution image of the object in the retina as sensory sheets of photo-sensitive neurons 'light up' in excited states responding to the external visual-stimulus event as you encounter waves of propagating electromagnetic energy emissions from the environment.
You experience this entity as the 3-dimensional stimuli map on a high-resolution image onto the optics of your eye. Then geometric and chromatic transformation maps neighboring points of the object to neighboring photoreceptors in the retina. Neuronal projections from the retina to the visual cortical areas preserve the neighborhood relations between the interacting points, lines, contours, etc, of the object and retinal photoreceptors to map a receptive field to interpret the local interactions and create a 2-dimensional image with green color sensation and sensory perception.
This geometric and chromatic transformation of the three-dimensional object into a two-dimensional representational image is produced as our visual nervous system processes the energy carried by photons of electromagnetic radiation. The nervous system is triggered by the physical stimulus and responds by transmitting electric and chemical messages to the brain through a series of operations in the occipital lobe of the cerebral cortex which processes the stimulus into information. The information derived from the external stimuli is used to form a representation of the object and then transform this representation into a visual percept that reflects the physical characteristics of the objects points, lines, angles, surfaces and shapes against the background of the environment. This is an explanation of what is happening from an internal perspective.
From an external perspective, what is happening is that the grass, which is an opaque physical object, has come into contact with electromagnetic radiation. The grass absorbs the blue (ultraviolet), long-wavelengths and the red (infrared), short-wavelengths and reflects the green medium-wavelengths. These reflected medium-wavelengths are an external stimulus which stimulates the photo receptors cells located on the retina of our eyes which enter an excited state in response to the external stimulus. The electromagnetic radiation of certain wavelengths produce chromatic signals which transmits information by the eye to the visual cortex where these messages are then processes within the brain which produces the sensation of green as it is converted into a symbolic representation.
The three primary colors of visible light come in wavelengths of blue, green and red. If these three wavelengths of light are beamed onto the same spot the blue, green and red light will combine into white light. Grass looks green because as white light containing all three primary colors from the visible spectrum makes contact with the opaque surface of the grass the red and blue wavelengths are absorbed into the chloroplasts of the grass for photosynthesis and the green wavelengths of light that remain are then reflected back.
There may not be a way for me to justify the proposition, "The grass is green," with complete epistemic certainty (and this is an important thing to remember when considering between theories of truth), however, as you can see, robust models with ample explanatory power and predictive capabilities can and are constructed and reconstructed through paradigmatic shifts with the progression of our knowledge over time. This, I argue, is why reason is useful for us. And, one reason why a pragmatic theory of truth may better guide us at this level. A correspondence theory of truth laid the groundwork for our reason and evaluation of the world as we can experience it, but technology has extended the scope in which our experience can apprehend reality and it is clear that it can no longer reliably report the true nature of the world at scales in which our intuition and sensory apparatus have not been adapted or equipped to observe or understand. For example, we see our hand as a solid object that is part of us, but the actual physical composition of this object is 99.99+ percent empty space that consists of only quantum fields surrounding the nucleus of every constituent atom. What is more, these atomic constituents are in constant exchange with the entire universe and originally emerged within unimaginably large nuclear reactors called stars, and a proportion of the atoms of you right hand likely came from stars of different galaxies than the atoms of your left hand. Galaxies that we can see in our night sky, without the aid of technology, as they were billions of years ago. The models that offer this insight into reality are produce the most accurate and dependable predictions ever made. We would be foolish to not appreciate what it is they are trying to tell us and equally foolish to think we can accurately interpret the totality of what they mean.