(October 31, 2018 at 7:02 pm)bennyboy Wrote: I can objectively say that, "X holds the moral position Y, based on (insert way of knowing/inferring that)."  If you want to talk about the mechanics of mechanism, like brain function, then fine.  You could locate the "morality genes," perhaps, and those would be objective.

That would be moral subjectivism, not objectivism.  The subjectivists fact I supplied you with was an explicit invocation of the person or groups biology. If -that- is why they think something is wrong, then their moral assessment is subjective.

Quote:I'm fine with that, but I predicted that immediately upon entering this thread-- if you want to reduce reality to a physical monist world view, then discussion of morality means very little.  In my view of things, the things you quoted are essentially an example of objectivists wrongly conflating a material monist world view with a dualist or idealist concept.

If you have issues with the physical monist worldview, then you might find moral non naturalism appealing...but it's an objectivist position.  Moral non naturalism is moral realism for dualists/idealists.

Quote:But this goes back to our old discussions about mind, na?  In the essence, we're always going to be talking about the same issue: you will conflate the subjective and objective into physical mechanism, since the brain is presumably deterministic.  And I will conflate all into the subjective, perhaps with a pragmatic dualism-- there's a thinking/feeling subject, and the objects or ideas which the subject contemplates.

If a morality is based on external objects (in a physical world) or external ideas (in an idealists world) then they are equally expressions of objectivism or moral realism.  

Quote:Given this, our positions on morality are likely to be different, too, for the exact same reasons.  You will measure things AROUND what I call morality, and say it's a measure of morality.  X% of people believe Y, X brain region lights up when upsetting picture Y is shown to a test subject, and so on-- much like you insist that a particular frequency of light is "red," whereas I insist redness is purely experiential and has no meaningful objective existence.

I could list off all the problems with sampling from so many positions in just your idea of red, or your idea of morality, but seeing as how I've already done that and you saw no cause to refine your position - what would the point be?  Calling something "purely experiential" and saying that it has no meaningful existence is not moral subjectivism.  It is not moral non naturlaism.  It is not error theory, and it is not non-cognitivism.  Meanwhile, it does not argue against, make comment on, or refine the claims of moral realism. It's just a mishmash of things from each position which logically refute each othe, that may be useful for continuing to object when any objection that belongs to one of them is answer by any of the various brands of moral realism.

You are confused.  Every moral realist agrees that our moral agency...and in point of fact everything we know about the world..is "purely experiential". Either we make the assertion that our purely experiential whatsits refer to external x's (like non natural moral facts) or we don;t...but once we've made that assertion at all - that there is a world, regardless of what it's made of or how many different types of stuff the things in it are made of, or which of those types of stuff some specific thing is made of - then we've made a commitment that will apply to moral conjecture......and will require an explanation for abandoning that commitment in this purportedly special case. As Jorg already pointed out. There is no fundamental difference between realism in general, and moral realism.

Quote:For me, morality is predicated on subjective experience.  If google decided we should/shouldn't do something, I wouldn't consider it morality, because google presumably doesn't have any subjective experience of insult, or violation, or any real understanding of loss.

-and yet absent a subjects actual experience, we don't possess their experience, we feel confident in making moral judgements about them and what they do.  If our moral statements are cognitive propositions, and if any of those propositions were inference based truths, there's no clear reason why google couldn't be programmed to mimic our assessments.  

I don't know if that would make google a moral agent (since it would require no understanding or states of belief to do the moral calculus), but it would make google a competent assessor of moral propositions.  Many realists would, in point of fact, trust a computer to arrive at moral truth more readily than a human being.  We have known flaws in our judgement, they're compelling..and difficult to dispose of.  That's why concepts like super rationalism, full information, and logical self interest are leveraged.

If I tried to answer everything you say in these posts, we'd end up pretty fast with post explosion.

I really would like a description of some more that isn't subjective-- and by that term, I mean that it is not the linguistic expression of somebody's (or some group's) feelings about the things they experience.

That is not what moral realists and subjectivists are disagreeing over. It's not subjectivism, either.

Remember the first question, do our moral judgements express states of belief? Yes, you think they do. Yes, I also think they do. This is not remotely enough to demonstrate moral realism or moral subjectivism, and it's not a point of disagreement between them (or us).

But here, you insist that they are descriptions of feelings, rather than states of belief. This is a non-cognitivist objection. If it is true, then realists and subjectivists are both wrong for the same reason - and you were mistaken before in your answers to my questions. You don't actually think that you believe that x is wrong describes a state of belief. You don't actually believe that begging the question is wrong is something that you take to be true, it just makes you feel icky.

---

(November 1, 2018 at 12:16 am)DLJ Wrote:

(October 31, 2018 at 3:34 pm)Khemikal Wrote: ...
A subjectivists moral facts are facts about ...
The realists moral facts are facts about ...

I think I've got the idea now.

Thou joineth a club / choose a belief system and then thy facts will materialise before thee.

If you join the Baptist's club then these are your facts, study them well.
If you join the Islamic club then these are your facts, study them well.
If you join the... etc.

Over here, in IslaMalaysia, in conversation with a club member, I notice the switch from "I believe..." when discussing politics or relationships or other stuff at the 'social world' information layer to "Muslims believe... when talking about the quran.  It means "Muslims are taught to believe...".

Yeah, something like that..only we don't actually get to choose the club we join.  The club we belong to is determined by our earnest answers to those specific questions which define the positions.  So, for example...if you think that our moral propositions express states of belief, and that those beliefs are sometimes true, and the facts about which those beliefs are constituted (even in part) by something mind independent..then you simply -are- a moral realist (who knows what kind, the field is still pretty wide open), regardless of what you may have been taught to believe.  

Being taught to believe something is definitely one way to initially arrive at one of the clubs...but, in a generous assumption...we sort of expect that people will, from time to time, consider the things they were taught.  We can certainly say that each of us once believed something that we no longer believe, and there's a good chance that this something was something we were taught, which didn't survive decades of internal scrutiny or being subjected to the cruelties of our peers, lol. 

I, for example, used to truck with moral subjectivism...and had a whole host of (the usual) misconceptions about moral realism or even what people were talking about. It didn't survive these boards. I only came to discover that by researching information which would (I thought) affirm the position I'd taken. I found that the information available not only failed to affirm my position..but that my position was fundamentally malformed. I could no longer maintain it. I abandoned that belief as false, and I couldn't have chosen otherwise. My earnest answers to the questions that defined each of them, in my case..even when I was arguing for moral subjectivism...placed me in the moral realists camp. I was simply unaware of that fact.

Obviously, in the above, there's a constant commitment to objectivism and cognitivism. I had my facts wrong about both myself and the positions I was discussing. In retrospect, it's not exactly surprising that my conclusions were...flawed...regardless of which position is true.

(November 1, 2018 at 7:40 am)Khemikal Wrote: But here, you insist that they are descriptions of feelings, rather than states of belief.  This is a non-cognitivist objection.  If it is true, then realists and subjectivists are both wrong for the same reason - and you were mistaken before in your answers to my questions.  You don't actually think that you believe that x is wrong describes a state of belief.  You don't actually believe that begging the question is wrong is something that you take to be true, it just makes you feel icky.

Actually, the definition I've given of morality from the start is that it is a mediation of feelings, ideas, and the environment, but that it is predicated on feelings. It's possible to have ideas, without feelings, and those would not (could not) be called moral ideas.

I don't know if you'd describe belief as a feeling, or as an idea. Do I sense (read: feel) that something is true, for whatever reason, and say I believe it? Or is it a cognitive assessment that an idea represents some objective reality?

(November 1, 2018 at 11:06 am)bennyboy Wrote:

(November 1, 2018 at 7:40 am)Khemikal Wrote: But here, you insist that they are descriptions of feelings, rather than states of belief.  This is a non-cognitivist objection.  If it is true, then realists and subjectivists are both wrong for the same reason - and you were mistaken before in your answers to my questions.  You don't actually think that you believe that x is wrong describes a state of belief.  You don't actually believe that begging the question is wrong is something that you take to be true, it just makes you feel icky.

Actually, the definition I've given of morality from the start is that it is a mediation of feelings, ideas, and the environment, but that it is predicated on feelings.  

.....if there -is- an environment, whatever portion of our true beliefs are constituted by facts about that -are- the moral realist's moral facts.  

Quote:It's possible to have ideas, without feelings, and those would not (could not) be called moral ideas.

Why is it not possible to to refer to moral ideas bereft of feelings?  If I tell you that skullfucking your neighbor is wrong because it will hurt your neighbor - which part of this claim is an expression of my feelings on the matter, or..if you prefer, which portion of this statement depends upon my feelings on the matter? Suppose I do have feelings regarding the matter, if my feelings changed, would the fact that skullfucking your neighbor will hurt your neighbor change. I suspect that we're simply describing how comfortable we are with doing some fucked up thing based upon our opinions of the matter. That is an entirely separate issue to -any- of the claims made by these positions - and applies to all of them equally. That's a comment about the agent, not the system.

All of these positions are on moral systems, not moral agents. The cornell realist, for example..asserts that morality is objective and physical, as well as the fact that the human moral agent is deeply flawed and necesarrily subjective.

Quote:I don't know if you'd describe belief as a feeling, or as an idea.  Do I sense (read: feel) that something is true, for whatever reason, and say I believe it?  Or is it a cognitive assessment that an idea represents some objective reality?

That's the first question, yup. Do you think that you are in a state of belief. You indicated earlier that even asking the question was absurd..ofc you are. If that was an earnest response (and it certainly seemed like it, lol) then welcome to the cognitivists club. There are error theorists, subjectivists, non naturalists, and realists in here.

(November 1, 2018 at 11:47 am)Khemikal Wrote: Why is it not possible to to refer to moral ideas bereft of feelings?  If I tell you that skullfucking your neighbor is wrong because it will hurt your neighbor - which part of this claim is an expression of my feelings on the matter, or..if you prefer, which portion of this statement depends upon my feelings on the matter?  Suppose I do have feelings regarding the matter, if my feelings changed, would the fact that skullfucking your neighbor will hurt your neighbor change.  I suspect that we're simply describing how comfortable we are with doing some fucked up thing based upon our opinions of the matter.  That is an entirely separate issue to -any- of the claims made by these positions - and applies to all of them equally.  That's a comment about the agent, not the system.

Suppose I used to eat meat, but then I decided that enclosing animals in tight quarters and shooting them in the head with a bolt gun to put them on a bun was too painful an idea for me? Would my vegetarianism be a moral position? How far from skull-fucking is that, really, and how acceptable is it to you? I'm pretty sure you're okay enough with it to buy a burger.

What if I decided (rationally) that reducing meat consumption would free up crop lands to produce more grain and legumes for people to eat, thereby reducing the net suffering in the world? Wouldn't this still require me to care about reducing suffering-- because I dislike suffering?

Is there a moral truth about killing animals? Is one party horrendously wrong, but nobody will "get" that it's them? Or is it that some people, when they think about it, are deeply repulsed by the idea, and some much less so? Or perhaps that their enjoyment of meat (read: the feelings they get when they eat meat) are so important to them that they're not willing to consider it?

As for skull-fucking your neighbor. There are all KINDS of feelings about this involved. If people were emotionally neutral on it, then they wouldn't feel the need to make rules about it. The same goes for all kinds of harm: I fear death, so I accept abstinence from murder as part of the social contract, even though people leave their fucking shopping buggies in the middle of the aisle every day. I very much dislike pain, and in fact when I recognize pain in others, it causes me distress; I do not want either to feel or to inflict pain, so I happily accept rules to that effect.

Quote:That's the first question, yup.  Do you think that you are in a state of belief.  You indicated earlier that even asking the question was absurd..ofc you are.  If that was an earnest response (and it certainly seemed like it, lol) then welcome to the cognitivists club.  There are error theorists, subjectivists, non naturalists, and realists in here.

No, I'm pretty that didn't happen. I don't think I would call that question absurd.

You seem to be doing this weird Socratic moving of goalposts. Is this another one of those threads where you keep arguing, but don't actually have a point you are trying to assert? Let me ask you bluntly-- what's your position?

Maybe the feelings we have about certain acts are a result of our cognitions regarding these acts, not the cause.

(November 1, 2018 at 6:03 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Let me ask you bluntly-- what's your position?

He's a moral naturalist... IMO, a failed position. But at least he's taken a fucking position and defended it, unlike any moral skeptics in this thread up to this point. It's starting to get annoying.

Concerning my Michael Jordan metaphor, you need to make a decision. Is Jordan being good at basketball at basketball a matter of opinion? If so, you are a subjectivist concerning basketball skill. But what if you recognize that Jordan is objectively good at basketball, but your point is that basketball is something we made up? Well, then... you are a nihilist and NOT a subjectivist.

My advice for the moral skeptics in this thread: figure out if your argument is:

1) Moral judgements are opinions
-OR-
2) Moral judgements are emotional expressions
-OR-
3) Moral judgements are just plain wrong

The problem is, the moral skeptics aren't taking any position on what moral judgements are. And don't say some shit like "moral thinking is an artifact of evolution." If I want to know what something is, I don't ask where it comes from. If I said, "I received an item in the mail today." And you asked, "What did you receive?" I could say:
1) A refurbished Nintendo Entertainment System.
-or I could say-
2) An item that someone sent me after I ordered it on Ebay.

Which of the two items precisely answers the question, "What did you receive?"

(November 1, 2018 at 6:23 pm)Grandizer Wrote: Maybe the feelings we have about certain acts are a result of our cognitions regarding these acts, not the cause.

I think about a lot of things.  I don't have feelings about math problems, for the most part.  However, I can say that there's no case in which I form an idea about "should" which does not involve feelings, either current, or past, or as inferred from others.

Thinking isn't feeling.  That they are connected is apparent enough, but thinking alone isn't the basis of moral positions, so far as I can tell. I'd argue that all motivated behavior, which is automatically implied by "ought," requires some kind of emotion to serve as the motivator.

---

(November 1, 2018 at 6:25 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: Concerning my Michael Jordan metaphor, you need to make a decision. Is Jordan being good at basketball at basketball a matter of opinion? If so, you are a subjectivist concerning basketball skill. But what if you recognize that Jordan is objectively good at basketball, but your point is that basketball is something we made up? Well, then... you are a nihilist and NOT a subjectivist.

That's a strange conflation of skill and moral correctness. I'm fine saying Jordan is objectively good at basketball, because the rules define a context, and are not really debatable. If there was only one set of moral ideas, we could say the same about rape, or about any other moral issue.

However, morality does not provide a single set context by which things can be judged right or wrong. People, in thinking morally, establish many different contexts, many at odds with each other. If there were a thousand different versions of basketball, it might be difficult indeed for me to demonstrate that Jordan was an excellent basketball player outside the context in which we have already judged him.

Why don't we all agree on the following: given a particular social context, it may be able to establish that some act or belief is objectively wrong by the rules of that social context? But that morality more generally is a mediation among feelings, ideas, and environment?

(November 1, 2018 at 6:31 pm)bennyboy Wrote: That's a strange conflation of skill and moral correctness.  I'm fine saying Jordan is objectively good at basketball, because the rules define a context, and are not really debatable.  If there was only one set of moral ideas, we could say the same about rape, or about any other moral issue.

However, morality does not provide a single set context by which things can be judged right or wrong.  People, in thinking morally, establish many different contexts, many at odds with each other.  If there were a thousand different versions of basketball, it might be difficult indeed for me to demonstrate that Jordan was an excellent basketball player.

Why don't we all agree on the following: given a particular social context, it may be able to establish that some act or belief is objectively wrong by the rules of that social context?  But that, in general, morality more generally is a mediation among feelings, ideas, and environment?

No. Morality has nothing to do with feelings anymore than a theist's love of Jesus has anything to do with God's existence.

Look at it this way: if I say "rape is morally wrong." You could say one of three things:

1) That's just your opinion, Vulcan.

2) Your viewing rape as morally wrong isn't even an opinion. Rather, it is your emotional reaction to rape.

3) Rape is only wrong within the specific moral framework to which you subscribe.

I guess I should make room for:

4) Other (please explain thoroughly)

So when I say, "Rape is morally wrong"... what am I ACTUALLY saying, Bennyboy?