Moore, Open Questions and ...is good.
"...is good" is simple and unanalysable, according to Moore.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moore-moral/
Moral judgements, like all judgements, are true, or they are false. This follows from their predicate-subject form.
Moral propositions imply an action. That is, one ought act in accord with true moral propositions.
Consider a particular naturalist claim, such as that “x is good” is equivalent to “x is pleasure.” If this claim were true, Moore argued, the judgement “Pleasure is good” would be equivalent to “Pleasure is pleasure,” yet surely someone who asserts the former means to express more than that uninformative tautology. The same argument can be mounted against any other naturalist proposal: even if we have determined that something is what we desire to desire or is more evolved, the question whether it is good remains “open,” in the sense that it is not settled by the meaning of the word “good.”
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moore-moral/
Moral judgements, like all judgements, are true, or they are false. This follows from their predicate-subject form.
Moral propositions imply an action. That is, one ought act in accord with true moral propositions.
Comments (1174)
If goodness is subjective, then you can be right and I can be right, even if our views contradict one another.
Hence a subjectivist cannot claim their moral view is true.
It seems that Moore might say that a moral statement can be both true and an expression of what one thinks we ought do.
Contrast that with those who might consider moral statements only to express a preference - that is, what one ought do.
Lots of good advice and moral admonition is passed down from generation to generation in the form of sayings and stories. And every generation discovers the same thing: that wisdom is not imparted by sayings, but only through experience does one come to understand the meaning and truth of an ancient string of words.
So back at you: it's both.
Quoting Banno
Quoting frank
Moral statements can and do express a preference. Not always, as evidenced by conflicting personal wants and moral duties.
Some moral statements are truth-apt. Statements of ought regarding previously made promises, in particular, are such statements.
A position arguing against the claim that moral propositions are truth-apt would base the denial upon their own moral belief(thought/belief about the rules of acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour).
Typically, the conversation hinges upon the notion of moral fact being used, which turns upon the notion of fact being used. This involves one's notions regarding what sorts of things can be true/false and what makes them so.
I don't see why not Banno. It's been done for centuries.
"There is a cat on the mat" is true if there is a cat on the mat.
True moral statements correspond to moral facts.
True statements correspond to facts.
Overtly expressed truth conditions report what must happen in order for the positive assertion in question to be true.
The expression, assuming sincerity in speech, reflects one's moral belief. That would be belief about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour(belief about morality).
That's about as far as that analysis allows us to go.
"Is good", however, is not equivalent to goodness. The latter is a product of metacognition. The former is an expression of one's thought/belief about morality. It's a moral judgment.
Yes, but only through intersubjectivity.
The issue that you presented of seeming inescapable relativism for moral claims is mitigated by adhering to what can be shared about the content of moral propositions between parties.
Quoting Wallows
But making it a "we" doesn't help... so far as I can see: We can be right and they can be right, even if our views contradict one another.
@creativesoul wallows towards "One ought keep one's promises". But @Wallows, isn't "One ought keep one's promises" true? How can it be, if there is no moral truth? Is ""one ought keep one's promises" not a moral proposition? But it clearly implies a general action, even if not a specific one.
Shouldn't it also reflect the truth? Else, why bother?
Well, isn't it about what can be agreeable to more than one individuals that derives truth value of moral propositions?
Moral truth is what is popular?
More rigorously as consent or consensus?
The question is : is what is good, what is consented to?
And the answer is no.
They can claim that their moral view is subjectively true. True for them and anyone who agrees with their position (whatever that may be). Seems like subjectivism taken to the extreme must privilege the right to be different. Acknowledging a plurality of truths. He can only claim his truth to be a partial truth. His truth is also false for others.
Well, this just seems like a rehashing of Hume's is-ought problem. Isn't it?
If moral propositions imply actions, can we treat them from the perspectives of validity and soundness?
Actions are morally valid if they follow from the moral propositions that imply them.
Actions are morally sound if the moral propositions that imply them are true.
There's no apparent room for subjectivity with regard to validity, but the truth of moral propositions, the premises of our moral deeds, are famously vulnerable to variation.
Following the line of reason @Wallows begat, instead of looking at moral actions as deducible from a set of universal tenets, we could look at it as an endeavor to negotiate and compromise through the conflict that naturally emerges from those varied and sometimes conflicting premises.
If we can agree on premises as interacting-individuals, or interacting-groups, then we can at least ensure the validity of or moral acts. Where we disagree or run into conflict, we're left to compromise (or not) in whatever way we think best serves our goals. In these cases, moral arguments tend to take an inductive form where they're strong or weak depending on how well they appeal to existing values.
Rather than wonder what kind of metaphysical setup might give rise to objectively true moral propositions, I prefer to stop the buck and just accept the values that we do have. If we assume morality ought to serve human values, we can still derive appropriate actions even in the face of conflict/variation, it's just a whole lot messier (i.e: probabilistic).
Can you elaborate on this notion of promises as moral fact? In itself, a promise is communication about my intent. How does it turn into a sort of fact?
Quoting emancipate
The issue is that moral judgements are about what should be done. They're not speculative and individual like the question what a person would do, given a set of circumstances. A partial truth cannot support an general statement, so how can the subjectivist make any moral statements?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I agree with you that "deducing" moral actions is not possible. That would imply that there is a list of every possible moral act somewhere which we have access to. For the same reason, expecting morality to be "objective" also makes no sense, since we are not trying to figure out an object.
I think Kant correctly stated that morality is practical. It only exists where subjects actually interact. A lone subject in an empty universe has no need for morality. So I think the process by which we figure out whether or not an act is moral is similar to induction, as you say, but it is not quite the same. I'd rather call it subsumption. That is the same process one uses to apply a law to a case.
Subsumption is often described as a process of constant back and forth that both interprets the rule and classifies the circumstances. It's just that in law, you start out with a rule that's already refined to a specific area of interest, while in morality you have just the most general rule.
A legal judgement is not true or false in relation to some objective reality. Instead, it's "truth" is based on the proper method of justification being used. A judge may arrive at a verdict for purely emotive reasons, but he will have to justify that verdict using the proper form of arguments. I think that morality requires a similar approach.
Not at all actually.
Although, I do hold that one ought keep one's promises, that does not ground what I'm getting to here, nor can it be reduced to such. I'm leading to something a bit different.
On my view, facts are 'states' of affairs, events, what has happened and/or is happening, the case at hand, the world, etc.
Making a promise is the moral fact of the matter.
But only the promise is part of the state of affairs. Neither the act which is being promised, nor a rule linking the one to the other are something that has happened.
Belief presupposes truth.
Prefixing the term truth with "the" is very problematic here.
The promise is what makes it a moral state of affairs.
But that means that you have a rule that says "promises turn the act that is promised into a moral state of affairs". I think it's a sensible rule, I just don't understand your approach.
Notice my comment was about subjectivism at the extreme end of the spectrum. I think there can be different degrees between subjectivism and objectivism, so that these are not simple binary opposites. I am not one for general truths. Every situation exists as a complex milieu, with its own specifics. One size fits all: doesn't. There is no ought but that which is created, individual or collectively.
I'm willing to put up with the shorter discomfort of going to the dentist to avoid the possibly longer troubles otherwise.
My preference would be neither, but I ought go to the dentist (which presumably holds for most).
Are there moral truths that do not, in one way or other, depend on (experiencing) minds?
Seems odd if someone were to say "the hurricane ought not murder anyone", "hurricanes are immoral".
Hm maybe something's off with the subjective versus objective thing.
The act that is promised is part of making a promise. Promising is the moral state of affairs. Promises(to do something) are unlike other sincere claims in that they're the only ones where one voluntarily enters into an obligation to make the world match their words. That's precisely what they mean.
My approach is that true claims correspond to actual events(what has happened or is happening).
"There is a cat on the mat" is true if there is a cat on the mat. When one tells another that there is a cat on the mat, if they're speaking sincerely and truthfully, then there ought be a cat on the mat.
Meaning is important here.
Indeed.
That is a feature of morality, not a flaw. It is true of all morality.
What's good/moral is discovered through trial and error, and changes in rules reflect changes in moral belief(belief about acceptable/unacceptable thought. belief, and behaviour).
The question: are the rules for acceptable/unacceptable behaviour always good?
And again, the answer is "no".
Are you happy to talk of an immoral morality?
Moore thought that the concept "good" could not be defined in a subject-predicate way. In other words, good itself could not be explained with other descriptions without begging the question. What is goodness can never be a closed question for Moore. Somehow he thought we intuited it so he was a brand of intuitionist. However, he thought once we "intuited" it, we can judge the effects of actions, and this could lead to closed questions of which effects works better or which effects have more successful outcomes.
First, goodness is gradable. Hence the comparative and superlative forms, better and best, and extreme forms like great and excellent, which imply good but not vice-versa.
Second, goodness might have a scalar structure with a maximal endpoint. Plausibly, this is denoted by words like perfect (i.e., 'that which can't be better'). Of course that doesn't tell us for any particular thing whether it can be perfect, just that goodness in principle can admit of such endpoints.
Third, goodness is apparently not relativized to anyone in its ordinary uses. So when one person says 'this is good,' and another says 'this is not good,' they can contradict each other, be reported as disagreeing, etc. This is hard to explain if good means good for x and in most such disagreements the value of x differs across the claimants.
Fourth, goodness can nonetheless be overtly relativized, as in good for him (with something that is good for him perhaps not being good for me).
Fifth, goodness apparently does not track personal preferences. So there is no contradiction in claiming that something is good, even though one isn't pleased by it, doesn't like it, etc. Claiming that something is good often implies that one approves of it, etc. but apparently this is because we approve of things that are good, not because things are good in virtue of our approving of them.
Sixth, goodness, whether it can be reduced to any natural property or not, apparently must supervene on such properties. Thus, it is contradictory to take two situations totally identical in their descriptive or natural qualities, and claim that one is good while the other is not. Goodness cannot be a free-floating quality that the exact same descriptive situation can have or fail to have: rather, things must be good in virtue of those qualities.
I'm a noncognitivist, basically an emotivist. Moral utterances are not true or false.
"good" in a moral sense amounts to the person approving of or preferring the (usually interpersonal) behavior in question, if not directly, then as a means to some other end that they approve of or prefer.
Is it possible to approve of something that's not good? Yes.
Therefore, it cannot be that what is good is what one approves of.
Rather, the answer is "No." What it is for x to be good to S, morally, is for S to approve of or prefer x, that is, to approve or prefer the behavior in question (where we're talking about behavior S considers more significant than etiquette).
"Good to S," some subject. "Good" is subjective. "x" was whatever the S in question is making the judgment about.
Any x is always good or bad to someone (that is, if anyone is making a judgmen about the x in question). The same x can be good to one person and bad to another.
Again, good is always to someone. That's part of what it means for good to be subjective.
Says the world. We only find "good" in judgments that individuals make.
Combo of (a) it not being necessary to specify that it's to someone, for the people who understand this--it's redundant if you understand it, and (b) mistaken beliefs about objective morality.
It's just like not needing to specify "in my opinion" for everything that's someone's opinion. Most people understand that most opinions are opinions without needing to flag it.
The fact that "good" judgments are found nowhere else but in individual activity.
Sure, qua judgments.
Yes. Keeping in mind that judgments are a particular sort of activity that we do.
You don't think that everything in the world is a judgment, do you? What definition of judgment are you using?
You said things are only good to some S or other.
When asked why, you said that the reason for believing this is that judgments about what is good are only found in individuals.
But then I noted that all judgments are only found in individuals.
If that judgment that something is P is only found in an individual is not a reason for believing that something can be P only to some S, say in the case of whether it's raining, then it equally cannot be a reason for believing this in the case of goodness.
In other words, the reasoning in the raining and good case are parallel.
You don't think that propositions and what propositions are about are identical, do you?
Suppose I gave the following argument to you:
-We only find judgments about whether it is raining in individuals.
-Therefore, it is only ever raining to some S.
Is this is good argument?
You don't think that everything in the world is a judgment, do you? What definition of judgment are you using?
Can you please answer my most recent question now?
Sure, so is whether it's raining a judgment?
Now can you please respond to my previous question, about whether the argument I gave, about how it is only ever raining to some S, is a good argument?
A good argument to whom, and for what?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/252725
Gives us good reason to believe that it's only ever raining for some S. If I presented you with that argument, would you find it convincing? Why or why not?
Again, we just agreed that whether it's raining isn't just a judgment right?
So if you're asking whether it's raining based on a judgment to some S, whether it's raining is a fact that's independent of the judgmnet that S makes.
Right. Rain is an objective phenomenon. There's plenty evidence of objective rain.
-We only find judgments about whether something is good in individuals.
-Therefore, things are only ever good to some S.
Is this a good argument?
The conclusion has nothing to do with the premise, and it's possible for the premise to be true while the conclusion is false.
Yet this seems to be the very argument you provided, for why things are only ever good to some S.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/252711
It looks like your argument was bad, so we have to throw it out.
Now, we come back to the original question again:
What is your reason for believing that things are only ever good to some S?
You changed it after I typed my response.
Your conclusion was initially "Therefore it's only raining to some S"
-Therefore, things are only ever good to some S.
Is a good argument
I explained that already. The rain conclusion has nothing to do with the premise. The premise is about judgments of "good"
Look at these two arguments side by side.
Argument 1:
-We only find judgments about whether it is raining in individuals.
-Therefore, it is only ever raining to some S.
Argument 2:
-We only find judgments about whether something is good in individuals.
-Therefore something is only ever good to some S.
As I understand it, your claim is that Argument 1 is bad, while Argument 2 is good.
Why?
"It is raining," as an objective fact, isn't a judgment.
"Good" is a judgment
My question is, why does the fact that we only find judgments about whether something is good in individuals, tell us anything about whether things are only good to some S?
Again, the whole idea of "good" is that it's a judgment, an assessment.
We can make judgments about whether it's raining, but rain isn't a judgment.
It's weird that I'd have to explain that to you, because you'd have to have basically no conception of what "good" is versus something like "rain." It's like trying to explain it to a robot.
Likewise we can judge that something is good, but this does not mean that that something is good is a judgment.
How can you ask that right after I type: "We can make judgments about whether it's raining, but rain isn't a judgment"?
Are you reading what I'm typing? (That's not a rhetorical question, I expect you to answer.)
You'd need to provide the definition you're using of judgment, which I asked a few times and you just impolitely ignored
No. I'm sorry, but you don't appear to be following the train of conversation. Do you want to continue? I'm OK with stopping.
Number one: Are you reading what I'm typing? (That's not a rhetorical question, I expect you to answer.)
When I write that, answering is not optional for a conversation.
Yes, I am.
I would prefer not to continue this conversation, thanks.
Okay, you can stop anytime you like. (of course)
A miscommunication here because @Snakes Alive intended to say "... is a judgment" (see the original referenced post).
@Snakes Alive was simply stating what you had both agreed on to that point - that judgments about rain don't imply that that it is raining is itself a judgment.
Then his argument is that, similarly, judgments about the good don't imply that that something is good is itself a judgment.
Indeed. I recognize that problem. The definition is one that I grant due to current convention. Morality(the rules) is not always good.
What would you argue that "good" is if not a judgment, assessment, evaluative property, etc.?
Yes, an ought cannot be derived form any is, but only from an if.
'If I want X, then I ought to do Y'. There are no absolute goods, unless there be an absolute moral authority, i.e. God. And as we all know: God is dead.
A state of affairs (presumably conditional on some standard or value). So the judgment "I ought to save the child from being run over" can be true (in some context) just as the judgment "it is raining" can be true (in some context).
The difference is that the former will be true only in some intentional or inter-subjective context, not in any purely objective existential or empirical context, whereas the latter will be true in an objective existential or empirical context.
Conditional on some standard or value that's not a judgment, assessment, evaluative property, etc.?
That's the common understanding and/or agreement. My approach challenges this long held notion.
If you make that kind of distinction, sure. But you can also hold the view that the intentional is part of the existential or empirical context as, for example, Aristotle did.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Right. So to give an Aristotelian example, if human well-being (eudaimonia) is the standard (independent of people's opinions about it), then that would ground moral judgments.
I agree that the intentional may be understood to be a part of the empirical context, but not in the same way as perceptible events are.
Also the fact (if it is a fact) that most people think that something is good, and therefore ought to be valued, does not entail that the people who value whatever it is ought to do so.
Yes I noticed this. I think Moore’s big takeaway is that morality can never be explained by other terms as there is nothing that proves the goodness of something. You can’t define goodness by explanation essentially. Or at least that’s what I took from him. Sounds like it can only be gleaned at through actions or something like that.
Yes, it isn't something concrete that can be perceived like rain. Instead it is an abstraction that can be considered part of the world. Similar to information, as discussed in the Is 'information' physical? thread.
Quoting Janus
Right.
"I prefer the behaviour in question, but it is not good".
"I approve: but it is still immoral".
The open question: it is preferable, but is it good?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Quoting Banno
Sometimes it's like that. I don't see it as a problem
Apparently it is good and bad. Or undecidable?
So, if we drop the moral question, in which we may have some theoretical stake, and look at actual linguistic behavior - there is something going on. What's going on?
But I took it that we were instead considering if someone says "Good is this".
For a Roman stoic, goodness means acting in accordance with nature. Since we don't always perceive nature's ways correctly, we can use health as a sign of goodness. Sickness is a sign of evil. The moral aspect of goodness is there, but weakly.
The ancient Jewish concept of goodness also uses health as a sign of goodness, but for a different reason. Goodness means acting in accordance with the mosaic law, not nature. Doing so assures blessings from God. To stray from the Mosaic law is to leave behind God's protection.
The Persian concept of good has to do with progress. To be good is to reach out for the good divinity and turn away from the bad one. Health isn't a sign of goodness because the poor and afflicted can embrace goodness just as well as a rich healthy person.
Christianity inherited all three of the above conceptions of good plus the neoplatonic conception: good is an aspect of the cosmic situation. Good is basically the divine mind, so you can contact the good within yourself rather than being good per se. In a way, matter is evil, but views vary on that. Augustine believed that since matter is an aspect of the whole of God, we shouldn't think of it as evil. So he seemed to be saying that everything is good. That is a anti-moralistic view though. It doesn't give the preacher any way to rail against society for its wrong-doing.
Why did Moore think goodness is unanalyzable?
So your task would be to explain either how we get to "x is human well being" without it being a judgment, preference, evaluative property etc., or if you're going to say that human well being is a brain state (re certain levels of dopamine, serotonin, etc.), how that has anything to do with moral judgments so that we're avoiding judgments, etc.
Both are incoherent.
Moral utterances aren't true or false, correct or incorrect.
You lost me. Isn't that what I shifted to in the rest of my post (the unquoted part)?
However, given that there is no fact of the matter, they must then all be false.
That being said it seems to me that there is an extra-logical function which moral statements inhabit. Something like a promise or an admonition -- these aren't exactly truth-apt functions, but they are still things we are doing with words. In saying something is good we are still doing something in spite of the falsity of the statement. What is that, though? I don't know.
Also, that being said, I should say there is some sense in which it makes sense to say there is a fact to the matter -- that what is good is good, and what is evil is evil. Usually cases of conversion seem to fit that bill; we often do, through our mistakes, change our minds about what moral propositions are true (in that we believe them to be true, even if they are false). I'd say that's the strongest argument for there being true moral propositions. I just compare such cases to cases where I change my mind because I was mistaken about some fact, and that empirical element seems to not quite be there in the case of moral propositions so the rational conclusion is that they must all be false in spite of their apparent semantic content.
If 'it is good' is understood to mean 'I think it is good' then the statement may be true or false depending on its honesty. Is it necessary, or even fruitful, or chase a mirage of the absolute?
In the case of facts we don't have a problem appending "I think" when we wish to describe our beliefs. And similarly so with moral statements -- "I think we should help the poor -- I think it is a good thing to do" works perfectly well to describe my beliefs. Why substitute beliefs as the referent when we are perfectly capable of stating our beliefs on the matter clearly?
Then you seem to be in the rather odd position of claiming, say, that it is wrong to kick a puppy, but that it is not true that it is wrong to kick a puppy.
That's what I'd call incoherent.
And hence you are at odds with @Terrapin Station.
SO you can't comprehend that one might approve of an action which is immoral?
Well done you.
I suggest that it is also tru that it is wrong to kick a puppy; and, in answer to your:
Quoting Moliere
that it follows that one ought not kick puppies. What distinguishes a moral fact from other facts is the implied act. Don't kick the pup. SO it is true that we do something more with moral statements than other statements.
"That doctor is good"
"That researcher is good"
"That teacher is good"
"That game is good"
"Pleasure is good"
"Knowledge is good"
"That example is good"
Ice cream does not share the virtues of a doctor or a researcher, but it might be good because it is usually found pleasurable to eat. A good game might be one with a set of rules that inspire engaging play, but it cannot have an analytical mind, pleasant bedside manner or be delicious. Any equivalence which invites us to ask "How do the rules of chess taste?" is a silly one.
When we take something quite abstract, like pleasure or knowledge, and say that it is good, it seems to express a commitment to the abstraction as being in some sense valuable. Knowledge might be something a society could be geared to produce, just like ice cream, but I believe we would only say a society is good because it produces ice cream flippantly, whereas if it values knowledge and knowledge's production we might say it is good in a deeper sense and with more commitment. We also do not behave as if our commitment to a thing is why that thing is good, as this equivocates a personal sentiment with being good; why that sentiment was held in the first place.
Which is not to say we also cannot use 'is good' to express mere approval or personal sentiment, we do frequently, I imagine it's probably the most common use of "is good" - its use in "that's good".
Analysing "is good" on its own terms removes all the contexts that give it its sense. Which is not to say that it can't be analysed or that good cannot be demarcated from its opposite, just that context is key and the boundaries of the application of "is good" are of necessity not sufficiently clear to facilitate an exhaustive definition.
Maybe if we asked "what makes a teacher good?" or "what makes an ice cream good?" we could have a more productive discussion, but unfortunately by supposition this would be off topic.
Cool -- so I think we are pretty close save for my lack of understanding what a moral fact is. Perhaps it does not matter? But maybe it does too.
A moral fact is an implied act. So abstaining from kicking the pup, even though it pooped all over my nice shoes, is the implied act. I feel like kicking the pup, but I do not act on that feeling because it is a wrong thing to do.
What if I did act on the feeling? What is it about the implied act that makes the moral statement true? Surely this would not make the moral statement false, else whatever we did would just make moral statements true, and then they'd all be true -- which isn't exactly what we mean by saying such and such is good or bad. Quite the opposite.
But where is our implied act, then, if we do not do it? Maybe I'm just not following.
That's simple, when people say "it is good'. they assume that what they think is good is good, absolutely speaking.
Right, they probably do mean "it is good' is true', but that does not entail that ''it is good' is true' is true.
Aren't you at all familiar with noncognitivism/emotivism? "It is wrong to kick a puppy" is akin to "Boo to kicking puppies!" Boo, and alternately yay, are not true or false.
Quoting Banno
So "x is immoral" is "Boo to x!" If you're booing x, you're not approving of x.
Of course. But that does not avoid the issue I set out above:
Quoting Banno
That is, emotivism fails to account for the commonplace notion that moral statements are indeed statements. And so it appears incomplete.
Insofar as people believe that moral utterances can be true or false they're simply mistaken. They have mistaken beliefs about the ontology of moral utterances.
Noncognitivism/emotivism is an analysis of what moral utterances are ontologically. The task isn't to address why people have mistaken beliefs, as common as the mistaken beliefs may be.
It's akin to an analysis of what God talk really is--pegging it as a fiction, etc.--despite the prevalence of mistaken beliefs otherwise.
The spirit in which it's forwarded is akin to a scientific examination. It's not based on whether anyone finds it appealing or not. We want to know what the phenomenon really is.
But as @Moliere suggests, I'm reconsidering. Kicking the pup is wrong.
pointed out that Quoting Snakes Alive
If someone thinks that kicking the pup is fine, then I wouldn't say they have a different preference to me in the way I like vanilla and they like banana. I, and I hope you, would say rather that there was something quite wrong with them.
Yes, and as a result one can e.g. simultaneously describe something as good (sensually) and not good (morally) without falling into contradiction. Unless some particular sense is specified, asking what is 'good' is bound to lead to confusion.
Moore's open question ought be used far more often than it is. So much of what appears in the ethics pages falls to it.
Then, where does that leave us?
There's no meaningful difference, assuming a sincere speaker, unless one is unsure.
Besides neglecting statements and all this above, emotivism cannot take account of conflicting wants/preferences and moral duty.
Sometimes it is "Boo, it is good"...
Clearly "Hurray" and "Boo" cannot account for what's going on with everyday moral considerations.
Alright Banno... I do not understand how one arrives at the claim that "is good" is unanalyzable. Can you set it out in simple terms?
I'm reading/studying the link...
:wink:
It can be a possible (functional) explanation for why particular actions are right or wrong just as Newtonian Mechanics and Einsteinein Relativity are possible explanations for why apples fall out of trees. Apples presumably fell out of trees before there were any humans around to offer explanations or even perceive them. Similarly, actions can conceivably be moral (or not) absent any explanation or even recognition of that.
So the issue then is what explanation best captures what is going on when we use moral terms and how we might test possible explanations.
I think one relevant question is whether people's ordinary use of of moral terms connotes objectivity or subjectivity. For example, if Bob changed his mind about slavery, would he say that slavery used to be moral until he changed his mind, or that it was never moral and he was previously wrong to think that it was?
If they're thinking about statements of thought/belief, rather than simply asserting their own.
I would argue that anyone who holds that moral utterances cannot be true or false have mistaken beliefs about thought and belief.
This utterance of ought above is not the standard/typical/garden variety moral utterance, is it?
And yet it makes perfect sense, given that we know the meaning of the statement. Why would it be any different regarding the earlier promise?
When one promises another that there will be a rose garden, if they're speaking sincerely and truthfully, then there ought(one day) be a rose garden, simply because that's what it means.
Conceivability needs a bit more detail than just stipulating that something is conceivable, no?
Sure, and then what you'd offer as empirical support would be?
I'm just pointing out that things can have intentional properties without first requiring that they be recognized (or judged, preferred, evaluated, explained, etc.), which is what you seemed to be challenging.
Why do you impose such limitations upon yourself?
Even if that were the case, anything with an intentional property isn't going to be objective, which is what he was shooting for, unless intentionality is no longer "the mark of the mental."
At any rate, claiming that something that seems to only make sense as a judgment, or assessment, or evaluative property, etc. is not actually anything like that, but has a property of intentionality, where we just don't know about it, doesn't help on the conceivability end, because we still haven't the faintest idea how it's supposed to make sense that we're talking about morality, where we're allowing that we're talking about something intentional (otherwise now you've also created a burden of explaining non-mental intentionality), but where we're not talking about a judgment, etc.
It's an empirical claim. As such, it requires empirical support.
This is just the point at issue. People use moral terms as if morality were objective.
The Aristotelian claim is that a functional purpose can fit that criterion, namely well-being. Just as animals can act in ways that increase or decrease their survival prospects, so too can humans act in ways that increase or decrease well-being.
Alternatively, if moral terms merely express emotional attitudes then it raises the question of what purpose the connotation of objectivity serves. Why don't people just say "yay" or "boo"?
First, people don't normally just say "Yay pizza" or whatever. They say things like "Pizza tastes good," "Pizza is the best," etc. Do you believe that by virtue of that, "Pizza tastes good" is significantly different than "Yay pizza" would be?
Quoting Andrew M
Re this, what does it have to do with morality?
By appealing I mean that the account is convincing, explains all the phenomena under consideration, or some such -- it makes an appeal to our rational judgment, not that the conclusion is unsavory or unwanted.
The problem with emotivism is that it does not account for moral phenomena -- in particular, it does not explain why it is that people hold moral beliefs as if they are true or false. It misses out on the semantics of moral statements: they are true or false. Perhaps, in the end, moral phenomena are decided by emotions, and emotions are non-cognitive, so how people reason about moral phenomena is through non-cognitive means. But this still leaves out the fact that moral statements are of the form of propositions, and that people treat them as if they are true.
Even if we think there is no fact to the matter that seems to be a big flaw in what emotivism accounts for. You can append a theory that such statements are only apparently truth-apt, but in fact are not -- but that strikes me as too convenient.
When I say "It is raining" does that, on your view, mean the very same thing as "I think it is raining"?
Quoting creativesoul
I think the line of thinking would be to say that we have conflicting emotions, and moral duty is just another emotion, a sort of pleasure, that some people have.
But I agree that "Boo" and "Hurrah" don't quite capture the emotions, even if they are the logical equivalent.
People use gustatory language as if gustatory properties were objective ("the pizza is delicious").
People use language inconsistently.
What's not appealing in the sense that you're using that term is the suggestion that beliefs must have some merit just because they're strong beliefs or common beliefs. That approach would suggest that we should still be performing rituals, making sacrifices, etc. to ensure a good harvest, to stave off natural disasters, etc.
Exactly, as well as aesthetic utterances.
Keeping things philosophical, epistemologically, what would be the support for their being something "wrong with them" where that's not about the feelings of the person making that judgment?
Think about why you used this pejorative.
What word might you choose instead? Beliefs? Decision? Judgement?
Weird that you'd see it as a pejorative.
I did also use the word "judgment" by the way.
At any rate, so the epistemological support?
Yep. I'm more or less agreeing that it is an odd question - asking for support for their being something "wrong with them" where that's not about the judgement of the person making that judgment...
It's like asking for a justification that one does not believe in.
But, what sort of support does one need to make the judgement that kicking a puppy is wrong? What could be more basic. less in need of justification?
And given that we must start somewhere with our moral system, why not start with not kicking puppies?
You can try the sentences in different contexts to see if they're different.
(1) I used to like pizza but now I don't
(2) Pizza used to taste good but now it doesn't
The first sentence seems to say something about your changing preferences, the second seems to say something about the quality of pizza these days (or perhaps a change in your taste buds).
Quoting Terrapin Station
Kicking puppies or robbing people is generally understood to decrease their well-being. Well-being (eudaimonia) is central to Aristotle's (and arguably Plato's) ethics and political philosophy. It also has parallels in utilitarianism and consequentialism (e.g., as human welfare).
Quoting ChrisH
That's one possible explanation. Another is that people use language in more nuanced ways than they're often given credit for.
Sure.
Apply the open question... Are well-being and good the very same? Could one have well-being and yet not be good? Could one be good and yet not have well-being?
Is it good to rely on such extensive exegesis? Does this make one's moral choices more transparent or simply fog them over?
Are they synonomous? No. Are they related? It would seem so. So it is valid to investigate what that relationship might be. Our moral reports are data that we seek to explain.
A similar question can be asked about what is real. Is it synonomous with what we perceive? No. Yet we suspect there is a relationship. So we propose theories and explanations that would make sense of our perceptual reports.
Quoting Banno
Yes, an argument can get too far removed from the data it is seeking to explain. It doesn't follow that the data is self-explanatory. Moral disagreement, as with perceptual disagreement, is a thing.
Can good just be deflated a principle of "non-harm" and "helping others" on one hand and some sort of "happiness principle" on the other? For example, why do people advocate not kicking a puppy for fun? Because it causes unnecessary harm. Why do some people say one ought to cultivate virtue, because of some perceived long-term happiness. Why do some people say to pursue pleasure? Because of some form of happiness.
Thus perhaps "the good" is a combination of the principle of non-harm (or helping others in some cases), and some sort of perceived avenue for long-term happiness on the other. That seems to answer a lot of questions as to what falls into the "good" category in the realm of ethics and morality.
So I guess my answer to get around the open-ended argument is to simply deflate it to those two main definitions. The Good simply is some prescription for non-harm/helping others and obtaining happiness.
Yeah, I'd agree with that. "fdrake" did a good job of digging into how broad a concept 'good' is.
But the structure of the op suggests that this indefinability somehow segues naturally into :
[quote=Banno]Moral judgements, like all judgements, are true, or they are false. This follows from their predicate-subject form.
Moral propositions imply an action. That is, one ought act in accord with true moral propositions.[/quote]
Whether that's true or not, I can't see how any of it follows from what, in the OP, precedes it.
I'm not sure I would describe "good" indefinable in any real sense. fdrake's many examples seems to imply people know what they are talking about. In any of those cases, people are talking something and how it is significant.
The reason examining "good" is unsatisfactory seems to be a product of it being inseparable from whatever something it is about. If I take away that which is good, I no longer have a good to talk about. I'll always left grasping at nothing because I've actually removed anything that's good and all reason I have for identifying it.
Keeping in mind "good" is about something, I don't think there is much that's controversy to deal with. In talking about "good," we are specifically referencing the value of something. If we say something is "good", we are point out the presence of whatever thing we are talking about is valuable. We have reason to think it out to be there on account of the normative value of its presence.
In this context, Banno's approach doesn't seem the difficult to envision. We can analyse the presence of whether this something is valuable or not in propositional terms of a kind. The OP connects because it's this distinction that ethical significance is of something, but not just the existence of something (which destroys the naturalist claim).
Since good is only itself, just existence of something (e.g. pleasure) does not give us good. The twin "indefinability" of "good," that "good" is never explicable on its own but nothing else amounts to it, is what gives the normative/ethics distinction from other concepts we might have (such as the existence of something).
Yes, with the only exception being when one is unsure.
It seems to me that there's much lost in nearly all philosophical discourse/debate as a result of not drawing and maintaining the distinction between thought and belief and thinking about thought/belief. All conceptions of morality are products of the latter, all discourse about morality and rules and such are as well... yet thinking/believing that something ought and/or ought not be done is not. Our 'sense' of what's acceptable/unacceptable behaviour does not require us to think about it as it's own topic and/or subject matter. Temporally speaking, we had thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour prior to naming it.
So... there's a gap here. I wonder, if like other things that we discover, if there's some 'sense' of morality that exists and/or existed in it's entirety prior to our naming it and/or describing it. If there is/was, then we could get it wrong. The conventional definition certainly does get it wrong, if that is the case.
Not sure if it adds to this thread, or if I could make it seem relevant enough to others here, so I'll leave it here aside from saying this, and then offering a bit of support for it...
Hume's guillotine is a product of thinking about thought/belief, and while it may be true that one cannot derive an ought from an is without presupposing another ought(I'm seriously doubting that that is true), this does not bear upon morality unless one holds that moral claims ought be conclusions, or only specific kinds of utterances of ought count as being a moral claim.
On Monday, there ought be a rose garden.
The above statement, an utterance of ought, is true, and it doesn't presuppose another ought. Rather, it follows from what "I promise to plant you a rose garden" means.
Isn't this quite similar to Davidson's(I think) notion that if one knows what it takes for some claim to be true then one knows what it means? Isn't this the case for all 'truth-apt' claims(those capable of being true/false), including but not limited to those called "moral claims"?
Compare to...
Speaker A says "There is a beer in the fridge". Speaker A is being sincere.
It follows by virtue of what the statement means, in addition to having a sincere speaker, that there ought be a beer in the fridge. There is no other ought being presupposed here. The statement of a sincere speaker 'is an is', not an ought. :cool: Speaking sincerely 'is an is' not an ought.
Do these sorts of utterances of ought somehow not qualify/count as being moral utterances? Looks like a negation of Hume's guillotine to me.
Doesn't this argument only apply to positions that fail to distinguish between a referent(pleasure, well-being, etc.) and it's evaluation(good)?
It reminds me of justificatory regress...
Quoting Terrapin Station
This isn't the place, but I guarantee that the empirical support for my position is much stronger than the empirical support for your own claim regarding the ontology of moral utterances.
You could always address the rose garden scenario... No one else seems to want to.
Does Moore's Open Question Argument apply here?
Perhaps, but that would be a strawman to one who has and is thus bound by his/her moral duties, regardless of their own unhappiness about it. Moral duties/obligations may invoke emotion, but they are not equivalent to it any more than any other thing that invokes it. Doing what's good does not always invoke positive feelings.
Using "Boo" and "Hurray" as synonyms for wrong/right renders both meaningless when attempting to take account of those who do what is right in cases when they do not like doing it, or want to.
"Boo to doing what's right" may take proper account of one's feelings while they're doing what's right, but since that is the case, it cannot the case that "Boo" is equivalent to something someone thinks/feels is wrong, and "Hurray" is equivalent to something someone thinks/feels is right.
If "Boo" applies to both, that which someone holds as immoral(like kicking puppies), and something someone holds is moral(like helping those less fortunate even when one doesn't really want to), then we've arrived at an issue of equivocation, false analogy, utter meaninglessness, and/or incoherence.
If what's actually good is determined solely by our own moral belief, then there could be no way for us to be wrong/mistaken about what's good. Thus, our rules would not change. Our moral belief would not evolve; but we are, we have been, they do, they have, and it does.
So, I think the standard position here would be to say that goodness exists in such a way that we 'discover'(scare-quotes intentional) it as compared/contrasted to inventing it and/or defining it. It shows itself to us, so to speak, sometimes despite differences between it and our moral belief about it. We discover what's good or not, in much the same way that we discover what else is true/false about our own worldview.
It's said that the golden rule is the most common moral maxim. It seems to be based on suffering and happiness - I like to do things to others, those things that make me happy and I don't do things to others, those things that make me unhappy.
It would be the golden rule that would stand out as common to all cultures.
Morality is basically a guide to create, sustain and promote happiness and stymie, reduce and discourage suffering.
All moral theories can be reduced to a ''game'' of suffering and happiness.
Consequentialism is obvious.
Virtue ethics is about eudaimonia which is happiness in essence.
The golden rule is a Kantian categorical imperative.
Because aren't you arguing that there's something objectively wrong with them? Or are you just saying that you strongly feel that there's something wrong with them?
Quoting Banno
If you're saying that it's objectively wrong, then it's the sort of support that if someone says it's not wrong, we can independently check what's the case--with instruments of some sort, for example, and discover which person is correct, just like we can do if we disagree about the composition of rocks from the moon, say.
Pretty much an evergreen answer to your responses to my comments:
What does that have to do with what I wrote?
I don't know if you never understand what I write or if you never really want to address it.
Quoting Andrew M
So we're assuming Aristotle's ethics or something?
Your reaction to the idea of a pup being kicked is grounded in, and informed by a context: the society you live, historical experiences, philisophical positions you hold, unconscious associations, etc. There is a whole milieu informing your position towards this hypothetical dog punting.
It is quite easy to imagine an alternate milieu: another society with radically different moral leanings, where kicking a pup would be interpreted differently (perhaps as a non-event for example).
Both contrasting positions would exist within a context. Objectivity attempts to remove context.
Only relativism allows you to judge the dog kicking as 'wrong'. I just happen to agree with you because we grew up in a similar milieu. I don't think there is a universal here.
Oh that won't work as far as my definition of moral good getting passed the open argument.
Alright, I'll try again.
When people comment on pizza, they can be talking about their own subjective preferences or they can be talking about the pizza in an objective sense. If a person says, "Pizza tastes good", they are likely expressing their personal preference. We agree on that. Whereas if they say, "That pizza tastes good", they are likely commenting on the high quality of that particular pizza. So a use can be objective, even when discussing pizza.
If a person says, "Kicking puppies is wrong", then the implication is that they intend that in an objective sense, not merely as an expression of their own subjective preference.
So there are two separate issues. Do people ordinarily intend objectivity when making moral claims? And, if they do, are there moral states of affairs or not?
Quoting Terrapin Station
No. But you seem to find it strange that morality could have anything to do with well-being when there are major philosophical traditions that claim just that. But leaving that claimed connection aside for now, do you think that well-being (and suffering) is something we can make objective claims about? For example, that kicking a puppy causes it suffering?
No, it can't. There is no objective quality (in that sense of the word "quality," I'm not saying there are no objective properties.)
OK, interesting. Before continuing down that path, I'm curious about your answers to the other parts of my post.
Do you think people ordinarily intend objectivity when making moral claims?
Do you think that well-being (and suffering) is something we can make objective claims about?
I have no idea. We'd need to do the empirical research and do pretty extensive polls.
Quoting Andrew M
Only via saying things like "Joe considers x well-being," "Betty considers y suffering," "Chemical c statistically is correlated to feelings of well-being," "Most people consider z suffering," etc.
Morality is just such a thing.
The objective/subjective dichotomy fails here as well as leading to a reductio(for those who know, you know, for those who don't, it's simple and convincing). In light of all this, continuing to use that dichotomy as standard is to use a false dichotomy.
The subjective/objective dichotomy serves only to add unnecessary confusion to our subsequent thoughts about morality and what's good, in the moral sense of "good". It is proof positive that inherently incapable frameworks are in use.
Polls?
:smile:
They either think/believe that something is unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour or they do not. Lots of other folk have room for exceptions. Reasonable folk still think it's wrong in the unexceptional cases.
When someone says "That's immoral/wrong/bad/evil", they take a strong stance against that.
Some behaviours are already considered acceptable/unacceptable by a person prior to comparing/contrasting their own worldview with others'. Comparing one's own thoughts/beliefs about the world and/or ourselves to an others' is to think about thought/belief.
Our 'sense' of acceptable/unacceptable thought/belief and/or behaviour is being built long before we begin talking with metacognitive terms. We name that which existed in it's entirety prior to our naming it.
Unfortunately, many folk still draw correlations between some religious deity and/or belief and morality.
In layman's terms...
The Golden Rule mistakenly presupposes that everyone likes being treated the same way.
It is still yet... a very good 'rule of thumb'... especially when the person using it likes healthy productive and/or good things to be done to them.
A perfect rule if everyone likes good things.
Some may, Some may not. Do most people have a clear idea of 'philosophical' objectivity (whatever that is)?
It seems to me that people use moral language in many different ways and senses. As you pointed out earlier "people use language in more nuanced ways than they're often given credit for"..
Which doesn't tell you anything about whether in their view they're claiming something objective or not.
A low quality pizza might have old ingredients and be partially cooked (or burnt), whereas a high quality pizza would have fresh ingredients and be properly cooked. Do you reject pizza quality as objective because it depends on facts about humans (e.g., what is edible, healthy, palatable, etc.)?
If so, does that then carry over to other properties as well such as an object's color?
Quoting ChrisH
Maybe not. But we can still analyze people's use of moral terms or ask more concrete questions such as, "Was slavery morally OK in the past when people approved of it?" Compare with, "Was the Earth the center of the universe in the past when people believed that it was?"
Quoting ChrisH
Yes, so it is an empirical question. For one interesting piece of empirical research on what people believe, see https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/on-the-human/2010/12/objective-moral-truths/. Also see Brian Leiter's comment which brings up relevant issues.
Yes. Quality in this sense, any judgment whatsoever that anything is better or worse than something else, is about persons' preferences. The world outside of minds couldn't care less what the ingredients are, how old the ingredients are, whether the ingredients are going to make us sick or not, it has no "proper" versus "improper," etc.
Quoting Andrew M
Whatever else someone thinks about it, color is not at all similar to assessments/judgments like good/bad, better/worse, proper/improper, high quality/low quality, etc.
Thanks. That was interesting.
Tim Maudlin's comment reflected my concerns about this 'experiment':
[quote=Tim Maudlin]What the philosophical debate is about is whether moral claims have objective truth conditions. What “the folk” think about the matter is neither here nor there. If one is interested in that sociological question, that’s fine, but presenting this issue as pertinent to the “long and complex philosophical debate” obscures the nature of the research being done.[/quote]
Oy vey re that paper. They say, "To get at people’s agreement with moral relativism, they told participants about two characters — John and Fred — who held opposite opinions about whether some given act was morally bad. Participants were then asked whether one of these two characters had to be wrong (the objectivist answer) or whether it could be that neither of them was wrong (the relativist answer)."
You can't determine whether someone is an objectivist or subjectivist by asking them the above. (And the opposite of objectivist can't be relativist--they're mixing up categories; you can think that moral stances are both objective and relative.) The reason you can't make that determination is that "wrong" can be used subjectively (and relatively). People who believe subjectivism don't necessarily refrain from saying "murder is wrong." The vast majority of them still say things like "murder is wrong." The difference is that they realize that they are essentially saying "Boo to murder."
In other words, a subjectivist uses ". . . is wrong" subjectively, which is what they can be doing when they say "John is wrong when he says that 'Murder is morally permissible'."
The only way to determine if someone is an objectivist or subjectivist on ethics is for them to understand the difference and then ask them which one they agree with.
But I did not say that beliefs must have merit because they are strongly held beliefs. I said that emotivism does not account for the phenomena under consideration -- and in particular, that it sort of just ignores or explains away the fact that moral statements are of the form of propositions, and propositions are truth-apt.
From where I stand the usual explanation for this is that moral statements are only apparently truth-apt, but not really truth-apt -- they are expressions of emotion like "boo" or "hurrah", or some such. It saves the theory, but from my perspective it's a convenient just-so story.
EDIT: I'd also just like to note that the line of thought I've been pursuing here is error theory, which is just a little funny to categorize as a strongly held belief that is some kind of sacrosanct tradition.
I don't think you understood my comment, which is partially my fault for using the word "merit."
What I mean is that you're suggesting that just because it's strongly felt or widely held (assuming that's the case, of course) that moral utterances are expressing propositions in the sense of sentences that can be true or false, then there must be something to the idea that they are expressing propositions in the sense of sentences that can be true or false.
In other words, you're suggesting that the ubiquity or strength of a belief (that moral utterances are expressing something true or false) makes it more likely that the belief is acurrate rather than mistaken,
Because otherwise, the ubiquity and/or strength of the belief has nothing to do with what's really the case ontologically, which would make it a red herring to even mention.
. . .and given that there is no "supernatural realm" (unfortunately, because I like the idea of things like ghosts), then there is no objective property of "goodness."
So a convention re language-usage somehow determines what's the case ontologically? How?
Since it is the case that all morality consists of thought/belief, and all thought/belief consists of that which is not existentially dependent upon the thinking/believing subject, as well as that which is, thought/belief is neither. If thought/belief is neither, and all morality is thought/belief based, then all morality is neither.
I haven't the faintest idea what that bit is saying.
What definition of "subjective" would you be using there? (Well, what definition of both terms I should ask)
Your favorite. I despise the dichotomy.
Under the definition I use, how are thought and belief not subjective? Not that the term matters, by the way. What matters are the upshots of what it's pointing out ontologically.
That's false. Maybe you try should understand my views, then, before trying to criticize or even paraphrase them.
So in saying that moral statements are truth-apt, the phenomena under consideration is moral language -- whether or not moral statements have a semantics or no. By analogy I'd say something like "All people born under the sign of cancer are moody and perceptive", or other astrologicial statements have meaning, are truth-apt, because of the form they take. The statement itself, of course, is false, and may even include names without an existing referent -- such as the case with Zeus.
But the statements still have meaning. I understand what they are saying, and they are true or they are false.
A bit long winded, but the point here is that in the sense of the wider world I wouldn't say my position commits me to the notion that linguistic convention commits me to the ontological reality of moral facts, or some such. It just accounts for the apparent fact (though it can be explained away) that moral statements are propositions.
Some people believe in a non natural realm so won't have ruled this out.
I think goodness as a preference is not entirely coherent. It is trivially true that if we enjoy X we might consider it Good in one sense, because pleasure is a positive sensation that can easily be conflated with the good.
But I don't think preference can instill moral status on something. Like as before I have distinguished between things I enjoy and things I moralize about. I don't think you can just make something good by having positive attitude towards it.
I think teleology is a much stronger anchor for the good where something can fulfill a purpose optimally. the problem with nature is it allows everything that happens so nature does not restrict behaviour we consider bad.
That is why I think only a transcendent standard that was not part of nature would have the power to judge nature so to speak. If the mind transcends nature then maybe we can do that.
I'm not clear re what "comes through a subject" would refer to, so we'd have to clarify that.
I use "subjective" to refer to something occurring mentally. So re humans, for example, it's something that occurs in one's brain functioning in a mental capacity. Saying something, if we're literally talking about saying something, has a component that's clearly not just one's brain functioning in a mental capacity--among other things, it involves producing soundwaves with one's throat, mouth, etc. That's not just someone's brain functioning in a mental capacity.
Even if you're doing that and you don't care about what's really going on ontologically, you can't just ignore meaning. Meaning is determined by how an individual thinks about the language in question.
Yeah, but those people are wrong.
Teleology is nonsense by the way. Just dump the Aristotle, really. He said a lot of stuff that was severely in error. If you keep deferring to Aristotle you're going to wind up making mistake after mistake and not really understanding anything.
"It is raining" has the same truth-aptness as "It is good", and "I think it is raining" 's meaning is different from "It is raining".
That part is wrong. Again, meaning is determined by what an individual has in mind.
I understand your view, but you're arguing based on something that's wrong and very misconceived. (And it's also very simplistic, really.) I don't agree to disagree. I want you to not have views that are wrong.
At any rate, so your interpretation of what people are doing with language--your beliefs about what they mean, without bothering to ask the people in question--doesn't determine what's the case with either how they're actually using language or with what's going on ontologically with utterances such as "x is good (morally)."
Teleology is very useful if you want to learn how to drive a car.
What is your argument against a non natural realm?
Since only people have purposes, per however they think about the same, teleology, the belief in purpose in a much broader, objective sense, is useless for driving cars.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Complete absence of evidence for anything supernatural. Also, some of the things posited are incoherent.
How does the mind fit into the natural realm since we do not have an explanation for it and mental phenomena?
I'm a physicalist/identity theorist. One of the things that's incoherent about a lot of supernatural stuff is that it posits nonphysical existents. The idea of a nonphysical existent is incoherent.
Re explanations, I just wrote this in another thread yesterday:
"The first step in tackling 'the hard problem' is setting out our criteria for explanations in a way that (a) the things we consider explained fit our criteria, (b) the things we consider not explained are not explained because they don't fit our criteria, and (c) our criteria are fashioned in a manner where anyone (reasonably educated/competent), or even perhaps a well-programmed computer, could check whether a putative explanation counts as a legitimate explanation under our criteria, so that we can't just willy-nilly declare things to be explained or not."
I don't know what identity you are positing?
I do not see how something like nerve fibres firing is identical to brain states. if that is what it means then you are making our mental realm objective where you can just read someones mental states off brain states.
You could give an explanation of why someone held a certain opinion by explain how it was determined by her brain states
I think the notion of the nonphysical is derived from the mind and personal experience where I can think about something and not see it or have a pain and not see it because it is not spatial temporal.
Physicalism can lead to idealism or panpsychism and the idea that every thing is mental.
i think what ever goodness is it does not seem to be physical.
Should be clear from the context of the discussion: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-identity/
Quoting Andrew4Handel
The definition I use of subjective/objective is that subjective refers to mental phenomena. That definition in no way hinges on what mental phenomena really are. If mental phenomena are brain phenomena (as I believe), then the subjective is brain phenomena (or rather, the subset that amounts to mental phenomena). That's by definition of subjective referring to mental phenomena.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Again, I wouldn't get into an "explanation" discussion without the demarcation criteria discussion (re what counts as explanations) as I outlined above. That's just not a game I'd play until we set out the rules for the game first.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Again, the very idea of nonphysical anythings is incoherent. You could try to make it coherent, but that would require a lot of work.
It is not at all incoherent because it is the reality of our mental life. The only way you can make the mental seem physical is based on a crude mind brain correlation.
If the mind was physical then everything I imagine, however silly, would be physical (such as me imagining a purple giraffe juggling bananas on Pluto.)(Or phlogiston and the ether which are considered not to exist)
The idea of the physical is not a scientific concept, it does not really refer to anything specific unless you attach it to specific concepts like spatial-temporality, energy and matter.
These however are the same concepts that fail to account for the mind.
The idea that brain states are determined is a common belief. If the mind is the brain then brain events are determined by other physical events. This explanation would usurp the subjective as an explanation.
For example say I saw a woman get hit and felt anger or concern, the theorist would say that this was a determined response. So that any moral response would be forced on us by a prior cause. So if light hits my retina and presents an image of a woman being hit, to my brain, the neural activity created from this incident is not in my control and my emotional response is determined by other neural activity.
This would square with what I said elsewhere about the external world almost determining a moral response.
Yes, and that's indeed the case. Everything you imagine is a state of your brain.
Saying that the nonphysical is the "reality of our mental life" is just completely empty. You'd need to try to make any sense whatsoever of what nonphysical things are supposed to be ontologically, what their properties are in general, etc.
Earth to Andrew4Handel. You'd have to set out demarcation criteria as I outlined above if you want me to have an explanation discussion.
Physics hasn't been determinist in over 100 years.
I don't know what mental things are made of but I have compared them with things that are spatial temporal and have energy. You could also say things that are measurable directly. Just because someone cannot explain an experience to someone else does not mean it doesn't exist. The problem with the mental is that it defies our current methodologies of explanation and causality.
But indeterminism does not imply free will. However there is a certain level of determinism and regularity in a system.
You can easily prove someones actions were out of their control by manipulating their brain with medication or some other stimuli to illicit spontaneous behaviour. You would have to give a good reason to hold someone accountable for something they did.
I don't now what you mean then, because I have offered a framework for the explanation which is that if mental states are physical brain states then brain states explanations usurp subjective ones.
(This is the same picture as when people commit themselves to the mind being Epiphenomenal)
If you are committed to the mind being the brain then this leads to the redundancy of the mental which is a position several thinkers are committed to.
I am a pointing out why values become worthless in a purely physical world because they are either epiphenomenal or determined.
This just means correlated with the brain because they are clearly not identical.
Whatever the meaning of "good", a moral subjectivist who is a moral relativist avoids contradiction by having relative standards of judgement which correspond to separate and distinguishable statements, such that, for example, it's good in accordance with Banno's standard but not good in accordance with my standard. Those statements can both be true without contradition. It's about the standard of judgement, not the meaning of "good", hence why you bringing this up in the other discussion about moral feeling missed the point.
Maybe Moore is right. It seems like a good argument at first blush. Fortunately, it's compatible with my kind of moral subjectivism. I'm not committed to claiming anything along the lines that "good" means pleasurable. Although I would commit to other claims, such as that our moral judgement is founded in moral feeling.
That conditional is not true in and of itself. It would require one or more additional premises, premises which others might well have good reason to reject. It's possible for the antecedent ("Banno promised to plant a rose garden") to be true, yet the consequent ("There ought to be a rose garden") to be false.
Quoting creativesoul
What's a moral fact? What would it look like? :brow:
How can you call that a moral fact when nothing follows from it about right or wrong or what one ought or ought not do? I say that it's not a moral fact at all, it's just a fact.
It's as though you've learnt nothing from Hume on this topic, or that you think you know better. I don't think you know better. (Also, Hume didn't abuse the forward slash in that annoying way that you do).
In what sense, and how? Not logical implication, not in and of themselves.
Sounds good to me.
I don't thing this works, because of the nature of moral judgements.
"I ought not kick the puppy" is not the same as "no one ought kick the puppy". It's this second statement that is moral; it says what others ought do. The first "I ought not kick the puppy", is not a moral statement but a personal preference.
Ought he be permitted to kick the puppy? S says that it's only relative to my moral system that I can say "he ought not kick the puppy"; if in his moral system puppy kicking is permitted, then that's an end to it.
But the question of the permissibility of puppy-kicking remains. And it remains either true or false.
that one ought not kick the puppy.
This is of course an ethical variation on Davidson's objection to conceptual schema. That, in turn, is a variation on Einstein's relativistic, the whole point of which is not to show that truth is relative, but that what is true in one system is true in another, under suitable translation.
Relativism fails. Again.
Your obsession with objective and subjective. I don't think these terms work as well as you suggest.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That's good.
So it's like "The cat is on the mat". I show Fred the cat on the mat, and he yet insists that the cat is not on the mat. I bring in a panel of experts, and do various tests to check his language use, things like washing the mat, patting the cat, and so on, and find no obvious difference. I put the cat back on the mat, and yet Fred still insists that it is not the case that the cat is on the mat. I conclude that there is something wrong with Fred.
"One ought not kick the puppy". I show Fred the puppy, and he yet insists that the it's ok to kick it. I bring in a panel of experts, and do various tests to check his language use and so on, and find no obvious difference. I show him the puppy again, and yet Fred still insists that it is not the case that one ought not kick the puppy. I conclude that there is something wrong with Fred.
And they would be wrong. See my dismissal of relativism above.
While this thread was started in order to show folk the utility of the open question in dismissing silly ethical systems, it seems the main response has been various forms of ethical relativism. Showing why that is erroneous might be a worthwhile use of this thread. Let 'em be.
I agree that they're not the same: that much is obvious. But I certainly don't agree that the former is not moral in nature. That's absurd! What I ought or ought not do in that sort of context is obviously a matter of morality, and likewise for what you ought or ought not do, and likewise for any other particular person. The context of puppy kicking makes it so. It's also obvious that it's not mere preference, because it's obvious that there's a categorical difference between, say, whether or not I prefer chocolate ice cream over vanilla ice cream, and whether or not I judge that kicking the puppy is immoral.
Quoting Banno
That's a very poor argument. Why on earth would that be an end to it? Both you and I share the moral judgement that he ought not kick the puppy. Most others share that moral judgement. So why on earth would any of us treat the situation with indifferent acceptance? We wouldn't. Naturally, we'd act as expected as per our respective moral judgement.
You seem to have some very basic misunderstandings about the position you intend to argue against.
Quoting Banno
Relative to my standard of judgement, it's impermissible, and one ought not kick the puppy. That's a truth right there.
Neither you nor I can speak with any warrant about the morality of the act except in the relative sense, as exampled above.
Quoting Banno
How so? I've easily refuted your above argument, as I've easily refuted your arguments elsewhere, such as in the abortion discussion. So do you have something else up your sleeve? :chin:
Yep. That's what happens to a critique when you only look at part of it.
Ah, the typical unhelpful Banno one-liner for which you've gained notoriety. Maybe we should sort this out before continuing. Are you going to be cooperative, so that we may have a productive discussion? Or is it going to be more of the above?
As per your suggestion, [i]which part[/I] don't you think that I've covered, and why? Quote it, or link to it - help me identify it in some way, and then explain where you think I'm going wrong. I'm sure I don't have to explain this to you. You should know how this works by now. You've been here even longer than I have. I don't need to teach you how to suck eggs, you just need a kick up the arse in the hope of jolting you out of your laziness.
Thank you.
Quoting S
Actually, I was poaching a couple of eggs for breakfast. And the toast just popped.
You're welcome.
Quoting Banno
Fascinating. Please continue. I want to hear all about it. Believe it or not, that's actually what brought me to this discussion. I saw what the topic was about and immediately thought to myself, "I simply must know what Banno is having for breakfast".
Mediterranean coffee, pot-boiled. Strong and sweet, just like me.
Now these are issues of taste. They are about what I chose for me.
But morality, you see, is about what I, and others, ought do; indeed, about what every and each of us ought do.
Everywhere else, if you say one thing, and I say the other, one of us is wrong. You agree with me that one ought not kick the puppy, but apparently lack the intestinal fortitude to apply this to those who come from some other moral background.
If folk ought not kick the pup, then folk ought not kick the pup, even if they think they ought.
Yet you deny this obvious bit of consistency.
Either Fred doesn't share our standard of judgement, meaning that he judges it to be okay to kick the puppy, like he insists; or he does share our judgement (although he has a funny way of showing it, given his insistence that it's okay to kick the puppy!), but like myself and many others, he rejects the unwarranted suggestion that statements such as, "One ought not kick the puppy", can rightly be interpreted to be true in a non-relative sense. I agree that if it's the former, then there's something wrong with Fred: his standard of judgement in this regard is surprisingly poor from our perspective. But if it's the latter, then, besides his peculiar insistence, there's nothing wrong with Fred - he's actually a sensible chap - you'd just be making him look bad with this sort of misleading shock tactic which keen eyes can detect. It would seem to be a sort of guilt by association fallacy, sending the message that he approves of puppy kicking, when really he just disagrees about the appropriateness of applying an absolute sense of truth in relation to moral statements such as the above.
That's trivial and irrelevant with regard to morality because of the context, not because it's about you. It's trivial and irrelevant because it's about foodstuffs and your taste in relation to foodstuffs.
This tactic clearly doesn't work if you switch to a moral context:
Two decapitated heads; not those of my own children, but those of children from the local school. Still bloody. Red heads and blondes, not brunettes. I find the former more erotic.
Black coffee mixed with the intestinal contents of a fresh corpse. Dark, twisted, and revolting, just like me.
Now these are issues of taste. They are about what I chose for me. Nothing at all to do with morality, right? Wrong. Obviously.
Quoting Banno
It doesn't have to be collective or universal to be morally relevant, and it must be relative in order to be warranted. Or perhaps I'm wrong, but you'd have to successfully argue for that.
Quoting Banno
You mean in other contexts? If that's what you mean, there's a rather obvious difference between, say, maths and science on the one hand, and ethics on the other.
Quoting Banno
What are you talking about? That's not the case. In accordance with my moral standard, those who come from some other moral background ought not kick the puppy. I expect I'm no different than you in this regard. You seem to have some peculiar expectations about me, and I suspect that these stem from your very basic misunderstandings of my position.
Quoting Banno
Yes, obviously. A tautology is a tautology. I say that folk ought not kick the pup, even if they think they ought, but significantly, I add that I am judging this in accordance with my moral standard. Are you trying to sweep the subjectively relative moral standard under the rug? Without it, then what you're saying is unwarranted, or worse: doesn't even make sense!
Quoting Banno
You'll have to successfully demonstrate that I'm obviously being internally inconsistent. You haven't done so thus far, but I wish you luck. You're going to need it.
Quoting S
"Giving 5 dollars to a homeless man is good" is true -- we might judge such a statement to be true because we believe that it is always good to give to those in need, or something like that.
"Giving 5 dollars to a homeless man is good" is false -- we might judge such a statement to be false in light of the fact that we are enabling them to hurt themselves, and it would be better to give said 5 dollars to some organization which helps the homeless, or something like that.
Two standards. Two different judgments.
But I don't think that the standards make the statement true or false. They are our means of judging something true or false, but that is not what true or false mean. Except in a superficial sense It's not the ruler which makes the bolt 20 millimeters long -- the bolt is 20 millimeters long regardless of the device we use to measure said bolt. It is also, rounding up, 0.8 inches long. And though we can be more precise if needs be and specify the exact length in inches, we can say roughly 0.8 inches if all that is required is an example for philosophy.
Now if the ruler -- the standard -- does not make the bolt such and such a length, but is rather a property of the bolt, then statements about the bolt are true or false regardless of the standard we happen to use in judging it.
Of course this is an analogy, and our means of judging ethical statements are not exactly identical to rulers and what-not. But I hope that I at least communicated what I mean when I say that standards do not dictate truth or falsity, though they do dictate our judgments about the truth or falsity of such and such statements.
What is it about ethics that makes statements true or false in accord with such and such standards?
The standards obviously do not make the statement true or false in an absolutist sense, only in a relative or conditional sense. But this absolutist sense which you're suggesting seems like a misguided way of looking at it. How can you justify an absolute truth or falsity in relation to morality?
Quoting Moliere
I didn't say that that's what true or false means.
Quoting Moliere
What makes you think that that's an appropriate analogy in the context of meta-ethics? My feelings about the size in millimetres of the bolt are irrelevant. That's not the case with morality. Or, if it is, then the burden lies with you to successfully argue in support of an objective standard of morality, where our feelings are completely irrelevant.
Quoting Moliere
Sure, I don't disagree. Now you just have to successfully argue that this analogy of yours is appropriate in relation to the topic here.
Quoting Moliere
Is that what you're going to argue in relation to morality? That there are independent properties of rightness and wrongness out there in the world? :brow:
Quoting Moliere
It's not like I haven't thought about this. I've arrived at my meta-ethical position because I have considered alternative approaches, but ultimately rejected them because I judged them to be inferior. If you go down the absolutist route, then that carries a burden which I doubt can be met. Looking at it in terms of relative standards of judgement, and focusing on statements reflective of that, seems like a much better approach.
Quoting Moliere
I suspect you'll be going on a wild goose chase if you look at statements of the sort like, "Giving 5 dollars to a homeless man is good", and seek some sort of transcendent truthmaker for them. I have yet to find an argument good enough to sufficiently support that position. On the other hand, I have seen plenty of bad arguments and dogmatism. So this standards approach seems like a better alternative, since it avoids these [i]big[/I] problems you get with the absolutist approach.
Well, I don't know if I'd use the word absolutist, but let's just say that absolutist is any position which believes that truth is not relative to standards, except in a trivial sense where, say, two different standards express the very same length.
My line of reasoning so far has been to say that moral statements are true or false, thereby making them propositions, and what makes a statement true is some fact or state of affairs. "Fact" can be a funny word, but let's just say for purposes of this discussion we just settle on something that can, at least in principle, be checked empirically.
Now in the case of moral propositions there are no facts that can be checked empirically. So regardless of the standard we might use to judge a moral statement true or false, they are all false -- thereby making mine a sort of absolutist position, by the above definition.
Quoting S
Namely because moral propositions are not special with respect to the fact that they are propositions -- so, among other components of meaning, one of their shades of meaning is their truth-aptness. They are either true or false.
Deciding which moral propositions I treat as true is certainly dependent upon feelings. But my feelings don't change whether such a proposition is true or false.
Quoting S
A little bit different from that -- only that we state things, in a moral context, in the exact same way that we state things in the context of matters of fact. Not always, of course -- we can use a sentence about moral matters as a means to express some emotion about an action. But there are times that we also state a matter descriptively. And so the best interpretation, absent some other reason to do differently, is to say that such statements are truth-apt, in the exact same way that statements of fact are truth-apt.
We speak as if there are moral facts, even if we believe there are none.
Quoting S
I hope I'm not coming across as condescending or like I am treating you like someone who hasn't thought about the issue. But to be sure let me say here I believe you have thought about it.
Though it might be interesting to pursue further the rest of what you say with respect to the denial of absolutism leading you to believe that emotivism is the best meta-ethical position, I kind of want to hear your response to me here first.
Whether the ingredients are going to make us sick or not is not a matter of personal preference. It's a real state of affairs.
Quoting Terrapin Station
But what you said above would seem to apply here as well. The world outside minds couldn't care less how you perceive color. Yet the way in which you perceive an object is nonetheless real, and not a matter of personal preference.
A property (whether color or toxicity) need not be universal to be real.
Quoting ChrisH
I see language (including moral language) as serving a pragmatic purpose for humans. Understanding that purpose (or purposes) can shed light on what a natural and empirical version of moral realism might look like.
In that sense, it can parallel or extend the evolving understanding of realism in science generally. For example, physicists and philosophers of science are almost universally realists about quantum mechanics, but the many different and varied interpretations provide philosophical insight into how realism should best be understood.
Ah, so you're an error theorist? But that's a pretty useless outcome, isn't it? Don't you think that it would be better to move on to better ways of getting truth and falsity out of morality?
Quoting Moliere
I don't deny that they're truth-apt. And other statements are truth-apt, too. So they're not special in that one respect. But they might well be special in other respects.
Quoting Moliere
Because you're working under a malfunctioning model. These results that you're getting should be a sign that you need to switch to a model which works better.
Quoting Moliere
No, not always, as you yourself accept; nor in general; nor ever, if we're genuine in our moral judgement. Moral statements are reflections of moral judgement, and moral judgement has a necessary foundation in moral feeling. There's always that emotional connection which is manifest to some degree in - or in accompaniment with - the expression. That's not necessarily the case with other kinds of statement, so these kinds of statement are not exactly the same as other kinds of statement.
Quoting Moliere
It's a mixture of the two. It's both. If it's purely descriptive with no foundation in moral feeling, then it's just empty words, a mere imitation. It would be like frowning and clenching your fists, even though you're not angry.
Quoting Moliere
Truth-apt? Sure. At least in some cases. But I think I've given good enough reason to treat the one and the other in a manner which is not exactly the same.
Quoting Moliere
Then we either change the way we speak or we interpret the way we speak in a way which results in a more sensible outcome.
Quoting Moliere
No worries. But I'm not an emotivist if an emotivist does not accept that any moral statements are truth-apt.
I would rather base a moral system around objective facts about harm then peoples feelings.
I don't think a subjective system is more tenable than an objective one.
But that's not a valid argument. I've tried with you, but you're hard work. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
That's not a valid argument either, not in the context of meta-ethics, which is what this context is. It's known to be an informal fallacy. It has a name and everything.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Good for you? Look, if you're just going to revert back to your comfort zone each time without ever making any progress, then what's the point of engaging people in debate?
It's the idea I keep coming back to and I'm playing with in this thread, at least. It makes a lot of sense.
But what would a better way of getting truth mean? Truth is truth, as far as I see it -- at least of this plain sort where I'm talking about truth-aptness, and what-not. It's not something we squeeze out of the fruit of knowledge. And if the statements be false, then that's the end of it.
Quoting S
Cool.
Quoting S
What's malfunctioning, precisely? I don't see anything malfunctioning.
One of the results of there being no moral truths is that what we care about is up to us.
The downside, of course, is that the language just looks like something which we actually do treat as if it were true, so the theory seems a little outlandish. But at least it accounts for the semantics of moral statements.
Quoting S
I guess I'd have to see what it is that's more sensible, and under what basis.
Quoting S
That's my understanding of the position at least -- emotivism is one end of the pole of the cognitivist/non-cognitivist debate on meta-ethics. Moral error theory, at least as I understand it right now, is a cognitivist account which denies the reality of moral facts.
I have no clue what you're trying to establish as a valid objection. Actually, I have no clue what you think that that string of words means. There's a bit of a gap here in shared meaning.
Good to see you, by the way!
On my view conditionals are not truth apt. Truth conditions are not the sort of thing that it makes sense to say are "truth-apt" for they are a vital part, and elemental constituent, an ingredient - as it were - of what makes "truth-aptness" possible.
I have no idea what being true 'in and of itself' even means. No thing is true in and of itself. That reflects a gross lack of understanding regarding what sorts of things can be true/false and what makes them so.
Being true requires meeting truth conditions. Being called "true" requires meeting only belief conditions(personal warrant). Being logically true requires meeting only validity conditions. Being sound requires meeting both truth conditions and validity conditions, but does not require belief conditions.
Being true and being believed does not require language. Being believed to be true does. Being sound does. Being believed to be sound does.
Moral statements are truth-apt for the same reasons that other truth-apt statements are. They have truth conditions that can be met.
Furthermore, and well worth arguing over...
Pay closer attention.
Here's a report of what has actually happened more times than we can possibly know. We can know that it has nonetheless.
A sincere speaker says "I promise to plant you a rose garden on Sunday".
It only follows by virtue of what the statement means(in addition to having a sincere speaker), that there ought be a rose garden on Monday. This is irrefutable.
"There ought be a rose garden on Monday" is true each and every time someone voluntarily enters into a moral obligation to plant a rose garden on the day before.
That's what it means. Promises are moral statements, as a result of being about behaviour. Moral judgments are made about promise makers. Making a promise is voluntarily obligating yourself to actually perform certain behaviours(to make the world match your words).
Morality is all about what counts as acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. Making a promise is a moral state of affairs as a result of being something that happened that is morally germane/relevant.
Our ability to imagine that which has not happened has no bearing upon what has. The promise has been made by a sincere speaker. The world ought be changed in whatever way it takes to match their words because that's precisely what they mean when spoken sincerely.
Of course we can imagine unforeseen possible situations/circumstances arising that would no longer allow the speaker to keep their word. Reasonable people would not hold the speaker accountable in such cases. That does not change the meaning of making a promise when having a sincere speaker.
Then "There there ought be a dead family" is true if you don't.
For myself, at least, any theory which would say "There ought to be a dead family because the head of household did not pay a debt back to a loneshark" is true -- is a theory which is false.
You'd base this rejection on the idea that that statement is somehow reflective of the speaker's notion of what's moral/immoral, but it's not.
Moral facts don't bear moral judgment. Rather they consist of morally relevent content/events. In that example, I'm not using the term "ought" as moral value judgment. It's an utterance based upon what has been promised to happen. The utterance of ought is true - just like every other truth-apt claim - by virtue of matching the relevant facts, not by virtue of being met with my approval.
"There ought be a dead family" is true because that's what was promised. It's about what makes the promise itself meaningful, and thus the utterance of ought based upon it true. We all know this much. Why else, if we were actually in that situation, would we fear for our lives? When sincere promises are kept, the world changes to match the words. That's why.
We can know that our family ought be dead if the loan shark keeps their promise, without saying that that would be good.
The bullet is misplaced.
Quoting creativesoul
When I say, "You'd need to try to make any sense whatsoever of what nonphysical things are supposed to be ontologically, what their properties are in general, etc." I'm not referring specifically to mental phenomena, unless you think that's the only thing that's nonphysical.
"Spatio-temporal" and "energy" are physical properties/phenomena, by the way. So that wouldn't do anything to make sense of the idea of nonphysical entities or phenomena.
I wasn't doing the old "this is unexplainable" argument. I'm saying that the idea, the concept of nonphysical things is literally incoherent. So if we're going to posit them and take the notion seriously, we need to be able to characterize what nonphysical things would even be, in terms of any positive properties, so that we could make some sense out of them, in general ontological terms.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I don't want to get into a big free will tangent, too, but indeterminism in conjunction with will phenomena, at least where the indeterminism can be biased by will, is sufficient for free will in the sense that I use the term. At any rate, that's irrelevant to the fact that physics hasn't forwarded determinism for over 100 years.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Demarcation criteria for explanations in general, not just about one topic. I gave the basic requirements for setting out such demarcation criteria.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
In my view they clearly are identical.
Correct. What's not an objective state of affairs is if it's better or worse, proper or improper, etc. to use ingredients that will make us sick, or kill us or whatever.
Quoting Andrew M
It doesn't care how you perceive color, correct. Good/bad, proper/improper etc. have nothing whatsoever to do with perception. That's just the point.
Quoting Andrew M
I'm not sure how you're using "universal" there, and I haven't at all been saying anything about that. I wasn't making a point about whether anything is "universal" or not.
Re the rest of the post, if you have a suggestion about how how we could have a "realist" ethics, I'll take a critical look at it and comment.
The best outcome is the one which best reflects reality. It's counterintuitive that all of our moral statements are false. That doesn't seem to best reflect reality. So I think that reaching the conclusion of an error theorist is a sign that we need to go back and change something or construct something new. It's like the error theorist only does half a job. He stops before the project has been completed and throws his hands up in the air, saying "This is just how it is". But it doesn't have to be that way. We don't have to live in a state of disrepair, stuck under a malfunctioning model. This is a decision that's for us to make.
Quoting Moliere
It's called error theory for a reason, right? That sounds like a malfunction to me.
Quoting Moliere
What we care about is never completely within our control, and your position is no different than mine or that of a moral objectivist in terms of what we care about or "need" to care about. I think that you're just under the illusion that it's somehow different under your model, and funnily enough, some moral objectivists seem to be under the same illusion, only they go in the opposite direction. Whether or not there are moral truths, or if so, in what sense, makes no difference to my normative ethics: I will continue to stand by my judgement irrespective of what people say about truth-values in relation to moral statements. The meta-ethics is just about what best reflects reality, what makes the most sense.
Quoting Moliere
But my position acknowledges your account. I accept that, under that interpretation, all moral statements are false. However, that conclusion is absurd, so I offer up a different interpretation which has greater explanatory power. I'm not faced with the problem of struggling to explain why our moral statements seem to reflect truths in some way. They [I]do[/I] reflect truths if you look at it in the right way. It seems fallacious to set the bar impossibly high for moral truth when you don't have to.
Quoting Moliere
There is truth in our moral judgement, and that seems to be good enough to make morality work. It also sits better with people than trying to persuade them that it's all a sham and we just have to act as though it were otherwise. Throw 'em a bone! So there's no objective morality, that doesn't have to mean that there's no morality, and it doesn't have to mean that there's no truth in it.
To reiterate the point, the conditional, p implies q, is false only when the front is true but the back is false. It's possible that this is the case with your conditional. And it isn't difficult to think of plausible hypothetical scenarios where this would be the case. Only a moron would believe that a promise should always be kept, no matter what. And you're not a moron. Are you?
I await your succinct reply.
Good to see you, too, by the way. :wink:
The world outside of minds isn't the sort of thing that feels that it's okay or not to kick puppies. Creatures with minds are the sorts of things that have feelings about this.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
You don't want an ethical system that is concerned with people and what they like or dislike, enjoy or not enjoy, desire or don't desire? You just want to base it on facts, where you pretend that you're not making personal evaluative judgments about whether one fact or the other should be the goal, and where you couldn't care less about anyone else's evaluative judgments about that?
That would be a weird ethics.
Yes, but it's his coping mechanism. He is human, all too human.
Not everything in the world is something functioning in a mental way. As far as we know so far, only brains do that. Brains functioning in a mental way are obviously important to us, so it's worth being able to refer to that with a succinct term. But it's important to be able to refer to the other stuff, too. And making this distinction is especially important when people get so often and so easily confused about the distinction and the implications of it, for example, via projection, where they believe that the world at large has features that are exclusively specific to their brain functioning in a mental way, in what essentially amounts to self-centeredness gone wild.
Quoting Banno
You can't just go by other people's views. That would be an argumentum ad populum. What matters is if it's a phenomenon that occurs outside of our minds.
Actually, if these experts are legitimate, then it would be a valid appeal to authority, and he also talks about conducting various empirical tests.
However, Banno's mistake is failing to realise that our standard in moral judgement stems from us! We're not making a comparison with anything external to ourselves. Banno is unconsciously making a comparison with his own standard of judgement, but erroneously thinks that he's appealing to objective morality. Not only is the notion of objective morality unsubstantiated, it would serve no purpose which isn't already met by our own standard of judgement. Banno simply judges kicking puppies to be immoral, as do I, with or without the chimaera of objective morality. Nothing else is required. The notion of objective morality is about as useful as a bottomless bucket.
It's not about keeping a promise.
Read the eyesore.
Cut down the eyesore, and I'll read it. I'm not in the mood for a word search.
I think how people feel is a fact, but it does not mean they are right in what they feel. It can be a fact that I believe the earth is flat.
If someone is psychologically harmed because they are prevented from beating their girlfriend then I have more sympathy with her harm from being hit than his mental anguish because he can't harm someone else. I would advise him to seek therapy.
I don't think atrocities like the slave trade and genocide should only be bad based on personal feeling.
I think there is a difference between something being identical and something being the same thing.
An apple is considered to be made up of atoms but an atom is not identical to an apple. I am not sure what, for example, is identical about my thought that China is undemocratic and my neuronal activity.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I do not see how math and concepts are physical or pain and color sensations. I do not need to offer an alternative explanation to not believe they are physically explicable.
However my original point was that people do not accept your physicalist premise which seems to underlie your belief that morality isn't objective. I am agnostic but billions of people are religious or esoteric and probably will not accept a morality on your basis.
I think the purely physical does not leave room for values and morality and is just about mechanics and facts.
How's that?
Quoting S
Quoting S
Quoting S
Cool. So let's go into this account that you have. I'm afraid I do not understand it, or at least that my understanding is minimal.
As I get you you're saying that there is not absolute truth in ethics, but there is relative truth in ethics. As I said earlier I don't think that truth is the sort of thing which is relative to the standards we use to determine truth -- or as @Banno put it above, that belief differs from truth.
I used the case of a bolt to highlight how we normally talk about facts. We might say, using this definition of absolute, that the bolts length of 20 millimeters is an absolute truth, because its length does not vary with the standard we use -- imperial or metric units.
I fully grant that ethics and matters of fact are not exactly the same. In fact, by my account, the difference lies in that in one case there are facts, but in the other case there are no facts.
But you are saying there is some relative sense of truth which makes moral statements true. Now if you agree with me that matters of fact are not standard-relative, then there must be something else going on when we're talking about relative truth aside from the standards that we use. What is this difference that makes moral propositions relatively true, while they are absolutely false, if it is not facts? And in what sense is that truth?
Or, more generally if you feel these questions are leading -- what is your account of ethical statements such that it is not emotivist in the usual sense of that word, and not absolutist in the sense we were discussing, but relativist and yet true?
EDIT -- or, in afterthought if that is still just misunderstanding your position, could you just explain your position?
No thanks Sapientia. You've already made up your mind.
Prior to our ability to name our mental ongoings, we were having them.
That is true in a point of view invariant kind of way. Any notion of morality that consists of moral judgment alone is impoverished. Any discourse in morality that meets only that as a standard has an emaciated criterion/notion at it's heart.
Belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour was always and is still yet formed and held long before we begin language use in earnest(long before naming and describing practices are first being learned). During these earliest of our thought/belief formations, we are finding out, remembering, and thus establishing what sorts of behaviours we do not like. At this age, there is no difference in the mind of the person, between what we like/dislike and what's acceptable/unacceptable.
However, we...
...as people who are capable of reporting upon our own thought/belief, are also capable of knowing that liking and/or disliking an others' behaviour begins prior to language, and that morality has an emotional element.
That's where emotion can be observed in it's earliest stages.
Moral discourse best keep this in mind.
If you cannot figure out a sensible coherent way to incorporate this into your framework, then it's time to fix your framework.
You have the idealism disease, too? Or are you just pretending to for "fun"?
No such thing in my view. The fact that any person(s) is considered an authority in x never makes it the case that what they say about x is correct, or "more likely to be correct," simply because they're considered an authority. They always have to be correct on the merit of what they're claiming, not their social status or status in the judgment of others. And then their status should ride on the fact that they've said (past tense) things that are correct, with that never serving as a guarantee (or anything like it) that what they'll say next isn't nonsense.
And the whole idea of this is the whole idea of peer reviewed journals for example. Your paper always has to pass the review process as if you were a nobody. Of course, the flaw in that system is that the experts doing the reviews can give the stamp of approval to crappy, poorly-conceived, etc. work, but there's no way around needing people to make evaluations in that situation.
I mean the scope of a property. A property can have a limited scope (e.g., only be applicable to human beings) and still be real.
Quoting Terrapin Station
According to Patricia Churchland (see this review of her book Touching a Nerve), a mammal's care for its young is the biological root of morality. And over time that has evolved into more universal principles.
Conceptually, we make the distinction between morally good and bad actions in observation. Compare, for example, Alice saving a person from falling off a cliff versus Bob pushing a person over a cliff. We might want to avoid being around Bob (at least near cliffs). That's the kind of pragmatic distinction that creates the use for realist moral language.
Apparently you don't really understand the distinction between things we believe that "parallel" facts that are external to us and things we think that aren't "parallel" with anything external to us.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
And you don't care what the girlfriend desires, how she feels about it, etc. either? You only care about her getting hit, regardless of how she feels about that?
Is an atom "the same thing" as an apple?
Quoting Andrew4Handel
The two actually have no correlation to each other.
So I'm confused how you're using "realist" and "real" then.
How so? If Bob pushes someone of a cliff (ceteris paribus), then what he did was morally wrong. Bob's opinion or approval of it isn't relevant.
How did you get to this claim. It's coming out of nowhere.
If you're not using "real" in an unusual way, you did zero work above to support the idea.
I'm contrasting it with what I understand your view to be. That Bob's action is moral if he approves of it. Or have I misunderstood your view?
Quoting Terrapin Station
I'm describing a conventional use which is based in observation. What work are you looking for?
Bob's action is moral to Bob if he approves of it. X is always moral or immoral (or whatever else on the spectrum, including morally neutral) to someone, to some individual.
Quoting Andrew M
What I had said was "if you have a suggestion about how how we could have a 'realist' ethics, I'll take a critical look at it and comment." In other words, some sort of support for how a realist ethics could be possible, ontologically. I was looking for what you took to be a support, and then I would critically assess it. That people think of ethics as something real ontologically (and it's a dubious claim that most people think of it that way) isn't a support for it being real. People can have misconceptions, false beliefs, etc.
Yes, so we have two different models for using moral terms. On my model, whether or not Bob's action is moral is independent of whether anyone approves of it or thinks it is moral - which is what makes it a realist model.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I'm showing, via the Alice and Bob scenario, the meaning and application of moral terms on my model. Just as I might point at a red apple and say that that is what I mean by "apple" or the color property "red".
Then, abstracting from similar scenarios that we would ordinarily regard as moral, what they seem to have in common is that they are behaviors that promote life and well-being.
Yes, I have. I'm confident that I'm right, and I just can't bring myself to sift through your confused ramblings.
I'm not presenting a model per se. I'm describing what's really going on ontologically. Are you simply avoiding claims about what's really going on ontologically?
Part of the reason I'm focusing on what's really going on ontologically is that it's necessary for epistemological purposes here, especially when there's a disagreement and anyone is claiming that someone else is simply wrong a la getting something incorrect/inaccurate.
So it's not a fact that I'm standing here right now? What's happening right now hasn't already happened. That would be absurd. So it can't be a fact under your ill-considered definition. But that's also absurd, because it [i]is[/I] a fact.
Conclusion: reject your ill-considered definition and replace it with a superior one.
Facts are what's the case. It's the case that I'm standing here right now. Therefore, that I'm standing here right now is a fact.
You're welcome.
It's a common misunderstanding. You aren't the first, and you won't be the last. Even a dinosaur like Banno has these kind of misunderstandings.
Could it not be the case that we truly feel wrongly about a moral issue, though? Or no?
What is truly feeling, as opposed to feeling? Or do you mean that we can be deceptive to what we feel, and thus there is what we truly feel and what is only ephemeral or false?
In what way does that differ from approval? As you say just above I am misunderstanding you when I say that Bob's action is moral because he approves of it, so truly feeling cannot be the same thing as approval.
What is truly feeling?
Bewitched by language use much?
There's a period of time between your report and what your reporting upon(what happened). I wouldn't expect one who has not acknowledged the inherent untenability of Heraclitus' river to understand...
Horses and rivers...
All you'd need to do is point out what the truthmaker would be. Where is it located, what is it a property of, etc. However you need to specify it.
I wanted to clarify something with you, since you mentioned it more than just once.
"It is raining outside" does not mean the same thing as "I think/believe it is raining outside" in every case. The latter use of "I think" or "I believe" could indicate uncertainty.
However, I think that you're saying the former is about something other than thought/belief, whereas the latter is about thought/belief.
I wouldn't entirely disagree. It could be the case, but not always.
I'm keeping in mind that a sincere speaker believes what they say, and that all sincere statements are statements of belief, including "It is raining outside". I think that your approach neglects to keep that in mind.
A sincere speaking saying "It is raining" implies that said speaker believes it is raining -- but they are talking about the rain, and not their belief.
Evasive much:
Quoting S
Please answer the question directly. Is it a fact? Yes, no, or don't know?
Of course, in a relative sense. The puppy kicker's feelings are wrong relative to my standard of judgement, and probably your standard of judgement, and probably Banno's standard of judgement.
Who here amongst us judges it to be morally acceptable to kick a puppy? @Hanover, put your hand down.
In hindsight, some of my past feelings on matters relevant to ethics are wrong relative to how I now feel about it.
Quoting Moliere
I just meant that we can make true statements about how we feel.
Quoting Moliere
It's a misunderstanding of moral relativism because it leaves out the relativism part! Moral relative to who or what? Not to me. To him. I don't approve of his approval. Approval in this context comes under the broader category of moral feeling. Here are some more examples of words which can indicate moral feeling: disapproval, guilt, shame, outrage, condemnation, righteousness, vindication, and forgiveness.
If all the world believes it proper to kill all the blond haired babies, is it wrong? In this hypothetical, you too believe it's proper.
There is no absolute wrong and proper, only relative wrong and proper. In the hypothetical, it would be proper relative to everyone - myself included, given that you've stipulated that as part of the hypothetical - and wrong relative to no one.
But obviously that's merely a hypothetical, and one which doesn't reflect my actual moral judgement about killing blond haired babies.
Here's a question for you: if it was proper to kill all the blond haired babies, would you go along with that?
Quoting S
Quoting S
Hrmm, well for me at least, then, this still leaves out the sorts of sentences we say that are ethical, yet mean there is a fact to the matter in the sense that an action has the property of wrongness or something along those lines.
I wouldn't dispute that we can say true statements about our feelings. But I wouldn't say that a speaker who says:
"Kicking a puppy is wrong" is true
means
In accord with my feelings, "kicking a puppy is wrong" is true
If they wanted to say that they'd just say "I feel that kicking a puppy is wrong" -- but, instead, they use the gerund and form what appears to be a proposition.
And what they mean is that this statement about goodness is true.
Sure, if hypothetically 1+1=3, then it does. You've stipulated the impossible, so the impossible occurred. Quoting S
I get it, but why give your moral judgements higher regard than mine?
Not I. You said:
Quoting Terrapin Station(My bolding)
Phenomena, in phenomenological parlance, has the particular tone of being in one's mind - roughly the same as qualia. So phenomena could not occur outside one's mind.
It seems you were not using the term in this way,
What more is there to say about them? They're false, and they're false partly because of the way that they're interpreted. It's not a good way to interpret them, because it sets itself up for failure, which seems fallacious.
Quoting Moliere
I agree, but that's no big problem for me. I've moved past that. I never said or implied that what I'm presenting as a way forward is what people mean by such statements. I'm just saying that it's better to think about it in this way.
That's fucked up. I certainly wouldn't go along with killing all the blond haired babies. Proper be damned.
Quoting Hanover
Because I trust my moral judgement more than yours. You would have to give me greater reason to trust your moral judgement over mine. Good luck with that.
Is not Bob's action moral or immoral on account of what would be the normal, or the most common, human attitude to it? It seems to me the most common human attitude is based on the most common human feeling, and that an attitude of approval or disapproval is as equally a feeling of approval or disapproval, as it is an idea of approval or disapproval.
Why wouldn't that be an argumentum ad populum?
You hypothesized that killing blonde haired babies was moral, so therefore it is.
It's like if I asked you if you would say it was moral to kill blonde haired babies if you subjectively thought it was moral.
You would, you just don't because the hypo is contrary to fact. Quoting S
Is it based on reason?
Why would it? I'm simply trying to define what it means to say that something is moral or immoral, as opposed to saying that some individual thinks that something is moral or immoral. It is a fact that there are general moral prescriptions and proscriptions, but from that fact it doesn't follow that an individual must agree with them. General moral principles would seem to be mostly based and dependent upon what is generally approved of; otherwise they would not survive.
I think the implied premise is "in accord with the most common feelings".
It's an interesting issue. If @S decides that your moral judgement is superior to his own, he makes a moral judgement. Deciding to let someone else choose for you is a choice.
Now, if @Hanover comes back and says that S ought not trust him...
:lol:
And therefore I would reject that morality. Is there anything which you wouldn't go along with on this basis? Raping your mother? Setting your children on fire? Exterminating a minority? :brow:
Quoting Hanover
No, there's an important difference here. Why wouldn't I say so, if that's what I thought? In your case, you don't have to go along with it. You would be deciding to do so. And as for the question of why you should decide any differently, I shouldn't even have to explain. Just think about how it would make you feel. Would you feel good about it?
Quoting Hanover
Yes, but not [i]just[/I] reason, as that's impossible.
What has happened and what is happening are one in the same by the time you've spoken about it.
What has happened/what is happening... these are facts on my view. These sort of semantic quibbles aren't helpful. Your objection was misplaced.
As it pertains to whether or not moral claims can be true...
Thought, belief, and statements thereof are the sort of things that can be true. True statements correspond to what has happened. False statements do not. Moral statements are no different.
Indeed. Unless they're talking about the statement itself.
When a sincere speaker says "I promise to plant you a rose garden on Sunday", unless they're mistaken, there ought be a rose garden planted on Sunday. If they're mistaken, there ought not.
When a sincere speaker says "There's a beer in the fridge", unless they're mistaken, there ought be a beer in the fridge. If they're mistaken, there ought not.
When a sincere speaker says "The cat is on the mat", unless they're mistaken, there ought be a cat on the mat. If they're mistaken, there ought not.
We all know that this is true. That's how language, talking about the world and/or ourselves, works.
No quiet. When a sincere speaker says "The cat is on the mat", unless they're mistaken, there is a cat on the mat. If they're mistaken, there is not.
Using ought to mean is is obtuse.
No, the moral realist is representing what is going on ontologically. The Alice and Bob cliff scenario shows two different kinds of action that is important for human beings to recognize and distinguish between - hence the creation of moral language to do so.
Your usage does not make that distinction - it instead redefines moral terms to express one's approval. But approval (or disapproval) is one's response to an action (which is something additional that is going on ontologically), it does not represent the nature of the action itself (which is itself right or wrong).
Quoting Terrapin Station
Just as with any non-normative disagreement, one would argue by appealing to what is observed and any relevant implications related to that. That may result in minds being changed in some situations, as occurred with attitudes to slavery.
Quoting Janus
No, per realism, that would merely be the common attitude or feeling about what was moral. A case in point is human slavery which common attitudes and feelings have progressed on. But it was always wrong irrespective of the common feelings, ideas or attitudes at the time. Conceivably in the future some of our own common attitudes might also be shown to be wrong.
:-) It's hard to keep up. Back in the day, what was real was real and what was moral was moral!
I agree. Good that I'm not.
The substitution doesn't work Banno for it cannot be made without losing crucial meaning. I do not mean what is the case by using "ought". Aside from that... I do not disagree with what you've said here. It's just that it's not so simple.
When a sincere speaker says "The cat is on the mat", unless they're mistaken, there is a cat on the mat.
I didn't write that, because I wasn't talking solely about what it takes for a speaker to be mistaken(for their belief statements to be false). I was also talking about what it takes for their statement to be meaningful and sincere as well.
Being meaningful takes much more than the cat being on the mat. When an insincere speaker says "The cat is on the mat", unless they are mistaken, there is not a cat on the mat. So, at times when we think that we may just have such a situation, there ought not be a cat on the mat.
We're talking about the meaning of moral statements, as well as the truth conditions of such statements... aren't we? I'm arguing that thought, belief, and statements thereof can be true. I'm further arguing that all true statements are so by virtue of correspondence to what has happened. True moral statements are no different.
When an insincere speaker says "The cat is on the mat", unless s/he is mistaken, there ought not be a cat on the mat. If they are mistaken, there will be.
It's about both, belief and truth.
"There ought not be a rose garden planted" is true when an insincere speaker promises to plant one.
That report(that utterance of ought) corresponds to what happened.
You might be interested in Grice's conversational maxims which cover this sort of thing. In particular the maxim of quality is that you should not say what you believe is false or lack adequate evidence for.
They wouldn't be talking about the statement itself, unless they didn't know how to speak properly.
Quoting creativesoul
Quick tip: that's too many examples.
This seems to have zero relevance to the is/ought problem and misses the point. You're basically just saying something along the lines that if the relationship between true and false statements and fact is as we expect, then we expect it to be this way. Yes. [I]So what?[/I]
And evidence for that (the action itself being right or wrong) would be?
I'm piddling around to see if some sense can be made of the claim that moral statements are truth-apt. Unfortunately, it seems to me at least, most moral discourse is being governed by outdated modes of thinking.
Sincere speech does not match the world if it is mistaken. Insincere speech does not match the world, unless it is mistaken. We all know this, and our expectations and understanding regarding what we will find when we check differs accordingly.
When someone believes that there is a beer in the fridge and says "There is a beer in the fridge", they are speaking sincerely. The sincerity aspect is determined by the speaker's belief, not by whether or not what they say is true. If we know that they are sincere, and we go look in the fridge and discover that there is no beer, then we know that they were mistaken.
When someone does not believe that there is a beer in the fridge and says "There is a beer in the fridge", they are speaking insincerely. The sincerity aspect is determined by the speaker's belief, not by whether or not what they say is true. If we know that they are insincere(say we know that it is a joke), and we go look in the fridge and discover that there is no beer, then we know that they were not mistaken, because they did not believe that there was any beer to begin with.
If all we focus upon is what it takes for the statement to be true, we learn nothing about the sincerity aspect, for we've separated the statement from the speaker. That is an ill-advised move.
So the examples above were cases when we knew the sincerity/insincerity aspect. Sometimes we do not. When we're mulling through ways to check, we posit what should or should not be the case for sincere/insincere speech. What should or should not be discovered.
When a sincere speaker says "There is a beer in the fridge", unless s/he is mistaken, when we go check - there ought be a beer in fridge.
When an insincere speaker says "There is a beer in the fridge", unless s/he is mistaken, when we go check - there ought not be a beer in fridge.
Missed this. Perhaps you might use the @ tool a bit more.
Of course standards of moral judgement stem from us. It's in the word "judgement" that this happens. It's something moral judgements have in common with all other beliefs.
Judging that the cat is on the mat and that it is not good to kick puppies are pretty much the same, varying in content rather than in kind. And of course I'm making a comparison using my own standard of judgement... as if anyone could use some else's standard of judgement.
The notion of objective morality is about as useful as a bottomless bucket. As is the notion of subjective morality.
There was no "just". I suggested several tests that did not involve a panel of experts - patting the cat and washing the mat, just to see if they were what I thought they were.
Fred is in the same position, whether he misjudges cats on mats or kicking puppies.
Hence, moral judgements are much the same as other judgements; they do not form a special "subjective" class.
Then what notion of morality would be useful?
Imagine some scenario where our jester is a queen of the Rue Paul kind. They say, "Oh my God!", "If that girl says one more thing, I'm gonna just sew her mouth shut!"
If that was spoken sincerely, if our jester believed what they meant, then there ought be a mouth being sewn shut if it says one more thing. But this ought is not on par with voicing our approval/disapproval of the behaviour. Rather, it's a confirmation of our knowing what the statement means.
It's about understanding how language works, with particular attention being paid to sincerity/insincerity. We know our jester does not believe what they say, and as a result, we do not expect a mouth to be sewn shut. Since the speaker is insincere, there ought not be a mouth sewn shut if it says one more thing. Again, this ought is not on par with voicing our approval/disapproval of the behaviour. Rather, it's a confirmation of our knowing what the statement means.
If one promises to plant a rose garden, then there ought be a rose garden planted.
So for example, your question implies that the way to judge morality is by its utility.
Is it? Is what us useful, what is good?
No.
No, philosophy won’t tell you what to do, that’s not it’s job. The moral philosophy of meta-ethics does nonetheless enable understanding of and judgements regarding implementation of actions.
My moral inclinations would certainly prohibit me from kicking a puppy, but if the occassion warrants, which is impossible to foresee, then cute or not.....we’d have to see.
————————
No, I had no intention of implying a way to judge morality. If the notion of objective morality is useless and the notion of subjective morality is useless, what notion makes morality useful?
If everybody did X, would the world be a better place?
Damned if I know. I don’t even know if the world would be a better place if I did X.
Well, let's fill in the variable and see!
Let X be do whatever it takes to acquire wealth.
One could steal, murder, lie, assassinate, etc. If everyone did this, the world would most certainly not be a better place...
Would it?
That sort of empirically predicated maxim of mine alone, could never suffice as ground for a categorical imperative, so....no. The rest of the world may think differently.
Not sure I understand you.
If the rest of the world believes that assassinating, stealing, and torturing others is acceptable as long as it make one wealthy, are they wrong?
Sure they are, as far as I’m concerned.
So...
If what counts as being moral/immoral is relative/subjective, then they could not be wrong about it. There has to be something aside from our own moral belief that determines whether it is true, or false(wrong).
X is wrong/immoral is not the same as X is believed to be wrong/immoral.
In our case, the world would not be a better place. Thus, they are mistaken(hold false moral belief), and... if we apply the imperative as a standard of measure, they approve of immoral behaviour, because the world would not be a better place.
So.....
Correct. They’re doing it objectively in the world, so it stands to reason they are being forced with wealth as the prize, equally objective, or their individual subjective moral dispositions facilitate determinations the consequences of which are such actions. Big deal...been that way since folks left the singular campfire for the multiple grass huts.
————-
I never said it was.,
....is correct from the point of view of whomsoever should hold congruent judgement. This does nothing to explain or justify the morality of those in opposition to it, whose categorical imperative obviously differs and from which they necessarily judge themselves as not wrong.
What's any evidence of moral properties occurring extramentally?
This is a common way to think about things after one has come to understand and thus incorporate the possibility of unexpected events altering one's beliefs, and/or of becoming painfully aware of our own fallibility.
The odd thing though, is that you either can foresee an exceptional circumstance or it is impossible to foresee. I think you mean it's impossible to know whether or not unexpected unforeseen circumstances may take place that would warrant kicking the puppy. Certainly we could envision some.
Reasonable people allow for exceptions when they are warranted. Good people do not let the exception become the rule.
This misses the point.
There is no true/moral from my point of view but false/immoral from yours. That would be to say that the same behaviour is both moral/immoral. This is how moral relativity/subjectivity fails...
It doesn’t miss the point; it is the point. Mine anyway.
To say that the same behavior is both moral/immoral, and have instances wherein such behavior is objectified in disparate happenstance, is the perfect reason for even having moral philosophy in the first place.
Are there behaviours that none of us like done to us?
Of course there are.
We feel empathy for others if we observe them in situations that we know that we do not like.
To say that the same behaviour is both moral/immoral is incoherent, and as such it is not acceptable.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say about being "objectified".
The objective/subjective dichotomy has no use here.
Compare/contrast with using an appetizer fork to eat dinner.
That can be explained by virtue of looking at how all of us form our first worldview(replete with moral belief).
Language acquisition.
Pretty coherent to me, and quite acceptable. And there ya go. You’d probably find something to fill in the disparate behavioral blanks, to demonstrate how the morally worthy/unworthy dualism arises, if you altered your dialectical priorities.
—————-
Maybe, dunno. I’m not a child psychologist and I sure as hell don’t remember the formation of my first worldview. Doesn’t matter though; I know moral philosophy is adequate explanation for differential moral agency.
Are you confident that common feeling was not always against slavery? Could it not be that the common people were simply not in situations that allowed them to act to bring it to an end, or even openly protest against it?
In any case it would seem that our prosperous lives are dependent on slavery today; it's just that it is far enough away from our sight to allow us to pretend that we don't support it by consuming what we do.
This notion of being correct from a point of view...
Is agreement equivalent to truth?
No.
We need not remember something to know it.
Explaining the differences in moral belief requires knowing what belief is. I'm not sure any conventional philosophy has that right.
This coming from one who is talking about the statement...
:snicker:
That human beings share the same biology and need for self-preservation and well-being (including for offspring and allies). So moral language builds in that common standard.
Note that there is a parallel situation with color perception. Most of us perceive a red traffic light as red. But blind people will not. Yet it is nonetheless the convention that the traffic light is red regardless of whether you are blind or even if no-one is around to see it at all.
That's not because traffic lights have red percepts attached to them, but simply because the same perceptual standard is applied whenever we talk about traffic lights. It's the same with morality.
Quoting Janus
Perhaps that is so. Certainly basic human nature/biology hasn't changed in the time frame. Though knowledge and circumstances have.
Quoting Janus
Yes, so it's an argument that can be made (or challenged) on moral grounds. That is, given that we value life and well-being, and that we can empirically investigate the world, what conclusions follow?
Just as forthcoming as I expected specifying the evidence.
The action itself is, for example, Joe murdering Bill. It's the physical action of Joe taking a gun, say, and shooting Bill in the head. It's been claimed that the action itself somehow has the property of being morally wrong (or whatever moral properties someone wants to claim).
Or are we saying that we're not being literal in saying that the action itself has moral properties?
Yes. What Joe did was wrong. That seems like a perfectly ordinary and meaningful sentence to me. It is his action that we are condemning.
From the Oxford dictionary definition for wrong:
Noun: An unjust, dishonest, or immoral act.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Any worthwhile philosophical discussion involves paying attention to the logic of the language being used. And I notice that in our discussion, I've been the only one that has linked in and discussed the relevant science, including in the post that you previously responded to.
The action itself isn't language, is it?
No, it is not.
Good, so let's talk about the action itself and whether the action itself is wrong.
If we say something about language per se, we're getting off track, because the action itself isn't language.
Right. That's the claim.
The challenge is for us to provide any evidence of that claim.
We can't provide evidence of that by talking about language per se, because the action itself isn't language. We need to talk about the action itself and its properties. If the action itself has moral properties somehow, we should be able to in some manner point to those moral properties, provide some evidence of them, etc.
Or else we'd need to otherwise justify our belief that the action itself has moral properties. That justification couldn't be that it's a common belief or a common way to behave (for example, linguistically). That's not at all sufficient (not to mention that any argument to the effect of "P is a common belief, therefore P" is the argumentum ad populum fallacy). Belief or behavior, no matter how common, can't be evidence that something (not itself the very same belief or behavior) is a particular way, because belief can easily be wrong, misconceived, etc., with behavior that reflects as much (and social influences go into particular beliefs/behavior becoming common, etc.)
For some other arbitrary rational agency who knows it is possible to acquire even great wealth from doing X in the form of simply buying a lottery ticket, or doing X in the form of simply being alive and present as the sole beneficiary of an estate of unknown Aunt Betty in Tupelo, at the same time knows, irrespective of actually doing either of those things, anything to do with bodily harm or otherwise criminal activity does not serve as justifiable moral worth. A different sense of moral worthiness is therefore all that’s required in order to qualify the conclusion as merely possible, that “the world would not be a better place” given under the auspices of the imperative demanding bodily harm and otherwise criminal activity in order to acquire great wealth.
There is no room for belief; all sense of moral worth is the result of imperative objective action in compliance to a subjective principle. If one thinks conventional philosophy says belief has no objective validity, and if moral philosophy mandates objective validity in the form of consequential action, then it follows necessarily that belief has no place in moral philosophy.
There is no room for agreement; obviously, herein, there isn’t anything to agree on. Where there is tacit moral agreement there is harmonious community, and even if such harmonious community is comprised of those who steal, etc., in order to make themselves wealthy, they are indubitably soon met with an altogether non-harmonious condition with which their contradictory moral worthiness will be forced to reconcile.
There is no room for truth in the conclusion “the world would not be a better place” in the current moral argument, for the excruciatingly simple reason no such condition of the world is determinable by an imperative in itself. One may think it as possibility, even assign a probability to it, but he has not the means to determine the truth of it.
What is "imperative objective action"?
How do you reach that conclusion? :chin:
If you're going to say that it's useless for determining an objective right or wrong, then obviously I agree. But it's misguided to seek an objective right or wrong.
I didn't pay much attention to Banno saying that (or I missed it altogether). He's conflating different senses of "judgment" there. Just like people sometimes conflate different senses of "opinion," a la "What's your opinion of x--did you like it?" and "Physicist Ben Salabim's opinion on the quantum hall effect is _____" Those two uses of "opinion" aren't at all the same thing.
When we're talking about morality, we're talking about an evaluative assessment--some stamp of approval or disapproval, some expression a la "recommended" or "not recommended," and so on. That's not at all what we're talking about when we're talking about someone's belief or lack of the same about where animals are situated or not in the world. (a la "The cat is on the mat.")
We could claim that the world itself, not just us thinking about it and stating our preferences, has stamps of approval or disapproval, properties of "recommended" or not, or any other evaluative assessments like that embedded in it somehow, attached to various facts, actions, etc. but we'd have to provide evidence of this.
Let's say that Joe murdering Bill by shooting him in the head with a gun somehow has a stamp of disapproval embedded in it. It's somehow some sort of property of the action of Joe shooting Bill in the head--just like the velocity of the bullet is a property of that--that "you shouldn't do this action."
Well, what bearing would that have on anyone feeling that they should do that action or not? Objectivists need an additional objective fact to the effect of "One should aim to match the objective stamps of approval/disapproval."
What would that additional objective fact be a property of?
And we'd probably need something like an infinite regress of that. We establish "One should aim to match the objective stamps of approval" as objective, and Joe says, "So what? I don't agree with that objective suggestion. I don't want to bother with objective stamps of approval, and in my view my feeling trumps the objective suggestion."
So then we'd need "One should aim to conform to the fact that one should aim to match the objective stamps of approval" and so on.
Joe wouldn't be getting anything wrong there. He agrees that there was an objective stamp of disapproval on his action and that it's an objective fact (of whatever mysterious thing it would be an objective fact of ) that one should aim to match the objective stamps of approval/disapproval. He just doesn't care. He'd rather act as he desires. So he's not getting anything wrong, he's not incorrect about anything, he's just behaving otherwise.
So even if there were objective moral properties, they wouldn't do any good (except for people who haven't bothered to analyze that there's no particular reason for them to conform to the objective stamps of approval/disapproval, and who just unthinkingly or out of blind obedience conform.)
The reason this problem appears here, by the way, is that even if there are objective evaluative assessments, there are still subjective evaluative assessments, too, and any particular subject need not care about the objective assessment over their own assessment.
Yes, I am, and that's just as obvious as that they are not, assuming they're speaking properly.
Objective action is somewhat redundant, I know, but I used it in juxtaposition to the subjective principle. Sorry for the complication.
In case you already figured that out, and to answer the question, the conception of an objective principle, insofar as it is obligatory for a will, is called a command of reason, and the form of the command is called an imperative, either thought a priori and put forth in a propositional conclusion pursuant to a philosophy, or, exemplified in the world as an act pursuant to a sense of moral worth.
All imperatives indicate the relation of a freely determinate will to its necessary consequence, but humans, being....er.....all too human, may still find a way to disregard their own imperatives.
How would an objective principle (ignoring for a moment how there could be objective principles) be obligatory for a will?
I'm going to try to avoid asking questions about everything you type, but you type a lot of stuff that seems rather dubious and/or inscrutable to me like that.
What's the difference?
What makes the one truth-apt, but not the other?
The difference is whether our utterances are "matching" some state of affairs or not. If they're simply expressions of dispositions, feelings, etc., it's not an issue of matching something else, or "getting it correct."
I don’t mind; everybody’s philosophy stands a good chance of being dubious or inscrutable to somebody.
Morality involves either action a posteriori or reason a priori. If he chooses to act at all, one usually doesn’t act unless he already knows what the act should be. If he is to explain in general how he is to act, he must use propositions to communicate his reasoning. Such propositions take the form of synthetic subject/predicate construction, re: if this is the case then I must do that because of this. In order to conceive his “must do” he must have a principle to base it on; he cannot conceive it reasonable, and his will cannot be obliged to determine, to shoot Bill because Pam hit a patch of ice and wrecked Bobby’s Mustang, when the moral situation requiring an objective principle has to do with, say, “...it is ok for people in the world to steal, kill and maim in order to increase personal wealth...” Here, in order to satisfy conceiving the objective principle “increasing personal wealth” in general, requires reason to formulate the imperative “do whatever it takes, such as stealing” which the will has determined as necessary to satisfy the obligation to increase personal wealth pursuant to a moral disposition saying “it’s ok for people....”
It’s philosophy, man. Ain’t nothing etched in stone, but just has to be self-consistent and non-contradictory. It’s agreeableness is nice, but not required.
Oh. I think I just realised why you found that funny. You misinterpreted what I said. I didn't mean that talking about the statement isn't speaking properly. I meant that if someone says "It's raining" then they're obviously not talking about the statement itself. They would only be talking about the statement itself in this instance if they didn't know how to speak properly. And to interpret that as though they were speaking about the statement itself would be a blatant use-mention error. So your reply to Moliere was ill-considered.
[B]Different categories[/b]: one about morality, the other about a possible state of affairs.
[B]Different ways of reaching a judgement[/b]: I don't appeal to my moral emotions or any emotions at all in judging whether the cat is on the mat, whereas I appeal to my moral emotions when judging morality.
This is a very basic misunderstanding. I think that you're out of your depth here. You haven't demonstrated a contradiction under moral relativism. You've only demonstrated that you don't understand how moral relativism works. So step one for you is to learn how moral relativism works. Once you can demonstrate that you understand the basics of moral relativism, then you can move on to the next step.
Yep.
I think that moral subjectivism is a superior model because, as the discussion between myself and Hanover testifies, for me, killing babies and whatnot is wrong, and I would reject any morality which says otherwise. I wouldn't just be like, oh, okay then, let's kill some babies.
I think this gives the clue. Moral principles are based on what we value, and commonly held moral principles on what is most universally valued. In that sense it is subjective because it is based on the valuations of subjects. So, if we want to live harmoniously with our fellows, we should not lie, steal, rape, murder and so on. This means that moral principles are always conditional upon that "if" that introduces what is (not necessarily universally) valued.
Spot on.
Here we go.
Yes. Just like other true statements, a moral statement is true if it corresponds to fact/states of affairs/what has happened.
Now...
What part/role does meaning play?
It does not follow from that that X can be both moral and immoral. It does not follow from that that "X is moral" can be both true and false, according to the particular morality in question.
It follows that X is believed to be moral. Believing X is moral is insufficient for X being moral.
It follows that "X is moral" can be called "true". Being called "true"(aside from being called "true" as a result of being the result of valid inference) is indicative of believing "X", and/or believing that "X" is true(assuming sincerity in speech). Being called "true" is insufficient for truth. Believing that "X" is true is insufficient for "X"'s being true.
Moral Relativism conflates being called "true" with being so. Moral relativism conflates truth and belief.
Next up... subjectivism...
Well...
Surely you get the point. Being subjective is something that all claims share. Therefore, the term itself cannot further discriminate between differing contradictory claims.
It's useless for moral discourse.
Special pleading will surely ensue!
I pointed to it in your hypothetical when I said that Joe's action was wrong. We evaluate the hypothetical from our personal perspective. If you value life then you will also perceive that Joe's action was wrong. Whether you perceived correctly or not depends on whether life is valuable.
That is the appropriate level of abstraction for talking about morality. See, for example, Dennett's personal stance (the fourth level of abstraction listed). And, as Dennett notes, it does not presuppose (or reduce to) the physical stance.
Quoting Janus
OK, so that leaves the question of whether something can be valuable even if it is not valued or recognized.
The opposing answers to that distinguish moral realism from ethical subjectivism.
Is that your disposition?
And any evidence at all of the moral properties we're corresponding to?
No. It matches what the world is like extramentally. Namely, no matter where you look, moral properties only occur in persons' heads.
Us evaluating something and us valuing something, our personal perspectives, our perceptions, etc. aren't properties of the action itself. If the moral property is a property of the action itself, it has to be in the action itself whether anyone evaluates or values anything at all.
Who said anything about 'moral properties'?
There are numerous variations of moral relativism, and moral subjectivism... If what I wrote doesn't apply to you, then either ignore it or expand upon my notion of subjectivism/relativism by setting out the difference between the general notion and your particular special one.
Really now. So you don't believe what you write?
So you want me to teach you the basics of moral relativism, and show you where you're going wrong? An understandable request, but not the ideal solution for my part in this. How are you going to compensate me for my troubles?
Let's start with what a contradiction is, and take a look at Aristotle's law of noncontradiction, which states that "One cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time."
Now, with moral relativism, it should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that there's a difference between [i]wrong-relative-to-him[/I] and [I]wrong-relative-to-me[/I]. Two different respects, not a contradiction. And moral relativism does not entail right and wrong in any sense other than this relative sense, so you cannot validly demonstrate an internal contradiction, no matter how hard you try, by attempting to smuggle in a different sense of right and wrong into your argument, hoping that no one will be astute enough to notice what you're doing. At least not while I'm observing, because you can't pull the wool over my eyes.
I may not be able to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. I'm certainly not trying to. I'll grant everything you've said here.
One cannot say of something that it is and that is is not in the same respect and at the same time.
You are the 'one'.
The something is a behaviour in question. Let the behaviour be called X. The respect is the moral respect.
One cannot say that X is moral and X is not moral at the same time.
What are you doing?
Moral relativism doesn't do that. That it is moral to him clearly does not contradict that it is not moral to me. Both can be the case without contradiction.
Your basic error is to fail to address moral relativism on its own terms.
Yes, in two different respects, or not at all. Hence there is no contradiction. The two different respects would be as I just explained.
The respect of X is the moral aspect.
So X's being wrong is determined solely by virtue of being contrary to one's belief.
:yikes:
If that were the case no one could ever be wrong, and everybody would be wrong all at the same time, in the same sense, and by the very same standard.
Moral relativism conflates belief and truth.
You are aware that this is not the open question mentioned in the title, which is an argument against naturalist ethics presented by Moore?
Though it worth asking.
The Open Question argument claims to show that being good is indefinable - what he would have called a simple, but what we might be more inclined to call fundamental.
Person A agrees. Person B does not.
According to S, neither person can be mistaken. That would require the statement to be both true and false at the same time. True for person A. False for person B.
Clearly that cannot be the case.
The problem is a conflation of truth and belief. More precisely, a conflation between truth conditions and belief conditions.
Well it's quite like my showing you a blue cup and you saying "But where is your evidence that it is blue?"
What your request has shown is that you either are blind or do not understand what blue is.
But you don't see this, it seems, and hence you have missed the rather good discussion going on around you in this thread an the language of morality thread.
So be it.
What stops you from applying this argument to almost anything, though? You can place everything in 'the background' for some purpose or in some context.
None of that follows from moral relativism. You either don't understand the basics of moral relativism, or you're not very good at logic, or both.
You're also not clear enough in specifying what sense of right and wrong you mean. That's bad form, because it's very important in this context and makes a big difference.
It looks to me like you want to have your cake and eat it too, though. You once wrote 'The problem with quietism isn't the quiet, it's the ism', but you're still analysing these things philosophically and putting it into its philosophical context - this is how you put the 'ism' onto the quiet. The quiet's just not writing.
Quite. But teasing you is such fun.
Yes. Nevertheless, it seemed fitting, and it has the upshot of catching your attention.
Quoting Banno
Yes, funnily enough, this isn't the first I've heard of the argument. And, as I said earlier, it looks like a good argument. It's compatible with my position. I don't try to define "good". I can't remember the last time I attempted that. It probably didn't go so well. I just talk about it in other ways.
What's the difference between believing that X is immoral, and X being immoral?
So, if you can background anything, and it depends on the context, why is it legitimate to background 'is good', 'ought' etc /after/ their relation to emotions and norms and not before? You engender a different a priori (or set of assumptions) for each, and you have no means with your strategy of distinguishing them. If you want to play the game of treating things as given, and you have contextually dependent principles for treating things as given, what makes your perspective any more accurate than @S's or @Terrapin Station? You just treating different things as given, using different framing devices.
I find this quite amusing. Does anyone else? Or is it just me?
Okay, I'll bite, if you insist. Although there's only so much of you I can take before I give up trying.
That X is immoral, if interpreted as per moral objectivism, is much like other claims, such as whether the cat is on the mat, only they're unsubstantiated, as far as I can tell. So, for me to be a wise man, as per Hume, if you expect me to believe that, then I ask where is the evidence? [U]Not[/u] evidence that it is immoral (as there are obviously different senses), but evidence that it is objectively so.
That X is judged to be immoral is fairly selfexplanatory, but I could go into further detail about moral feeling if necessary.
In what sense?
You've neglected to answer relevant objections. You've neglected to answer relevant questions. And you've made it a habit here in this thread to be dick.
Not interested in the rhetorical drivel...
If someone can't understand that, then they'll never understand moral relativism. This is the fundamental basis of moral relativism.
@creativesoul, I genuinely want you to understand moral relativism, and I have tried, but I am not going to be an unpaid teacher. Sorry.
And posturing...?
All you've done is overstate the case regarding the fact that different people have different moral belief.
So what?
Yes, person A holds that behaviour X is immoral. Person B disagrees.
When person A says "X is immoral" they are stating their belief. When person B says "X is moral" they are stating theirs. The two contradict one another.
So what?
That's never been a problem. It's a problem if one claims that "X is immoral" is both true(relative to person A's belief) and false(relative to person B's).
We are talking about morality. Thus, it should be obvious that when someone says "X is wrong", the sense of the term wrong is a moral one... equivalent to unacceptable, for all morality is about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour.
Acceptable is good/moral and unacceptable is bad/immoral...
Indeed, so what? I have no problem with that. I have a problem when someone suggests that there's an objective correct or incorrect, because I don't see sufficient evidence supporting that.
Quoting creativesoul
It's not a problem, because it's not a contradiction, and I'm done trying to get you to understand what a contradiction requires and why that doesn't count. Putting a relevant distinction in brackets does nothing at all. They're not the same. End of.
The relevant statement is not even "X is immoral", it's "X is immoral relative to Person A" and "X is immoral relative to Person B". There is no "X is immoral" under moral relativism. They reject that, if you mean what I think you mean. Again, this is [i]the whole damn basis[/I] of moral relativism. You are incessantly looking at moral relativism through non-moral-relativism blinkers, and then you erroneously think that you've demonstrated an internal contradiction. Well, you haven't, and you [i]won't ever[/I] demonstrate an internal contradiction that way. Only an external contradiction, which is much more trivial, given that the moral relativist rejects the assumptions you're relying on in your demonstration.
I'm not sure you'll ever understand this. I remember having this discussion with you many years ago, and you haven't changed a bit.
:rofl:
I accept that the cup is blue. I see that it is blue, and even if I did not, it could be determined scientifically. There is sufficient evidence for that. Where is the comparable evidence for morality? What scientific test can be performed to determine whether something is immoral, if I don't feel such that I judge it to be immoral? Immoral as per what's customary or popular? Sure. A survey could be conducted, I suppose. An anthropologist could conduct research. It'd be immoral relative to what's customary or popular, but not relative to my judgement. I'm okay with that.
I reject the objective/subjective distinction for reasons given. Other than that, we're in agreement here. Moving on...
Are you claiming that "X is immoral" can be true/false as a result of agreeing with a person's moral belief?
What is your problem? Someone says "X is wrong". Okay. Under subjective moral relativism, that's false or at least unwarranted if interpreted as per moral objectivism, which is the interpretation which you seem to be stuck on.
Problem resolved.
Aren't you reading what I'm saying about "X is immoral" for the position of moral relativism? The claim needs to be clarified, otherwise I'm not saying anything about it. That's the whole problem with your line of criticism and questioning. Until you sort this out, you won't get anywhere.
My problem is that you do not seem to understand that "X is wrong(immoral)" is a statement of moral belief, regardless of one's moral philosophy. In all cases, X is believed to be unacceptable behaviour.
It's a yes or no question, that I would like to read. Care to answer it?
Here I was, thinking we were moving on.
Ah we'll get there...
Add something.
This is silly. Not everyone interprets this stuff the way that you do. Not everyone is of the same meta-ethical position as you. So you're a moral universalist? Good for you. Why should I care?
OK.
S has got you by the short hairs.
:grin::up:
That question seems to raise others:
What is meant by "valuable" in the context of the question? If to be valuable does not entail actually being valued, then does it at least entail the potential to be valued? And then, valued by whom, by how many and so on?
I don't know what those reasons are, and I'm not going to look through this discussion to find them, but I will say that I think that rejecting that distinction is about as sensible as rejecting the black/white distinction or the yes/no distinction. That is, to do so is pretty senseless, and a bit like shooting yourself in the foot.
Yes there is! It is just further qualified as being "relative to person A".
All you've done is note that different people have different moral belief.
So what?
The irony.
Are you trying to be funny? It is an inappropriate question, so no. Clarify first, then we take it from there.
Can "X is immoral" be true/false?
A dead end?
"X is immoral relative to A" is about A's moral belief.
Again, I do not see what's so funny. You're making yourself look bad. Do you not see?
It's a simple question.
Clearly you hold that "X is immoral relative to A" can be, as do I.
Can A's belief be mistaken(false)?
That's where we sem to differ.
Well, actually you're not even wrong. The statement is too ambiguous for a moral relativist to comment on it productively. Obviously there [i]is[/I] an "X is immoral (relative to such-and-such)", for the moral relativist, but not without that vital part in the brackets.
It's as simple as that. You need to clarify.
So why the heck aren't you addressing the answer I already gave? Moral statements like that are truth-apt. Interpreted as per moral objectivism, they're false or at least unwarranted. That's why I offer up moral relativism as a better model.
Are you a moral objectivist?
No, of course I'm not.
I asked if you hold that "X is immoral" can be true/false. I didn't ask if someone else did. I didn't ask if you knew the name of a philosophical school of thought which does. I didn't ask if moral objectivism does...
I asked if you do.
Do you hold that "X is immoral" can be true/false?
Clearly you hold that "X is immoral relative to A" can be, as do I.
Can A's belief be mistaken(false)?
But that's obvious.
Quoting S
I already agreed to that. Move on...
Can A's belief be false?
Predictable. Yes, I do, in the sense I think is the best way forward for ethics, which is the moral relativism sense. I already told you that I think that moral statements are truth-apt. Under moral objectivism, this means false or unwarranted - no truth. I see that as a problem. Under moral relativism, you get truth and falsity. That's my resolution.
So then, what would make "X is immoral" false?
Pah! You've got some nerve. He asks me a question, then when I answer it, he tells me to move on! :lol:
Quoting creativesoul
That's what truth-apt means. Yes, it can. And I literally just set out for you what's required for it to be false. Reread what you quoted, and try to keep up. I don't really care if it's statements or beliefs we're talking about.
See, this is why you should learn the basics [i]first[/I]. You don't need me for that.
Just answer the question.
"X is immoral" is false if...
You sure about that?
I will, but first, how much are you going to pay me for being your tutor? You're not asking me a question which you can't learn the answer to yourself by learning about moral relativism.
Of course he is. You're no match for me. :sparkle:
Depends on the interpretation and the method. :roll:
Be clearer.
Quoting S
"X is immoral" is not equivalent to "X is immoral relative to A".
You've answered how the second could be false.
The first?
Answer?
On your view, because it is the one being discussed, remember?
So we've arrived at X is immoral relative to A's belief, and A's belief can be false.
Pretty much, yeah.
‘Course, you might have a syllogistic bombshell in your back pocket, just waiting and baiting for the right time, in which case I’ll be as surprised as the next guy, and you’ll have earned your “attaboy!!”.
In the meantime.......
Nah. I don't operate like that. I'm taking what is being claimed and examining it.
Do you not see the issues I just raised?
If being moral/immoral is determined solely by one's belief, then A's belief could not be false.
But...
A's belief can be.
Being moral/immoral is not determined by one's belief.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"X immoral relative to A" is about A's belief.
"X is immoral" is about X.
I see an issue, in the construction of the argument. I don’t think belief has anything to do with morality to begin with. To say as much is to say a false morality is possible if derived from a false belief, which just doesn’t make any sense to me.
Go on...
Carne Asada can be conceptually reducible no further than beef; morality can indeed be conceptually reduced further than mere belief.
Acceptable/unacceptable behavior needs be no further reducible than to civil norms; morality must be reduced further than mere civil norms.
Perhaps...
Do you at least agree that morality consists of belief(at least in part).
:wink:
I don't really have a view, except in relation to a particular interpretation and a particular method, and with a particular end in mind. I think I've made what I think about the ways that it can be interpreted and the methods for determining truth and falsity pretty clear. What more do you want to know? I don't really have a rigid way of looking at this. There's a bunch of ways, depending on what you want to get out of this. Is your priority an interpretation which arguably best reflects what people mean, considering the wording, rather than the associated emotions? Then maybe moral objectivism is right for you. But that leads to falsehood or at least the absence of warrant in my assessment. Is your priority getting truth and falsity from moral statements? Then I offer up moral relativism to you. It becomes more about what best suits you or I or him or her, rather than what's the case. I think they call this pragmatism.
Somewhat ironically, what's right for me isn't necessarily what's right for you!
I would swap the talk of belief, which is what creativesoul introduced, for what I've been talking about from the start: moral judgement.
Bingo.
Agreed. I think that, to end up somewhere meaningful, and to avoid the kind of the consequences that you get with Moliere's error theory or Hanover's moral objectivism (see the previous discussion), then morality ought to be reducible to moral judgement, which in turn can be reducible to moral feelings. And I see moral relativism as the way forward.
First you presented carne asada as the subject, beef as the predicate. Now you present beef as the subject and carne asada as the object, and treat it with equitable argumentative value.
It doesn’t have that.
Going back over our discussion, this one little comment from you has been bugging me. Do you [i]really[/I] not see what's so funny about the following?
That genuinely made me laugh. It's like you went into malfunctioning robot mode! I tell you there's a problem with the question, you respond by asking the question in the same way. :rofl:
I made a comment somewhere about moral feelings, because no one seems to attribute any important, or even relevance, to them. I’m not sure about reducible to, but they have to be accounted for somehow because they can be said to exist in a moral system. Feelings are not cognitions but only responses to them and then only varying degrees of pain or pleasure. We can’t have our morality predicated on pain or pleasure.
I know people attribute their morality to what they believe. I know I have no such inclination, because belief, while subjectively sufficient, has no objective validity, which is exactly what morality demands.
Maybe "reducible to" is the wrong way of putting it. We can and do reason about our moral feelings, after all. But I think that the emotive element is what distinguishes moral statements from empty statements which only appear to be moral in nature. It's the test for genuineness.
In this way, contrary to what Banno and others have said, they are not identical to claims of the sort about a cat on a mat, where moral feelings are irrelevant.
:roll:
The astute reader will note the conflation of truth and belief here. That is exactly what I charged moral relativism with. That charge is exactly what began this 'exchange' between S and I.
Seems I understood it a bit better than some gave me credit for.
No, I'm not conflating truth and belief. So the astute reader will do no such thing. And besides, what would [I]you[/I] know about the astute reader?
Here's another tip: ask questions to clarify instead of jumping to conclusions.
You know, Hume, 1740, insists our morality is based on emotion not reason. Slave of the passions and all that. Kant 1788, on the other hand....what else....insists the opposite.
But I will grant emotive moral statements are better than empty ones.
The above can be simplified...
...getting truth and falsity from moral statements... ...becomes.. ...what best suits you or I or him or her, rather than what's the case...
:lol:
Don't you just love those two? They stand out amongst the crowd, at least for me.
The objective/subjective dichotomy is inherently incapable of taking account of that which consists of both and is thus neither.
Morality is one such thing.
Have fun.
"...taken out of context and misinterpreted".
There, I fixed that for you. You're welcome!
Perhaps...
All I was getting at was that carne asada consists - in part - of beef, just as morality consists - in part - of belief.
Personally I try to avoid analogies. They always fail.
You know, I think that one of the best things I did when I was a moderator was that one time when I went through a number of your posts and got rid of all the dreadful "this/that", "and/or", "thought/belief", to prove a point and hopefully teach you a lesson. It's a shame you didn't learn from it, but I think it proved a point.
Morality is subjective, the consequence of morality, which is not in itself morality, is objective.
Dichotomy both absolutely necessary, and philosophically preserved.
It does not follow from the fact that you cannot recognize the relevance that there is none...
Define both objective and subjective...
Ok, if you say so.
To me, it looks like the goalposts are now clear out in the parking lot.
You’re engaged in a philosophical dialectic. If you don’t understand the terms of common use within the context of that dialectic, you shouldn’t be here.
When were the goalposts established?
I'm looking forward to ignoring S, and seeing what you've got to say about morality...
I've offered quite a bit of my own position earlier and the grounds for it. I'm now looking to place yours under the same scrutiny that my own came through...
Set the posts.
Define morality while your at it.
Fer Pete's sake...
Define your terms. Different folk use different definitions. I want to avoid all the problems arising from that.
Ah, so you [i]can[/I] fathom logic on at least a [i]basic[/I] level. You should seek to develop this skill.
:grin:
Ah, like your contradictory position on what a fact is?
I’m not going to do that. I trust you are smart enough, and I know I am, to conform to established meanings in terminology so oft-used.
That being said, I’m pretty sure our interpretations of “moral” is way too far apart to warrant a sophisticated dialogue. Not to mention, I might be even more of a subjective relativist than S (sorry, S), so there wouldn’t be much new going on anyway.
Gratuitous assertions won't do...
Facts are what has happened. There's nothing contradictory about that.
Yeah well, I'm assuming that you're capable of more than making derogatory statements about an interlocutor. I certainly am.
I cannot understand what you're claiming without knowing how you define terms...
I'm interested in hearing you out. That's the only way to start a sophisticated dialogue.
Indeed, gratuitous assertions won't do. That's why I provided a logical demonstration earlier.
It's a fact that I'm presently sitting here on my sofa. That's what is happening, not what has happened. And it can't be both without contradiction.
On my view being subjective is being existentially dependent upon thought/belief. Whereas being objective is not.
Agree?
That you cannot recognize the inherent untenability of that is not my problem.
It had already happened by the time you wrote what you did.
Right, I should instead throw the logic rule book out of the window and embrace your contradictory position.
Your lack of understanding does not make my position contradictory. It makes yours untenable... unknowingly.
The fact that I'm presently sitting here has already happened? No. That I'm presently sitting here is happening now, in the present. The present is not the past, obviously. That'd be another contradiction.
Thank you for the entertainment. Goodnight.
Petty bickering. Is that what you've been reduced to?
Leave off the adverb qualifying dependent. Thoughts and belief don’t “exist”; they are merely names given to participants in a strictly human mental procedure. Being subjective is dependent upon thought/belief.
End of the day.
Wait, is this those damn wriggly goalposts, again?! Why won't they just stay still?!
I already said that S...
It's irrelevant and petty.
Goodnight.
In what way can something be dependent upon something else if that something else doesn't exist? In what way can something be dependent upon something else if not existentially?
But if morality is subjective and has objective consequences, then it only follows that the objective consequences are dependent upon thought/belief.
Right. So the issue is that we can fail to value what is valuable. For example, Alice owns a diamond ring but thinks it is cubic zirconia.
Similarly if human life and well-being is valuable independently of being valued then actions can be morally right or wrong.
Quoting Janus
Yes, I think to be valuable entails the potential to be valued. But it need not actually be valued by anyone. Just as with any other aspect of the world, we can be mistaken about what is valuable.
What scientific test can be performed to determine whether something is blue, if I don't feel such that I judge it to be blue? Blue as per what's customary or popular? Sure. A survey could be conducted, I suppose. An anthropologist could conduct research. It'd be blue relative to what's customary or popular, but not relative to my judgement. I'm okay with that.
Valuable in what sense? There's an obvious distinction to be made here between valuable in a variety of senses. Valuable in accordance with monetary value? Valuable in accordance with sentimental value? Valuable in accordance with use as a tool?
There is no simple "valuable" in a non-relative sense.
It doesn't make sense to feel such that you judge it to be blue, because, unlike moral judgement, that sort of judgement isn't typically made based on how we feel. That would make you very peculiar.
Of course, you can parrot that back to me with some key terms switched around, but you'd be wrong. And you can parrot this back as well. And this. And [I]this[/I].
A tool can be used to measure the wavelengths in nanometres. If it has a dominant wavelength between approximately 450 and 495 nanometres, then it's blue.
Your turn. What scientific test can be performed to determine whether something is immoral, if I don't feel such that I judge it to be immoral?
Answer the question, please. Don't just be a parrot. Or a parrot-like dinosaur. :smirk:
(1) you're not explaining how the action itself has value, (2) value in general isn't the same thing as a moral property anyway. Say that cubic zirconia and diamonds have value in themselves, independent of us (I don't agree that this is so, but we can imagine it is). Well, that's not moral value. Value in general isn't the same thing as moral value.
You're supposed to be telling me how the action itself has moral value. Do you not understand the challenge? How many times are you going to respond without producing what I'm asking for?
At which point I'll explain what the objective properties are, exactly--the surface of the cup reflects a particular frequency of electromagnetic radiation, etc., and how we'd provide evidence that it's blue. For example, with a blue cup, we could simply use a spectrophotometer to report the color. Or we could take a picture of it, look at it in photoshop, and check the RGB data. There are a bunch of different things we could do. Those are just two examples of ways that we evidence objective properties of something that has objective properties.
That's not to say that everyone is going to agree with all methods, but we can explain a lot of methods we could use as evidence of the objective properties of something, and then from that point, we could discuss the merits of the methods, etc.
So that's all I'm asking you. What is anything that would count as evidence of objective moral properties? Surely if you believe that moral properties are objective, you believe there's some evidence of this, no? It's not that you believe it via "faith" only like it's a belief in God or something, is it? (If that's the case, at least say so, and I won't ask you for evidence of it again; I'd accept that it's just a belief you have on faith.) So I'm just asking you to tell me what you take to be evidence of its objectivity.
Quoting creativesoul
If I am the one who claims, and I claim it is immoral for the Engineer Tom (person B) to maintain the Empire Cascade’s speed (behavior X) approaching Lady Jane (person A) tied to the tracks up ahead, while Boris waits in the bushes for Dudley to rush to the rescue. Poor ol’ Lady Jane certainly believes it truly immoral that Tom refuses to slow down. But Tom, on the other hand, with a train full of passengers trailing behind and a 7% grade he absolutely must ascend or he will roll backwards and wind up in the river, truly believes it sucks to be Lady Jane for sure, but he isn’t about to scatter 14 cars and 67.5 people over 1/2 mile of river bed for her, so he truly believes my claim is false, that is, it is not immoral to maintain speed.
It is clear my claim for X being immoral is true relative to one ground of belief and false relative to another.
——————
Behaviors, all and sundry X’s, are not moral or immoral; the agent is, in determining what such X’s will be. Behavior is an effect of one agent whose morality is the cause, and an affect on another whose morality is impressed. The possible difference in value arises strictly from the subjectivity of each.
The only possible contradiction will arise when I derive congruent moral *and* immoral judgements simultaneously, which is quite impossible. But never from making a claim of morality *or* immorality with respect to observation of a determination I did not myself make.
When one says “X is immoral” he is not stating his belief. He is stating a conclusion from the fact he must know what is moral given necessarily from his own constitution, which makes explicit he must know the negation of it as well.
Not that moral utterances are really beliefs about something else (something external to the individual in question) anyway, and they're not true or false.
People were claiming that moral whatever-you-want-to-call-thems (properties, judgments, qualities--whatever word they'd want to use, whatever word they think makes their case best) are objective.
Obviously we're using "disposition" differently .
Agreed.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I’m the above. The directly above anyway. Would you re-write the part about logically problematic and relate it to something specific in the above you’re talking about?
Monetary. Alice values the ring at a few dollars but it is worth thousands.
The example shows that the perceived value and the actual value can be different (by some metric).
Now suppose the natural standard for morality is promoting human life and well-being. Even Joe can see that his murdering of Bill doesn't meet that standard. He might not care, or he might disagree that that should be the standard, or he might think that standards are merely subjective. Nonetheless, if that is the standard, then Joe's action is wrong simpliciter, regardless of Joe's opinions on the matter.
Quoting Terrapin Station
An action is right or wrong if there is a natural standard of value that it is measured against. I've specified what I think that standard is.
Is the natural standard of value in the act itself?
Then the act itself doesn't have a moral whatever-you-want-to-call-it. That only occurs in relation to something that's not the act itself. And you're saying that part of what it being moral or not is in relation to is the psychological needs of human beings.
This is no different to the idea that a statement is true or not as a logical consequence of its use in some context. Morality is to actions as truth is to statements.
Even if you see green?
You just agreed that the standard is not in the action itself.
If the standard is necessary for determining whether the action is moral or not, then the action being moral or not is not in the action itself.
But could something be valuable if it was never valued in the past, is not valued now, and will never come to be valued in the future?
"Never say "Never"".
When we're talking about objective properties, what you see is irrelevant.
What you see matters if we're trying to figure out if something unusual is going on with you subjectively, if we want to figure out what's going on with your perceptual faculties in a case where they seem to be responding unusually to the objective properties at hand, but what you see is irrelevant to the objective properties qua the objective properties.
Fair enough. The standard is implicit in the action, since the action is done by a human being (for whom the standard applies).
Quoting Janus
It seems a logically coherent possibility. It just requires it to either not be recognized as valuable or always disvalued. Do you disagree?
Then it's not the same exact claim.
No. Andrew. You're ok here.
The standard is necessary for us to determine whether or not the action is moral or not... that is... it is necessary for us to acquire knowledge of the morality of the action. It is not necessary for the action to be moral/immoral.
What it takes for us to acquire knowledge of what's moral is not the same as what it takes for something to be so.
Good things existed in their entirety prior to our coming to that realization. Such things are not existentially dependent upon our report/account of them. It only follows that those particular good things are not equivalent to linguistic conceptions. We can be mistaken about such things.
No. All you've done is further prove my earlier point/criticism of relative/subjective morality. You're conflating belief and truth.
It is clear that it is believed relative to one's belief-system and not believed relative to another's.
It is believed by one, but not the other.
This is prima facie evidence that a gross misunderstanding of thought/belief is at work.
If he believes what he says, then he is most certainly stating his belief. It doesn't matter if it is true/false. It doesn't matter if he knows where, when, or from whom he picked it up. It doesn't matter if it is well-grounded. It is his belief.
The problem I see here is: imagine that something no longer exists, and was never valued while it existed, so no one knows that it ever existed. In this hypothetical scenario, could we coherently say that the thing could nonetheless have been valuable?
Or look at it another way: if to be valuable is only to be potentially valuable, even if never actually valued, then that would seem to apply, given suitable circumstances, to almost anything we could imagine.
Perhaps it be better put a bit differently.
That which already exists in it's entirety prior to our account/report of it, is not existentially dependent upon our recognition of it's existence.
Goodness is one such thing.
So if the moral property/judgment/whatever-we-want-to-call-it isn't in the action itself, but requires a standard for determination, we need to ask just how/where the standard obtains. What is it a property of/what properties is it?
The framing of standards is a human property...what else?
In other words say the claim is "The cat is on the mat (and necessarily at time Tx, in regard y, from perspective z, etc.)" We can call that claim P.
A contradiction only obtains when we say both P and not-P. The claim, P, can't change, it can't be equivocated in any regard. We need to both assert (P) and deny (not-P) the same claim (the claim is P), at the same time, in the same regard, etc.
If it's a human property, then how, exactly, does it occur independently of humans/outside of minds?
Evidence of misunderstanding.......Yeah, I’ll go with that.
What can I say. When I talk about my morality, I speak from knowledge. I KNOW the condition of my moral nature. And even if I can’t say what a moral judgement will prescribe for my actions, I can still say with absolute certainty my volitions upon which the judgement is based, shall be consistent with a fundamental truth I hold no matter the circumstance. And even if I should act counter to my inner truths, in no other way is even possible to know I have judged immorally, then to know what it is I should have done instead.
One either is moral or he is not, which is to say one is morally worthy or he is not. There is no maybe, no partially, moral. Because “is” is a certainty it must have for its ground a law, which in its turn must have for its ground a principle, the negation of which is impossible If the lawfulness is to be maintained. One cannot “think” the law, nor can he “believe” the law, for law itself carries with it necessity and universality.
The rest is metaphysical gravy. Bring your own salt.
Nice post and I think we essentially agree. I would just add that I don't think the good is a brute fact - we can seek a deeper explanation of those good things.
Quoting creativesoul
:up:
Perhaps this is a difference between "in principle" and "in practice". Certainly a mountain of diamonds on a planet in another galaxy has no practical value for us.
But for a practical and potentially life-or-death example, a valuable water supply might be readily available to a community, but they never searched for it, or disvalued it when they did find it (e.g., wilfully polluted it). Thus something valuable was lost.
Quoting Terrapin Station
The standard is a fact about what is valuable for human beings (independent of human opinion). Whether a human action is right or wrong is determined by that standard (and again independent of human opinion).
As I mentioned earlier, right or wrong is a property of human actions, the value standard is a property of human beings (certain things are universally valuable to humans) and that standard is also implicit in the action (since an action is done by human beings).
It's not so clear to me. :-)
Naturally both Lady Jane and Tom want to avoid bad consequences, particularly to themselves and whoever is included in their immediate duty of care (for Tom). But I think Lady Jane (perhaps only after the event of being saved) would be capable of understanding that Tom's intended action was morally permissible, perhaps even morally required. It is really only Boris here who is morally culpable.
Part of our moral calculus is the contexts of others (and their perspectives). To the extent that we do each factor in the contexts of others, I think there is a convergence towards what we might identify as "the good".
So where do we look to check what the things are that are universally valuable to humans, where that value is independent of human opinion?
Hey. Good to have your comment, thanks.
That both Lady Jane and Tom want to avoid bad circumstances is the very root of the entire moral issue. There is only one outcome, therefore one of them is going to be on the short end of the stick. Whomsoever is on the short end is going to say my claim of immoral action is true, *because* the other guy believes it to be false. Tom would believe as Lady Jane believes, that not slowing down would be immoral, iff he had no sufficient reason to believe something else was of greater moral import and thus made a counter-action necessary.
This is of course, an idealized moral dilemma, as most are. The last car in the train could have blown a wheel bearing, jumped the tracks, ended up sideways, and Tom, seeing that, slows down hoping the sideways car will stop him from descending the grade. Or a big tree falls, or a tremor looses a boulder.
Yeah, you’re right about ol’ Boris.....hanging out in the bushes, waiting for one calamity or the other. He doesn’t know he was nothing but an afterthought, an add-on of mine, an embellishment because my imagination overstepped itself. My Andy Rooney influence, I guess.
————————-
On the context of others and their perspectives with respect to “the good”.......under those conditions, how do we distinguish an act of morality from an act of mere civility? Even if they are both predicated on some sense of “good”, can it be the same sense of good for both?
What of it? Cut to the chase, would you?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Quoting Terrapin Station
@creativesoul, [i]now[/I] do you believe me? Or do you think that all three of us are wrong, and you're right?
I hate to say I told you so, but...
Good for you. :grin:
Ok, then analogously, you're merely talking about what's conventional with regards to morality. The ring is worth thousands and murder is immoral, but trivially, this is only so in accordance with a convention that we made up. To say that murder is immoral ultimately boils down to "murder is unconventional". What's more, there's much variation, at least on the finer points, of moral conventions between different cultures. And the finer points can and do matter a great deal. What's conventional in one place might not be so in another.
Your talk of a "natural" standard here is obviously inappropriate, as it is the opposite of that. It is an artificial standard.
I think what you have shown here is that, in extremis, it is possible for humans to value or dis-value almost anything. I do generally agree with what you seem to be proposing, though: that what is most universally valued should reflect what, objectively speaking, is beneficial to human flourishing, and can rightly be said to be, on account of being beneficial, valuable. And this could be applied to actions, which could thus be said to be moral or immoral depending on whether they foster or hinder social harmony.
But all of this is predicated on a desire to promote human flourishing in a context of social harmony, so again we can say 'If we want to promote human flourishing in a context of social harmony then we should value some acts and dis-value others, and cal the former morally correct and the latter morally incorrect. There is no contradiction then if others who do not value social harmony do not agree with our moral assessments, even though it certainly seems to be the case that the vast majority of people will agree that social harmony is of primary importance.
Goodness is just a concept we use for judging morality. What of it?
Insofar as we're talking about anything mental.
Aside from that, obviously the properties are not going to be human-independent.
So you are claiming that moral thought and action cannot be driven by anything in humans apart from the merely mental, or in other words cannot be motivated by anything beyond their mere opinions, which you take to be completely arbitrary?
Oh dear. What's he gone and done this time? First that thing with the bus, now he's been messing with trains. I predict that Theresa will make him the new Transport Secretary once failing Grayling has been given the boot.
I'd have to clarify what the scope of "motivated by" would be, but in general, no--I'm simply claiming that moral judgments, or whatever we want to call moral xs such as "Murder is wrong," "It's obligatory to nurture children," etc. are mental phenomena, and are not phenomena that obtain elsewhere than minds.
I said nothing at all to suggest that I believe the phenomena in question is arbitrary. I'm just saying that it's mental phenomena, not ocean phenomena, not oven phenomena, not atmospheric phenomena, or anything else like that.
Moral judgements are mental by definition insofar as they are conceptual and linguistically expressed. Does it follow that such judgements cannot be motivated by anything unconscious, that is cannot be motivated by pre-conceptual, pre-linguistic, and thus extra-mental, conditions?
Yup. You're all three mistaken. Let me know when you find a way out of the pickle? Yes? Do you remember where you ended up contradicting yourself if you gave an answer? I'll remind you...
"X is moral relative to A" is false if A does not believe that X is moral and true if A believes that X is moral.
And...
A's belief can be false.
How is that possible if the truth of "X is moral" is relative to A's belief?
Not all conceptions of goodness can account for that which exists prior to our conceptions. Goodness, on my view, does not requires our awareness of it. Rather, it is often discovered... and sometimes quite unexpectedly.
Thanks. We do seem to share a position, or at least they're very close...
Goodness is not a fact on my view either. Facts are what has happened. Rather goodness is something discovered and hopefully continually aspired towards afterwards.
Yes, so Lady Jane can think Tom is immoral to not slow down because she does not have all the relevant facts available. So that would be similar to conventional positive disagreements about the world. But if she did have the relevant facts that Tom has, then she could see why Tom's action is morally permissible, despite not liking the outcome. (Because that's the sort of rational reflection one does when a train is bearing down on you...)
Quoting Mww
They're not the same sense of good, since one can be moral and uncivil at the same time (e.g., protesting loudly against slavery). But no doubt they can overlap in complex ways.
You just have to look at what the basic needs of human beings are. For example, food and water are universally valuable for human beings.
Or do you think that is something that opinions can legitimately differ on?
It's true that people can choose to value different things. But suppose one values murder and theft. Consistently acting on those values erodes or destroys the social foundation on which any values at all can be pursued including their own. Which is to say, it is parasitical on what is truly valuable.
Another way to think of a flourishing morality as distinctive is that it operates as a natural focal (or Schelling) point in a complex coordination game between people. That is, if we were all to independently assume some common rules for pursuing our various interests, what would be the most pragmatic and natural set of rules to assume? A pithy maxim here would be the golden rule, which crops up in many different cultures.
Quoting creativesoul
Yes.
No, it's a natural and pragmatic standard. It's hard to get much useful work done when people keep randomly dropping in to pop you off and take your stuff.
Quoting S
We should start a new meme. "Blame Boris!"
It is not inconceivable that a certain type of person who loves living dangerously as an outlaw could want to live in a society where no one trusted anyone at all, and everyone blamed no one but themselves if someone got the better of them (by stealing from, raping or murdering, them for example).
Of course I agree that most people are not at all like that, and we could want to say on that normative basis that it is not natural for humans to be like that; but would saying that be justified? Would it not be an unwarranted jump from normal to natural.? From what is plausibly believed to be most commonly valuable to asserting what is "truly valuable" in some unspecified absolute sense?
For what it's worth, I think we are mostly in agreement; it's just that I insist on the inclusion of that (to me) all important "if" in our explanation of moral principles; I don't believe they can stand on their own without it.
Also, as an aside, we are under no obligation to tolerate those who would live within society without honouring it's commonly held values...Right, but then who among us can claim to not only honour in thought (pay lip service to, perhaps?), but unfailingly live by, those values? So, dishonouring those values is always going to remain a matter of extent; and how much 'cheating' we should or perhaps can (being pragmatic) tolerate.
Typical. Some people just don't learn. :lol:
Quoting creativesoul
This is a straw man. I have not said or accepted:
[I]"X is moral relative to A" is false if A does not believe that X is moral and true if A believes that X is moral.[/I]
or
[I]A's belief can be false[/I].
However, I did say that "X is moral relative to A" is false if X is not moral relative to A. (Which is obviously true).
and
Moral statements are truth-apt, and some of them are false. (Or beliefs if you prefer. What we're talking about didn't seem to matter).
For example, "X is immoral", is false or at least unwarranted if interpreted as per moral objectivism.
And, "X is immoral", is false relative to my standard of moral judgement, if my standard of judgement doesn't entail that X is immoral.
You have great difficulty with statements like the latter. You try to demonstrate a contradiction, but you do so fallaciously by misinterpreting the statement or failing to understand what a contradiction is.
Pffft,
Meh.
Well, there was a point there, but it did not strike home. As I recall it, folk were suggesting that one difference between subjective and objective beliefs was that objective beliefs had evidence, while subjective beliefs were expressions of opinion; or some such.
Now just to be clear, my view is that the objective/subjective distinction is misguided. My aim is not to show that moral judgements are objective, nor that empirical judgments are subjective.
We were comparing judging a cup to be blue - presumably an objective quality - with judging kicking a pup to be bad - presumably a subjective quality.
In both cases, evidence is available; in both cases, an opinion is required.
I think it clear that this way of distinguishing objective and subjective beliefs falls to my examples. You might think otherwise.
A better foil might be the Will to Power: conscientiously acting so as to achieve power for oneself. How consistent could such an approach be? Could this lead to one flourishing?
And this presents neatly the problem with the open question argument. Is it good to conscientiously acting so as to achieve power for oneself? "No, but I don't care".
(and @Janus)
So I can’t claim that my view that liquorice is disgusting is true because some people like it?
And in so doing you moved to a preference instead of an imperative. One says what Michael likes. The other, what everyone should like.
Do moral subjectivists claim that moral statements are imperatives? If not then this critique on the internal consistency of moral subjectivism doesn't work in principle.
So assuming that moral subjectivists claim that moral statements are imperatives, you're saying that he can't claim that the truth of "everyone should like X" is subjective?
Even then, does it matter? Does the validity of an argument depend on the subject? Surely something like modus ponens is valid whatever terms are substituted in?
I assume then that whatever implicit premise was in your argument (and there must be one, because as it stands your conclusion doesn't follow from your explicit premise) is true where the subject is goodness but false where the subject is the taste of liquorice. I assume this implicit premise has something to do with imperatives. It would be useful if you could spell it out.
What sort of evidence would there be for anything being morally wrong, though? And as I explained earlier, it's conflating different senses of "opinion."
How do we get to needs that aren't dependent on wants?
For example, you only need food and water if you want to stay alive. If you want to die via a hunger strike, you rather need to avoid food and water. (Well, avoid water in that case if you want it to be quicker.)
But that's all I'm saying! So why would anyone be arguing otherwise? (Now it could be because of the word "judgment," but that's why I said "moral properties" or "moral whatever-we-want-to-call-'ems, whatever word you think would best make your case re moral somethings that aren't mental")
I wasn't commenting on what they can be motivated by. What they can be motivated by is different than the judgments (or moral whatevers) themselves, which is what I'd be talking about when I talk about moral judgments (whatevers) per se.
Quite right. I should think a determination made on the basis of good with an expected return is an empirical good.
(you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Or, it is good to pay the parking tickets in order to stay out of court. Lady Jane: it’s very good indeed to slow that f’ing train down so’s not to scatter pieces of me over 6 counties, dammit!!!!!)
A good which determines an action because such action is good in itself, is a principle good.
(I’ll scratch your back because it itches; I’ll pay my tickets because I was too cheap to use a meter; Lady Jane: do whatcha gotta do Tom. I know I’m toast. Somebody......please.......shoot Boris for me)
Which begs the question.....is there a principle “good”?
Like what? What do you mean? Give an example. Rocks existed prior to our conceptions, but they don't seem relevant in this context.
Quoting creativesoul
For what purpose? To exist, you mean? So what's goodness, then? What kind of thing is it? It's a concept, right? What would your claim even mean? It's far too vague for me to make much sense of or see the supposed relevance.
What? I don't understand why you think that it's natural, or rather, if you think that it's natural, why your analogy was with something obviously artificial, namely monetary value.
My point was that your analogy was inappropriate if it was meant to suggest a) that the two situations are judged in the same way, and b) that the two situations have the same kind or strength of evidence.
Maybe you didn't mean to suggest that. But one thing's for sure: you haven't shown otherwise. It's because of these differences that I end up concluding that moral objectivism is unwarranted, whilst moral subjectivism is, so they're pretty important differences.
Indeed. It's the same logical form in both cases. That he says that there's [i]no[/I] contradiction with the one, but there [i]is[/I] with the other, means that he is being inconsistent.
Moreover, it should be obvious that there is no contradiction in either case, because within each case, the one and the other are clearly not identical.
The statement "It's good for me" is obviously not identical to "It's bad for him". There's obviously no contradiction there. And it's the same for "It tastes good for me" and "It tastes bad for him".
This looks like the same kind of error that creativesoul kept reverting to. He kept reverting to an interpretation that is not accepted under moral relativism, and then reasoning on from that point to draw logical consequences which, taken as a whole, are completely irrelevant because he is just begging the question to begin with.
It's kind of funny that I've been having this same problem simultaneously with two different people in two different discussions.
It depends on what you mean by "power for oneself" and "one flourishing".. Power to do what? Be benevolent and compassionate towards, or suppress, exploit and torture, others?
So, I agree this trope of the "Will to Power" does "neatly present the problem with the open question argument" because it shows that what is good is dependent on what is aimed at, and what one feels, that is it depends on what one's moral sensibilities and vital aims are.
@Andrew M's argument in the passage you are responding to seems to be basically the same as Kant's Categorical Imperative. It assumes that any deception or exploitation of others will be self-defeating; and I'm not convinced that that the human situation is anywhere near as clear cut as that.
Here is the broken pup. Here is the crying owner.
Where's evidence of any moral properties there?
An interesting point. Perhaps you are right. But we would need to take care with the wording.
A moral statement is one that says what ought be the case. Hence, it is an imperative by definition. SO saying moral statements is not an imperative is not quite right; rather they must say that there are no moral statements, that, for example, moral statements are all of them mere expletives.
Now some folk do claim this. I say that they are wrong; that "Don't kick the pup!" is not the very same as "Shit!". You might disagree, that's your call.
I don't think many moral subjectivists would agree. Richard Brandt in Ethical theory; the problems of normative and critical ethics says "[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".
You're obviously going to find that moral subjecitivism is inconsistent with a view of morality that isn't subjectivism, which is all you seem to be doing - being that you seem to be pushing prescriptivism - but then you're not really showing that subjectivism is inconsistent; you're just asserting that it's false.
Because, after all, we can assert true statements -- and the statements we choose to assert often do imply some kind of specific attitude we have towards something. Especially so with moral matters, where anger and respect are very frequent emotions.
It's the thesis that moral statements are made true by objective features of the world. In non-moral matters we would have the objectively true statement "the speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 m/s" and the subjectively true statement "liquorice is disgusting".
If I say "The speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 m/s" then that implies that I believe said statement. The statement is made true by objective features of the world, but my belief is a subjective attitude towards said statement.
That's what we're referring to with the term "blue"--light of that frequency.
Quoting Banno
This still stands, I think.
Hm. Not to speak for @Andrew M, but I would say instead that one who claims to transcend morality in the way described cannot come back and claim to be doing the right thing. That's one consequence of being beyond good and evil.
Perhaps you might reconsider what is being said, then.
Yep.
Perhaps, but it doesn't follow from your premise as I've pointed out. The apparent implicit premise – that "goodness" is concerned with imperatives – isn't one that many subjectivists would agree with, so you haven't shown subjectivism to be internally inconsistent; you've just asserted that it's false with a question-begging assumption.
Firstly, we used the word "blue" with great success before we knew that definition.
Secondly, why not say that this is what we are referring to with the term "good" - actions that avoid broken pups and crying children.
Quoting Michael
Yep. So leave that language aside. It leads to bad philosophy.
There are better ways to deal with these issues - consider for one, direction of fit. A clear difference between "the cup is blue" and "Kicking pups is bad" that we might all agree on.
And if they don't, then perhaps my argument does not apply; yet if they don't, my conclusion remains, although for other reasons. Either way, they cannot claim that imperatives have a truth value.
And yet, imperatives have a truth value.
Therefore, subjectivism fails.
Or you could continue on to the next sentence which reads "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."
Quoting Banno
They don't claim that their moral statements are imperatives. They claim that their moral statements are about their attitudes, and have a truth value.
I doubt that they would want to claim to be making moral claims.
They.
But what does @Michael think?
What I think is irrelevant. What matters is whether or not your argument about the internal consistency of moral subjectivism is valid, or at least cogent, which it doesn't seem to be.
Then I should not bother reading your posts? :razz:
Quoting Michael
My argument is that moral subjectivism leads to an inability to make moral claims.
I think that stands.
Your argument hasn't shown that it does because it asserts that moral statements are prescriptive which the moral subjectivist denies. If you want to see what moral subjectivism leads to then you have to assume that moral subjectivism is true, and if moral subjectivism is true then moral statements are about our attitudes. That doesn't lead to an inability to make moral claims – or at least you haven't yet tried to show that it does.
It's probably easier to see this point if you substitute 'ethical' for 'moral'. Ethics is concerned with how best to live, with how best to act, and could more suitably be based upon the exercise of practical wisdom than on following would-be universal principles. So, how does it really make me feel when I kick the puppy?
I don't disagree.
Let's try this. Moral statements have a truth value. Subjectivist theories deny this. Therefore subjectivist theories are wrong.
What does that have to do with anything? Blue is an electromagnetic frequency. It's just like lightning is an electrical discharge between clouds and the ground. You don't have to know that that's what lightning is in order for it to be that.
Quoting Banno
When I asked you for the evidence of something being morally wrong, you said "Here is the broken pup. Here is the crying owner." Now you've changed that to avoidance of the broken pup and crying owner. To start with re that suggestion, presumably, re arguing that this isn't just a way that anyone feels, you're not talking about someone intentionally avoiding broken pups and crying owners, you're talking about something that would count as avoidance where that's not due to a preference, right?
That's a pretty gross oversimplification.
Subjectivists don't deny that moral statements have a truth value. Moral subjectivism is a cognitive meta-ethics, not a non-cognitive meta-ethics.
We can detail what's going on objectively in a lot more detail, but you need to do that, too.
First, you need to start by even settling on anything that you're claiming morality is objectively. Is it identical to a "broken pup"? To a non-preferential/non-intentional avoidance of broken pups (which says nothing about avoiding breaking them), or what?
Yeah, big surprise that you'd bow out without being able to support your view. Unfortunately, that won't stop you from repeating the same vague nonsense the next time this comes up.
Fuck.
Too many replies (not just you) that look to make basic errors.
Michael, I think your approach interesting, but the format of this discussion makes it difficult to follow the reasoning.
Let's go back again, and look at the difference between moral statements and statements of preference. A statement of preference says what the speaker prefers for themselves. A moral statements says what the speaker prefers for everyone.
Would you agree with this?
It's more just annoying. I wish that one time someone who argues objective morality would follow through and present what they take to be evidence of objective moral whatevers, where they don't turn out to just be speaking so loosely that they're not actually claiming objective morality at all after all (while not wanting to admit that) or where they don't just snake off once you critically press them at all (and especially where they snake off to start the same rigamarole from the start later, in another context)
It has the flavor of dealing with conmen or sleazy salesmen. That's not how philosophical or scientific dialog should go. I've done the same stupid dance with others tens or hundreds of times over decades. Not one person has ever followed it through. But people still keep spouting the same nonsense.
This set the scene for the discussion here, in post #2.
A statements of mere preference is not, then, a moral statement. "I don't kick pups" is not the very same statement as "No one should kick pups". The first we might call a preference, the second we might call an imperative.
Relativism, subjectivism and other such views suggest, on the face of it, that moral statements, despite looking like they apply to everyone, are actually no more than statements of preference. In the grammar described above, they commit to there being no moral statements, all of them being reduced to statements of individual preference.
On this account, a moral statement M does not itself have a truth value, but instead is only ever the subject of a propositional attitude. Tom believes M; or M is true for group G; or some such.
But, moral statements do have a truth value.
Hence moral statements are more than statements of preference.
Now, it's clear that if you do not think that moral statements have a truth value, you do not need to accept this argument. @Michael.
But that is not the same as showing that the argument is invalid.
Well, first I'm not arguing for an objective morality. I'm saying the objective/subjective distinction is a non-starter.
And second, I have presented evidence, but for some reason you don't appear to recognise it. Here is the broken pup. Here, the crying child. These are consequences of the pup being kicked; and these are not good. Therefore kicking the pup is also not good.
It never stood to begin with.
You're arguing that it's not just preferences/feelings.
Quoting Banno
It can't just be any old bullshit that won't be critically challenged. You have to be able to meet the critical challenges. Everyone can just say some usually vague bs that can't meet any objections/challenges.
You listed two things that don't have anything at all to do with morality in themselves. One was listing stuff that we make moral judgments about, and the other ("avoidance") was vague, especially if it was supposed to refer to something that's not preferences/feelings--which is what you were arguing morality is not.
Quoting Banno
"These are not good" is a judgment you're making about the evidence you presented.
You were supposed to be presenting evidence that "These are not good" (or just "not good") is not just a statement of preferences/feelings.
Sure. I followed your discussion with Michael to some extent, and I more or less agreed with him. Then came the part where you said that a moral statement is one that says what ought to be the case. I reject that as incomplete, as it erroneously excludes statements that say what is good, which are obviously moral statements. You say that they're not excluded, because you say something along the lines that to say the one is to say the other, and/or that the one logically implies the other. That's what I reject. And I explicitly rejected it ages ago when you brought it up before. So your criticism of moral subjectivism isn't simply criticism of moral subjectivism, it's criticism of moral subjectivism which relies on something that a moral subjectivist need not accept by virtue of being a moral subjectivist. Really, it's not about moral subjectivism at all, it's about your own separate claim. Which should go some way to explaining why I said what I did in relation to what you said.
How's that?
Hang on. I listed a broken pup and a crying child.
How could you claim that these "don't have anything to do with morality"?
And is that "in themselves" a hint at some philosophical baggage? Is the cup blue in itself?
So... you do not think that morality is about what we ought do?
Odd.
Wow. Talk about taking what I said out of context.
So just to be clear, you do think that moral statements are about what we ought do?
Because it's just a broken pup and a crying child. It's not "It's good to have a broken pup" or "It's bad to have a broken pup" or "It's (morally) permissible to have a crying child" or "It's (morally) prohibited to have a crying child" or anything like that.
The MORAL part is the "It's good"/"It's bad"/etc.stuff. A broken pup is a broken pup. Absent persons' preferences/feelings/etc. the broken pup in itself doesn't say anything whatsoever about/it's not any evidence at all of anything MORAL. It's just a fact that there's a broken pup. You were supposed to be providing evidence of the MORAL part, not what the moral part is a judgment about. There's no dispute that the moral stuff is a judgment about something that's not itself a preference or feeling. The issue is whether the MORAL stuff is just preferences/feelings. To provide evidence that the moral stuff is not just preferences of feelings, you need to provide evidence of the MORAL stuff occurring outside of preferences/feelings.
So you think that I think that I am wrong to say that moral statements are used to say what ought be the case, because you think that this excludes statements about what is good, because... you think that saying what is good is not the same as saying what we ought to do?
Are you trying to be funny? I made the point that moral statements include statements in a moral context about what we ought or ought not do, [i]as well as[/I] what is moral or immoral. I also made the further point that I reject the link that you're drawing between the two, whether that link be that the one means the other, or that the one logically implies the other, or both.
This is simplistic and misleading. A moral subjectivist will not, cannot (consistently), "say what the speaker prefers for everyone" if that is taken to mean that they want to assert a principle that everyone should follow.
A moral subjectivist can say what she would prefer that everyone should do, but although that is more than simply "what the speaker prefers for themselves" it is nonetheless still a personal preference. Your argument is simplistically equivocating on the meaning of the notion of personal preference.
Quoting Banno
Those only have something to do with morality insofar as most people's feelings of compassion will be exercised by them. It's all to do with common human feelings, but you don't want to admit that, even though you have no argument to support your 'position'.
So, you look at the broken pup and crying child and don't see the moral import.
I doubt that. I suspect that rather, you pretend not to see the moral import because it suits your theory. I don't think you a sociopath.
"I prefer x" is not a statement of preference? LOL
You're supposed to be providing EVIDENCE of the moral stuff occurring in the broken pup itself.
Saying "you don't see the moral importance?" isn't providing evidence. Where is the moral stuff IN the broken pup itself? The broken pup is a broken pup. Where is the moral stuff?
Another could say, "There's a broken pup. Producing broken pups is morally reprehensible."
You want to claim that one is getting correct properties in the broken pup itself. What properties? How do they obtain, exactly? How do we check who is getting the properties in the broken pup itself correct?
Again, what is the baggage behind your adding "itself"?
Why is kicking pups bad? The evidence is before you, in the broken pup and crying child.
You're saying the MORAL stuff is IN the broken pup. You're saying that it's not just a judgment that people make about the broken pup. So that's what I'm referring to with it being IN the broken pup (itself) and not elsewhere (such as how people feel about it), simply about the broken pup.
Quoting Banno
Because people FEEL that it's bad.
So, this should be "So, you look at the broken pup and crying child and don't feel any compassion?"
Of course if you feel compassion then your moral feeling is engaged. If you don't then you may well be what is commonly referred to as a sociopath or a psychopath.
Yep. But that is what moral language requires. Hence they cannot make moral claims, So you agree with me.
Right, and if you feel compassion, and that's the sort of thing that we're talking about, then why is anyone arguing against these things being ways that individuals feel about the stuff in question?
THat would be an odd turn of phrase. You're saying the blue is in the cup, it's not just a judgement people make about the cup. SO you did not judge it blue rather than turquoise?
Of course they cannot make moral claims (if by that you mean universalizing claims) but they can certainly make statements about their own moral preferences.
No, I'm saying its in the way electromagnetic radiation is reflected from the cup. How anyone judges a color is irrelevant to this. We can check the color objectively via a variety of instruments. It's a property of nonmental stuff.
Cool.
How anyone judges a colour is irrelevant to the cup being blue?
Yes, when we're talking about objective color. That's the whole point of objectivity. Objective things are not at all dependent on anyone's judgment, perception, etc. They obtain independently of us.
The way I parse that is to say that the subjectivist thinks that all moral statements are in some way reducible to or are really saying something other than what they are saying on their surface. So that
(1) "Kicking the pup is wrong" is true
is reducible to or is actually saying
(2) "I feel that kicking the pup is wrong" is true
But these sentences do not mean the same thing. One is referring to the action "Kicking", and the other is referring to the speaker's state of mind or attitude towards the action.
We can set up some rules around subjective truth, I suppose, but then it seems to me that we're not talking about truth anymore. Truth is a property of statements. And (1) does not mean the same thing as (2). I could say that if a speaker says (1) then (2), but I could not say that the truth value of (1) is the same as the truth value of (2).
In the case where someone says, just to make it easier to see, that kicking the pup is right for instance -- (1) would be false, yet (2) would be true.
They can claim (or better, assert) that their moral view is true for them, which is to say that the moral view is true to their own moral feelings.
Moral claims aren't true or false.
You want to make a distinction between moral statements and empirical statements based on the evidence - is that right?
Could we at least agree on this: the difference is in the direction of fit, not in the evidence. One says how things are, the other how things ought be?
The open question - the theme of this thread.
I want to get back around to the open question argument again. But I wanted to revisit my Casebeer first and see if I thought differently about him than I do now before saying much. He takes on the open question argument in arguing for natural ethical facts, but I remember not feeling convinced by it.
I don't want to. This has nothing at all to do with what I want. It's simply a fact that moral properties or whatever we want to call them only occur via mental activity, while other properties, other phenomena, occur independent of minds.
Quoting Banno
I honestly have no idea what that's saying. If that's a common phrase I'm not familiar with it.
Quoting Banno
Yes. But some folks want to claim that how things are can BE identical to how they ought to be. I'm inquiring just how that would be the case, just what the evidence would be for it.
Right. But a moral claim, by it's very nature, says what is true for everyone: Everyone ought do X.
It's neither true nor false. Truth value is a category error for moral claims. (See noncognitivism.)
So is "seven" is mind-independent, or only subjective?
Or does this juxtaposition of objective and subjective fall on analysis?
I say the latter.
In my view numbers, mathematical objects in general, do not occur mind-independently. I'm a nominalist in various senses, including that I reject the notion of any real (or objective) abstracts. Mathematics is a way that we think about relations, with most of it an abstracted extrapolation of thought about some basic relations we experience. Mathematics is not identical to any objective relations.
Yep. That's apparent. Quoting Banno
That'a all it means
Quoting Terrapin Station
Well, when folk do not kick pups, then things are as they ought be. The evidence, presumably, would be the absence of kicked pups.
Not all of them deny that. There are both cognitivist (moral statements are truth-apt) and non-cognitivist (moral statements aren't truth-apt) subjectivist theories. Mine is the former.
That's evidence of no kicked pups. It's not evidence of any mind-independent "ought" property.
It seems as if you don't understand the distinction, but it's very weird that you do not.
So mathematics is somewhere between objective and subjective.
Could moral statements have also be somewhere between objective and subjective?
After all, we do all agree that kicking pups is wrong. It's not like my preference for vanilla milkshakes.
No, I didn't say anything like that. It's subjective. Again, mathematics is NOT identical to any objective relations. I explicitly said that mathematics is a way we think. Thought is not objective by definition.
Well, perhaps I do understand it, and since I want to show you that it fails, it's no wonder that what I say is enough to keep you coming back for more. Presumably you see something in what I am saying, otherwise you would go do something else.
After decades of discussions with tens if not hundreds of different people about this, I'm desperate for anyone to actually provide the evidence they claim to be able to provide. Again, it's frustrating that no one ever does.
If you want to show that it fails, then provide the evidence that the two (a fact of there being or not being "broken pups" and a nonmental fact about "oughts") are the same thing somehow.
And yet, objectively, here are seven exclamation marks: !!!!!!
If it is subjective, is that no more than a question of opinion? If you say there are six, are you right or wrong? Mathematical statements are subjective but have a truth value? SO why not moral statements?
We probably all agree that turd milkshakes are wrong, but that doesn't make them objectively wrong. does it?
Aren't you familiar with nominalism? No two numerically distinct things are identical. (Re there objectively being "seven" of something)
But here it is: the broken pup. What do you think?
It's odd to me that you do not recognise this evidence.
I think I'm looking for the ought property.
Yet, yet instance of seven marks is, itself, objectively seven marks. Nominalism doesn't get you past the identity of a given thing itself.
But if the distinction between objective and subjective fails, no one need give a fuck about if it is objectively wrong.
Just wrong will suffice.
Look instead for just the ought. It's right there.
It's not objectively "seven marks"--that's a way of thinking about the marks.
You mean that it obtains somehow without being a property? :meh:
I for one don't agree with that. That's the position known as moral universalism. I don't agree with that, since in some cases I think that that would be the wrong interpretation. You can exclude these cases where that would be the wrong interpretation, and thereby render them inapplicable, with your notion of what makes a statement a moral statement. But that would then mean that I don't agree with your notion of what makes a statement a moral statement. It seems obvious that these are not merely statements, but moral statements, by virtue of the subject matter.
My feelings when I see the broken puppy are clear evidence that I should not injure puppies, and that I prefer that no one else does either; but my feelings cannot be evidence for anyone else. If they have no feelings, or even have feelings of joy, when they see the injured puppy, then what is to be done about that?
@Terrapin Station - does the statement above have a truth value?
Not quite, us thinking about the marks is definitely a way of us thinking about the marks. That's our thoughts after all.
But it's more than that. The number of marks is also a truth of the instance itself.There is a distinction between, for example, "seven marks" and "five marks" in this context. One reports the number of marks in this individual instance correctly. The other does not.
It much the same as an instance where people might disagree over whether I have a cake in my fridge. We open the fridge and are presented with a cake on a plate.
There are multiple ways we might think about this encounter. Someone might take what they see and say: "Yes, there is a cake in my fridge." Another person might take what they see and say: "There is no cake in my fridge."
Both of these will be our way of understanding the instance in question (each is a human thought and perception), but these thoughts are distinct in that one reflects what is in my fridge (" Yes, there is a cake" ) and the other ( "There is no cake) does not.
The same applies to the exclamation marks in this example. Some thoughts ("there are five marks") are wrong with respect to what is true of this instance. Other are correct ("there is seven marks").
Yes, quite. I take it you buy natural kinds?
To say something is just wrong just is to assert that it is wrong regardless of anyone's opinion; and this is what is usually meant by saying that something is objectively, not merely subjectively, the case.
No.
True/false has to do with whether something matches facts or not.
I'm not sure what you are trying to talk about here. My point was just you are correct to think our thoughts are involved here, that our understanding of numbers is our way of thinking.
The "not quite" is because these thoughts don't constitute the existence of the there things we might be thinking about-- e.g. our thoughts about numbers aren't the numerical truth we are thinking about, much like our thoughts about a tree aren't the tree we are thinking about.
What makes this: !!!!!!! not one mark, for example?
The fact there are seven "!" marks present.
Now, it is also true: "!!!!!!!" is also one mark, (a singular "!!!!!!!" entity), two marks ("!!" "!!!!!" entities next to each other), two marks ("!" "!!!!!!!" entities next to each other), two marks ( "!!!" "!!!!") next to each and so on, etc., of for entities of every combination, but this never changes there are seven individual "!" marks present.
If we are talking about the number on individual marks, the person who say anything other than seven will be wrong by the truth of this instance "!!!!!!!."
If your tactic is to just define away your opposition through moral universalism, then I find that trivial. There's nothing stopping me from doing that to you, only through moral relativism instead.
And yes, we agree that moral statements are truth-apt.
First, per nominalism, there aren't any two of the same mark (re them literally being the same), are there?
Quoting Banno
Quoting Terrapin Station
OK, so I think we are done. If you do not think that such a statement has a truth value, I don't anticipate making any progress here.
Fine. I'm just suggesting we drop the objective and subjective talk as unhelpful.
Were you aware that @Terrapin Station thinks otherwise?
Indeed. Just lots of entirely different instances of marks with their own numerical identity. So lets say we have two sets of seven marks "!!!!!!!" and "!!!!!!!." These are never identical.
Each does have a numerical value of 7, but is is not achieved thorough a universal numerical value delivering an identical meaning of 7 to each.
Rather, the value of 7 is a feature of each unique set on its own terms. Just as two different people have brown hair solely in how they exist, these sets both have value of 7, solely in how they are present as a unique individual. The 7 of one set is never the 7 of the other. The similarity (7) is formed entirely out of difference.
It's not real that there are different things and not just one.
I'm aware that our positions are quite similar, but that he may well be a noncognitivist, as you suggest. I however am not. I'm familiar with the emotivist line of argument which says that moral statements are not truth-apt, because they're emotional expressions like "Yay!" and "Boo!", and that "Yay!" and "Boo!" aren't truth-apt. I don't agree with that argument, although I agree that emotion has an important relationship with morality and our linguistic expressions in relation to morality, and that they are [i]kind of[/I] like "Yay!" and "Boo!", but not enough like them to warrant the conclusion that moral statements aren't truth-apt.
You have a strange understanding/confusion about nominalism then.
The whole point of nominalism is that the singular, general or universal doesn't exist at all, that existence is characterised by many different things, rather than a singular universal which defines or determines the all. Nominalism is an understanding that only difference/different things are real (by "real", I assume you mean something that exists).
It's not.
That's fine, but at least acknowledge that there is a difference between claiming something is wrong, simpliciter, and saying that you think something is wrong. The disagreement here is not merely on account of the use of the terms 'objective' and 'subjective'.
...I said as much, many times.
Do you realise that only a moral nihilist and sickos would deny that conclusion, and for two very different reasons. I don't recall you mentioning moral nihilism once, and I doubt that any of us here are sickos regarding kicking puppies. You've instead been talking a lot about moral subjectivism, but the typical moral subjectivist wouldn't deny that. Even the typical non-cognitivist wouldn't deny that, they'd just interpret "not good" differently, in a way that means it isn't truth-apt. And even the typical moral nihilist doesn't [i]really[/I] judge stuff like that any differently, they're just in denial about right and wrong - they would also probably just word it differently.
And yet you still believe that you could be warranted in claiming that something is wrong, simpliciter; or in other words you still believe that it could be true that something is simply absolutely wrong. don't you? If you do still believe that, the problem you face is how to provide evidence for such an absolutizing claim, or a cogent argument that such claims are justifiable. That is just what you have failed to provide as far as I can see.
Yep. That's rather the point of the example.
Absolutely - Why add this? Too much baggage.
And yet, as S said...Quoting S(sic.)
So we all agree, and yet we rant on for page after page.
Something is astray here...
Okay. But you realise that that's a very small target? It won't apply to most of us here. I for one am neither a moral nihilist nor a sicko. Kicking puppies is wrong. The only issue for me is how that's interpreted and so on.
Hu?
Your conclusion is simply about kicking puppies and stuff like that being not good. Yes? Well, that doesn't do anything for all of us who agree that it's not good, which is all of us besides moral nihilists (who deny good and bad) and sickos (who disagree because they'd say that it's good).
We disagree over other issues, like the issue of how moral statements should be interpreted.
Are you serious? To my knowledge, no one has demanded evidence that kicking puppies is wrong. That's far too simplistic or too uncharitable an interpretation of what's being demanded. Put some more effort in, and you might get it right. Also, maybe try to understand that people go by different interpretations, and that that isn't always explicit. I think that that would help.
I recognise the distinction between an "is" statement and an "ought" statement. The meanings are not identical. Nor does the one logically imply the other.
What's the problem? You think otherwise for some reason?
Yeah, that's what it boils down to. Might as well just cut to the chase instead of deliberately concealing it with vague terminology. The moral feelings are what's fundamental.
Page 24 has calls for evidence, but not for whether this puppy crap is wrong or not. The call is for the morality grounding the judgement that this puppy crap is wrong.
...........like using a Band-Aid to remedy a heart attack: the answers to moral questions are never going to be found in the near-infinite complex of worldly examples.
Well, I'm a moral subjectivist, but as I explained earlier, you'd be parsing it wrong with me if you did so like that, because for me it's not so much about what people mean, but rather what's the best interpretation in terms of the results. It's a practical way to look at it, I would say. There are problems with other interpretations in terms of the logical consequences, and moral subjectivism avoids this. All moral statements are false or unwarranted? Not a good consequence. That's counterintuitive. Therefore, interpret in accordance with moral subjectivism and Bob's your uncle.
SO again, let's bring in the open question.
Suppose that what is good is what is more or less universally felt and thought to be right.
But couldn't they all be wrong? It seems so.
So what is good is not the very same as what ismore or less universally felt and thought to be right.
Soo much the worse for objectivity.
I, and I suspect most of you, are not going to decide what is right and what is wring by conducting a poll.
Sure. But it seems that we agree, at least most of the time, as to what we ought do.
And isn't working out what to do the point of ethics?
We blow our points of disagreement out of ll proportion.
You missed it. @Terrapin Station was most insistent.
Ah, I see @Mww drew attention to this.
Quoting Mww
Well said. The answer will always be in the doing.
Let us simplify by performing the following operation...
Not all conceptions [snip]of goodness[endsnip] can account for that which exists prior to our conceptions.
...and we'll all see that we're left with the following...
Not all conceptions can account for that which exists prior to our conceptions.
How do we know if something exists prior to our naming and describing it?
That which exists prior to our conception(s) of it is not; cannot be. That which is discovered to exist in it's entirety is not; cannot be.
What's the difference between the term "goodness" and my conception?
If "goodness" were equivalent to my notion thereof, I would have never been able to discover otherwise. I once thought something was the right thing to do, and found myself painfully aware of being mistaken.
Goodness is something we learn about solely by virtue of looking for it. It cannot be equivalent to our notion, for notions consist of language. Trees and goodness does not.
It is the quality inherent to all good things.
That's the point of normative ethics. This discussion is about meta-ethics. You should know, you created it.
No, [i]you[/I] missed it. We both read what Terrapin Station said. The only difference is that I understood it. I'm confident in my ability to go over it with him and get his confirmation that I do indeed understand it. Whereas I doubt that that would work out with you and him.
When people are kicking off all around you about how you're interpreting something that someone said, that should at the very least give you pause for thought.
Let's put it this way: I am sceptical. Now, if you think that you can logically demonstrate otherwise, then please give it a go.
They're two different things. You started a discussion on one of them, then switched to the other. Why? Because your argument isn't faring too well? Okay.
No, please just clarify what you meant. That's all that I was after. I don't need to answer your question for that.
What I would like is for you to stay on topic. But I suppose that that's asking too much of you?
A thread has a life of its own. Better to treat the topic as a strange attractor than a fixed point.
Quoting Banno
Pity most folks don't understand the importance of this due to their misleadingly reductive definitions of each term. As if a human subject is not constituted of a bunch of social relations (an intersubjectivity) which notions of morality are dependent on.
Not a big fan of the term 'scientism' but certainly the very human need to neatly box up concepts to make them more understandable. Unfortunately, in this case, it makes a coherent position on morality impossible.
Nor am I. Ok, let's just put it down to being overly neat. Morality needs to be messy.
Yes, without problematizing notions like 'subjective' and 'objective' we get nowhere. And you get folks running back and forth to Wikipedia and quoting theoretical buzzwords polluted by the same issues in a frantic effort to be self-consistent. Without actually thinking.
So, re morality as properly understood, beyond the intersubjective, there is no pure 'objective' and beyond social relations as constituted by human experience, there is no pure 'subjective'. And looking for, or demanding, 'evidence' of morality at either extreme of the spectrum is futile and self-defeating.
Not as much as I should be. If you have a particular recommendation, PM me. Cheers.
:up:
But I am unable to differentiate this from the notion that moral statements are just whatever we happen to feel is right -- which seems to me to fall squarely in with non-cognitivism.
So I just feel confused in trying to parse your account, I guess.
I wasn't characterizing that last bit as nominalism. But lol at the idea of you adopting a "teaching position" when you're not even familiar with natural kinds.
I was demanding evidence not that that kicking puppies is wrong, but that "kicking puppies is wrong" is not only a preference that people have, a way that people feel, etc. In particular, people had claimed that "kicking puppies is wrong" is somehow in "the act itself" of kicking puppies. So I challenged that claim by asking for any evidence of it. What I'm really looking for is evidence of any moral property (or whatever we want to say moral 'stuff' is) being anywhere other than in our judgments, our feelings, our preferences, etc. It doesn't matter what the moral property would be. Folks could use anything as their example--whatever they think is easiest to demonstrate.
It's very curious that you'd think that if something only occurs in our minds, in our way of thinking about things, then we'd not be able to do the thing in question.
Okay, a thread has a life of its own. I want to talk about goldfish. Let's all talk about goldfish now, instead of the original topic or whatever Banno wants to talk about. It's goldfish now.
So long as we're talking about goldfish instead of the original topic, Banno can make a get away without having to come up with a proper reply to criticism or conceding.
What's that you say? Red herring? No, no, no, let's just talk about goldfish instead. What's your favourite type of goldfish? Mine is a Fantail.
They're distinct. If you don't know the distinction, look it up.
I agree, but I think that conditional is simply "If life has value then ..." in an ordinary sense. If so, then that value constitutes a universal standard for measuring one's actions against. Everyone having their own arbitrary preferred standard is no standard at all.
Great example. The Will to Power is to morality as a counterfeit coin is to the real thing. The counterfeiter may do quite well for a time (perhaps even their lifetime) but nonetheless devalues the real currency and is always at risk of being exposed for who they really are. Not an example of a flourishing life by any reasonable standard.
Quoting Banno
Yep.
Quoting Banno
Exactly. Yet ethical subjectivism erases just that distinction by treating morality and the Will to Power as categorically equivalent.
From an evolutionary perspective, we want food and water because we need them to survive. We don't need them because we want them.
Quoting Terrapin Station
As a human being you need food and water to stay alive, wants motivate you to fulfill those needs. And no-one wants to die via a hunger strike. They want to overturn some injustice that they value more highly than their own survival. That can be highly moral. That doesn't mean they cease to think food and water are valuable. Indeed the power of the act depends on other people being well aware that they are valuable.
I think eudaimonia, per Aristotle. That is the universal standard by which we can evaluate the actions of ourselves and others in everyday life, as well as the participants in the train hypothetical.
For why I think it's natural, see my earlier comment on natural focal points here.
The diamond ring example was just to show that there can be a distinction between perceived value and actual value (by some metric).
We just need to say how it would be that life (or anything) has value outside of what anyone thinks about it.
Quoting Andrew M
I don't know of anyone who thinks that moral stances are arbitrary, by the way.
Quoting Andrew M
Isn't it a fact that we need a lack of food and water to not survive (ceteris paribus, that is)?
(By the way, if you believe that everyone prefers to live, then your antinatalism makes little sense.)
Yeah, but if you are aware of Aristotle well enough to come up with eudaemonia, I shall assume you are just as aware there is something antecedent to it, and necessary for it. Or at least qualifies its meaning.
And I would also ask if you think ethics, the general domain from which eudaemonia arises, re: “living well” or some such, is the same as morality? If so, I submit that the participants in the train hypothetical and all such manufactured moral dilemmas have precious little to do with the general conception of “living well”.
As I've already pointed out, food and water are valuable for human beings regardless of what anyone thinks about it.
You can lead a horse to water, but if he disvalues the water it will soon be a dead horse. Preference or perceived value need not be the same as actual value.
Quoting Terrapin Station
You either appeal to something in the world that justifies why you think your moral view should be the standard. Or else you appeal to your preferences. The first characterizes moral realism. The second is just saying you like vanilla while someone else likes strawberry. Which characterizes ethical subjectivism.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Not sure of your point. You would forgo those things either because they are not available or because you choose to forgo them for some reason, against one's usual instincts. They are still basic human needs.
Quoting Terrapin Station
What are you talking about?
My point at the moment is just that I want you to answer that question. I knew I shouldn't have typed more, because this is the most important part of the post.
Isn't it a fact that we need a lack of food and water to not survive (ceteris paribus)?
Can you elaborate?
Quoting Mww
I strongly disagree. One's moral judgments are informed by the rational understanding that everyone's life and well-being are essential values to them. Everyone has an equal claim here.
Your question makes no sense. We need food and water to survive. We don't need to not survive.
It's a fact that we can survive or not survive, no?
Right, and in order for us to survive, certain conditions must be met, just like in order for us to not survive, certain conditions must be met.
Do you not agree with that?
Valuable to a human being--aren't you arguing that what is valuable is not dependent on to a human being? That's the whole gist of your disagreement with me, isn't it?
Right. So let's get back to that.
When you say that we need food and water to survive, are you saying something different than there are conditions that must be met for remaining alive?
Okay, so what is evidence of any implicit values of life and well-being, or where does that obtain/what is it a property of, etc.?
Certainly everyone has an equal claim, but that which satisfies the claim does not necessarily satisfy the being of equal. It would seem that the more narrow the conception of being equal, as life and welfare, the more exact the principle which validates it. Everyone may broadly deem himself worthy of e.g., a nice car merely because he feels he’s earned it by doing his job, but to deem himself worthy of life, he cannot revert to the judgement that he has done his job well. Does anyone honestly think Lady Jane wants Tom to slow the train for no reason better than she’s got an altogether respectable multi-generational heritage?
Life and well-being may be part of the function of being human, but what it is to be human is not contained in its function.
—————-
Elaboration = arete = virtue.
“....Empirical principles are wholly incapable of serving as a foundation for moral laws. For the universality with which these should hold for all rational beings without distinction, the unconditional practical necessity which is thereby imposed on them, is lost when their foundation is taken from the particular constitution of human nature, or the accidental circumstances in which it is placed. The principle of private happiness, however, is the most objectionable, not merely because it is false, and experience contradicts the supposition that prosperity is always proportioned to good conduct, nor yet merely because it contributes nothing to the establishment of morality-since it is quite a different thing to make a prosperous man and a good man, but because the springs it provides for morality are such as rather undermine it and destroy its sublimity, since they put the motives to virtue and to vice in the same class and only teach us to make a better calculation, the specific difference between virtue and vice being entirely extinguished....”
Okay, so you accept that they're truth-functional (that's a useful term, I'll have to remember that one). That's a start.
Now, why say "just" whatever we happen to feel is right? Is that supposed to indicate that it's trivial or that there's a credible alternative or both? Because I would argue that there's no credible alternative in light of the logical consequences of these proposed alternatives. And I'd also argue that moral judgement isn't trivial.
And why non-cognitivism here?
It's to indicate that there is nothing else besides whatever we happen to feel is right. In comparison I might say that moral statements are whatever we happen to feel is right, and they are also truth-functional statements which make a claim about a fact.
If moral judgment is based in feeling, and there is no fact to the matter, and you don't believe that all moral statements are false then it seems to me that leaves you with either this notion of subjective truth that you're talking about, or simply stating that moral statements are not truth-functional, in spite of their surface grammar.
And I can't make heads or tails out of the notion of a subjective truth so non-cognitivism is about where I land in making sense of your view.
I followed your link, but I didn't find any explanation for why you think it's natural there. Just a few assertions that it's natural, and few references here and there without a clear link between the one and the other.
Here are some things which it makes sense to call natural: trees, grass, oxygen, mountains, rocks, rivers. Morality is like this??
Also, regarding your analogy, okay, but that depends on how you're using "actual value". I can see some people reserving the use of that term for value that is not relative to an artificial standard like monetary value. An anti-realist on value might say that monetary value isn't actual value.
And the analogy wasn't great, given that you're trying to argue that morality is natural. Bit weird to use an analogy with an artificial standard in this context.
I know what they are perfectly well. I was just ignoring them because they weren't relevant to the point I was making.
And natural kinds is a terrible concept anyway. Scientific disciplines deal with describing states of the world, not conceptual rules. We might say natural kinds are a certain from of universalist illusion.
I wouldn't be inconsistent and claim that there's no fact of the matter, but that there are truths, in the same sense and respect. If there are truths, then there are corresponding facts.
Probably shouldn't bring it up, because we'd probably have to get into a big tangent about it, but on my view, truth is subjective because it's a judgment that individuals make about the relation between a proposition and something else (the something else can be facts/states of affairs (correspondence), usefulness/utility (pragmatism), the other propositions the individual assigns "true" to (coherence), consensus, etc.)
Does it?
I did. All conceptions are linguistic. Not everything conceived of is. Goodness is one such thing.
So, the trick is as old as many a historical debate. How do we distinguish between our conceptions and what we're conceiving of? If you cannot answer the question, then you cannot know how to acquire knowledge of that which existed in it's entirety prior to our naming and describing it.
How do we know if or that something exists in it's entirety prior to our naming it?
The objective/subjective dichotomy fails here, and regarding many things that consist of both and are thus neither.
Sure, and I see that you will not accept the properties I show you, saying that the wrong is not to be found in the broken pup. I point out that blue is not found in the cup, but you insist that it is.
Let's try a different line.
You talk of subjectivism, yet use "we" and "our".
We spoke before about how we all agree that a broken pup is not A Good Thing.
These things are shared. Yet you claim they are internal.
How do you get around that?
Terrapin denies shared meaning. A fatal flaw that is contradictory to everyday events. I have negated his position, which falls apart at the seams, by virtue of establishing how shared meaning works. Another forum... but...
Every now and then a Grey ibis comes to visit and wipes out the larger fish. It will catch fish larger than it can eat, and leave them next to the pool to die.
The result seems to be a diminution in the colour of the fish over time, to a sort of muddy-gold colour.
I rather like it.
All for it. I'm not holding my breath for anything new. Has yet to have come.
but as if one did not have anything to say about the other...
No. Meta ethics feeds on, and shits into, ethics.
That's it. Ethical subjectivism denies ethics rather than engaging. Well put.
Eudaimonia is popular again. And that's fine - it's a worthy goal. But I would maintain that it's not what might be called a principle good. And I'd argue for that using the open question argument.
And that's not begging the question, @Mww.
I think you've drilled down to it! We expect everyone who would participate in our communal life to value that life and concomitantly, life in general. We also expect them to value the lives of the individuals, both animal and human, who are part of the common web. In other words we expect them to feel that value, and we expect their thoughts and actions to reflect that feeling. If they want to rely on and benefit from the communal life, and yet do not share the feelings and thoughts of common value then they seem to cheating. And yet, due to innate selfishness, most of us do cheat, more or less.
The 'absolutely' is there to indicate that I think you seem to be claiming that goodness is some human-independent, quasi-empirical quality analogous to, for example, a wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum.
@S, @Terrapin Station and I have been arguing, on the other hand, that what we call goodness is what accords with the most common, cross-cultural human feelings of communal life. There is no justification for our ideas of goodness beyond that.
There is thus no ought that derives from an is, but instead oughts derive from ifs. If we want to share in society, and contribute as well as benefit, then we ought not to lie. steal, rape, murder and so on. On the other hand, if I feel and think like a criminal, and I want to benefit without contributing then I ought to lie, steal, rape, murder and so on.
As S said above:
Quoting S
That's what we have been arguing about, not about what is commonly felt and thought to be right and wrong, good and bad.
Isn't it curious that when I point out what goodness isn't, people read it as my pointing out what goodness is...
Then you acknowledge that goodness is human-dependent, dependent on human moral sensibility, human dependent in ways that empirical phenomena are not?
Quoting Andrew M
I think you are distorting the meaning of the Will to Power here. The thing is that though there are common moral codes that most of us accept as necessary for harmonious social life, each of us (those who think for themselves at least) has our own variant that diverges more or less from those common moral codes to enact our own conception of our individual flourishing. In other words, no one lives, or wants to live, strictly according to the Categorical Imperative, but most of us accept its overarching principles.
Indeed, you have.
This is why I found one of S's recent threads ironically amusing.
So here is my reply, yet again.
Consider: goodness is what accords with the most common, cross-cultural human feelings of communal life.
Now the Open Question Argument would have us look to this and consider, could something be what accords with the most common, cross-cultural human feelings of communal life, and yet not be good?
And the answer, it seems to me, is yes.
So I conclude that this part of what you are asserting is not right.
And I don't think that this part of my argument has been responded too. I may have missed it.
Well, I don't think I ever said otherwise. What I denied was that this made it subjective - somehow hidden; or simply a question of feeling.
I say one thing is not the case, and folk think that implies I must think that the extreme opposite is the case.
Me ‘n’ the rest of the boys on the Group W bench acknowledge your superior logicianness
I think you meant to write "Yes" here, so I will assume that you did. If something that accords with the most common, cross-cultural feelings of communal life (about what is good, to be explicit here) could nonetheless not be good, then this begs the question as to on what grounds it could fail to be good.
Yet you have been analogizing between moral propositions and empirical propositions, and seem to have been claiming that both are truth-apt in the same kinds of ways, which suggests that their respective truths are both dependent on determinate states of affairs that are not human-dependent. You offered the "broken pup" as an example of such a state of affairs. Now you seem to be resiling.from your previous arguments.
Folk want other people to live by the categorical imperative.
Not in all cases, I would say.
I understand engineers call it hunting.
Your point, if there is one, is obscure.
So, you're now saying they were off the mark?
Quoting Janus
What's with philosophers misusing "begs the question"?
Of all people, they should know better.
It's not hard to think of a few examples - boats from Indonesia over here; walls over there; Brexit somewhere else.
I think we both agree that there is necessarily a relative or subjective component of moral truth (concerning the moral values or principles we use as ethical foundations).
On the whole, this idea of ultimate, universal, and objective moral truth is nonsensical given the breakdown of exclusive/competing values, but when two or more moral agents are trapped in a room together, it does not make sense to talk about the moral implications of the values which they do happen to share? Within that room, they can come to sound moral agreements even if everyone outside of it doesn't share their values.
As we're all somewhat trapped together in our respective families, cities, and nations (and ultimately the planet), the strength and consensus of the moral agreements/statements we can make depend on what values are most prevalent within the relevant sphere of moral consideration. If there are indeed some values which are nearly universally present among all individuals and groups, then they tend to make the most functional and persuasive moral/ethical starting points.
Is this helpful at all?
Gee, are you suggesting that my use of "begs the question" is not correct?
I realize that "begs the question" usually refers to cases where the truth of the conclusion is assumed in, rather than supported by, the premises. I was using it more in the sense of 'leads to the question' which I think is also a valid transliteration. I think it's also apposite, insofar as you have simply assumed that something could fail to be good even though it accords with the most common, cross-cultural feelings of communal life as to what is good, without showing how such a something could fail to good.
In any case, your response just looks like a smartarse's red herring, flippantly tossed out there in order to avoid answering that important question.
Maybe one of the forms will be a true or false quiz.....
......even if “good” is undefinable, and even if “goodness” is not derivable from naturalistic conditions, can “good” still be an innately sensible quality?
Of course.
I agree with you, i think; although I might summarise it somewhat briefly as that in the end, it's what we do that counts. And it is "we" not "I".
I did answer your question:
Quoting Banno
Well, the rest of your reply consisted only in examples, the relevance to the question of which I have been unable to discern.
And you don't need to worry: no term has been lost.
And they all moved away from me on the bench there...
But yes, that's a good point. (He he. I made a pun.)
Overwhelmingly, we agree on what to do. But it is the points of disagreement that get our attention.
I like both your focus on "do" and on "we".
My most recent thread attempted to capture the "doing" aspect of any strategic truth (what are moral oughts but strategies/predictions of outcomes?): it's impossible to separate moral [strategic/empirical] soundness from the actual situation and context it is to be employed in.
And the "we" is critical: morality isn't merely asking "what's best for me?", it's asking "What's best for me in an environment filled with others who each want what's best for themselves?". In other words, morality as a practice begins at extending consideration of some kind to others.
OK, let's go back.
Quoting Janus
Is it good to turn away asylum seekers? To build walls against immigrants? To fuck your economy? On at least one of these things, you might agree that it isn't, but is considered by at least a large number of folk to be worth doing. If so, we could move on to considering the difference between the most common, cross-cultural human feelings of communal life, and the good.
But what the open question shows, and the point being made, is that good is different from whatever naturalistic qualities you might claim are good.
We was all just wondering if you’d been......rehabilitated.
,,,,from missing the point that practicing morality presupposes its inception. We aren’t going to do anything (the practice) that counts (the good) until we know (the presupposition) what counts.
Quoting Mww
They are going to burn women, kids, houses and villages anyway, litterbugs or not. They, and we, have no choice but to act.
Indeed, most moralising is post hoc.
But we both know where to get anything we want.
They all depend on perspective and what is thought to be desirable. Good for what, in other words?
So, it is not good to turn away asylum seekers if you want to act compassionately towards all people, or it's good if you only want to act compassionately towards your own. Likewise with immigrants, (although building walls might turn out to be an impractical waste of resources). As for your last example, why would anyone want to fuck their own economy?
So, of course a large number of people might think it good to turn away asylum seekers or shut out illegal immigrants, but such attitudes are based, not on what people think is good, simpliciter, but on what they think is the best strategy to achieve what they think is good, for example avoiding over-population (because overpopulation will fuck the economy, perhaps), or avoiding social divisiveness (because they believe that will multi-cultural populations lead to social divisiveness in the form of cultural enclaves, perhaps).
Every policy has its costs and benefits, so these are too nuanced to be used as good examples to support your argument.
You're missing the point here. The point is that the fundamentals are the
Quoting Janus
So, almost everyone believes that social harmony is good; but people may obviously disagree on how that harmony is to be best achieved; on the "moral contingencies" that is. Does that make it any clearer for you?
Me?
Again, i would just throw the open question argument back at you.It shows that there is something more fundamental than the most common, cross-cultural feelings of communal life.
But that would be going around the loop yet again.
Because you can't just say "the property is in the broken pup" you have to provide evidence of it being in the broken pup, you have to explain just what property it is, how we can objectively detect it, etc.--anything along those lines.
Quoting Banno
The subjective/objective distinction has nothing to do with agreement or disagreement.
You feel x way. Joe feels x way. Sue feels x way. Etc.
They agree that they feel x way. Feelings are mental.
And that's the same as saying "you can't just say that the cup is blue". I can, and indeed we must, in order to explain just what property it is, how we can objectively detect it, etc.--anything along those lines.
Because if we did not know that the cup was blue, we would not have been able to learn that this is the same as emitting those wavelengths.
I think I've answered you on this enough.
And indeed I didn't. I explained what the objective property is, explained how we objectively measure/detect it, etc. You need to do the same to support that moral properties are objective, that they're not simply a way that people feel, preferences they have, etc.
I demonstrated the sort of thing I'm looking for. Are you able to follow suit? If you can, please do so. If you can't, can we at least be honest about admitting this, and then we can think about why we'd not be able to do the same sort of thing for moral whatevers?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Dude, I'm not claiming that it is an objective property.
It's perfectly kosher for you to explain and evidence the objective moral properties post hoc. I couldn't care less about that. I just want you to explain/evidence the objective moral properties. Can you do that now?
You're disagreeing that it's just preferences, feelings, mental activity of some sort, right?
Right. So I'm asking you to provide evidence of that, to explain/evidence the nonmental moral whatevers. Can we finally get to the post where you do that? Post hoc is fine. I just want you to explain and evidence the nonmental moral whatevers now.
I don't agree that it shows any such thing. All it asserts is that good is something indefinable. Even if we were to accept that good is indefinable, that tells us nothing about what is good and why it is good, which would seem to make the notion of an indefinable good being most fundamental pretty much useless.
Perhaps you could lay out an argument that explains just how the open question argument shows that their is something (however indefinable) more fundamental than the most common cross-cultural feelings of communal life. Or if you've already laid out such an account which I missed, then point me to it.
You assume that it is either mental or not mental; that's the same as assuming it is either subjective or objective. But being blue is not only mental; and yet, it is mental.
I'm attacking this underpinning juxtaposition. That's why it looks to you like I am contradicting myself. But a quick look around will show that others can see what I am saying; and I hope you will give me at least some credit for coherence.
Now, how will you make sense of what I have said?
That's what the open question is. Go read up on it. I gotta go move some straw and clean the chooks.
I think it's only mental. If you think it's both mental and non (which it would have to be if there's a nonmental component, because obviously it's still mental, too), that's fine. I'm asking for evidence of the nonmental part. Can you provide that now?
I don't think that you're contradicting yourself. I don't think you're being incoherent. I think that you're simply ignoring repeated requests for evidential support of something you're claiming. There are a number of reasons you might be doing that. The most charitable reason would be that you don't understand some aspect of this. Well, or it's just something you accept on faith (I don't mean religious faith, though of course that's a possibility) but you don't want to straightforwardly admit that for some reason.
Re the discussion about blue, I certainly wasn't denying that there's the mental experience of color. That's not at issue. What's at issue is whether there's a nonmental correlate. I explained with blue what the nonmental correlate is, how we objectively detect/test it, etc. So all I'm asking is that you do the same with moral whatever-we-want-to-call-'ems. Nonmentally, the moral whatever is what? How does the property obtain? How would we measure it? Etc.
Yeah, but I have; the broken pup.
The open question argument as I remember and understand is a purported refutation of the idea that moral goodness could be identical with any non-moral, merely existential property or entity.
So, given that we accept that as true, how does it follow that there is anything more fundamental than the most common cross-cultural feelings of communal life? The argument seems to tell us what moral goodness is not; it doesn't tell us what it is, or even that it is anything.
In any case to say that the idea of moral goodness is a function of moral feeling is not to say that the good is identical to any non-moral, merely existential property or entity. Even to posit the idea of the good is to reify what is merely a feeling. It is a kind of Platonic move. It is like saying that because most people have aesthetic feelings, there is therefore 'the beautiful', and that the beautiful is more fundamental than the moist common cross-cultural aesthetic feelings.
With the broken pup, how does the moral whatever obtain, exactly?
If one person looks at the broken pup and says "the property of moral permissibility is contained in that" and another person says "no, the property of moral prohibition is contained in that," what nonmental aspect of it do we look at, exactly, with what instruments or methods, to see who is right?
I explained this to you re blue. Can you follow suit?
So let's describe this same sort of thing with respect to the moral properties (or however you want to characterize the moral whatevers--whatever you'd think would best make your case).
Well, go on, then. But do so with an eye on my reply, which will be to take your explanation and paraphrase it into the discussion of the pup - again.
If someone looks at the cup and says it is not blue, then they are what we in the trade call wrong.
If someone looks at the broken pup and says this is permissible, then they are what we in the trade call wrong.
What?
I'm asking you to do something. Are you capable of doing it?
What's that? And I will drag this argument down to first principles, at which point you will have to make a judgement.
You're asking how we do this? For example, we can take an x-ray.
Now, describe at least one way we would use an instrument to detect anything about moral whatevers.
Let's talk about the non-end part where we detect things with objective instruments. Are you able to do that?
You ask me to use an instrument to demonstrate how things should be.
This is a problem of direction of fit, not of subject and object.
Didn't you claim that how things should be is a nonmental phenomenon in the broken pup somehow?
Or not part of the problem?
The broken dog is nonmental.
Nonmentally, it's not a moral problem.
See how easy it is to straightforwardly answer a question? Can you try that now?
Some folk get obsessed with a certain image - subject and object - and find it hard to see that this is a constraint they have forced onto their on thinking. IT's hard to see outside it.
It's hard to see the rabbit for the duck.
I think we're embedded in the world. I think that "what we ought to do" is only a mental phenomenon. We certainly look around the world we're embedded in to make such judgments, but it's not a judgment--or whatever you want to call it--that occurs nonmentally.
Weren't you disagreeing with me that "what we ought to do" occurs only as a mental phenomenon, and claiming that somehow it also occurs in the world we're embedded in?
Is it dishonesty that's leading you to evade like that or what? I really am curious what's going on in your head.
I never said anything like "Our moral judgments do not involve the world."
I said that moral judgments (again, or whatever someone would want to call the moral things/properties/whatever) do not occur in nonmental things. They're a mental phenomenon. It's like saying (simplifying the possibilities drastically) that paintings do not occur on non-canvas things. That doesn't mean that the paintings are not of non-canvas things, but the painting itself doesn't occur on a non-canvas thing. (And we'd certainly not be saying that paintings aren't embedded in the world.)
Maybe someone would try to claim that a painting of a cow occurs not only on the canvas, but somehow in the cow itself. And then I'd ask them to explain how the painting could occur in the cow itself.
Obviously we make moral judgments about things like broken pups, but we make those judgments. The broken pup doesn't make the judgment. Rocks don't. It's not some physical field, etc.
And how is this different from how we judge the cup to be blue? We look at the cup and judge it to be blue. We look at the broken pup and judge it to be bad. Yep, we make the judgement.
Moral or not.
But would you be wiling to say that our moral judgements involve the world?
Yet how could they not?
I'm not asking you about judgments per se. There's no dispute that we make judgments, is there?
There's a dispute about what sort of stuff obtains nonmentally. I say that blue obtains nonmentally. I explained what blue is nonmentally, what it's a property of, how it obtains, how we can nonmentallly detect it with instruments, etc. Supposedly you're claiming the same thing about moral whatevers. But no explanation of what property they are, how they nonmentally obtain, how we nonmentally measure them with instruments etc. is forthcoming.
Of course. In many different ways. They're about things we experience in the world, they have an impact on our interactions, etc. It's just that the moral judgments, qua moral judgments, do not obtain in the nonmental world.
Using "judgment" for saying "that's blue," as if it's the same sense of the term, is a conflation. Re "that's blue," we're not approving or disapproving, we're just identifying.
There would be no dispute re identifying "that's a broken pup." Just a difference re approving or disapproving of it.
You could claim that we're just identifying the moral approval or disapproval if you like, but hence me asking for evidence of what the moral approval or disapproval is nonmentally.
Yeah, it's a consequence of your transmission failing to engage.
I don't think you did, but never mind. So you're saying that goodness is a thing that's conceived of that's not linguistic? I have said that it's a concept. Unless you claim that a concept is a conception, then, based on what we've explicitly said, there's no contradiction between our respective claims to be found here; and I don't find your claim that goodness is a thing that's conceived of that's not linguistic disagreeable enough to pursue an argument against it.
Quoting creativesoul
I asked you to give me an example of what you meant when you said that "not all conceptions of goodness can account for that which exists prior to our conceptions" to help me understand what you're getting at. I brought up a rock, but that didn't seem relevant. You still don't seem to have provided an example. You instead seem to want to skip ahead and pursue your own agenda, turning this back around on me, responding to a question with another question which redirects, which I find quite annoying.
So the question is, what's your favourite goldfish?
And what did you have for breakfast today? Eggy weggs? What I had for breakfast was a nice bowl of the original topic is meta-ethics and we hadn't properly finished with it before you inappropriately changed the subject, accompanied with a cup of coffee. It was lovely.
Then tie them together for me. I'm not seeing how this is supposed to tie together and lead somewhere relevant.
Here's a reminder of how our discussion went:
Quoting S
Quoting Banno
Quoting S
I don't recall defining goodness. At least not in any way relevant to Moore's argument. Someone will have to show me where I've allegedly done that. I did recently say that it's a concept used for moral judgement, but that's not defining it in a way relevant to Moore's argument, and I've said stuff about morality, moral judgement, moral statements, and so on, but that's not the same thing.
Regarding your question, I can't answer it, because it needs clarification. In hindsight, maybe I don't entirely agree with Moore here. I think it can be unwise to define goodness in the way that Moore talks about, but unless the sense in which you're using "good" in that context is clarified, then I can't give an answer, except "It depends". It could be a "yes" or a "no" depending on the interpretation. I think that you only say "yes" because of the way that you're interpreting the question, which you've conveniently left implicit.
You do remember that there are people here of a position which doesn't accept a simplistic, objective, non-relative, "good", don't you? That's what @Janus was just trying to explain to you, and others have made this point also, myself included. This seems to be your interpretation, and you seem to want to hide it, because it is inconvenient for your argument.
I don't think your suggestion to chat about goldfish is going to take off.
If goodness is not subjective, which you're using here to mean hidden, or a question of feeling, then it must be objective, which would be public, or not a question of feeling, since it can't be both or neither. So please explain why you believe that to be the case.
Shame. It would've made for a nice bit of collective humour with a moral to the story.
Why not both?
It can't be both simultaneously, in the same sense, and in the same respect. That's what I meant. Do you doubt that?
Mentioning something isn't sufficient. Where's your demonstration of that conclusion?
Let's take my feeling that kicking puppies is wrong. It can't be both hidden to everyone else, and public to everyone else, at the same time, and in the same sense, and in the same respect.
It doesn't follow from this that the subjective/objective dichotomy "fails". There can't be a contradiction, and there isn't one - at least not going by my model - so that's not a problem - at least not for me.
It's there, in most of the stuff I've writ over the last ten years. Or ask me next week. I might care about you by then.
Actually, calling them one-liners might be a mistake. I don't mean by that term to suggest that you're being witty. I just mean by that term to suggest that you're making a very short remark, typically just one or two lines.
Really? That's the lesson you're taking from this? Not that you ought to be more helpful, but that it's my fault for trying to get you to be more helpful? You're a bad student.
Yes. My view is something like the first schema. I see @Terrapin Station's as something like the second. I don't think his works.
So, because lots of people share moral feelings, and thus moral judgement, on certain issues, then if we stick two people in a room together, then they'll probably agree over these issues, in a normative sense. They'll probably agree, for example, that kicking puppies is wrong, and that you shouldn't rape babies.
So what's the problem, right? Well, the problem is that this is supposed to be a discussion about meta-ethics, not a discussion about normative ethics. It's no different, in principle, than if I turned up to a discussion about Donald Trump and started talking about goldfish. Maybe there's a relevant link, but if so, I'm not seeing it. (Actually, with the latter, the link is probably that a goldfish would make a better president than Donald Trump).
If we switch back to meta-ethics, then I stand by my position, which I get to in part by rejecting moral objectivism as unwarranted, and I wonder why @Banno just kind of wondered off from that discussion, figuratively speaking. I know that he denies that he is a moral objectivist, but that doesn't mean that he isn't one. He seems to be one in spite of all that he has said. The last point that we got to was trying to make sense of his assertion that the objective/subjective dichotomy "fails", but he decided to be uncooperative. (Big surprise).
Okay. So it's not relevant that I am killing a puppy for fun as we speak? After all, what I do doesn't count.
Indeed. I thought that meaning is use. I'm pretty sure that plenty of people are still using that phrase in the technical sense. Sounds like melodrama to me. :lol:
Easily explainable under subjective moral relativism. Firstly, reject "good" except as relative to a subjective standard of judgement, since "good" in any alternative sense is unwarranted. That can be examined if need be. Any difference in judgement under this position would just mean that it's not good relative to my standard of judgement, but is good relative to other people's standard of judgement, and that's that. There is nothing more to it, or at least, nothing more has been warranted. Are you ever going to attempt to justify the transcendent sense of goodness that you keep seeming to suggest without explicitly stating? Or will you concede that it's unjustifiable, and should therefore be rejected?
Not trying to speak for @Banno, but absolutely agree with him it fails. If the moral subject is both constituted of/by social relations and embedded in social relations, and the term 'objective' in terms of morality is that which applies equally to all moral subjects i.e. the complete world, or set of worlds, of social relations then the dichotomy fails. The 'objective' is in the 'subjective' as much as the 'subjective' is in the 'objective'. i.e. For the subject to function as moral agent, it is necessarily a socially constituted entity, in some sense both 'objective' and 'subjective'.
So we have the blue cup and the broken pup. The blue cup is blue, and the broken pup is broken. I accept that, and so does everyone else.
Now, [i]how[/I] is this evidence of anything [i]relevant[/I]?
Yes, and with the latter, you're ignoring - perhaps deliberately - the importance of the sense in which different people use "wrong" in that context. Wrong absolutely, relative to nothing and no one? Wrong relative to a subjective standard of judgement? Surely you can see that these interpretations are not identical. Why are you hiding your interpretation? Don't you want to be exposed?
Already been answered. Banno is making an argument from repetition fallacy.
My view is about the physical location(s) where moral whatever-one-wants-to-call-thems occur.
I'm in no way saying that moral views aren't influenced by social interactions, that we can't agree with each other and cooperate, or that we can't think about any moral utterances as inviolable commands.
There are upshots to where, in terms of physical location, moral whatevers occur, but I just want us to first get straight where the phenomena occur.
This is where the upshots become important. There are implications to moral whatevers being located in one place versus another. And those implications often factor into normative talk about morality. So we can't just ignore what morality is.
Do you want to draw this out, then? I think that if we do, it can be shown that you're making an error somewhere in relation to what I'm saying or suggesting about the subjective-objective distinction. Even if you show that it fails when applied to some particular context, that doesn't mean that it fails in general, or that it fails in the context that I'm talking about. I'm saying that we can take a particular aspect, and say of that aspect that it's subjective, and not objective, at the same time, and in the same sense, and in the same respect. What I suspect that yourself and Banno do is to fail that criteria. I suspect that you're talking about two different respects, say, that it's subjective in one respect, but objective in a different respect. That's not a contradiction, and the distinction obviously remains useful. I suspect that yourself and Banno are jumping to a conclusion and missing the point.
My moral subjectivism accepts the subjective aspect, and can acknowledge objective aspects, but simply points out that these objective aspects don't seem relevant in the way that a moral objectivist seems to suggest. Generally speaking, is there both? Yes, of course. The broken pup is objective. How I feel about it is subjective. But the question is, what's relevant with regards to morality, and in what sense, and why?
None of that has anything to do with what I'm actually talking about though. You're talking about how we interact with others, preconditions for certain things, etc. I'm talking about where moral judgments (or whatever moral xs, whatever you want to claim has moral properties or however you'd want to characterize it) occur, in terms of physical location(s). I'm talking about just what physical stuff moral whatevers are a property of. I'm focusing on the judgment (or whatever) itself, as a physical phenomenon, just like we could talk about a painting itself, as a physical phenomenon a la pigments suspended in some medium and applied to canvas. With paintings, you could also talk about the necessity of social relations, etc., but that's a different topic than what the painting is, where it is or isn't located, as a physical object.
If someone wants to claim there is no (a) or (b) or both, that's fine, but then we should first figure out what the person believes there is ontologically instead, including what their ontology of mind is (assuming they believe there are minds or at least mental phenomena).
So for example, if you were saying that moral judgments (or whatever you'd call things like "murder is bad") are somehow embedded in social relations, I'd want you to explain just how the moral whatevers physically obtain in social relations--just what "murder is bad" and the like are properties of, where in social relations they're located, etc.
We tend to establish moral rules/norms by appealing to shared values, but the fact that values are shared, per se, isn't what establishes moral "truth" (although, shared values are precisely from whence normative ethics are derived, for practical reasons) . Personal moral values exist as brute facts, and they're inexorably relative; "moral truth" is something more than mere personal preference.
Let's say the two people in the room do [morally] value kicking puppies. They could compete over access to the only puppy in the room, or they could come to some sort of mutually beneficial agreement that serves the values they do happen to have (puppy kicking). The truthiness of their moral accords depend on whether or not they actually serve/defend their extant values in the environment they are in (or perhaps whether or not their professed values are their actual/sufficiently important values). For example, if fighting over access to the puppy reduces the amount of time that they would otherwise spend kicking it, then aggression for puppy control can be framed as an objectively immoral act in that situation because it directly disservices their moral values. They could go on to form a puppy-time-share agreement, thereby maximizing overall puppy-kicks, and call it morally praiseworthy. If all humans were hard wired to value puppy-kicking in this way, then that's what our moral agreements would serve.
Without naming them here, the most common strong values of any group will tend to form the basis of their normative cultural content; and because there are indeed values which are universal to nearly all humans, and because we share similar environments, our normative moral frameworks/ethical prescriptions have converged toward the same archetypes and outcomes (lucky [s]us[/s] Grover).
Quoting S
As is hopefully clear from the puppy example, the point I'm making is indeed a meta-ethical one (which may or may not relate to yours and Baden's disagreement or miscommunication). The truth of specific normative content is transitory, like the next optimal move in a given chess game, but the relationship between our desires and our lousy environment is not: achieving our own goals in a populated environment means considering the goals of others along with the environment we are in. In other words, morality isn't just any greedy hedonism, it's socially responsible hedonism in a world where intentions, methods,and outcomes can be fact-checked. (We could split semantic hairs regarding the "consideration" component, but when individuals extend no moral consideration whatsoever, no useful moral discussion with them can take place (they're a moot point). I prefer to describe the failure (or inability) to consider the needs of others as a breakdown of morality. Informally, it's as if morality itself is an ad hoc system of categorizing the various ways in which we might fail to consider the needs/values/goals/desires of others).
The way that we talk about it, and the way that we [i]interpret[/I] the way that we talk about it, is definitely of importance, and I don't think that @Banno has fared too well in demonstrating that he understands and appreciates this importance.
Is it [I]as[/I] important as normative ethical matters? Agree or disagree, that itself doesn't even matter in this context. It's just a red herring.
You're both talking past me. Have a look at the schema and go from there. Where is the error? Let me put it this way, I'm claiming there are only social relations, which when packaged in individual bodies, we call 'persons' or 'subjects'. And there is no moral agency, no persons or subjects, without this constitution. So, I'm not just saying this or that, I'm saying the whole binary approach is wrongheaded and prevents a full view of where and how morality obtains. That doesn't mean the subject/object distinction is useless in every field but it's much more useful for scientific enquiry than philosophic / moral enquiry.
(“It” being the subjective/objective dichotomy)
Quoting Baden
If that is true, how does the subjective/objective dichotomy fail, when subsequently described as consisting of both parts?
Even human reason itself, when reduced as far as possible, retains the thinking subject and the object of his thought. As long as humans are in the conversation, it is impossible for the subject/object dichotomy to fail. It is every bit as impossible for the subjective/objective dichotomy to fail as soon as the internal subject/object is transferred to the external world, and becomes an object of perception or understanding by any other similar subject.
The internal subject/object dichotomy is moral philosophy; the external subjective/objective dichotomy is practical anthropology. The only real, important consideration should be.....how are the two related, what is it that relates them. And because the fundamental ground is the human himself, the what and the how absolutely must be reducible to him in a singular form.
So where would you say moral truth occurs aside from personal preference?
Wait, so you're saying that if we took one person and every other person but that one were to die or disappear, that one person would no longer exist? I'd be very curious about your ontology if that's what you're saying. (Presumably you'd think that the Twilight Zone episode "Last Man on Earth" is simply incoherent?). And would two people be enough for someone to exist? Three?
Oh the irony.
Quoting Baden
I'm going to speak bluntly and reply that I don't particularly care about what you're saying, unless you can show that it's of relevance to what I'm saying. I'm fine with granting that you can demonstrate a failure in the context that you want to talk about, but if that context is not the same as my context, then your demonstration of failure doesn't apply to what I'm saying, and the failure is more a failure of you to correctly identify what's relevant here.
If you think that you can demonstrate a failure in my context, then go ahead and try. Your context seems irrelevant.
If you want to work with my context, then go back and properly address my last reply.
Of course not, because they would have already been constituted socially before you removed the others. Isn't that obvious? But if you took a human newborn out of all social relations not only would it not become a person, it would almost certainly die.
Meta-meta-ethics :cool:
Quoting Terrapin Station
Normative ethical truth occurs in the way an action/agreement actually considers/preserves the genuine personal preferences of interested agents. (Example: if we had a chance meeting in an elevator, and we both happened to be armed with knives, it would be objectively immoral for us to attack one another without provocation given that it would directly harm our desire to avoid injury and continue living).
I'm not asking you to care. I suppose you replied to my post by accident. Keep your fingers under better control next time.
I've been around philosophy long enough to never assume that anyone might not be claiming something that seems insane to me.
"Constituted" is often used in the sense of "comprised of." If x is constituted of y and z, then x is identical to y and z.
You're not using "constituted" in that manner then?
How would you say that nonmental things consider something? How does that work physically?
Predictable reaction. Okay, let's take me out of it then, because I suspect that your bias is now interfering. Presumably, you'd want a reasonable person to care. If so, then why would a reasonable person care about what you're saying, if what you're saying misses the point?
You wrote this while I was writing. This I agree with: where and how morality obtains has no need of the binary approach, other than serve as the reason the moral investigate should begin.
Quoting Baden
Why not turn philosophic/moral inquiry into a science?
So in your view nonmental things can treat something with attention and kindness?
Well, unless it's located in one place and not another.
Not very kindly at all...
Bed time for me!
We're off-topic now. I'll get round to elaborating with individuals when and if I think it will be useful. But my effort here is just to support my contention that @Banno is justified in problematizing the subject/object distinction, not to claim that everyone else's position is completely wrong, but that that element causes issues which drive moral views that are not actually that dissimilar in substance away from each other. It's polarising.
And I drew a picture, for which you should be eternally grateful.
Therefore, these distinctions all fail. Mind = blown.
Note though that others, while they might not agree, are actually engaging. I hate to say it, but I think you're being a tad... unreasonable. :wink:
I've engaged to the extent of analysing what you've said, and reaching the conclusion that it misses the point. What more do you reasonably expect of me? If you can give me a good enough reason to reconsider that assessment, then I will do so.
Although how much good is it doing? You're not continuing to follow through. :wink:
I've had over a dozen replies in an hour and I'm eating lunch. But believe me, I always follow through. :halo:
For the obtaining of morality it could well be one place and another, as long as they are of the same kind, which of course they must be. But that’s not a subjective/objective dichotomy, the demonstration post-obtain, is.
That's fine. We just need the evidence then of moral whatevers obtaining in a nonmental location.
They don’t. They can’t. That which does, is anthropological whatevers.
No judgement whatsoever, whether puppies, tea cups, hot stoves, love and marriage, Ford or Chevy, or moral predicates, is non-mental. The will, the freedom it may or may not have, the imperative whether hypothetical or categorical, assertorial or pragmatic, the volition whatever it may be and the relation to its value whatever its form.......are all necessarily obtained in a mental location.
Whatever action derived from moral judgement is certainly non-mental, but that action is not itself moral. It is merely a physical representation of the willful volition that spawns it.
Wait, so then why would there be no need of the binary approach?
Ok, so what you're looking for is the 'that' in 'that's morality', right? And for you, it's what? A brain state? Can you be very specific in pointing to the 'that' you think is morality and then maybe we can get to the bottom of our difference.
Yes, it's a brain state. That's the only place where moral whatevers occur (I don't want to call them judgments because I don't want to be seen as stacking the deck--we can use whatever term someone thinks makes their case best.)
The binary approach in question here, is the subjective/objective dichotomy, which is not required for *obtaining* individual morality. It is required to *demonstrate* the morality already obtained.
I understand subjective to mean in me, objective to be outside me. If that’s a misunderstanding, or inappropriate, somebody outta tell me.
First, I use "subjective" to refer to mental phenomena, and "objective" to refer to the complement--"nonmental phenomena" so to speak. My mental phenomena are mental phenomena, and your mental phenomena are mental phenomena, and Ned Block's mental phenomena are mental phenomena, and so on. So that's subjective stuff. Ned Block's television, and the Hudson River, and a dead body (just to bring this back to something we make moral judgments about) and so on are not mental phenomena.
So if morality is necessarily a type of mental judgment that we make, then it would seem that the subjective realm is necessary for obtaining morality. Morality doesn't occur elsewhere, in the objective realm.
From that framework, it can be noted that "immoral" is determined conditionally, not unconditionally; and also that it's relative, not absolute. That framework makes more sense than one which has the opposite requirements.
I acknowledge the objectivity there, but I don't think that it's necessarily right to call that "immoral". If I am one of those people, and I inadvertently act contrary to my aim of kicking the puppy, then I'm just being unreasonable. But if I have a principle which says that that behaviour is immoral, then sure, it would be immoral accordingly, but only relative to my principle, and only relative to my thoughts and feelings about its application. It wouldn't apply universally, even if I thought and felt that it should. If other people reject that principle, because they think and feel differently, then I can't demonstrate that they're objectively wrong, since our thoughts and feelings are inherently subjective, and there's no warrant for a transcendent standard to override one of us.
You can get some objective truth in moral subjectivism. That I have never denied. It is objectively true that I feel that kicking puppies is wrong, for example. But the moral subjectivist would be like, so what?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
This seems trivial to me in this context. Are you basically just saying what @Banno said, namely that despite differences in meta-ethics, normative ethics matters? And then you go on to make some normative points, like that the way that you judge it, we shouldn't be greedy, and we should be considerate of others. Maybe, like Banno, you judge that morality should be about everyone, about how "one" or "we all" should behave, and not particular, like how I should behave. Why should I care in this context, whether I agree or disagree? That does not seem to have any relevance, meta-ethically. It seems beside the point.
Ok, and the 'that' in 'that's morality' for me would consist in interactions / behaviours.
In other words, if an alien came to earth and asked me what morality is, I would point to instances of moral behaviours / interactions rather than brain states to explain it.
So, there's a fundamental difference of approach. Going a little further, would you say brain states can be moral / immoral?
I don't, because it actually requires a bunch of additional "shoulds." "One should act in accord with one's moral views." "One should act in the most direct, efficient manner." Etc. There's nothing objective about any of that.
Absolutely. I can dig it.
Still, as written, it is all hypothetical. What needs to be done now is turn that into a theory. Nobody’s gonna give a crap about a theory without sustainable grounds for it. In natural science, sustainable grounds are the natural laws; it follows that a possible moral science should have moral laws.
A law is that of which the negation is impossible or self-contradictory. What, with respect to morality, is indisputable such that it could be a law, or the basis for a law?