ChrisH

You see no problem with saying one's preferences are based on one's preferences?

Yes but I'm saying it's not based on his personal feeling/taste (it's not common usage subjective).. Unless you're saying his personal feeling/taste i...

It's not so confusing when you use it as a synonym for mental phenomena in general - precise details will vary from subject to subject. Confusion aris...

Ok but I find your usage confusing (it can be confused with the more commonplace usage I cited earlier). If all mental phenomena are subjective why no...

A dictionary definition is simply an indication of common usage, That's all. I'm just attempting to understand your usage.

One definition of subjective is "based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions." I'd have thought brain states aren't based on or i...

What's the relevant difference? Is it, in your view, simply that one exists as a brain state and the other doesn't?

Beliefs about rising global temperatures only occur in brains. I still don't see the distinction.

I don't see the distinction either.

Why ask me? It was Unseen's claim:

No, why do you ask? I'm simply saying that your claim to know that some creatures are not conscious with the same certainty that you know you're not o...

It's one thing to say your belief that some creatures are not conscious is a reasonable assumption (debatable but not particularly controversial) but ...

I don't have any objection to it - I just don't think it's "good" evidence. I assume that you agree that all our beliefs are supported by varying degr...

If you think assumptions about consciousness in other creatures are based on "plenty of good evidence" when no one has any concrete evidence of consci...

Sure but I'm simply responding to your words. In your first response to my claim that your belief that some creatures are not conscious you replied: B...

"People" may fall back on that simplistic dichotomy but I'm not aware that I've fallen into that trap. I'm simply saying that beliefs about consciousn...

Ok but you did say you assumed "we" are conscious not that others were conscious. So it seems that you assume others are conscious but you are "certai...

I thought you did:

Of course, but you don't seem to be consistent. You say that your belief that you are conscious is an assumption but you believe with certainty that s...

You're not certain that you are conscious? You've lost me.

You use the term 'certainty' differently to me. I'd say you have a working hypothesis based purely on assumptions.

This is an assumption. You can't possibly know it with certainty.

Very interesting. Thanks.

What's your evidence for this belief?

. Yes. I don't think your use reflects how the term is commonly used. Presumably "I have brown hair" is an objective statement in accord with the use ...

I've always taken the "it's subjective" response as just another way of saying they're plain wrong if they think there's an objective fact of the matt...

In my experience it's quite common ("subjective" not necessarily "subjectively true").

I'm not suggesting we do. But it remains the case that the term "subjectively true" is in common use. I'm just trying to make sense of what might comm...

But language construction does mean something. When some people say X is immoral they really don't mean that they personally feel that X is immoral. S...

No it's a statement of fact. I suppose you could argue that all statements of fact are "dependent on the opinion of the speaker". I'm not sure how use...

Yes. It's subjectively true for anyone who does find anchovies disgusting.

I don't think this is true. The language is quite clearly the language of objectivity - the intention may not be to make an objective claim, but the l...

I'm afraid I'm not sure I follow what you're saying here. It seems to me that it makes sense to say that claims such 'as anchovies are disgusting' and...

I take your point. I think my use of "sincerely" was unnecessary. The point I was trying to make was that statements of preference refer to objective ...

Why would this matter? There must be any number of things we don't know for which there is an objective fact of the matter? I'm assuming this person h...

That's not how I've always understood the distinction. My take: "I prefer...", if stated sincerely, is objectively true - its truth is not dependent o...

Which makes it, in principle, objective.

Hear, hear.

Why? (the logic may seem obvious to you but it's not to me)

I don't understand what you're getting at here. I'd have thought a moral stance requires explanation (reasons) regardless of what they're based on. Wh...

Sorry, but nothing in your response appears, to me, to address my concern.

The problem I have is that I have no idea how anything qualifies as 'wrong in itself' (i.e. wrong even if no one believed it was wrong)?

I think the bemusement stems from the fact that human emotional responses are dismissed so casually ("mere preferences"), in the context of morality, ...

You really should read the responses from the relativists on this thread. If you did, you wouldn't ask such absurd questions.

Why are human emotional responses so frequently characterised as mere preferences? Why can't they be, in the context of morality, profound and heartfe...

Yes and I attempted to explain to you that the notion that only some moral judgements are objective (and others may not be) makes no sense.

What do you mean by "same moral view". All you've established is acceptance here that a large majority of people will have similar moral views about o...

The question makes no sense. Either a moral proposition is objectively true (true independent of anybody's "moral view") or it's not. The phrase "high...

A proposition is subjective if its truth value is is dependent on personal feelings, tastes or opinions (i.e. existing in someone's mind rather than t...

I can but even if we accept for the sake of argument that no such people exist, then all you have then is universal intersubjectivity. It doesn't get ...