(October 25, 2018 at 6:15 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote:

Quote:The term ‘moral judgement’ can refer to an activity, a state, a state-content, a capacity or a virtue. The activity of moral judgement is that of thinking about whether something has a moral attribute. The thing assessed might be an action, person, institution or state of affairs, and the attribute might either be general (such as rightness or badness) or specific (such as loyalty or injustice). 

https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/t...gement/v-2

Thank you. But that refers to 'moral judgement' rather than 'moral' and 'judgement'.

From the link:
"The term ‘moral judgement’ can refer to an activity, a state, a state-content, a capacity or a virtue."

This is too broad to be useful.

Ah well.

Too broad to be useful to what?  It's not as if, if somebody asked you about your moral judgements..you'd draw a blank.   

If you have opinions about moral judgements you have an idea what moral judgements are.  You have opinions about moral judgements, therefore the term is useful enough at least for that, and no objection to the term is cogent. Hell, that you think it's a broad definition immediately betrays the fact that you are aware of alot of things that fit that bill.

Does defining each word individually make some difference, or does it reaffirm the compound definition?

Quote:mor·al
/ˈmôrəl/Submit
adjective
1.
concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.
"the moral dimensions of medical intervention"
synonyms: virtuous, good, righteous, upright, upstanding, high-minded, principled, honorable, honest, just, noble, incorruptible, scrupulous, respectable, decent, clean-living, law-abiding
"a moral man"
2.
holding or manifesting high principles for proper conduct.
"he prides himself on being a highly moral and ethical person"
noun
1.
a lesson, especially one concerning what is right or prudent, that can be derived from a story, a piece of information, or an experience.
"the moral of this story was that one must see the beauty in what one has"
synonyms: lesson, message, meaning, significance, signification, import, point, teaching
"the moral of the story"
2.
a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.
"the corruption of public morals"

Quote:judg·ment
/ˈjəjmənt/Submit
noun
noun: judgement
1.
the ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions.
"an error of judgment"
synonyms: discernment, acumen, shrewdness, astuteness, sense, common sense, perception, perspicacity, percipience, acuity, discrimination, reckoning, wisdom, wit, judiciousness, prudence, canniness, sharpness, sharp-wittedness, powers of reasoning, reason, logic; More
2.
a misfortune or calamity viewed as a divine punishment.
"the crash had been a judgment on the parents for wickedness"

Try this, give me any personally held moral judgement you like. Dont worry yourself about its epistemic or ontological status, for now. Tell me something that you think is wrong, or right.

I think it's wrong to beg the question.

Excellent.   When you say that, are you reporting something that you take to be true? Do you believe in the truth of that statement?

(October 25, 2018 at 10:22 pm)Khemikal Wrote: Excellent.   When you say that, are you reporting something that you take to be true?  Do you believe in the truth of that statement?

I said I think it's wrong.  I believe I think it's wrong, yes.

That's a cognitivist response.  A "yes" to the first question of the flowchart. If asked whether moral judgements reflect beliefs, you think that they do.

(October 25, 2018 at 10:26 pm)Khemikal Wrote: That's a cognitivist response.  A "yes" to the first question of the flowchart.  If asked whether moral judgements reflect beliefs, you think that they do.

No.  I said that I think begging the question is wrong, and that I believed I really thought that (though you asking that question seemed kind of strange, since I don't normally state opinions I don't believe).

I've already said that I think a moral system is a mediation among feelings (read: instinct), ideas, and environment.  Is this something that seems wrong to you?

(October 26, 2018 at 8:40 am)bennyboy Wrote:

(October 25, 2018 at 10:26 pm)Khemikal Wrote: That's a cognitivist response.  A "yes" to the first question of the flowchart.  If asked whether moral judgements reflect beliefs, you think that they do.

No.  I said that I think begging the question is wrong, and that I believed I really thought that (though you asking that question seemed kind of strange, since I don't normally state opinions I don't believe).

Right, and because you think that statement expresses a state of belief on your part, the answer to the question "do moral judgements express beliefs" is yes.  You think that they do.  You think, for example, that your moral judgement "begging the question is wrong" expresses a belief that you hold.  Something that could be true or false, and you are in a state of belief regarding that proposition wherein you take it to be true.

(it does seem strange, doesn't it..but that's a position called conservativism - non cognitivists reject that and state that however strange the question may seem, it's a valid one and the answer is no..because we aren't actually expressing states of belief in moral judgment. To them, a negative moral judgement does not even aim for the truth. They would contend that you don't actually believe that begging the question is wrong..and that the entire statement can be reduced to something like "yuck"..instead, for example.

Quote:I've already said that I think a moral system is a mediation among feelings (read: instinct), ideas, and environment.  Is this something that seems wrong to you?

Not at all, no.  As a realist I agree that moral systems often are a mediation between feelings ideas and environments.  However, as a moral realist, I think that they should be less so, and more a series of statements that follow from moral facts. Or, if we were being systematic, that the interests those idiosyncratic metrics takes place at the level of agency or desert rather than the formation of moral propositions.

You believe that moral judgements express beliefs, so you're a cognitivist..and no non-cog criticism of our shared position on that matter is available to you in good faith - as a realist, or advocating for the realist position, my every answer to a non-cog objection will be "then we are both wrong". Even though I'm a realist and you are (presumably - but I'd actually hold off on saying so for certain, lol) not..we are implicated together in our rejection of non cognitivist positions. We agree, on that. The next question in the flow is whether or not you think that those beliefs are sometimes true.

So, do you think that your belief that begging the question is wrong is true? Or..conversely, do you think that (for whatever reason or no reason)..we always get it wrong? That our beliefs in this regard are never true?

Well, after my long journey of trying to understand what on earth moral realism is, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is one of the following:

1) Trivially true
2) Equivocation

In other words, it’s a deepity. I can’t for the life of me get any better grip on it than that.

I think that you could if you made the effort.  You're a smart guy. Those two items, however, sound like the assumptions you had coming in. More an offhand dismissal than a justification for it.

The statement implicates scientific inquiry, fwiw. Because cornell realism, for example... is a direct and explicit transportation of the ideological assumptions of scientific inquiry to the moral arena...if it's propositions were uniformly either trivially true or equivocation..so too would the product of those assumptions be in any other arena. Evolutionary theory..trivially true, or equivocation. Astronomy and cosmology, trivially true or equivocation. One of the great hooks of that specific variant is that it can draw a direct criticism of things that most people take to be true about the world and about facts and how we come to them and say..well..if you're being consistent, then these things are like those things. If you're not being consistent.......

: throws hands in the air :

Maybe you could pick any of the realist variants on the flowchart and explain what you don't understand about them, or why you think that the answer which typifies that position is trivially true, or an equivocation?