The structure of a moral claim to truth
I (and perhaps @Banno) recently read an unpublished professional paper in defense of a recent book of Cora Diamond's, Going on to Ethics (she was a colleague of Anscombe's). The author says Diamond is attempting to associate a sense of truth with a moral claim, that, e.g., "All People are Created Equal", is, as I would put it, a summary of a cultural roadmap (Diamond says a thought-guide) and it is true in that it was done well, as Aristotle says, rather than poorly, e.g., not seeing the claim is without an antithesis or negation; not seeing an expression does not operate like a word, not labeling some thought as "nonsense" but seeing it as unproductive, going astray; that part of epistemology is ethical.
The author was unfortunately so concerned with an ethical claim having the same value as a true/false statement (ensuring certainty) or having correspondence to reality (completeness, without any need for me), that he just tried to make moral truths fit those pictures, meet those standards, rather than see how they work in themselves--despite their ability to be justified, not seeing they go beyond knowledge. The problem he worried on was the fear of relativism. That, even with a best-case claim like "slavery is unjust" (much less something controversial, like "Black Lives Matter") is subject to the criticism that it is either unjustifiable as a true statement (just an opinion or "belief"), or is simply an individual thought, or worse, a feeling--so you, or another culture, may think, judge, feel entirely differently, however you like.
I agree with Diamond in that the structure of a moral claim is not a statement (known to be true), but that it is a claim that expresses my/our poverty or wellness (our character Aristotle, Cicero, and Emerson say). My claim is not a theory but my pledge to be responsible for its state (its life or death), ready to act in its defense, to explicate what is summarized. And the claim is not my individual thought, but in the terms of, and in it's place in, our history, our culture, our means of judgment, (all) our interests embodied in life, etc. It is not made just (only) for myself, but on behalf of everyone--I/we Declare (to all of you) that "all people are created equal", that it Constitutes us, who we are, say, as Americans, for all humans. You may say whatever you want, but you can be read by your claim, are defined in it: what you think, you are.
Now such a truth may not be done well, but this is not to say it is a belief or opinion as the antithesis of truth with force through justification. To say it is "political" is not to say it is "rhetorical" (empty words), though it may be dead to degenerate times, a slogan, a platitude, said as mere quotation; and not yet fully realized (as in materialized, thus I am always part hypocrite); nor may it end up as universally agreed (though that is possible).
Diamond gave an example that a slave owner might free a slave in court and give the reason that all men are created equal. The argument for the truth of the claim is the act (expression) of one person freeing another they owned, as a testament, a tangible proof. We see the aspect of it (Wittgenstein says); the way it works is that we accept it (our responsibility in it), we (all of us) are the state of its truth. So that is to say that black lives matter is not a statement corresponding to something true (or false) or real, to be argued as a theory for a conclusion; it is a claim as if to re-found a country.
The author was unfortunately so concerned with an ethical claim having the same value as a true/false statement (ensuring certainty) or having correspondence to reality (completeness, without any need for me), that he just tried to make moral truths fit those pictures, meet those standards, rather than see how they work in themselves--despite their ability to be justified, not seeing they go beyond knowledge. The problem he worried on was the fear of relativism. That, even with a best-case claim like "slavery is unjust" (much less something controversial, like "Black Lives Matter") is subject to the criticism that it is either unjustifiable as a true statement (just an opinion or "belief"), or is simply an individual thought, or worse, a feeling--so you, or another culture, may think, judge, feel entirely differently, however you like.
I agree with Diamond in that the structure of a moral claim is not a statement (known to be true), but that it is a claim that expresses my/our poverty or wellness (our character Aristotle, Cicero, and Emerson say). My claim is not a theory but my pledge to be responsible for its state (its life or death), ready to act in its defense, to explicate what is summarized. And the claim is not my individual thought, but in the terms of, and in it's place in, our history, our culture, our means of judgment, (all) our interests embodied in life, etc. It is not made just (only) for myself, but on behalf of everyone--I/we Declare (to all of you) that "all people are created equal", that it Constitutes us, who we are, say, as Americans, for all humans. You may say whatever you want, but you can be read by your claim, are defined in it: what you think, you are.
Now such a truth may not be done well, but this is not to say it is a belief or opinion as the antithesis of truth with force through justification. To say it is "political" is not to say it is "rhetorical" (empty words), though it may be dead to degenerate times, a slogan, a platitude, said as mere quotation; and not yet fully realized (as in materialized, thus I am always part hypocrite); nor may it end up as universally agreed (though that is possible).
Diamond gave an example that a slave owner might free a slave in court and give the reason that all men are created equal. The argument for the truth of the claim is the act (expression) of one person freeing another they owned, as a testament, a tangible proof. We see the aspect of it (Wittgenstein says); the way it works is that we accept it (our responsibility in it), we (all of us) are the state of its truth. So that is to say that black lives matter is not a statement corresponding to something true (or false) or real, to be argued as a theory for a conclusion; it is a claim as if to re-found a country.
Comments (70)
Yep. Me too. Except.....
Quoting Antony Nickles
......if it is my claim, and expresses that pledge, why isn’t it only my poverty or wellness my claim expresses? Furthermore.....
Quoting Antony Nickles
.....if it is my (moral) claim, how can it not be from my (moral) thought? And if that is the case, what right do I have to pledge to be responsible on behalf of everyone, for that which only expresses only my (moral) poverty or wellness?
Quoting Antony Nickles
“He” being the author critiquing Diamond, sounds a lot like the opening comment. It looks like spreading MY moral claims, or the personal claims of individuals represented as each “my”, over everybody, is fear of moral relativism. I must say I admit to making no moral claims for anyone else, and reject the notion of anyone making any moral claims I must regard without self-counsel, which makes explicit moral relativism.
Do you think there is an intrinsic gap between moral claims and ethical claims?
It is not my claim, as in my thought or my statement (that is not the structure, the grammar). I accept its claim on me. It is my willingness to be responsible for it that is my claiming it. And the wellness and poverty is not about me, but how well it is responded for--its state in culture as truth.
Quoting Mww
It is, as Kant would say, expressed in a universal voice (the 3rd critique). It is as if to speak for everyone; but not to impose or override their voice. Your acceptance of it is to see for yourself whether you would be willing to take ownership of it, be seen by it, as well.
Quoting Mww
When I say "my", I could as well say "our", or more technically, it is our culture's. As I said in the post, it is not the individual vs. anything--it is the individual's part in truth.
Quoting Mww
The words have lost any true sense of individuation, but I take a moral or ethic in the sense of a rule, or standard (determined beforehand); whereas the moral realm, and its claim on us, is when we are lost as to what to do, or that we are necessarily a part of what is ongoing.
I take dialectic to be a process of arriving at a sense of truth by logical argument. It implies that we have come to a conclusion that all people are created equal, rather than it being something I (we) declare as true, and then answer for that stance. The way this works is that one takes it as their own conviction, but that does not mean that you were persuaded to my statement nor to something that is just variable or temporary, etc. There are ordinary criteria, history, context, etc., that exist already, and thus there is a structure that allows for rationale, the individual logic of such a thing, precision, specificity, etc. What makes the sense of "Truth" as certainty is the imposition of our measure of a true statement (thanks Plato). The reason why the moral realm is subject to the charge of being merely "rhetorical", or just words that are empty, is because it is up to us to fill them.
Quoting tim wood
The idea of moral as "ought" is not just the measurement of the current state of our world compared to what we would like it to be. If the question is: what should (ought) I do? there is no general answer to that as there is no determination of what to do without a situation, but also because to decide in advance is to think we can account for every application.
The fact that every person is not currently equal is a measure of our culpability. The extent to which we are created equal is open to debate. But, structurally, the kind of claim I am discussing is not an epistemological one, nor an ideal or aspiration. We create or latch on to these dichotomies to avoid our responsibility, our part in a moral world.
Indeed, I did, but I have not read Diamond, so I'm not in a position to be critical of her work.
My own thinking on the topic owes much to the Direction fo Fit stuff from Anscombe, which I am finding quite useful. Moral claims differ from, say, physicist's claims in that the physicist seeks to match their words to the world, while the moralist seeks to match the world to their words.
Having said that, there seems no prima facie reason that a moral statement cannot be considered truth-apt; After all, "it is good to feed the starving" is true if and only if it is good to feed the starving.
But then, I wonder if something like "Slavery is unjust" is a moral statement. After all, that slavey is unjust simply follows from what slavery is, in conjunction with what justice is. Further, moral statements imply an action; "Slavery is unjust" does not of itself imply an action. To get there we need another rule, something like, "reject injustice!" - and that is where morality enters the discussion.
A conclusion from an argument deemed to be valid is one sense of truth, as a statement that is judgeed to be true or false. Some truth is not at the end of reasoning with a criteria imposed to ensure an outcome, mostly certainty, universality, determined application, etc. The dichotomy that anything else is rhetoric is forced by the abstraction from ordinary means of assessing value, determining identity, acting appropriately, etc., which criteria comes from the thing itself; here, the form of a moral claim, which I am saying is categorical.
The possibilities of a moral claim are only contingent on us, our willingness to stand for what is meaningful in it. But the history and criteria of the truth that all people are created equally are not irrational, various, insubstantial. But it is powerless as an argument to independently explain or logically force you, as if it were proposed to you as a hypothesis. It is not a proof of what was or is, to be solved; it is a demand, an insistence, brought alive, to be witnessed, accepted.
This is not to ask a small concession in the face of science or logic. As I said, this is a claim made on everyone. What is it, or why is it, that we cannot, or will not, accept that everyone is created equal? Maybe there is an example I could show you, an implication that needs description, the picture of an alternative drawn, etc., but anything would be something you could see for yourself (is self-evident, as it were). A moral claim is categorical because it, say another's equality, is a claim on you, and thus your rejection defines you; who you are/will be is contingent upon it.
And so a moral truth is not a noun or a thing--the opposite of it is not a falsity or a lie. The state of its being true is held by us. Its substance is what is meaningful to us, what expresses our interests, our judgments, our possibilities.
A moral claim is not gauged by generalized criteria. Our lives have specific histories of judgments and interests and what matters, but the difference in this question is not a matter of judging its adequacy, but accepting its implications for you, for the other.
That sounds like consequentialism, a full-fledged although incomplete moral theory, unless you have something else in mind when you speak of "implications".
Sounds suspiciously like fear of context rather than relativism.
'Slavery is unjust' is not a True statement as far as I can tell. By this I mean in the Master Slave dynamic there can be good and bad Masters and Slaves, much in the manner that Aristotle outlined. That said, in ancient Greece/Athens 'slavery' was not the same as elsewhere and the dynamics and laws surrounding the history of slavery have never been identical (ie. killing a slave was illegal in some societies and not in others).
The question I would have is if the author is tending towards some form of moral absolutism or not? If they are I cannot see how they would convince me.
Saying something is a moral truth just makes itself out to be a subtler way of claiming a moral absolute that even refuses to be held up to enquiry.
At first glance, that’s a confusion of aesthetic judgements with strictly moral judgements. Are you saying the willingness to be responsible is an aesthetic quality?
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Quoting Antony Nickles
Are you saying it would be better if moral claims did contain truths, and from that, given the general inclination to follow the law contained in truths, we’d be less lost as to what to do?
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Compliments on the infusion of the third critique. Can you say what percentage of your philosophy with respect to this thread is influenced by it? I mean, you did bring it up.......
I wouldn't worry so much about whether moral statements are truth-apt though. Pragmatically, I would say that anything one can assert or reject is perforce truth-apt. And I think that the take on a moral assertion as a "pledge to be responsible for its state" applies somewhat to other kinds of assertions as well. Assenting to a statement is a pledge to proceed in accordance with that statement - anything else would be disingenuous or vacuous.
Why not?
'Slavery is unjust' is true IFF slavery is unjust.
Slave: A person who is the legal property of anther and forced to obey them
Justice: Being fair and reasonable
One person being the legal property of anther, especially after an act of kidnap, is not fair and reasonable.
All this before looking to see if one ought be fair and reasonable.
I believe this was discussed at the meeting. Diamond's addition to this was I believe that this was not like an empirical assessment, nor that any disparity from what is the case detracts from the truth of a moral claim. This diverges from Anscombe I'm sure but I wouldn't know how.
Quoting Banno
I agree that we could say that here we are simply stating something about slavery, or even, grammatically (categorically), that part of justice is freedom. But those are not to claim this as a truth in instant sense, simply that these statement are true (or claimed to be). All people are created equal is a type of claim that is not in the same category (it has a different grammar), and there is more to it than what simply follows from it as a statement.
Quoting Banno
I understand where you're coming from; standard moral issues amount to, what should we do? (particularly when we are in a new context or our criteria/justifications run out). I would differentiate these kind of claims because there we are discussing or judging the matter beforehand as to what is best or right (or good, at times).
Quoting tim wood
The substance of a moral truth I do not believe will assuage the desire for a kind that fits the picture for
the criteria we wish to impose. Here, though, I think the best analogy is Wittgenstein's discussion of blurry concepts, vagary, generality, etc.--the insight that a general claim can be more meaningful than a specific one, more appropriate than limiting its senses (and here "sense" is meant in the way Wittgenstein sees that an expression, like "I know" has different options/opportunities (senses) to be meaningful--even that we might not realize until the expression, at a time and place in a context).
And so our example, that everyone is created equal, has multiple possibilities which need not be reconciled together for the claim to be meaningful (yet not whatever you'd like); in fact, it is more important to us because it, as I said, is a summary of all the depth of truth which it contains: that we are the same more than we are different; that despite our divergent paths, we started in the same place and so our differences are situational; that equality is inherent, essential to everyone, as if we were born with it in us; that everyone should be treated with equal dignity, etc. The depth and breadth here is not limited by the desire for certainty that creates the picture of the singularity of "meaning".
I'm not discussing a moral theory. I mean implications here as like Wittgenstein's grammar. Not that we are considering the consequences in making a decision before taking action, but that there are categorical ways in which we must take action for it to be such a thing. When we make a claim such as this, we commit ourselves, etc. That is what it means, what is implied, in the doing of it, being said to have done it. This is the structure I am discussing.
Diamond proposes that a moral claim can be general, as universally claimed, but still with a context because it has a history, its possibilities of interpretation, a way that it works, which, most importantly, is that I am claiming it (as discussed above, along with an example of how it is seen as begging relativism).
Quoting I like sushi
It is not claimed as a true statement (that's not how it works).
Quoting I like sushi
As I've discussed above, the claim is made upon us all, universally, but it is not a standard, nor does it claim any authority, as it is something you have to see for yourself. We could call it a principal, in that it is initially, fundamentally to be accepted. You need not be convinced, but you do take it as a conviction. As you must accept it, you can reject it, but, as well, then you are the person who has turned your back on it.
The claim of a moral principal and an aesthetic judgment are expressed in a similar structure, subject to the same acceptance or rejection, with the same powerlessness to resolve other than you seeing what I have drawn your attention to, within the form of each thing.
Also, someone could willingly become a slave. I’m sure you’ve read Aristotle on this. The situation could very well be beneficial to both but in the way we frame the picture of ‘being a slave’ today is probably skewed more toward unjust slavery not slavery as a whole.
In the sense that when we ask is slavery good or bad in the general way most people refer to it I’d say it is clearly bad. Unjust? That depends if and only if it has bee dealt out unjustly otherwise we could then find ourselves calling any punishment for any crime ‘unjust’ (which it may well be but I doubt that would gain much traction with many folk).
The New Wittgenstein
A few key points associated with Cora Diamond et al as regards Wittgenstein:
1.,Philosophical problems are symptoms of illusions [betwitchment by language]
2. Therapeutic philosophy [recognizing 1 and doing something about it]
I have a vague idea of what this is all about. Moral claims can't be true i.e. when someone claims everyone is equal, a moral claim, he does not do so because it is true, incidentally it isn't. Ergo, moral claims must be about something else - bewitchment by language? What that something else is...???
The idea of wanting something to be "truth-apt" is to have something to depend on, justify our acts, ensure agreement, etc. The sense of a statement that is true or false takes our place--which I say is the structure of a moral claim, in our having to be true to something.
Quoting SophistiCat
J.L. Austin says that our word is our bond (Emerson would say we are bound to it, fated). Cavell puts it that we can be read in our expressions, that we can be asked to answer for them. Wittgenstein will say that I can see what you are going to do, even if you are not aware. I can understand what you've said, more even than you. This is part of my accepting a moral principal, though we may not necessarily have a direction (being told what to do).
I am interested in the performance of "accepting" a claim without doing anything; I've called this platitudes, slogans, quotations; but that is to put the responsibility on the speech, not the speaker. This is why Cicero claimed that who a speaker was, their character, was integral to a good speech, because we are involved. This is why Plato decried "rhetoric", because he did not want us in the picture; our partiality, limitation, lying, hypocrisy, vacuousness, propagandizing, etc.
Yes, I'm saying Plato was wrong. The distinction between truth and rhetoric that he made was to hold knowledge to a certain standard, which involved erasing our everyday criteria, which is to say us, people, as imbedded in our culture, institutions, language, etc., but also to remove our part in our moral acts, which I am saying here is the categorical necessity for this sense of a truth, we are required; though we certainly run from that obligation (perhaps even creating a hidden world to be/do what we do not want to). The sense of rhetoric as words that mean or do nothing is because of the fact that we can mean them, as in be willing to stand by them, to have such an expression fully and completely express me just then to you about whether we will accept that all people are created equal; to express me as a person, as one who judges, as a citizen in a country founded on the principal.
Quoting tim wood
It may be a matter of my knowledge of myself, my learning of my interests, what I will answer for in having said it, as if it were what I'd die for.
Quoting tim wood
And you might say, look: they are born into poverty, physically different, etc. which are empirical answers, but this is not an empirical claim. I don't think it, I proclaim it. This is not a claim of knowledge. Knowing what we do already, I am pronouncing that all people are created equal, say, that we each create ourselves in every moral utterance, what we say to something asked of us, in responding to which we are implicated, compromised by (comprised of), created in.
Quoting tim wood
You are as much the evidence as I, a source of finding reason in it, for it, an interest, a cause. Modern philosophy would say evidence would be how the things we say about it show us how it works to be meaningful. You may be looking for a different kind of evidence; looking for that is where Plato went wrong.
Quoting tim wood
And now you want me to say Kant (or Hume, etc.) was wrong too. The desire for necessity, motivation, cause, power, control, force, normativity, is that then I will know how to predict you, I will be certain I am doing the right thing. But with the kind of truth I am looking at, the after is more important than the before. Not in terms of weighing consequences in making a decision, but what we set ourselves to, without being moved to, other than perhaps for who I am to be in relation.
I thought your opinion would be the exact opposite. Morality is not observable in the real world - some ants take slaves. Morality is made up by humans like math (see :point: math is made up - your thread)
That doesn't say anything about whether justice is some objective feature of the world. My concern would begin with whether justice was real or just a social construct. I suspect the latter, but tend to live life as if the former were true.
We don't think ant slavery is unjust because ants are not creatures which take justice into consideration. But then we might say the same for the universe, which counts for justice being an idea we made up and try to apply to human interaction. But there's probably an evolutionary reason for that. Thing is that evolution does not meet the criteria for justice, but it does provide some grounding for the origination of the idea.
Humans need to cooperate, and treating each other fairly is a good way to do that. And when people don't, we get angry and wish to punish the unjust, because that usually motivates people to act fairly, which is in our survival interest. Or something along those lines.
Skipping over that we are not necessarily talking about a claim of how to act, my betterment (or dissolution) is part of my consideration in claiming the truth, as it involves what I become in the act.
Quoting I like sushi
I am not claiming an authority or standard, nor that we must even agree on what is meaningful about it for us both to accept it in a sense that matters. But mostly to say that the exact point, the thing that makes this a moral truth, is that it is something I accept to answer for in having claimed it, open to investigation, deeper understanding.
Indeed but...the fact remains, morality is an anthropic notion having no parallel in the rest of the living world. One might come up with some idea and attendant principles, call it morality, and deduce moral truths from them. However, like Lobachevsky and Bolyai found out with geometry, there really is no need to be stuck in any system of morality no matter how much it feels true.
Quoting Marchesk
Yes, it appears that social existence is key to the question of morality, gives it some semblance of truth and objectivity but note this is telelogical in character - morality (justice) is needed to run society in the best way possible, its truth is secondary or irrelevant.
Yeah, you can see this if you challenge the morality of humans continuing to survive. They you can't use the argument that justice is good for society, since the existence of society is now under question, morally speaking. Which some environmentalists and anti-natalists do on grounds of hedonism or concern for other living species. What possible fact about the world would settle that dispute?
It's just for humans to survive. Is that statement truth-apt?
This is again to want something's being "true" to be the reason why we claim it; truth here being a standard that moral claims can not meet because they do not work like how a proposition or statement are true. This is what the bewitchment of language allows for: that since one word can mean one thing (a certain way), we take all language to mean one thing in the same way. But claiming a moral truth works differently. The value it has is to the extent we are willing to relinquish the judgment of it and allow for the reasoning it has, prepared to see ourselves in its expression.
Quoting TheMadFool
Well, but not like math though. And we also "made up" carpentry, and international tariffs, and apologizing, and dancing, and vengeance, and fairness. The sense of truth which I am discussing is tied to the world as much as the life of etiquette. Justice can be corrupted, perverted, politicized, and simply die. Moral truth is kept alive through us, made up of us.
Noble Lie/Gennaion Pseudos/Pious Fiction: Religion and its baby Morality
Quoting Antony Nickles
.....does that mean not a known true statement, or, not a statement at all? I took it to mean not a statement at all, insofar as I hold the structure of moral claims to be grounded in the moral feeling alone. The expression of my poverty or well-being is also derived from feelings, but the pledge respecting that expression is a statement, and because it expresses a subjective condition a priori, it must be known by me to be true.
Then you continue with.....
Quoting Antony Nickles
...which appears to say, the structure of a moral claim is not a statement but it is a claim that expresses. But a claim that expresses can very well be a statement known to be true. Continuing....
Quoting Antony Nickles
.....it must be assumed my poverty or wellness regards a moral condition, for it is certain the moral condition is the only condition for which full responsibility can be pledged.
But still, the structure of a moral claim......not a statement, an expression by pledge, a pledge of acceptance, acceptance of responsibility, responsibility of my poverty or wellness, my moral poverty or wellness.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
This is what happens when language philosophy is treated as something useful. That a moral claim can be general, is very far from the claiming of it, and is the root of the haphazardness of the entire discussion. Diamond.....or you.....should have said, a moral claim-ing can be general, which means anyone can do it, which is certainly a true moral statement. Everyone DOES claim his morals, comes implicit in being a moral agent.
When you say, “I am claiming it”, you intend to be understood as staking a claim on, taking possession of, subscribing to....some personal moral dictation. Which is what every moral agent already does; it is how he IS a moral agent in the first place. The claiming you’re doing, the claim you stake, the subscription to which you hold, is merely the principle of your responsibility for your moral poverty or wellness. All well and good, couldn’t be otherwise. But to say you are claiming responsibility for mine, or that I pledge anything about yours, is outside the realm of moral consideration. Hence, the question concerning the relation between morals to ethics.
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It’s easy to lay claim; it’s impossible to lay claim without thinking about it. Given enough thought, a theory falls out naturally, and from that, it is clear....
Quoting Antony Nickles
.....is only superficially true, insofar as aesthetic judgements are grounded in a subjective condition with respect to empirical predicates, re: the beautiful, but the claim of a moral principle, claim here taken from your implication of staking a claim in a moral principle, claim-ing a moral principle, taking possession of it implicitly re: the sublime, in your case apparently, responsibility, are grounded in a subjective condition predicated on pure practical reason. Similar structure in subjective condition, but nonetheless very different in their respective expressions, the former being a judgement expresses as a cognition, the latter being necessary ground for the judgement, expressed as a feeling.
Even language philosophers, with all the needless verbiage of context and usefulness and whatnot, must acknowledge that no principle can be itself a judgement. Still, without a theory to show how, which Everydayman doesn’t care about but still feels, while the philosopher must because he feels, it’s easy to lay claim to a principle without ever considering the source of it, and consequently, the truth of its necessity.
The structure of a moral claim to truth....is its principle.
Let's just say that there is more than one sense of truth. One basic sense is where you accept or reject a proposition. This sense is well tracked by language: pretty much anything that can be stated as a meaningful proposition is truth-apt in that sense. But then, as you point out, there are senses that extend beyond one person and past the here-and-now.
Quoting Antony Nickles
There clearly is a sense of morality that does not necessarily imply action. Otherwise we couldn't have had moral attitudes towards past events, or generally anything in which we cannot partake or just don't happen to have an occasion to partake, and that's clearly not true. One can moralize without acting - indeed, since "passions" are what motivate and guide our actions in the first place, how could they not precede actions? And when one fails to act, that doesn't retrospectively render one's attitudes amoral.
Morality is, as you say, a commitment that one takes upon oneself: commitment to be and to do as a moral principle demands of you. But such a commitment does not arise just at the moment "when we are lost as to what to do." Just as with morally-neutral decisions, at the point when a decision is contemplated, all the beliefs and attitudes that will inform that decision are usually already in place. And just as with non-moral beliefs and attitides, that is possible because we have been developing those beliefs and attitudes all throughout our lives, long before this particular action opportunity presented itself.
Not a statement known or judged to be true or false, so, not a statement (is there any other); the idea of a declaration is more appropriate, announcing to everyone that it is me staking myself to this truth. This is not a feeling, say, Humean. A moral truth is part of our world (there are criteria and rationale) though not a claim about the state of the world.
Quoting Mww
Diamond.....or you.....should have said, a moral claim-ing can be general, which means anyone can do it, which is certainly a true moral statement.[/quote]
I meant general, as not specific (see discussion above re Wittgenstein), but also that I claim it to be a truth for all of us, which is a claim to community as much as it is to truth.
Quoting Mww
Your responsibility is your own, but I hold this truth to be available to both of us, acceptable to both of us, but that you must come to it yourself or reject it, and, though, your reasons may be yours alone, that you are categorically answerable to them.
Quoting Mww
My point in drawing a connection is that an aesthetic claim is made as universal, in the sense that you can see it for yourself in what I show you that can be seen. This is not a claim of a subjective condition, or a justification from a subjective position (I don't want to go down a Kantian rabbit-hole, but it is along the lines of the form of the beautiful). To say it is "subjective" is to judge the personal by the desired, imposed criteria of certainty, the achievement of which is the erasure of our responsibility for truth entirely.
Quoting Mww
Your characterization of the acceptance of a moral truth implicitly, as in the sense of without question or reservation, is not the structure of the acceptance; I am accepting to be responsible for it, to it. My reasons are my own, as are my reservations. In addition, I am not accepting one thing, or asking you to do the same, for my or a set of reasons which we agree to, but within its depth and breadth, though perhaps not to all of it, but which is mine to be held to, by.
Quoting Mww
I am pointing out a categorical requirement, apart from the picture of only a dichotomy of reason or feeling (irrationality). I call it categorical because it is implicit of the structure of what a moral truth is, my part in it, to it, is part of its grammar as Wittgenstin will call it.
Quoting Mww
There is no necessity for it except that which you see in it, or are willing to be answerable for in its rejection, to endlessly attempt to reconcile ourselves within it, to it, of which we are the source (not my reason or feeling, independent of my responsiveness).
So that it is made up makes it not truth-apt? But "1+1=2" is true; and so is "The bishop stays on the same colour squares" and "slavery is unjust".
But it might be worth considering further. Let's look at Anscombe's shopping list. If it is a list of all the things she bought, it will be true if it lists all and only the things she bought. If it is a list of the things she is intending to buy, is it still true if it lists all and only the things she intends to buy...? I'm wiling to consider alternatives.
As to the justice of slavery: 's reply misses the relation between justice and slavery, perhaps because Sushi seems to think of justice in terms of punishment - "payment for one's actions" - rather than equity. To understand justice one needs to go further by realising that "payment" implies a reciprocity between one's actions and what one deserves; justice insists that what one person deserves for a given action be the same as for another. Here's a good definition of justice:
Being forced into voluntary slavery is not an example of justice. The injustice implicit in slavery is in the inherent inequity it introduces between slave and owner.
And taking that even further, it is entirely consistent for someone to agree that slavery is unjust, and yet also keep slaves; provided they reject the moral imperative that one ought be just. That's one of @Marchesk's points.
Quoting Marchesk
Social constructs are not real? That's not quite right. Injustice is very real. Again, thinking in terms of justice not being an "objective feature of the world" obscures its import. Objective or not, it is a feature of the world! Always remove "objective" and "subjective" from an utterance in order to check what work they are doing.
So, @TheMadFool, you are right that there is a sentiment in some who read Wittgenstein to say that moral statements are not truth-apt. I'm not convinced by their arguments. But the point that moral truths are not found by examining how things are holds; the direction of fit is muddled.
I'll go over the difference in direction of fit one more time. To decide if "the cat is on the mat" or "The cat is not on the mat", one looks at how the world is, and makes a choice as to which words fit. But making observations is of no help in deciding if "the cat ought be on the mat" or "the cat ought not be on the mat" is true. Rather these last are an expression of an intent to act upon the world.
(Note the distinction between equity and equality used here.)
:up:
If we consider that not every act is intentional (chosen), but nevertheless certain acts include being willing to answer for them (more than just "did you intend to...?), then we are not like the investigator, who may get the record of the world wrong, but we also would not be said to have made a mistake in what we intended (to do). The mistake we may be said to make in relation to a truth is that we wish to excuse ourselves of our obligation to it, our promise to stand for it (to welch, I think Austin says); we may have made an error in the sense of not realizing the terms and implications I was committing to, but this is not to denigrate its truth, but, reflect on me.
Quoting Banno
The direction we take is thus not towards the world, to express it correctly, truthfully, but towards our desires and intentions. I would qualify this as the expression of those in this case, which is to say the history of the things that have been said about this truth. And, since our language contains our interests and judgments in the world, that they reflect on ourselves. Do I fit the life (the list) of what our truths are to be?
And I am taking a moral claim as a conclusion of what we ought to do, as different than a truth we are asked to accept absent a call to a specific action, not decided before taking, in light of taking, or what that act should be. The necessity for action is as yet undetermined, but I nevertheless am in position to choose whether I will stand ready (thereafter) in response (either way).
Quoting Marchesk
Your acceptance of a claim of what justice is thus appears contingent on your knowledge of it. And one answer I take as a wish that there was a fact about it, and the other would be some sense that we made it up or agreed to it, as if there were no necessary fact about it. I would say there is no "fact" about a moral truth that will satisfy the criteria to obviate your place in the state of its truth, but that, nevertheless, it is not insupportable, only not without our part, our bringing them to life, carrying them forward in our culture, adapting them to new contexts, allowing them to constitute us and compromise us.
Wittgenstein declares that we are not of the opinion (that it is not a matter of knowledge) that the other has a soul (p. 179). An aspect, a possibility, dawns on me (or we are blind to it) and we accept an attitude about someone's soul, as in the position I take toward others; my acts treat them as if they have a soul. The relation we have to a moral truth is to put myself in such a position to it (as part of the grammar of how such a truth works).
What I meant was justice or other moral entities are more a thing of human minds, internal, than a thing of the world, external. You will not, I repeat not, find a single instance of justice or other moral rules instantiated in the world save those by us, humans, and that too with the greatest difficulty. The world, the universe, I wish to point out, is not just or good in any sense of that word.
Isn't that the whole point of the is/ought framework of morality. What is is unsatisfactory (dukkha) i.e. the facts/truths as they stand are amoral, even immoral, and hence we make up/imagine a different world in terms of how it ought to be.
The world was/is/will be, by and large, morally indifferent bordering on outright immorality i.e. if there are truths, they all pertain to badness, how cruel the world is - confirmable, empirically, with ease.
Humans came along and discovered, it must've been shocking & disappointing, this and hence, religion, other ethical systems, was/were born as attempts to correct this rather frightening flaw. Only after this, in the human, did good become truths, verifiable in the thoughts/speech/actions of people and people only.
There is nothing good about the world, nature is red in tooth and claw; every moral statement you make - you should do this or you shouldn't do this - is false in the real world. Nobody follows moral codes except under some imagined/cooked up system of ideas, very human ideas.
It looks as though I'm conflating truth-apt with false but, in some sense, that which is not truth-apt and that which is false are both not about our world.
Sure, but granting that something is a social construct makes it rather arbitrary. Different societies create different constructs. The Romans thought slavery was justifiable. We don't. Who adjudicates between the two?
Or to put it another way, who decides that equity is the fundamental moral value and not courage, holiness or an eye for an eye? Different societies value different things. We see this difference between the East and West over individual rights versus the collective good. Which is more important? Depends on who you ask.
If I make a statement that social construct A is moral, what grounds that? Is it just because the particular society I happen to live in values construct A? But if I grew up in a difference society I might find myself valuing construct B.
My issue is that if morality is entirely human-made, then there's no objective truth to it, except for sociological facts about this person's morals and that cultures morality. Which means that anyone's morality, including our modern enlightened since of fairness, is arbitrary. Nothing real makes it true. It's historical contingency that we end up valuing what we do. Or perhaps there's an evolutionary explanation for a tendency of the species to construct fair societies, despite our numerous failures over the past few thousand years.
Nothing else in nature cares whether we treat each other fairly. Whether we succeed or not, the universe is totally indifferent.
Slavery for all! It is ‘just’. If you litter the streets then slavery! It is just and deserv … wait a minute!? You call it ‘punishment’ and I call it ‘cost’. It’s basic economics from my perspective. Nothing comes for free - especially freedom.
It appears I misunderstood the point of the OP so this is a side issue.
When it comes to equality I’m in the camp of equality of opportunity not equality of outcome. The boxes picture is a nice twee analogy but in other situations it can be less than easy to agree (especially when defining ‘justice’ based on identity groups).
This is the story relativism tells. But you will notice it begins with the desire (demand) that truth meet a standard that does not include us, as math does not, nor science. But this is not the nature of truth, and so its condemnation is our doing, not its failing. We deem ourselves "arbitrary" because we don't meet the very standard we impose in a desire to avoid ourselves being responsible, avoid ourselves being known if we are. Our interests, our judgments, are the long history of a moral truth, which we paint as partial, contingent, irrational, but it is ours, our culture, our duty, in which to make who we are, what our culture will be, our country, in relation.
To desire a third party (criteria) to arbitrate a truth between you and I--to wish for a rule to tell me what is the right thing to do--is to abdicate a moral conversation before we have even begun. The fact is that we may not come to agreement but we can have a disagreement for reasons we understand and will know at least what each stands for.
In the same way that a statement could have no meaning to the subject receiving it as it may to the subject constructing it, to stake a claim to a moral truth by a subject, could have no meaning to the subject receiving that declaration. I don’t care what truth you stake yourself to, but at the same time, recognize the necessity of a truth you stake yourself to. But I sure as hell might care how you express it.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Ok, I see. Your statement, “Diamond proposes that a moral claim can be general, as universally claimed (...), most importantly, is that I am claiming it”, merely indicates the declaration that a universally claimed moral truth is also claimed by you. You are declaring your pledge of responsibility to a moral truth generally claimed by everyone, or, claimed universally.
Yeah, but if there was a universally claimed moral truth, you saying you’d also claim it, is superfluous. It’s universal......you’ve already claimed it. You’re advocating a tautological condition, from which withdrawal is impossible. That’s herd mentality writ large, at the expense of the very intrinsic human condition of moral autonomy, is it not?
—————
Quoting Antony Nickles
What truth? The truth Diamond proposed, or the truth that my responsibility is my own. For dialectical consistency, I shall suppose the former, the latter of course being uncontested.
This is to have cake and eat it too, which are mutually exclusive. For any universally claimed moral truth, such as Diamond proposed, the reasons for the claiming of it are irrelevant, insofar as the judgement arising from those reasons, will always and only end in responsibility for claiming of that truth, no matter what it is. Otherwise, it is not universally claimed, hence, self-contradictory.
Furthermore, there inhabits a categorical error: in the first there is said to be a universally claimed general moral truth, the rejection of which would be impossible, in the second there is the assertion of the availability of a possible general moral truth, but universality is not found in it, which permits its rejection. That I am categorically responsible for my reasons and by association my judgements given from them, does not immediately demand I am categorically responsible for accepting a general moral truth.
If I must come to a truth of my own accord, under the auspices of my own reason, and that necessarily a priori, how is it possible for you to claim it must be acceptable to me? The only way you can know whether or not I accept, is the action I exhibit in response to it. But I can act as if in acceptance, but rationally reject the truth asserted as available to me.
So, inevitably, we arrive at the Kantian rabbit hole, as all proper philosophy seems to do:
“The old question with which people sought to push logicians into a corner, so that they must either have recourse to pitiful sophisms or confess their ignorance, and consequently the vanity of their whole art, is this: "What is truth?"...”
————-
Quoting Antony Nickles
Absolutely. The necessity contained in principles is as we see it, as we understand them, insofar as they are born from us. From that, it follows that granting the exception is negation of universality (of a general moral truth). Willingness to be responsible for rejection is negation of validity (of truth).
Universal claiming of a general moral truth is not impossible. There can be a moral truth available and acceptable to everyone, although I argue its possibility is vanishingly small. The onus is on those advocating that it isn’t, to present, not a mere claiming of, but a justification for, why it isn’t.
HA!!! What’s the average human worth? 23 cents, or some such? Inflation....19?
My parents went into a serious hole paying for the house I grew up in, and the land included with it. My first reenlistment check would have paid for it three times over. Now, that amount would only partially pay for a decent used car.
My dad gave me a quarter once, for not lying about wearing this ungodly stupid rain hat when I got off the bus. I gave my son $10 for raking leaves, and people used to give me $100 just to walk through their door.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Ignoring the pandemic because of not wanting to close businesses and loose votes, cost Trump the last election because of the number of people who voted against Trump's reasoning. If the goal is to eradicate a deadly disease, Trump obviously did not have the right reasoning. I think moral judgment based on truth is very important.
...but not equitable. Seems to me this argument is based on word-play.
It'd be difficult to maintain both the world is amoral and that the world is immoral.
One or the other. Not both.
Or we could say that morality is not a domain that applies to nature. It's a category error to apply morality to the universe.
Quoting Banno
Sure, as long as we admit morality is based on words we make up (in the language game of society).
:ok: Correctamundo!
Two ways of looking at it:
1. Non-pandeistically: The world is amoral
2. Pandeistically: The world is immoral
I agree that a broad education is important. It does bring up the issue again of avoiding a rote understanding of truth. I take this as the difference between "knowing" the truth and accepting it (telling myself rather than being told). As well as understanding its depth of meaningfulness, we come to its importance as a personal process, a journey of my life maybe as much as my acknowledgement of its implications. The reading of Cicero that stuck with me was that it mattered to the truth who I was as a person, which I read as that I am part of the state of a truth. That this can be done well or poorly, rather than right or wrong. That we are not here concerned about ends (things going well).
A claim to the truth is made as if it were universal, as there is no reason it can't be (the other is in the same position with a rejection). I make it in a universal voice, as Wittgenstein makes his claims to a grammatical remark or difference, such as that believing is like hoping and not thinking (#574).
Quoting Mww
No, it's that a truth is accepted or rejected--that's how it works--it is not proved true and false (that's a different kind of true). Not that it is a demand by me, but that, like the pain of the other, it is a claim upon you, who you will be, in response.
Quoting Mww
Well being willing to provide a reasoned rejection to a claim to truth is at least more courageous than refusing to answer at all (say, sliding out behind logic, science, that it's all irrational). I'm not sure just being responsible is a negation, but I will say the possibility of rejection is not an immediate fracturing of community. There is the opportunity for rational disagreement.
Quoting Mww
I acknowledge that we shouldn't blindly accept things, but, as I have said, you should see for yourself. Otherwise, this seems very cynical. I would call for more of us to attempt to see the truth in something rather than demanding that the other provide justification first. Our job as philosophers is to seek the truth, stand in the other's shoes (on their terms), find something of worth even though there may be a weakness (make their argument the strongest case you can), acknowledge more and not dismiss out of hand, etc. I take this as Diamond's hope for the truth, for us to think well on its behalf. Prefunctory skepticism lacks intelligence and imagination just as much as blind obedience. @Banno@Marchesk@tim wood
Good talk. Thanks.
Oh my, that last sentence seems like a good left jab that I was not expecting and my head is spinning. :lol: I was thinking yes I agree with what you are saying all the to that last sentence.
Take the threat of covid for example. If we do not eradicate it right now, it will become endemic instead of pandemic. That means it will be so much in our population it will be like the cold of the flu, something we live with forever instead of an irradicated disease.
Quoting Intermountain Health Care
We really need to get this right or we are not getting rid of Covid.
Another example, Mao meant well when he ruled how farmers would plant and how food would be managed, but he was scientifically wrong and that lead to millions of people starving to death. Trump ignoring the scientific evidence about pandemics is the same thing, with almost the same results of millions dying, but this time the problem might not go away.
Another example is Biden's Budget Plans. If he is right the US will be greatly benefited. If he is wrong it could mean economic disaster.
Democracy means nothing if it is not "concerned about ends". The moral is, if we don't get it right, things will go very wrong.
I didn’t mean to disagree, just to differentiate what I was discussing. Truth in this sense is more like a founding principal than a decision about what to do, how we are to decide in a moral quandary. Of course I do agree with the need for a reasonable discussion about those issues, and, when we extend into the unknown, we are in a similar structural position of responsibility to an ethical decision as the acceptance of a principal. Though I would think the context is more concrete with a decision about what to do.
I would like to say that the statement "it's just for humans to survive" is truth-apt, it feels like that's the right thing to do but the question is, in what sense is it true? In other words, which definition of truth is being used here?
If I visit the doctor and inform him that I'm a chain smoker, he'll say "you should stop smoking (or else you'll regret it)" but how is "you should stop smoking" true?
Indeed, if a sociopath asks why they should be moral other than consequences, there is no true answer. And if we're trying to decide which moral theory is true, there is no answer.
I dunno! I guess we need to realize that there are certain truths involved e.g. what we value are assertions (e.g. happiness is good) in morality. From these values certain recommendations as regards what our moral theory should look like follows. These recommendations, however, are not true in the sense the values from which they're inferred from are true.
1. We value happiness
Ergo,
2. We should do x, y, z,...
An "argument" but 2 isn't true.
:chin:
Nicely said. Truth is a founding principle of democracy but I don't think that is well understood today. George Washington did not brag about how great he was but was concerned about being right with the help of God. Not to preach religion but to be humble. And your post suggests that humility as well. There is far more to know than can know, so we should always be humble as proceed.
The American culture I read of in old books is so different from our culture today.
But that does not mean enjoying an ice cream or other superficial pleasures. When Thomas Jefferson wrote of the pursuit of happiness he was working with Aristotle's understanding of it and it meant the goal of human thought, an enriched life following the pursuit of knowledge. Not a wild weekend of binge drinking or getting a new car.
Goals...pursuit...happiness...human thought...enriched life...binge drinking...a new car...Aristotle...Thomas Jefferson...ice cream...superficial...pleasures.
Happiness is evolution's devious honey trap. Aristotle and probably Jefferson - human thought - transcended all that and pleasures became superficial and not. Binge drinking, a new car, ice cream, I want all of that; no one listens to Aristotle and no one understands Thomas Jefferson.
The denigration of anything but logic and right (or the good, or rules) is to make all other discussion or claim irrational, based on authority (force), individual, "contingent". This fear of relativism is a desire to have what is right, etc. replace our (the human) part in the truth; which I am saying is categorical--not that we must play our part, but that we are answerable whether we do or do not (similar to how what you say can’t mean what you want).
The picture that what passes as truth outside of right or wrong is merely something said "persuasively", is to cast human expression as unintelligible outside the realm of certainty. That what is meaningful is larger and more complicated than we want; we do not want our actions to allow us to be seen, read into, revealed, beyond what we "intended" or what we thought ahead of time. We want to do what is right and be done with it, without any further need of responsibility because we followed a rule, etc.
This is also to take understanding as easy; but to say something, to try to get you to see it, it may need to be expressed a certain way. Some see Wittgenstein or Nietszche as unnecessarily obtuse or mysterious, but some things can not be told directly to some people. If you are going to come to it yourself, you may have to answer Wittgenstein's questions on your own, see his statements about grammar as provisional claims; you may need to ask yourself why Nietszche is forced to alienate us. Not that it is just the right words, but that a speaker must do the good work of accepting the truth themselves in a serious way, making explicit the criteria that matter, the implications of what our words do, what their saying this, now, here to you may amount to. This is not the claim of a “good” person, but that being responsible for what is said is to speak well, that my character matters more than my intellect, that knowledge is limited, and beyond that it is we who must speak for the truth.
Well I don't want to sidetrack into Kant but what I meant was that our responsibility to the truth is not a matter of our choice, it is the structure of it. You don't have to respond in that way, but that doesn't mean you are released from that relationship.
Quoting tim wood
I'm saying that the standard of true (or false) is not the only standard that matters--proof only provides certainty. Even without that criteria we still have rationality, specificity, history, and the possibility of agreement, which comes from our ongoing relationship to our moral claims. It is not (only) "contingent" on me but I am implicated. This is not the truth of me (my character) but the necessary condition of this sense of truth.