Against Nihilism

I think I understand what your views are from reading the text, but the reasons why you hold them aren't very clear to me. Or maybe it's more that I disagree with the reasons, while still ending with more or less the same conclusions. What confuses me the most I guess is the way you seem to argue for epistemic claims and moral claims in the exact same way.

Codex:I object to that on the grounds that if it is true, then by its nature it cannot be known to be true, because to know it to be true we would need some means of objectively evaluating claims about what is real and what is moral, so as to justifiably rule all such claims to be false; but the inability to make such objective evaluations is precisely what such a nihilistic position claims. In the absence of such a means of objective evaluation, it nevertheless remains an open possibility that nothing is real, or that nothing is moral, but we could only every assume such an opinion as baselessly as nihilism would hold every other opinion to be held. In the strictest sense, I agree that there might not be any reality or any morality, but all we could do in that case is to either baselessly assume that there is not, and stop there, simply giving up any hope of ever finding out if we were wrong in that baseless assumption; or, instead, we could baselessly assume that there is something real and something moral — as there certainly inevitably seems to be, for even if you are a solipsist and egotist, some things will still look true or false to you and feel good or bad to you — and then proceed with the long hard work of figuring out what seems most likely to be real and moral, by attending closely and thoroughly to those seemings, those experiences.

The problem I have with this is that you seem to gloss over the difference between feeling and perception. I don't think we can feel what is morally true in that same way as we can see if something is true.

So what I think would be clarifying, is to know if you think truth-value applies to moral claims. And if so, why? Of course that would lead you down the rabbithole of what truth is, but that probably can't be helped.

Reply to ChatteringMonkey Thanks for the feedback! At this point I am indeed treating both prescriptive and descriptive claims the same. In later essays I go into more detail on the differences between them and what different kinds of things make each of them true, but they are both treated as truth-apt enough, for exactly the reason you quote: if we don't know if any of them are true or not (because we don't even know if they are truth-apt), then our practical choices are to either carry on as though they are not, which is just to give up on trying to figure out what the answers are (in the case of prescriptive questions, that means figuring out what we ought to do), or to carry on as though some of them are, by trying to figure out which of them are.

Quoting ChatteringMonkey

The problem I have with this is that you seem to gloss over the difference between feeling and perception. I don't think we can feel what is morally true in that same way as we can see if something is true.

As already elaborated in the previous essay Against Transcendentalism, I pose hedonic experiences as the prescriptive equivalent of empirical experiences: we sort out what is good on the basis of what feels good hedonically (comparing what feels good to different people in different contexts to work out the full picture, not just what feels good to one person at one time), in the same way that we sort out what is true on the basis of what looks true (comparing what looks true to different people in different contexts to work out the full picture, not just what looks true to one person at one time).

I should maybe include a brief reminder of that in this essay too, especially since I am considering re-ordering these first four essays so that this one will be first and that one will be last.

(Because I think it might be better to start with attacking someone almost everyone is against, nihilism, rather than attacking something most people are for, fideism; also because anti-fideism and anti-nihlism are my core principles, so putting them first instead lays all the groundwork first before moving on to the consequences; and because the current last of these initial four essays, Against Cynicism, directly addresses a lot of the objections people usually raise in response to Against Fideism; and because Against Transcendentalism is kind of the most substantial of the topics, really getting into the practical "on what basis do we judge anything" aspect of things, after establishing in Against Nihilism that there are answers to be judged at all, in Against Fideism and Against Cynicism how to and not to sort through them).

Reply to ChatteringMonkey I went to add something about that to the essay just now, and realized that the very next paragraph after the one you quoted contains something like that, and the paragraph after that ends with the rationale that I thought was contained in what you quote:

This is where I come very close to agreeing with idealism in both of the senses described above, in holding that experience is the ultimate arbiter of judgement on both reality and morality. But rather than the perceptions and desires that underlie those views, which can contradict from person to person because they are constructed in the different minds of different people, I propose instead attending to the more fundamental underlying experiences that give rise to those perceptions and desires, free from the interpretation of the mind undergoing them. In psychology a distinction is made between perceptions, which are interpreted by the mind, and sensations, which are the raw experiences that get interpreted into perceptions, things such as colors of light and pitches of sound, as opposed to images or words. I make a similar distinction between desires, being the things that are interpreted by the mind, and what I call appetites, which are the raw experiences underlying them, things such as the feeling of pain or hunger, as opposed to wanting to do or have something.

And then I propose the construction of models of reality and morality that are consistent with all such experiences. An old parable nicely illustrates the principle I mean to employ here, wherein three blind men each feel different parts of an elephant (the trunk, a leg, the tail), and each concludes that he is feeling something different (a snake, a tree, a rope). All three of them are wrong about what they perceive, but the truth of the matter, that they are feeling parts of an elephant, is consistent with what all three of them sense, even though the perceptions they draw from those sensations are mutually contradictory. I propose always proceeding on the assumption that some such model is possible to construct, even if we don't know what it will be just yet; that assumption being the same one described above, that there is something real, something moral, simply because to assume otherwise would just be to give up for no reason. There always remains the possibility that we will fail to construct such models that can consistently account for all experiences, but we can never be sure that we have conclusively failed, rather than having just not succeeded yet. The only choice is between continuing to try despite the possibility of maybe never succeeding, or giving up — embracing nihilism — and definitely never succeeding.

I realize now that a horizontal rule was placed between the wrong two paragraphs accidentally, interrupting the flow between the paragraph you quoted and those that followed after it. I've fixed that now.

Reply to Pfhorrest

I could understand that you don't ellaborate on the difference for brevity sake. But I think it's an important difference, as I try to get into my thread on secular morality, especially because of historical reasons…

Also I suspect that my views do differ quite a bit from yours on morality, because I don't think hedonic experiences necessarily play that large a part in the story. Well maybe they do at bottom, I'm not sure, but I certainly don't think morality is best described in terms of hedonic experiences… the social dimension is an important aspect that is missing it seems to me. Maybe it's a bit like talking about fluids in terms of individual moving particles, presumably you could do it if you have enough time and calculating capacity, but it's a lot better to talk about it in terms of fluid dynamics.

Reply to ChatteringMonkey I do get into it later in the Codex, I’m just taking things one step at a time here. At this point I’m only arguing not to completely abandon even attempting to figure out an objective morality, and haven’t said much yet about how to go about doing that, but I will.

Also, while your fluid dynamics analogy seems alright to me and later essays will get more into the higher-level abstractions that are needed for practical use, I do wonder if perhaps you mean something different than I do by “hedonism”? Did you read the previous essay against transcendentalism where I explain what I don’t mean by that? It’s not egotism, or materialism, or rejecting more refined pleasures and the alleviation of more subtle pains through “spiritual” practices. It just means that the thing we ought to be concerned with when we’re caring for other people, as with ourselves, is that they’re flourishing rather than suffering.

Quoting Pfhorrest

Also, while your fluid dynamics analogy seems alright to me and later essays will get more into the higher-level abstractions that are needed for practical use, I do wonder if perhaps you mean something different than I do by “hedonism”? Did you read the previous essay against transcendentalism where I explain what I don’t mean by that? It’s not egotism, or materialism, or rejecting more refined pleasures and the alleviation of more subtle pains through “spiritual” practices. It just means that the thing we ought to be concerned with when we’re caring for other people, as with ourselves, is that they’re flourishing rather than suffering.

You're right, I did think hedonic experience was something else, more along the lines of wants or desire-satisfaction... But then I would disagree for other reasons :-). Flourishing is not the goal of morality I think. Well not the goal of morality that seeks to prescribe how to act in relation to other people. Maybe it can be the cornerstone of virtue-ethics or some sort of personal ethos, but I don't consider that to be morality propper, because it's not concerned in the first place with how to treat other people. I think morality has the far less lofty goal of keeping people from seriously harming eachother. We don't need to and can't be all friends, right. And so, an imperative to actively help eachother to flourish seems a bit to much to ask right now, for the moment I'd be content with a morality that allows us to life together without harming eachother.

Also, like I said in the other thread, I'm a social contractarian, I don't think constructing a morality from basic values like individual hedonic experiences, or from whatever value really, is the way to go. This is where the fluid analogy is still relevant I think.

Nihilism is the only hope humanity has for peace.

Quoting ChatteringMonkey

I think morality has the far less lofty goal of keeping people from seriously harming eachother.

That's still a hedonic criteron though, assuming by "harm" you mean something like "cause suffering".

I'm not saying that anyone has an obligation to positively generate flourishing, pleasure, etc (for themselves or for others), but that when we are judging something as good or bad, we do so on the basis of making people feel good or bad. You may not be obligated to give someone a back rub, but it's still a nice thing to do, right? We'd judge that action positively, even though we don't think it would be morally wrong in a blameworthy way to not do it. Why would we judge it positively? Well, because it made someone feel good. And punching random people on the streets is definitely morally forbidden, but by what criteria are we judging it to be so wrong? Well, that it hurt someone, inflicted suffering, made them feel bad.

There's lots and lots of details about the particulars of a complete moral system that I go into lots of detail about later. Hedonism is just the basic criterion to use for, essentially, "measuring" goodness and badness.

In any case, this is really more a topic for the earlier thread Against Transcendentailism. This essay against nihilism isn't arguing specifically for a hedonic morality, just some morality that isn't relative to what people subjectively intend or desire. I only mention appetites, and thus hedonism, in this essay to be clear that I'm not arguing against a view of morality (or reality) that's independent of experiences (like sensations and appetites), which are not irreconcilably subjective the way thoughts (like beliefs and intentions) and feelings (like perceptions and desires) are, even though they are subjective still in a different way.

Quoting Pussycat

Nihilism is the only hope humanity has for peace.

Would you care to elaborate, and possibly relate this to the essay under discussion?

Reply to Pfhorrest

but that when we are judging something as good or bad, we do so on the basis of making people feel good or bad. You may not be obligated to give someone a back rub, but it's still a nice thing to do, right? We'd judge that action positively, even though we don't think it would be morally wrong in a blameworthy way to not do it. Why would we judge it positively? Well, because it made someone feel good. And punching random people on the streets is definitely morally forbidden, but by what criteria are we judging it to be so wrong? Well, that it hurt someone, inflicted suffering, made them feel bad.

I feel like your position would be stronger if you said something like "the action is good because it is ultimately in pursuit of hedonic pleasure" as opposed to just focusing on the immediate effect of
whether it made someone feel good.

For instance, getting a flu shot or some other type of vaccine is obviously good but the immediate feeling is discomfort. Getting a shot is an unpleasant experience but ultimately it's for the better of humanity.

Reply to BitconnectCarlos In the essay Against Transcendentalism previously discussed I do go into exactly that kind of detail:

Quoting The Codex Quaerentis: Against Transcendentalism

It is of course possible that individual experiences like these might not tell the whole story: something that at first looks true might be false, something that at first feels good might be bad, and so on. But we add caveats and qualifications to the opinions we form by accounting for further experiences. For example, something may look like a fire from one perspective but not from another, if it turns out to be some kind of illusion; but it's by accounting more thoroughly for how things look in other contexts that we find that out. Likewise, getting burned may feel bad in the moment but might circumvent even greater pain later, if for example the burn is medically necessary to cauterize a wound; and it is likewise by accounting more thoroughly for how things feel in other contexts that we find out about that. Our concepts of what it means for things to be true or be good are grounded in these experiences of things seeming true or seeming good, merely accounting for all such experiences of things seeming some way; so for something to be called "good" or "bad" even though it doesn't hedonistically seem that way (to anyone, ever) is as indefensible as supernaturalist claims that something is "true" or "false" even though it being that way would have never have any impact on how the world seemed to anyone.

Reply to Pfhorrest

So it would seem you agree with me, is that right? So then the action isn't determined to be good or bad simply because it makes an individual feel good or bad, but it's rather about the bigger picture then, right?

I think "the Good" is a tricky concept.

I think knowledge or direction is often good, even if it was acquired through painful means. I'd imagine someone could do something pretty malicious towards you, but weirdly in the end it could actually make you a stronger, better person. That wouldn't make their action good though.

I also consider justice part of "the good." Justice, in its truest sense, isn't about making people happy or ensuring that they thrive. Justice can actually hurt society sometimes.

Reply to BitconnectCarlos I agree with this - it’s the main problem with seeking a more ‘objective’ sense of morality. That’s not to say that we’re unable to grasp the relativity of it - just not in the sense that we are inclined to perceive a dichotomous distinction between ‘the Good’ and ‘Evil’ - particularly in the sense that we must distance ourselves from accepting the existence of what is ‘not good’.

I’ve been discussing something similar at length with @TheMadFool here. There is a certain theological context to the discussion, but my view suggests only that a more objective sense of morality requires a conceptual perspective beyond the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ itself. This is a challenge we find most frightening, I think - but it’s one we are nevertheless capable of, if not without help/support.

It is a similar situation in relation to what we believe is true/false, logical/illogical, real/unreal, etc. By positing this possibility of an absolute conceptual perspective to relate to, we can make more objective sense of our subjective relation to each distinction. We must always be careful, however, not to devalue or dismiss the historical and non-human perspectives of the universe (however limited) towards these distinctions, if this ‘absolute’ perspective is to be considered an accurate one. I think we prefer to exclude uncertainty (to avoid the pain and humility of prediction error), but in doing so we limit our capacity to even approach an accurate concept of what is ‘real’ or ‘good’, for instance.

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

So it would seem you agree with me, is that right? So then the action isn't determined to be good or bad simply because it makes an individual feel good or bad, but it's rather about the bigger picture then, right?

The bigger picture of how good or bad everybody feels, yes.Quoting BitconnectCarlos

I also consider justice part of "the good." Justice, in its truest sense, isn't about making people happy or ensuring that they thrive. Justice can actually hurt society sometimes.

I think the topic of justice is about the means, while the topic of morality is narrowly about the ends. I think they are analogous to the topics of reality and knowledge, respectively. And in later essays I go into much greater detail about the difference between them, and about the specifics of justice both of a personal and institutional character. I think the field that studies that is analogous to the field of epistemology, while what I’m discussing here is more analogous to ontology. Hedonism is just the criterion by which things are judged good, by which the objects of morality are assessed; the methods of pursuing them are something else I’ll get to later.

Quoting Possibility

By positing this possibility of an absolute conceptual perspective to relate to, we can make more objective sense of our subjective relation to each distinction.

I’m having a hard time following you, but this bit at least sound very similar to a point I make in this essay.

Quoting Pfhorrest

- Is it clear what my views are, and my reasons for holding them? (Even if you don't agree with those views or my reasons for holding them.) Especially if you're a complete novice to philosophy.
---IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL FROM WHERE I SIT
- Are any of these views new to you? Even if I attribute them to someone else, I'd like to know if you'd never heard of them before.
---NO IDEA; THEY MAY BE OR THEY MAY NOT BE
- Are any of the views that I did not attribute to someone else actually views someone else has held before? Maybe I know of them and just forgot to mention them, or maybe I genuinely thought it was a new idea of my own, either way I'd like to know.
---I DON'T KNOW
- If I did attribute a view to someone, or gave it a name, or otherwise made some factual claim about the history of philosophical thought, did I get any of that wrong?
---I AIN'T A JUDGE OF THAT
- If a view I espouse has been held by someone previously, can you think of any great quotes by them that really encapsulate the idea? I'd love to include such quotes, but I'm terrible at remembering verbatim text, so I don't have many quotes that come straight to my own mind.
---NO I CAN'T

Your essay was incredibly boring. I found it impossible to read, after the first few words of the beginning. It was so boring. It may be my ineptitude, not yours, but you failed to entice my interest to keep on reading.

It was boring and unreadable both by appearance and by content, as well as by literary style. There is no way I could help you edit it for mistakes or for improving the readability of it. Maybe there are others out there who can, but this is really not something I like to spend time with.

Quoting Pfhorrest

That's still a hedonic criteron though, assuming by "harm" you mean something like "cause suffering".

I'm not saying that anyone has an obligation to positively generate flourishing, pleasure, etc (for themselves or for others), but that when we are judging something as good or bad, we do so on the basis of making people feel good or bad. You may not be obligated to give someone a back rub, but it's still a nice thing to do, right? We'd judge that action positively, even though we don't think it would be morally wrong in a blameworthy way to not do it. Why would we judge it positively? Well, because it made someone feel good. And punching random people on the streets is definitely morally forbidden, but by what criteria are we judging it to be so wrong? Well, that it hurt someone, inflicted suffering, made them feel bad.

There's lots and lots of details about the particulars of a complete moral system that I go into lots of detail about later. Hedonism is just the basic criterion to use for, essentially, "measuring" goodness and badness.

Causing suffering is not the same as doing harm I'd say. And I wouldn't necessarily agree with feeling good or bad as the measure for morality. Harm in my view is more the flipside of flourishing, where one takes a larger picture into account, larger than mere good or bad feelings. But I think you agree with this...

Quoting Pfhorrest

In any case, this is really more a topic for the earlier thread Against Transcendentailism. This essay against nihilism isn't arguing specifically for a hedonic morality, just some morality that isn't relative to what people subjectively intend or desire. I only mention appetites, and thus hedonism, in this essay to be clear that I'm not arguing against a view of morality (or reality) that's independent of experiences (like sensations and appetites), which are not irreconcilably subjective the way thoughts (like beliefs and intentions) and feelings (like perceptions and desires) are, even though they are subjective still in a different way.

Agreed.

Ok, pfhorrest, I read partly through your essay. Out of respect for your intellect and for your what I'd call exemplary behaviour on the forums.

I refer to this part:

distinguish between a similar three different senses of metaphysical relativism, or relativism about what is real. One of those senses would hold only that (1) there do in fact exist differences of opinion about what is real; and with that I would agree, just as with descriptive moral relativism. Another sense would hold that (2) in such disagreements, nobody is any more right or wrong than anybody else; and with that I would disagree, just as with metaethical moral relativism. A third sense would hold that (3) because nobody is right or wrong, we ought to be tolerant of disagreements; and like with normative moral relativism, I would disagree with the premise of that, but largely agree with the conclusion: though it's possible that in disagreements about reality, someone is right and everyone else is wrong, we should generally be tolerant of such differences of opinion

I agree with your assessment of (1).

IN (2) I think you failed to distinguish between who is right and who is wrong in a sense of what we KNOW and what is true or real outside our knowledge. What we know, nobody is more wrong or more right than anyone else. What coincides with the truth, only one is right (potentially) and differing opinions are wrong, or else everyone is wrong. BECAUSE WE CAN'T trust our perceptions enough to detect reality, all bets are off.
(3) THEREFORE your own bias to not argue who is right and who is wrong is very correct, but ought not to be based on (whatever) but on the fact that basically we are, individually and collectively not a judge (due to our inherent disability) to come to a conclusion of any degree of certainty of who is right and who is wrong.

Both of these second types of relativism that I am against, for their being tantamount to metaphysical and moral nihilism respectively, hold that the closest thing possible to an opinion being objectively correct is its being the consensus opinion of some group collectively.
I am sorry, PFHorrest, but you are categorically and clearly wrong in your conclusion as the reason given to why you don't like the "second types of relativisms".

Both types say it is (1) impossible to get an objective opinion which is right.

You say this leads to (2) a group's consensus to accept what is right.

One does not follow from the other. 1 says the task is impossible. 2 inherently can't be conceived without accepting that the task is possible. Therefore 1 and 2 are not compatible; your rejecting the "second types of realitivism" is not based on logic. (If you stick to rejecting the "second types of relativism", I don't know what you base your rejection of it on.)

It (Berekeley's subjective realism) denies that there is any objective reality, holding that there are only subjective perceptions, with agreement between those perceptions the closest thing to objectivity possible.

It actually does not deny there is objective reality. It just does not deal with it. It avoids the quesion of objective reality altogether, but that does not mean it denies it.

Your second part is even worse: you call the subjective approaching the objective. However, if the objective is non-existent, which the denial itself claims, then who or what can approach it? It's absurd to claim that any approaching is possible.

So you first claimed something that Berkeley's subjective realism did not claim, then you contradicted yourself with this false claim in mind.

As you can see, PFHorrest, unfortunately I am not doing the homework assignment; I am not saying "I read this here, and it's the same, by this and this person", or "This was summarized thus: (...)".

But instead of the prescribed homework, I find faults in your reasoning.

I apologize for that. My excuse is that I have virtually no background in philosophy. The only reason I call myself a philosopher is that I can use logic, and I reason well. And outside this forum I have some original philosophical ideas that I am incapable to publish due to not having a Ph.D. in philosophy and academic or field-specific publishers don't publish works of dilettantes.

And while this (egotism and solipsism)is clearly still as tantamount to nihilism, in the sense I am against, as any of the more collectivist kinds of idealism or relativism, inasmuch as it (should be they: egotism and solipsism) denies the possibility of anybody in a disagreement being objectively correct

Well, there is a huge problem here that you created that renders your logic null and void: group opinions can be disagreed with, but when only one person is present, it can't have disagreement by a different person. The parallel does not work; you have failed in showing that egotism and solipsism produce nihilism. You rendered egotism and solipsism to be nihilism, by using a parallel, but the parallel is ill-gotten logically.

nihilism at its most extreme denies that anything is real or moral at all, that there is any such thing as reality or morality.

I don't know about morality, but nihilism can't claim that there is no reality. It can assert as a belief and a possibly (but not likely) valid belief that nothing real exists in reality; but reality is still a reality, even if it contains nothing. (Null set, as you have once in one of the threads so carefully and to yourself in frustration tried to explain to me, that null set can contain something if the thing is both something and its opposite, but only if the contained goods is a null set. Similarly, the set is reality and the contents, nothing. Still, the container, the set, is said to exist. Hence, nihilism does not deny reality, it just says it's a null set.)

In psychology a distinction is made between perceptions, which are interpreted by the mind, and sensations, which are the raw experiences that get interpreted into perceptions, things such as colors of light and pitches of sound, as opposed to images or words. I make a similar distinction between desires, being the things that are interpreted by the mind, and what I call appetites, which are the raw experiences underlying them, things such as the feeling of pain or hunger, as opposed to wanting to do or have something.

Finally a paragraph (segment) that makes sense, is a proposition, and has no contradictions; it is sensible, logical and reasonable.

Maslow described desires motivation, and the appetites, needs. "I am hungry" is a need or sensation or appetite, and "I want to eat" is a perception, or motivation, or desire.

"I want to own a motorcar and a house with a paid-off mortgage" is a desire, a motivation, a perception, and "I want wealth to sustain my life, and to elevate my social status so I can easily reproduce" is a need, an desire, and a perception.

So while your and Maslow's classification are similar, there are differences between the two which makes them relatively unique, and both valid.

There always remains the possibility that we will fail to construct such models that can consistently account for all experiences, but we can never be sure that we have conclusively failed, rather than having just not succeeded yet. The only choice is between continuing to try despite the possibility of maybe never succeeding, or giving up — embracing nihilism — and definitely never succeeding.

I don't like this as an argument for your proposition. It is an argument that is applicable to everything... it has no value therefore for the establishing of the truth or validity of anything specific.

Quoting Pfhorrest

Would you care to elaborate, and possibly relate this to the essay under discussion?

It's just seeing you write all these "against" essays, how many have you written so far, and how many more are there to write? You are like these warmongering "freedom fighters". Nihilism, on the other hand, is the most, if not the only, peaceful ideology, treating everything that has value of equal value, equal to zero, nihil, null. But of course it does not agree with warring human nature, and so it cannot be accepted, not on a wide scale at least.

On another note, you seem to be completely unaware of the so called fact/value distinction, treating, by analogy, matters of fact exactly the same as matters of value. You do this with no justification whatsoever.

I object to that on the grounds that if it is true, then by its nature it cannot be known to be true, because to know it to be true we would need some means of objectively evaluating claims about what is real and what is moral, so as to justifiably rule all such claims to be false; but the inability to make such objective evaluations is precisely what such a nihilistic position claims.
This I can't comment on because I can't understand it / can't follow it.

@god must be atheist Thank you for all the feedback despite how boring you found it, I'll have to reply to you in more detail later when I have some more time.

Quoting Pussycat

It's just seeing you write all these "against" essays, how many have you written so far, and how many more are there to write? You are like these warmongering "freedom fighters". Nihilism, on the other hand, is the most, if not the only, peaceful ideology, treating everything that has value of equal value, equal to zero, nihil, null. But of course it does not agree with warring human nature, and so it cannot be accepted, not on a wide scale at least.

I guess you missed the first thread in this series, the introduction page, which lays out the structure of the whole project. There are only four "against" essays just eliminating the broad kinds of views I don't support, and then seventeen more essays going into detail on what I do support out of the remaining possibilities.

And as you'll see in those later essays, I am totally a pacifist, and equating objecting to certain philosophical views with violence is pretty absurd.

Quoting Pussycat

On another note, you seem to be completely unaware of the so called fact/value distinction, treating, by analogy, matters of fact exactly the same as matters of value. You do this with no justification whatsoever.

I am very aware of it, and it forms a pivotal part of this entire project. Treating facts and values analogously is not treating them as the same kind of thing, and in the very next essay (Against Cynicism) I argue explicitly against treating them as the same kind of thing.

Quoting Pfhorrest

I guess you missed the first thread in this series, the introduction page, which lays out the structure of the whole project. There are only four "against" essays just eliminating the broad kinds of views I don't support, and then seventeen more essays going into detail on what I do support out of the remaining possibilities.

And as you'll see in those later essays, I am totally a pacifist, and equating objecting to certain philosophical views with violence is pretty absurd.

I think you misunderstood me, I wasn't saying that you are a violent person. I was referring to polemics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polemic

A polemic is contentious rhetoric that is intended to support a specific position by aggressive claims and undermining of the opposing position. Polemics are mostly seen in arguments about controversial topics. The practice of such argumentation is called polemics. A person who often writes polemics, or who speaks polemically, is called a polemicist. The word is derived from Ancient Greek ????????? (polemikos), meaning 'warlike, hostile',from ??????? (polemos), meaning 'war'.

It seems that for an idea to thrive, a sort of war is needed, in order to make way for its growth, development and living, a "Lebensraum", like there is not enough "space" for all ideas to coexist peacefully with each other. This is neither good or bad.

Heraclitus:We must know that war is common to all and strife is justice, and that all things come into being through strife necessarily.

A law, of sorts.

Quoting Pfhorrest

I am very aware of it, and it forms a pivotal part of this entire project. Treating facts and values analogously is not treating them as the same kind of thing, and in the very next essay (Against Cynicism) I argue explicitly against treating them as the same kind of thing.

Indeed. I read several of your essays, but it seems that I missed "Against Cynicism" where you say the above. So I take it back.

Quoting god must be atheist

But instead of the prescribed homework, I find faults in your reasoning.

I apologize for that.

No problem, I'm glad that you're even reading it at all, and seeing people try to argue against it does at least give me an idea of how well they understood what they're trying to argue against.

Quoting god must be atheist

IN (2) I think you failed to distinguish between who is right and who is wrong in a sense of what we KNOW and what is true or real outside our knowledge. What we know, nobody is more wrong or more right than anyone else. What coincides with the truth, only one is right (potentially) and differing opinions are wrong, or else everyone is wrong. BECAUSE WE CAN'T trust our perceptions enough to detect reality, all bets are off.

I'm having a tough time following you, but the question at hand here is entirely about whether there is any "truth outside our knowledge" to coincide with, as you put it. (I would say "opinion" rather than "knowledge", because "knowledge" implies truth while "opinion" does not). The second kind of relativism, that I am against, says "no, there isn't any truth outside our opinions to potentially coincide with; there's just our opinions".

Quoting god must be atheist

Both types say it is (1) impossible to get an objective opinion which is right.

You say this leads to (2) a group's consensus to accept what is right.

I don't say that a group's consensus actually is what's objectively right, but that it's "the closest thing possible" in the view of the kind of relativists I'm talking about. The point that a group's consensus opinion isn't actually any substitute for objective truth is exactly why I think relativism collapses to nihilism, despite what the relativists themselves claim.

Quoting god must be atheist

It actually does not deny there is objective reality. It just does not deal with it. It avoids the quesion of objective reality altogether, but that does not mean it denies it.

Can you cite something from Berkeley to support this? Because from what I recall about him he denies that there is anything besides our perceptions; he even calls his view "immaterialism", because it's more about attacking the idea of there being anything beyond our perceptible ideas (like material substance) than anything else.

Quoting god must be atheist

Your second part is even worse: you call the subjective approaching the objective. However, if the objective is non-existent, which the denial itself claims, then who or what can approach it? It's absurd to claim that any approaching is possible.

This is the same thing as with relativism above. I'm not saying that any kind of agreed-upon opinion or experience is moving closer and closer in its contents to the contents of objective reality, but that, in these relativist or subjectivist views, which claim that there is no objectivity, agreement or consensus is the closest substitute to objectivity that their view has.

Quoting god must be atheist

Well, there is a huge problem here that you created that renders your logic null and void: group opinions can be disagreed with, but when only one person is present, it can't have disagreement by a different person.

The egotist doesn't deny that other people exist, only that their opinions on what is good or bad are irrelevant. Two people who are both egotists thus will have no way of coming to agreement on what is good or bad, if their initial opinions should happen to disagree, because nothing the other person says is relevant.

You have more of a point about solipsists: if solipsism really is true, then there is only one person who exists, and so nobody else to disagreement. But nevertheless, other people seem to exist, so if you should find yourself a solipsist who thinks everybody else is a figment of your imagination, and you run into one of those figments of your imagination who claims that he is the only real person and you're a figment of his imagination, there's no way that argument is getting resolved: you're not going to be able to convince the figment of your imagination that he is a figment of your imagination, because so far as he's concerned you're just a figment of his imagination.

Quoting god must be atheist

I don't know about morality, but nihilism can't claim that there is no reality. It can assert as a belief and a possibly (but not likely) valid belief that nothing real exists in reality; but reality is still a reality, even if it contains nothing.

That's a plausible point, so I'll just remove the last part of that sentence, because I only meant that bit to be exactly synonymous with the previous part that's immune to that point: nothing is real, nothing is moral.

Reply to Possibility

By positing this possibility of an absolute conceptual perspective to relate to, we can make more objective sense of our subjective relation to each distinction.

This isn't really how I approach philosophy at this time. And by what you're saying here I'm interpreting it as some sort of "absolute system" that one can always relate back to on these big questions (e.g. whether objective morality exists). I'm happy to discuss with you, but if this discussion is going to be "oh lets try to find this absolute framework" then I'm not interested. I also wasn't trying to attack Pfforest's objective morality either, I was just trying to refine his views to make them a little stronger.

Reply to BitconnectCarlos Fair enough. I was expressing an agreement with your position, and attempting to connect it, through my own approach, to what @Pfhorrest was trying to say.

My use of ‘more’ (which I imagine you took as a comment on Pfhorrest’s approach) was simply to acknowledge that our capacity to attain the objective morality is limited.

It seems my approach is more confusing than I thought. Perhaps I will go step back and try a different tack. Thanks for your reply.

Quoting Pfhorrest

It actually does not deny there is objective reality. It just does not deal with it. It avoids the question of objective reality altogether, but that does not mean it denies it.
— god must be atheist

Can you cite something from Berkeley to support this?

I was mixing Berkeley's voice with my opinion, and with what was stated in your essay. I never read Berkeley. Sorry about that, it was my mistake to attribute this to him.

@PFHorrest, I am one of the polemicists. As you know. I think your temperament is more of the academic philosophers -- you don't get upset at the voice of harsh criticism. I like that in you. How do you do that? By forcing yourself to not show how upset you get, or you don't get upset in the first place?

I think I can be polite and staid in the face of logical criticism, but when someone shows total stupidity I get really upset. That's why I would make a horrible teacher, given the chance. I don't teach; I clobber. That's not good, and maybe I should be seeking to change my ways.

But it feels so natural... I feel better after defending my points vehemently and polemically. If I were to be polite, cool, calm and collected, would I feel the same satisfaction?

Does emotional satisfaction play a motivating role in your arguments? I know we can't argue against the truth to feel good, but when you argue FOR the right reasoning, do you still get the satisfaction, the taste of victory when you state your points, despite employing a polite, never personally degrading voice?

Quoting Pfhorrest

I'm having a tough time following you, but the question at hand here is entirely about whether there is any "truth outside our knowledge" to coincide with, as you put it. (I would say "opinion" rather than "knowledge", because "knowledge" implies truth while "opinion" does not). The second kind of relativism, that I am against, says "no, there isn't any truth outside our opinions to potentially coincide with; there's just our opinions".

Thanks for clarifying this.

What you argue against, therefore, is the denial of truth (which TRUTH I take to be the correspondence of our opinions to reality.)

I would not argue against that. In other words, I accept that there may be no relationship between reality and our opinions about it. Since our senses give no indication whether our perceptions are to be trusted to detect reality, we have no knowledge of reality. Opinions, yes, alleged perceptions, yes, alleged impulses, or sensations, yes. But not one of these can be trusted.

Therefore there is no knowledge of reality. This does not negate the existence of truth; but it allows the POSSIBILITY of no truth. (Again: TRUTH I take to be the correspondence of our opinions to reality.)

I don't know how you can deny that.

Quoting Pfhorrest

that I am against, says "no, there isn't any truth outside our opinions to potentially coincide with; there's just our opinions"

(TRUTH I take to be the correspondence of our opinions to reality, in the particular instance that our opinions are precisely coinciding with the events and things in reality.)

Accepting my definition of truth, truth can only exist as our opinions; I think your wording ought to have been:

"no, there aren't any real things or events outside our opinions, for our opinions to potentially coincide with; there are just our opinions"

Your original wording leads to a lot of inaccurate misalignment of words with their meanings to what the concepts were aimed to cover.

Or else, you can supply your own definition of truth which will render the claim true.

Would you care to supply a definition of truth which is different from my definition of truth?

Quoting god must be atheist

you don't get upset at the voice of harsh criticism. I like that in you. How do you do that? By forcing yourself to not show how upset you get, or you don't get upset in the first place?

A little bit of both. I’ve actually had a very bad temper for my entire life, but I’ve spent so long being so angry about much bigger problems that someone being wrong on the internet just doesn’t seem like something worth getting upset about anymore. But then I have also been practicing staying calm in the face of all those bigger problems for a long time so if I do feel a little upset, I’m able to deal with it a lot better than I used to.

I’ve realized that a major factor in how good or bad I feel in general is how good or bad I think I’m allowed to feel about myself, so if someone whose opinions I give weight to criticizes something that’s really important to me, so that I feel like I have to take their criticism seriously and there’s really something “wrong with me”, that hurts. It helps then to just give very little weight to most people’s opinions, to think of people like children, don’t expect them to be right and don’t really care if they think you’re not, but maybe take the opportunity to help them learn something, and yet still be open to their potential insights, and try not to actually talk down to them “like children” because even with actual children that always just backfires.

More generally than even that, I find it helps if I just don’t expect to convince anyone to begin with, but still give my say in case anyone finds it interesting. That ties into my motto which now serves as the basis of my entire philosophy: “It may be hopeless but I'm trying anyway.”

Quoting god must be atheist

But it feels so natural... I feel better after defending my points vehemently and polemically. If I were to be polite, cool, calm and collected, would I feel the same satisfaction?

Does emotional satisfaction play a motivating role in your arguments? I know we can't argue against the truth to feel good, but when you argue FOR the right reasoning, do you still get the satisfaction, the taste of victory when you state your points, despite employing a polite, never personally degrading voice?

Hearing things like this feels good, makes me feel good about myself, and so reinforces it my inclination to keep behaving this way.

In general, sharing my thoughts is very emotionally satisfying, one of my favorite things in life, and I don’t think I’d be here doing it if it weren’t so. Even worse than critical feedback is no feedback at all, just talking into the void, so even critical feedback gives me a bit of “rush” (that word is too strong but I can’t think of a better one), lets me know someone cared enough to even give it a read at all.

Quoting god must be atheist

Therefore there is no knowledge of reality. This does not negate the existence of truth; but it allows the POSSIBILITY of no truth. (Again: TRUTH I take to be the correspondence of our opinions to reality.)

I think I see the mix up here now. What I’m arguing against here is those who say truth (having our opinions correspond to reality, roughly speaking) is not possible; and I am saying instead that it is possible, that someone might be right. It is in my other essay, against fideism, where I also argue, as you do here, that it is possibly not, i.e. that anyone always might be wrong.

Quoting god must be atheist

you don't get upset at the voice of harsh criticism. I like that in you. How do you do that? By forcing yourself to not show how upset you get, or you don't get upset in the first place?

It's funny that on the same day you say this, two threads piss me off on this very forum:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/384912
and
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/384959

Reply to Pfhorrest

I think the topic of justice is about the means, while the topic of morality is narrowly about the ends. I think they are analogous to the topics of reality and knowledge, respectively.

So justice would be 'knowledge' and morality is 'reality?'

This is interesting and it's a definite difference between us. I see justice as an end in itself, and morality as also an end in itself. the two tend to operate in different spheres, but I guess by your definition they could come into conflict. If I were a judge on a case and the options were justice on one hand and human happiness on the other my first inclination would be towards justice. my attitude towards humanity as a whole is fairly neutral.

Reply to BitconnectCarlos In my mind justice and morality cannot conflict in the same way that reason and truth cannot conflict. You can see a fuller explanation at my later essay A Note On Ethics.

Reply to Pfhorrest

If you were judge what would you do in a case where you had to choose between a just verdict and the happiness/satisfaction of the community?

Reply to BitconnectCarlos Happiness/satisfaction per se is not a factor in my ethics. Read more.

Reply to Pfhorrest

Didn't you say something like well-being in another discussion? Or human welfare? My point remains. I shouldn't have to read an entire essay you should be able to put forth your view within a sentence or two.

There are clear cases where the welfare of the community (as normally understood) is in opposition to justice.

The primary divide within normative ethics is between consequentialist (or teleological) models, which hold that acts are good or bad only on account of the consequences that they bring about, and deontological models, which hold that acts are good or bad in and of themselves and the consequences of them cannot change that. The decision between them is precisely the decision as to whether the ends justify the means, with consequentialist models saying yes they do, and deontological theories saying no they don't. I hold that that is a strictly speaking false dilemma, between the two types of normative ethical model, although the strict answer I would give to whether the ends justify the means is "no". But that is because I view the separation of ends and means as itself a false dilemma, in that every means is itself an end, and every end is a means to something more. This is similar to how the views on ontology and epistemology I have already detailed in previous essays entail a kind of direct realism in which there is no real distinction between representations of reality and reality itself, there is only the incomplete but direct comprehension of small parts of reality that we have, distinguished from the completeness of reality itself that is always at least partially beyond our comprehension. We aren't trying to figure out what is really real from possibly-fallible representations of reality, we're undertaking a fallible process of trying to piece together our direct sensation of small bits of reality and extrapolate the rest of it from them. Likewise, to behave morally, we aren't just aiming to use possibly-fallible means to indirectly achieve some ends, we're undertaking a process of directly causing ends with each and every behavior, and fallibly attempting to piece all of those together into a greater good.

Perhaps more clearly than that analogy, the dissolution of the dichotomy between ends and means that I mean to articulate here is like how a sound argument cannot merely be a valid argument, and cannot merely have true conclusions, but it must be valid — every step of the argument must be a justified inference from previous ones — and it must have a true conclusion, which requires also that it begin from true premises. If a valid argument leads to a false conclusion, that tells you that the premises of the argument must have been false, because by definition valid inferences from true premises must lead to true conclusions; that's what makes them valid. If the premises were true and the inferences in the argument still lead to a false conclusion, that tells you that the inferences were not valid. But likewise, if an invalid argument happens to have a true conclusion, that's no credit to the argument; the conclusion is true, sure, but the argument is still a bad one, invalid. I hold that a similar relationship holds between means and ends: means are like inferences, the steps you take to reach an end, which is like a conclusion. Just means must be "good-preserving" in the same way that valid inferences are truth-preserving: just means exercised out of good prior circumstances definitionally must lead to good consequences; just means must introduce no badness, or as Hippocrates wrote in his famous physicians' oath, they must "first, do no harm". If something bad happens as a consequence of some means, then that tells you either that something about those means were unjust, or that there was something already bad in the prior circumstances that those means simply have not alleviated (which failure to alleviate does not make them therefore unjust). But likewise, if something good happens as a consequence of unjust means, that's no credit to those means; the consequences are good, sure, but the means are still bad ones, unjust. Moral action requires using just means to achieve good ends, and if either of those is neglected, morality has been failed; bad consequences of genuinely just actions means some preexisting badness has still yet to be addressed (or else is a sign that the actions were not genuinely just), and good consequences of unjust actions do not thereby justify those actions.

Consequentialist models of normative ethics concern themselves primarily with defining what is a good state of affairs, and then say that bringing about those states of affairs is what defines a good action. Deontological models of normative ethics concern themselves primarily with defining what makes an action itself intrinsically good, or just, regardless of further consequences of the action. I think that these are both important questions, and they are the moral analogues to questions about ontology and epistemology: fields that I call teleology (from the the Greek "telos" meaning "end" or "purpose"), which is about the objects (in the sense of "goals" or "aims") of morality, like ontology is about the objects of reality; and deontology (from the Greek "deon" meaning "duty"), which is about how to pursue morality, like epistemology is about how to pursue reality. In addition to consequentialist and deontological normative ethical models, there is a third common type, called areatic or virtue ethics, which holds that morality is about the character, the internal mental states, of the person doing the action, rather than about the action itself or its consequences. I hold that that is also an important question to consider, and that that question is wrapped up with the question of what it means to have free will. And lastly, though it's not usually studied as a philosophical division of normative ethics, there are plenty of views across history that hold that morality lies in doing what the correct authority commands, whether that be a supernatural authority as in divine command theory or a more mundane authority as in some varieties of legalism. That concern is of course wrapped up in the question of who if anyone is the correct authority and what gives their commands any moral weight, which is the central concern of political philosophy. So rather than addressing normative ethics as its own field, I prefer approaching those four questions corresponding to four kinds of normative ethical theories as equally important fields: teleology (dealing with the objects of morality, the intended ends), deontology (dealing with the methods of justice, what the rules should be), the philosophy of will (dealing with the subjects of morality, who does the intending), and the philosophy of politics (dealing with the institutes of justice, who should enforce the rules). I would loosely group these together as "meta-ethics" in a slightly different than usual sense, they being the questions necessary to answer in order to pursue the ethical sciences I propose above; in a way analogous to how the fields of ontology (about the objects of reality), epistemology (about the methods of knowledge), the philosophy of mind (about the subjects of reality), and the philosophy of academics (about the institutes of knowledge) — which we might likewise group together in a slightly unusual sense as "meta-physics" — address the questions necessary to answer in order to pursue the physical sciences.

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

There are clear cases where the welfare of the community (as normally understood) is in opposition to justice.

Justice for one man is injustice for the other.

How can the welfare of the community be in opposition to both?

Reply to god must be atheist

Justice for one man is injustice for the other.

no, if someone is wrongfully convicted of a crime that's injustice.

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

no, if someone is wrongfully convicted of a crime that's injustice.

You're right. But what if I lend you five bucks, you don't pay it back because you lose your job and your house burns down. I take you to court, and the judge comes down with the verdict, on humanitarian grounds, that you don't need to pay back the $5. Or he comes down with the verdict that you must pay it back.
It turns out that the $5 is the amount I need to get the money together to pay the "Final Notice" on my house taxes, before the city would reposses it.

Which is just? Your paying the $5, or not paying the $5?

Assume please that there are no court fees, no lawyers fees, and no transportation costs to go the court house. If you can't assume that, then please adjust the figures in question to cover those expenses as well, not just to round up my "final notice".

Reply to god must be atheist

Which is just? Your paying the $5, or not paying the $5?

the justice on this one is hazier, and there's no need to use this as an example. I already cited an example and one clear example is all I need for the concept of justice.

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

Which is just? Your paying the $5, or not paying the $5?

the justice on this one is hazier, and there's no need to use this as an example. I already cited an example and one clear example is all I need for the concept of justice.

Reply to BitconnectCarlos Very convenient, BCC. You conveniently use your example, because it fits your way of thinking, and discount other examples that go against your way of thinking.

You display the spirit of Bible studies. You cherry-pick the parables, make a bit of a different interpretation from the literal meaning of the text, and bang, you got your point supported by the Bible.

I am not saying you are a Bible-Thumper, BCC, but you are practicing an eerily close approximation to the process of Bible interpretation by Christians. Reject the inconvenient, emphasize the supportive.

Well done.

NUMBER ONE.

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

I also consider justice part of "the good." Justice, in its truest sense, isn't about making people happy or ensuring that they thrive. Justice can actually hurt society sometimes.

Though I think Reply to god must be atheist's point is a useful exercise, I'd like to criticize the premise that "justice can hurt society sometimes".

If you mean "hurt" in a some trivial way of what people, even most people, may feel, then we are in agreement. For instance, assuming we agree slavery was unjust it certainly felt "hurtful" to the slave owning class when slaves escaped, much worse, rebelled. So if we consider only the slave owning society (which in some cases can be the majority of people even including the slaves) then such a situation could agree with your framework that a "just act" of slave rebellion is "hurtful to society".

However, where I disagree is that this situation can be fundamental. For, we ultimately derive the injustice of slavery from the welfare of society, usually by considering the welfare of the slaves as part of the community then slavery becomes essentially by definition unjust since if society could function without the slaves being slaves, then clearly this is a better society than one where some members are slaves. The only way around such a conclusion is to argue one of the following "the slaves are not human and not part of the community", "slavery is good for the slaves", "slavery is necessary and there is no option to run society equally well without slaves", "it would be more unjust to part slave owners of their property than the justice served by freeing slaves"; not only are these the logical alternatives that we can derive today, but they are the historical key arguments proposed to justify slavery and only after each was proven untrue did opinion turn against slavery.

However, the point of this example is that the injustice of slavery is derived from a concept of the welfare of the community; that it is in fact more hurtful to society to have the institution of slavery than the temporary hurt of the slave owner class to have their world view challenged and be parted with their property.

Although it is a dirty word today (due to, what I would argue, unjust and criminal campaigns of propaganda) democratic social organization is only feasible by referencing the public good. The only way to decide situations where private interests, or private opinions of justice, conflict is to reference a concept of the public good. Such a reference can be wrong, and so what was thought just at one moment to some, even the majority, of people (such as capturing runaway slaves and returning them to their owner for arbitrary punishment) is viewed as unjust by a later generation that has a new opinion of the public good. However, there is no logical alternative to a concept of justice other than the public good, as there's no way to rationally convince society (hence propaganda) to implement a policy that is bad for society; there's no logical way to construct an argument where society should do what is bad for it.

Now, this does not prevent people from personally not wanting the public good but only their own definition of good for themselves at the expense of others, but even if that be the majority they could not come to any coherent agreement on any policy; maybe some policies emerge from bartering, corruption (as the majority of people don't act to prevent corruption, as it's not their problem), propaganda and influence; but such an exercise has no stable coherent outcome; the powerful players that come out on-top at any given moment maintain alliance insofar as they perceive it benefits them, and break that allegiance and overthrow the previous policies (and their previous friends) the moment they see even greater gain in a new order of things. The phenomenon of "socialize the cost, privatize the profit" is just such a dynamic at play; a lucid entirely "self interest maximizing" thinker maybe against such a policy as it's a waste of their tax dollars and makes the economy less efficient ... until the moment they are able to benefit from such a scheme, and so who gets to socialize their costs while privatizing the profits the most is in constant flux, their is no convergence of policy even if everyone in society is attempting to do the same thing in this case (and, if everyone is not acting in this way, then in constant conflict with whoever's left who disagrees with "only looking out for number" and create a coalition for their concept of the public good, which may include private property but is, essentially by definition, incompatible with underwriting an organizations costs and risks while permitting all the profits to be kept private).

Likewise, even a theological definition of justice (and I am a theist for context) does not have a definition of justice incompatible with the public good, it's just with extra steps: even a theocracy will argue not only is following the will of God good for the individual and the community but that God is good and so only wants good things to begin with.

In short, any example you have of doing justice "hurting society" I contend is only illusory, essentially resting on a prerequisite claim that society does not know what is good for it in this case (and time will bare this out; such as the US South with slavery or the Nazi's with trying to take over the world and genocide along the way; it was certainly "hurtful" for these groups to lose their respective wars, but any argument that it was just to defeat those groups, internally or externally, would be based on a public, not private or some other, concept of welfare).

Reply to god must be atheist

Though I think ?god must be atheist's point is a useful exercise, I'd like to criticize the premise that "justice can hurt society sometimes".

I honestly didn't think it was a useful exercise, so I didn't bother responding to it.

It's like take a concept like fairness - everyone should have an implicit understanding of it and this still holds true even if there are some vague cases involving it. If I'm talking about fairness in the usual sense I'm not interested in arguing those border cases which can be up for dispute. Fairness is still a meaningful concept even if there are these border cases. Otherwise there would be no such thing as day and night because twilight exists.

However, there is no logical alternative to a concept of justice other than the public good

So, just to provide some context, in the discussion me and Pfhorrest were having earlier we were roughly defining good as "social contentment or satisfaction" or something along those lines. Under that definition it should be clear that carrying out justice can conflict with "the good" - it can indeed make people very angry and could also lead to riots. Discontentment can certainly carry broader implications.

I wasn't really thinking along the lines of slavery when I wrote this. I was more thinking along the lines of the Making a Murderer case with Steven Avery.

In case you haven't seen it, imagine this: The community hates this guy. His family is poor and dirty, the family have like 10 kids who are bad students and one of them, Steven, has a minor criminal history. A murder in the city happens. We have reason to suspect - but not conclusive evidence - that it was Steven Avery - so we maybe cut some corners but in the end we find him guilty and throw him in prison. The community is happy.

I'm not saying that this is exactly what happened in the case, but these were along the lines I was thinking when I wrote about the potential contradiction between the public good and justice. Now of course you can just define the "public good" as inherently containing justice or define justice as inherently linked, but subordinate, to the public good... We can play with our definitions but under a fairly typical conception of "public good" to which the actual satisfaction of the community is the chief component it should be clear that individual justice and community contentment can certainly contradict. We can also play with other definitions of "public good" - the term is not cut and dry. Our conclusions will depend on the definitions we use.

As for the request of the OP,

Quoting Pfhorrest

Reminder: I'm looking for feedback both from people who are complete novices to philosophy, and from people very well-versed in philosophy. I'm not so much looking to debate the ideas themselves right now

This seems incompatible with the content of your essay which concludes there is "a much better chance of getting closer to finding them, if anything like that should turn out to be possible, if we try to find them".

Why advertise you aren't trying to find the answers you're looking for?

I submit to the forum that a new category should be made for "is this new or not new idea?" feedback section. If we aren't debating the content, we are clearly not doing general philosophy.

As you may certainly expect, the atomic pieces of your argument are not new. Of course, the molecule your argument builds up is new, but only because it doesn't make any sense. You are "open to find answers, whatever they may be and even if they can't be fond" ... as long as they are "not some transcendent kind of reality or morality".

Be that as it may, your position is basically that of the early skeptics of antiquity in a straight forward logical way and also in a transcendental way in Buhddism.

The Greek skeptical school held that we "cannot access truth directly", however, they got around nihilism by arguing that they adopt what appears to them to be true, while leaving open that it may turn out to be false (the Hellenistic skeptical philosophers developed a distinction between "assenting" to an idea and "believing" an idea; assenting meant basically to assume it as it's the best option available), and of course also leaving open the possibility of "really" encountering the truth also. The skeptic acts as best they can with what information they have, while "suspending judgement" of whether it is really true or not.

The other Hellenistic schools criticized this position as basically being too easy, that is sounds like intellectual courage, and certainly a good attitude in many situations, but it is not actually taken to heart by the skeptic, that the skeptic in fact does believe things without suspending judgement (such as that their attitude about suspending judgement is the best available), which then lead to a rebuttal that, no, they too suspend judgement about suspending judgement, and so and so forth. Point being, the focus is on the searching as the basic moral activity, as one cannot know things cannot be found nor being unable to rule out what appears to be true is not the best available premise.

Skepticism in Buddhism (as well as other schools in India) went much farther, in a way that the other Hellenistic schools might really agree is at least taking it to heart: one by one, taking everything that "seems obvious" and becoming seriously skeptical about it, no matter how absurd it seems to leave reasoning afterward: ultimately in the suspending judgement of one's own identity, and dealing, fairly honestly, with followup questions of "who's thinking such argument if there's no one thinking". I believe the Buddha himself had the analogy that, indeed, the arguments aren't "true" as such a notion of truth is an illusion, but it is like a bridge that can get you to the other side and then, once used, is no longer required and can be discarded; i.e. believing skeptical arguments are true is a path to get to a place where one sees all such kinds of arguments as mere human opinion and untrue. Various Buddhists and also other Indian schools went basically as far as you can possibly go in such a debate.

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

So, just to provide some context, in the discussion me and Pfhorrest were having earlier we were roughly defining good as "social contentment or satisfaction" or something along those lines.

I make a very important distinction between intentions or desires, and appetites, in my ethics. It's analogous to the distinction between beliefs or perceptions, and sensations, in physical sciences. What people believe, or think they're seeing (their interpretation of their observations), is not relevant to truth. What they actually observe is. Likewise, what people think ought to be the case, or what they want, is not relevant to the good. What actually hurts them is, though.

It would help if you would actually read the entirety of what my position is before arguing about it, although we are getting way, way ahead of ourselves here, as this thread is just about one essay establishing one principle that will be employed in many places later on. All of the follow questions about "but what is that objective morality like, what's its relationship to justice, who gets to make the decisions", etc, will be addressed later.

Quoting boethius

This seems incompatible with the content of your essay which concludes there is "a much better chance of getting closer to finding them, if anything like that should turn out to be possible, if we try to find them".

The "right now" part that you quoted is important, as is the part immediately following that that you didn't quote:

...especially the ones that have already been long-debated (though I'd be up for debating the truly new ones, if any, at a later time)

I'm don't want knee-jerk rehashing of very old arguments to get in the way of critiquing the form and presentation of this particular project first and foremost. When the whole project is polished and done, then I'm happy to debate its merits as a whole.

Quoting boethius

You are "open to find answers, whatever they may be and even if they can't be fond" ... as long as they are "not some transcendent kind of reality or morality".

Technically in this essay by itself I'm not arguing against transdentalism, I'm just stating that I'm not arguing for it just by being against nihilism. But in another essay I am arguing against transcendentalism, precisely on the ground that answers about trancendent things can't be found. And in this essay I don't say "even if they can't be found", I say that if we're not certain either way that they can or can't be found, we should try to find them. That's entirely compatible with not looking for them in places where we're sure they won't be found.

Quoting Pfhorrest

When the whole project is polished and done, then I'm happy to debate its merits as a whole.

Sure, I don't mind not debating the substance, as is your desire. When your desire changes, I'll look into it.

You ask where the ideas have been had before, I am simply providing you the answer that the idea that we can still function, that it's still worthwhile to keep an eye out for the truth, even if we don't have it, goes back, at least, to the Hellenistic philosophers, is the foundation of skepticism, and is also a Socratic theme (though debatable Socrates is a skeptic as it later developed, you are not really taking a skeptic position, only presenting part of a skeptical argument, elsewhere it very much seems you are claiming the arguments you present are true and you believe them to be so; so, more akin to a Socrates that claims to know much more).

Reply to Pfhorrest
I'm a moral relativist/nihilist and I've argued with a number of people on the topic, your summary opinion of how we don't know therefore there's no more reason to be a nihilist than not be one is probably the second or third most popular counterargument from my experience.

I think most of your issues with moral relativism are all pretty common, at least with people who don't like it.

Reply to Pfhorrest

Likewise, what people think ought to be the case, or what they want, is not relevant to the good. What actually hurts them is, though.

What do you mean by what actually hurts them? What is this actual good that you are here to tell us all about?

Everyone seems to dislike nihilism, but also everyone is using it to annihilate what they don't like. It's like the traitor: everyone likes a good treason, well, where it suits them, but noone the traitor himself.

Quoting boethius

You ask where the ideas have been had before, I am simply providing you the answer that the idea that we can still function, that it's still worthwhile to keep an eye out for the truth, even if we don't have it, goes back, at least, to the Hellenistic philosophers, is the foundation of skepticism, and is also a Socratic theme (though debatable Socrates is a skeptic as it later developed, you are not really taking a skeptic position, only presenting part of a skeptical argument, elsewhere it very much seems you are claiming the arguments you present are true and you believe them to be so; so, more akin to a Socrates that claims to know much more).

Thank you for that.

Quoting Judaka

I'm a moral relativist/nihilist and I've argued with a number of people on the topic, your summary opinion of how we don't know therefore there's no more reason to be a nihilist than not be one is probably the second or third most popular counterargument from my experience.

I think most of your issues with moral relativism are all pretty common, at least with people who don't like it.

Thank you for that too.

Quoting BitconnectCarlos

What do you mean by what actually hurts them? What is this actual good that you are here to tell us all about?

As I said, that's getting way ahead of the game and will be answered in detail in later essays, some of which I've already linked, and you refused to read. For a short answer for now, it's very close to what is meant by interests (as opposed to positions) in principled negotiation, and as I think I said already, it's analogous to the difference between beliefs and observations in science. You find out if something actually hurts someone (or vice versa, though I can't think of unambiguous terminology for that as "pleases" could mean the wrong thing) by standing in their circumstances and seeing if it hurts (etc) you, after controlling for differences between you if necessary. Just like you verify an observation by repeating an experiment, controlling for differences in instruments (including natural senses) as necessary.

But the polemic nature of philosophical debates is usually either underrated or even totally ignored, as "philosophers" battle for domination, for their ideas to dominate. And of course at the end, no one wins, even if in fact someone manages to win, nihilism at its best.



those bloody russians!

Based on feedback from these threads here, I have rearranged the first four essays of the Codex into a different order. This essay, Against Nihilism, is now the first essay, as I figure being against nihilism is the lowest-hanging fruit, and will get more people on board quicker than starting out with the other core principle, against fideism.

This is the statement I most disagree with: "simply because to assume otherwise would just be to give up for no reason" but I'll get to that later.

I don't think this is arguing against nihilism logically but pragmatically: "I object to that on the grounds that if it is true, then by its nature it cannot be known to be true because to know it to be true we would need some means of objectively evaluating claims about what is real and what is moral"

Nihilism doesn't exclude itself from its own equation. It doesn't claim to be objective. It claims that all beliefs (including this one) are relative and believed in by the person's choice. To disagree with it is just that, disagreement, it doesn't prove it false. It's a statement that, whether you agree or disagree with it, remains unprovable. It cannot be established objectively but neither can it be dismissed. So your argument against Nihilism is purely a pragmatic one. "We can either give up or go on" is what it boils down to but that doesn't logically disprove anything. You can't logically respond to the people that choose to "give up".

Also, another interesting thing I find with your argument against it is that, whether or not one believes there is nothing real or moral, they will take very similar steps from that point.
"or, instead, we could baselessly assume that there is something real and something moral — as there certainly inevitably seems to be, for even if you are a solipsist and egotist, some things will still look true or false to you and feel good or bad to you — and then proceed with the long hard work of figuring out what seems most likely to be real and moral, by attending closely and thoroughly to those seemings, those experiences."

How exactly would one go about figuring out what seems most likely or real WITHOUT employing some sort of arbitrary system of evaluation? The system you proposed sounds to me like trying to reconcile all the different views, to find common ground among them. But how is that different from the initial position you disagreed with of saying that the closest we can get to objective morality or reality is whatever the group agrees with? Because to me, they sound exactly the same. And that's why I disagree with: "simply because to assume otherwise would just be to give up for no reason."

People don't go: "There is no objective reality I'll just kill myself now" they usually go "There is no objective reality so what's the next best thing?" And end up doing the exact same thing as people that say "There is an objective reality time to find it"

That's why I usually don't bother getting into threads that have "Is there an objective X" because:
1- To assume there is or there isn't is just as baseless
2- Whichever you end up going with you practically do the same things

In other words, answering the question is pointless.

Quoting khaled

So your argument against Nihilism is purely a pragmatic one.

I thought I had explicitly said that, but apparently not. I explicitly meant it in any case. I should probably add a small bit explicitly saying it.

Quoting khaled

You can't logically respond to the people that choose to "give up".

No, but I can point out that that's all they're doing. If they don't want to try to figure out what it real or moral, that's their choice, but them choosing that action doesn't mean that it is not possible to figure out what is real or moral, just that they're not trying to do so.

That's where the "for no reason" part comes in. They haven't shown that everyone should give up, that there is no hope, that trying is pointless. They have just elected not to try themselves. Which is their choice, but they haven't provided a reason why others need to choose likewise.

The very next essay (in the new order, or two essays prior in the old order), Against Fideism, is all about needing a reason to make an assertion to others; and the essay after that (in the new order, or the very next essay in the old order), Against Cynicism, is all about not needing a reason just to choose something for yourself. So nihilists are free to give up if they want, but if they want to tell anyone else that giving up is the thing to do, they'll need a reason, and their very nihilism deprives them of any reasons.

Quoting khaled

But how is that different from the initial position you disagreed with of saying that the closest we can get to objective morality or reality is whatever the group agrees with?

Relativists say that whatever a majority of some thinks (their beliefs or intentions) is correct, relative to that group, and those who think differently are incorrect, relative to that group.

Subjective idealists say that whatever a majority of some group feels (their perceptions or desires) is correct, relative to that group, and those who feel differently are incorrect, relative to that group.

I say that whatever everybody unanimously experiences (their senses or appetites) is correct, and if there isn't unanimity of experiences, people need to replicate others' experiences for themselves, and if they run into difficulty doing so, then there is some qualification that needs to be added to their model of what is objectively correct to account for those differences between the people doing the experiencing.

Thoughts and feelings are interpretations. Experiences are not. The three blind men touching the elephant each feels like (perceives that) they're touching a different thing, and none of them are correct, but the objective truth of what they are actually touching still accounts for the senses they all experience. The hard part is coming up with a model that does account for all their different experiences.

I pretty much said this in the essay already:

But rather than the perceptions and desires that underlie those views, which can contradict from person to person because they are constructed in the different minds of different people, I propose instead attending to the more fundamental underlying experiences that give rise to those perceptions and desires, free from the interpretation of the mind undergoing them.

Etc. It sounds like you already read that part, but didn't get it.

Reply to Pfhorrest Quoting Pfhorrest

I thought I had explicitly said that, but apparently not. I explicitly meant it in any case. I should probably add a small bit explicitly saying it.

You implied it heavily but I just said it to stay on the same page.

Quoting Pfhorrest

Relativists say that whatever a majority of some thinks (their beliefs or intentions) is correct, relative to that group, and those who think differently are incorrect, relative to that group.

Subjective idealists say that whatever a majority of some group feels (their perceptions or desires) is correct, relative to that group, and those who feel differently are incorrect, relative to that group.

Yes BUT the point is neither of those views opposes this:

Quoting Pfhorrest

coming up with a model that does account for all their different experiences.

Your view is that we should try to reconcile all the different experiences. I'm saying idealism and relativism don't oppose that at all. That's what I meant by "Whether or not you say there is an objective reality/morality you end up practically doing the same thing" and that is trying to reconcile conflicting views.

Reply to khaled The "those who [think/feel] differently are incorrect, relative to that group" part, the the treatment of different groups as each correct relative to themselves and not in need of reconciliation to some universal standard, are the defining features of relativism and subjectivism. Someone who tries to get everyone who disagrees to come together and figure out something that everyone should agree to is not a relativist at all. That's exactly what objectivism is.

Quoting Pfhorrest

Thoughts and feelings are interpretations. Experiences are not. The three blind men touching the elephant each feels like (perceives that) they're touching a different thing, and none of them are correct, but the objective truth of what they are actually touching still accounts for the senses they all experience. The hard part is coming up with a model that does account for all their different experiences.

I may be wrong, but isn't this a phenomenological approach?

Reply to Pussycat Generally speaking, as far as I understand it, yes. I haven't actually read much of the actual phenomenologists myself. But I do call one of my core principles "phenomenalism", although that principle is the negation of "transcendentalism", not nihilism.

I kind of think I should eliminate this early mention of phenomenalism from this particular essay Against NIhilism, because at this point I'm only trying to establish that we should run with the assumption that there is something objectively correct and then try to find it, rather than just giving up. But I anticipate that nihilists and relativists (especially of the moral variety) will read this and just scream "but how could we possibly find that!? what could that even possibly be like?", so I have to give some kind of what is to come later. But maybe I shouldn't, and just let them ask that and keep reading to find out?

What do you (all) think?

I just made some small changes to the last few paragraphs to draw focus away from experiential-vs-non-experiential stuff, but instead uninterpreted-vs-interpreted stuff, and consequently on objectivity-vs-bias, and references "elsewhere in these essays" for more discussion on phenomenalism.

Reply to Pfhorrest So you are trying to make a science out of it?

Reply to Pussycat Make a science out of what?

I see the role of philosophy as grounding sciences, both the usual stack of physical sciences, and also an analogous stack of ethical sciences I propose in my later Note on Ethics (and illustratively allude to at the end of my essay on Metaphilosophy), if that answers your question.

Reply to Pfhorrest Have a look at the link below, what prof Massimo Pigliucci wrote in his one and only appearance in TPF:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/358750

[quote=Massimo]What I find problematic, however, is some people in the humanities who claim that subjectivity is not just a limitation of science (it is), but also the way forward to some sort of alternative that goes "beyond" science. I think Husserlian phenomenology falls close to this position. The problem is that the whole approach seems to me to be predicated on not taking seriously one's own objections: if subjectivity and first-person experience cannot be treated by science then the answer isn't to create another "science" (or uber-science) that can handle it, but rather to accept that we as human beings are bounded to use a combination of third and first person approaches in order to arrive at understanding.[/quote]

So this is what I am asking, whether this "coming up with a model" you said, would be a scientific model with scientific methodology, or as Massimo wrote, ... a combination to arrive at an understanding.

Quoting Pfhorrest

but the objective truth of what they are actually touching still accounts for the senses they all experience

It seems to me that you would go for the first option, since you say that objective truth is involved, and science is or at least tries to be objective and describe objective truth.

Quoting Pfhorrest

Make a science out of what?

So make a science out of the different subjective experiences and interpretations of people, not some philosophy or psychology I mean, but rather hard-boiled and concrete science, using the scientific method, just like for example physicists do.

(Sorry this is less than lucid, I'm up way too late).

When it comes to the descriptive side of things, what I am going for is exactly the ordinary scientific method. The models I'm talking about, in that context, are the hypotheses or theories of the physical sciences.

When it comes to the prescriptive side of things, I am constructing an analogous method that addresses the question of what ought to be in the same way that the ordinary scientific method addresses the question of what is.

I'm not very familiar with Husserl et al, but from Massimo's quote it sounds like he at least is characterizing them as trying to do something... that honestly I can't even wrap my head around right now, but the analogy that comes to mind is like trying to look at your own eyeball. I'm not trying to do that. I'm just saying "use your eyes". All of science, all of everything, is done by the scientists from a first-person perspective; the things they're studying, they're studying in the third person relative to those things, but within their own first-person view of the world. I can't rightly comprehend right now what Husserl et al might be doing, or what Massimo et al think they're doing, that's different from that. You can't study something else from its first-person perspective; that's nonsense.

Reply to Pfhorrest Quoting Pfhorrest

not in need of reconciliation to some universal standard, are the defining features of relativism and subjectivism

But they ARE not in need. You yourself said, "Or we can BASELESSLY assume that there is morality, etc." I think you took a pragmatic approach against nihilism but then treated that as a logical argument against it. Nowhere in what you said is it implied that there is a "need" of reconciliation to some universal standard. You yourself called it a "proposal" which doesn't sound very objective to me. And even if that need isn't established as objective, in practice, people will tend towards this reconciliation naturally.
Quoting Pfhorrest

Someone who tries to get everyone who disagrees to come together and figure out something that everyone should agree to is not a relativist at all. That's exactly what objectivism is.

Really? I don't think of that when I think of objectivism at all. The definition I found online (that I agree with) is Objectivism: the belief that certain things, especially moral truths, exist independently of human knowledge or perception of them. What you're describing requires people to agree on something. And whatever they agree upon is deemed "objective". Objectivism doesn't do that at all. To me what you're describing sounds like relativism but the "group" in question is everyone. "If everyone believes it, it is true" is the essence of relativism. What you're proposing is just a very wide scale relativism.

Quoting khaled

And even if that need isn't established as objective, in practice, people will tend towards this reconciliation naturally.

I said “treatment as not in need of reconciliation”. If people are trying to reconcile, then they evidently think that each party having their own opinion is not in itself sufficient grounds for them each to hold those different opinions, but that they should figure out between them what opinion they should both agree on, i.e. which one is right. If they think that there is no such thing as right, then the other party disagreeing isn’t a problem, because it’s not like they’re wrong or something, they’re just different.

The former case is acting like there is sone objective, unbiased truth they’re trying to find together, for without some unbiased criteria to go on there’s no way to reconcile those differences of opinion, nothing in common to appeal to. The later case is acting like there’s not, and that is what relativism is.

Quoting khaled

Objectivism: the belief that certain things, especially moral truths, exist independently of human knowledge or perception of them.

Yes. Knowledge is a kind of belief. I am saying that beliefs and perceptions (and their moral analogues) are to be discarded, because they are mind-dependent and therefore inherently biased, and so cannot serve as criteria for coming to agreement on what is objectively correct. I say instead that we should attend directly to the uninterpreted experiences that we have in common.

Just look at what science does and doesn’t do. When it comes to tackling questions about reality, pursuing knowledge, we do not take some census or survey of people's beliefs or perceptions, and either try to figure out how all those could all be held at once without conflict, or else (because that likely will not be possible) just declare that whatever the majority, or some privileged authority, believes or perceives is true. Instead, we appeal to everyone's direct sensations or observations, free from any interpretation into perceptions or beliefs yet, and compare and contrast the empirical experiences of different people in different circumstances to come to a common ground on what experiences there are that need satisfying in order for a belief to be true. Then we devise models, or theories, that purport to satisfy all those experiences, and test them against further experiences, rejecting those that fail to satisfy any of them, and selecting the simplest, most efficient of those that remain as what we tentatively hold to be true. This entire process is carried out in an organized, collaborative, but intrinsically non-authoritarian academic structure.

Likewise when it comes to tackling questions about morality, pursuing justice, I say we should not take some census or survey of people's intentions or desires, and either try to figure out how all those could all be held at once without conflict, or else (because that likely will not be possible) just declare that whatever the majority, or some privileged authority, intends or desires is good. Instead, we should appeal to everyone's direct appetites, free from any interpretation into desires or intentions yet, and compare and contrast the hedonic experiences of different people in different circumstances to come to a common ground on what experiences there are that need satisfying in order for an intention to be good. Then we should devise models, or strategies, that purport to satisfy all those experiences, and test them against further experiences, rejecting those that fail to satisfy any of them, and selecting the simplest, most efficient of those that remain as what we tentatively hold to be good. This entire process should be carried out in an organized, collaborative, but intrinsically non-authoritarian political structure.

Based partly on feedback in this (and other) threads, I have completely restructured the essay Against Nihilism, now putting the reasons for rejecting it at the forefront instead of the end, and addressing solipsism and egotism first after that, and then relativisms as an abstraction of those, (subjective) idealisms as a variation on that, and my closing comments on how I come close to agreeing with those idealisms at the end.

I'd appreciate it if anyone would give it a re-read and let me know if this is an improvement.

Quoting boethius

That there are, nevertheless, absolute moral truths ("true" answers about, at least the foundational, moral questions), and though there may not be an objective procedure any two clear headed people could use to come to an agreement about there that there is nevertheless either other ways to the truths or truths nonetheless even if we can't get to them, is usually simply called "moral absolutistism" which is opposed to "moral relativism". Moral absolutists will accuse moral relativists of believing that moral relativism itself is a claim purporting to be absolutely true and thus a moral absolutist disposition, just in denial about it (a debate which goes back to Hellenistic skepticism as previously mentioned, though only on principle and without a cultural relativistic element of modern relativists).

Moral relativism should not be confused with pluralism, which is simply the observation by moral absolutists that it is not incompatible with a common sense approach to culture (that cultural diversity is not intrinsically bad nor is it intrinsically incoherent for moral absolutists to respect different cultures insofar as they represent an attempt to get closer to the absolute truths that do exist).

Indirectly tangential from the conversation that ensued from this, I've added a bit to this essay Against NIhilism clarifying relativism vs objectivism from situationism vs absolutism:

Quoting The Codex Quarentis: Against Nihilism

Both of these second types of relativism that I am against, for their being tantamount to metaphysical and moral nihilism respectively, hold that the closest thing possible to an opinion being objectively correct is its being the consensus opinion of some group collectively. According to such a view, agreeing with whatever beliefs about the world the group collectively holds is as close to correct as one can be about reality; and agreeing with whatever intentions about people's behavior the group collectively holds is as close to correct as one can be about morality. This group-relative sense of "correct" is where the term "relativism" comes from. But just making judgements that vary by circumstances or context is not relativism, and I am definitely not against that. That view is sometimes called "situationism" in the context of judgements about morality, and usually just taken for granted in the context of judgements about reality. The opposite of that view is the proper referent of the term "absolutism", even though that term is frequently misused to mean the opposite of relativism, which is better termed "objectivism". Absolutism holds that some judgements are correct not only regardless of anybody's opinions, but regardless of the details of the context or circumstances, and I am definitely not arguing for that here, only against relativism.

Quoting Pfhorrest

I said “treatment as not in need of reconciliation”. If people are trying to reconcile, then they evidently think that each party having their own opinion is not in itself sufficient grounds for them each to hold those different opinions, but that they should figure out between them what opinion they should both agree on, i.e. which one is right. If they think that there is no such thing as right, then the other party disagreeing isn’t a problem, because it’s not like they’re wrong or something, they’re just different.

I know you are not really interested in discussing the content of the arguments here, but it seems like it is worth mentioning anyway....

There are other reasons why on might think disagreeing is a problem than just the fact they are objectively wrong.

This is not a moral rule per se, but there's no objective argument to be made that one should drive on the left side or the right side of the road for instance… yet it seem imperative that we should come to an agreement on that for obvious reasons.

Likewise, regarding morality, because in the end it's about groups of people living together in a more or less harmonious way, there are good reasons that agreement is preferable even if there is no objective right or wrong to the matter.

Reply to ChatteringMonkey There are certainly cases where neither of some alternatives are morally obligatory, but agreement on them is still valuable; the road-side case is one of them. But in those cases, there is still a prior agreement that agreement is good, which requires some agreement on "good" in the first place. We need to agree on what side of the road to drive on because if we don't then there will be car accidents and people will die (etc). Someone who drives on the wrong side of the road isn't doing something wrong because of the side of the road they drove on, but because they caused a wreck and got someone killed (etc). Similarly, with valuing people living together in a more or less harmonious way: that presumes that we all agree that whatever kind of disharmony we're aiming to avoid is bad. There are lots of things where there are multiple equally acceptable ways to realize a goal, but the end goals are still held in common.