(November 7, 2018 at 1:03 am)Khemikal Wrote: You can, and you concede as much simply by making the statement above. 

If some property of rape makes you x y or z, then there are properties of rape which you observe and to which you respond and about which you have beliefs.  This is the realists contention as well.  The question then becomes..why do you feel that your own observations and positions on this matter are inadequate or insufficient?  Are your beliefs never true?  Are your observations always false?  

Acknowledging subjectivity is not the same thing as declaring inadequacy. My feelings about things are self-evident and internally complete.

Quote:

Quote:That's right.  "Rape" already carries with it negative connotations, which they would not accept.  I think you can reasonably infer that I mean "what we call rape, and consider morally wrong, would not be considered wrong in another social context."  It's very possible that the girl herself, while she might not like the forced sex at all, and might in fact very much dislike it, may not conceive of it as morally wrong.

It's possible, at least, but not in any way difficult for realism.  Though, I'd have to wonder how many people in the history of people really had no significant misgivings about forced sex..that they weren't enjoying, and very much disliked.  How would that tie in with the notion that morality is just an analog for "yuck!".  If that were true, it seems like it would fit this case.  Your hypothetical here, while possible, is inconsistent with your comments regarding the nature of what makes something bad in the first place.

Different world views.

For example, if your world view includes knights in shining armor that protect fair maidens from having their virtue robbed, rape is likely to disgust you, and the idea of doing it is likely to give you feelings of guilt or revulsion.

If you grow up in a world where women are treated as property, and where the status of a man is largely tied into his sexual conquests, then you are likely to have a different view.

Internally, sexuality is a balancing act. The desire for sex is very strong in most people, and failure to achieve it might lead to all kinds of moral rationalizations (read: incel freaks). The desire not to be demonized ("You monster. You human garbage! How could you do that to that poor young girl!") is also strong. Not only that, signalling certain moral positions is likely to bring very real rewards. Don't tell me that 90% of male feminists aren't just strutting their memes to try and get laid, cuz I'm not buying it.

(November 6, 2018 at 4:51 am)bennyboy Wrote: ...
So either wrongness is not a property of rape
...

Correct.  Wrongness is not a property of rape.  It's a threshold; an alert.  

(November 6, 2018 at 4:51 am)bennyboy Wrote: ...
or cultural bias prevents people from accessing their sense of wrongness.
...

Almost.  Although 'reduce' is more accurate than 'prevent' and not 'access' but 'override'.

Culture is simply the aggregate of group behaviour.  

Bias (and weightings) come in the form of e.g.:
- heritage, prejudices, alliances, allegiances, affinities, superstitions that influence individual ethics and
- markets, politics, economics, traditions, technology, ecology, legals, military situations that influence group (organisational) ethics.

Together they (individual and group ethics) form the input (as inhibitions, enablers and controls) to individual behaviour.

Thus is would be correct to state that the 'group ethics' part of the equation might override one's individual ethics.  Peer-pressure is a good example of this.  Similarly, drugs (e.g. alcohol) can reduce the inhibitions / impair the controls which can override wrong/right evaluation.

In other words, the response to a chemical alert can be "ignore it".

(November 6, 2018 at 4:51 am)bennyboy Wrote: ...
 I think the former is infinitely more likely-- that wrongness is neither a thing, nor a property of any thing.
...

If anything it's a property of a social contract.

(November 6, 2018 at 4:51 am)bennyboy Wrote: ...
 Instead, it's one of the human emotions
...

Nope.  What we experience and label as 'emotions' are representations of combinations of chemical stimuli. Wrongness or rightness are labels / representations of cognitive dissonance and cognitive ease respectively.

(November 6, 2018 at 4:51 am)bennyboy Wrote: ...
no less familiar and no better understood than love or a sense of beauty.

What's not to understand about love or elation or joy?

(November 7, 2018 at 4:49 am)bennyboy Wrote: Acknowledging subjectivity is not the same thing as declaring inadequacy.  My feelings about things are self-evident and internally complete.

I'll ask again, since you make every claim that a moral realist makes, but reject moral realism - why is your experience inadequate or insufficient?  Are your beliefs always wrong? Are your observations always false? I ask this, because it's quite literally the only way out for you, from being accurately classified as a moral realist who thinks..like every other moral realist, that human beings are deeply flawed and highly subjective moral agents.

You do think that our moral propositions express states of belief.
You do think that those facts which constitute our beliefs can be mind independent.
You even think that they are natural facts.

You're already deep into realism, and the only way out is to insist that our beliefs are or never can be true.

Quote:Different world views.

For example, if your world view includes knights in shining armor that protect fair maidens from having their virtue robbed, rape is likely to disgust you, and the idea of doing it is likely to give you feelings of guilt or revulsion.

If you grow up in a world where women are treated as property, and where the status of a man is largely tied into his sexual conquests, then you are likely to have a different view.

Strangely enough, the people getting raped tend to have a different view than the man raping them with the seal of approval of his society, as well.  

Quote:Internally, sexuality is a balancing act.  The desire for sex is very strong in most people, and failure to achieve it might lead to all kinds of moral rationalizations (read: incel freaks).  The desire not to be demonized ("You monster.  You human garbage!  How could you do that to that poor young girl!") is also strong.  Not only that, signalling certain moral positions is likely to bring very real rewards.  Don't tell me that 90% of male feminists aren't just strutting their memes to try and get laid, cuz I'm not buying it.

Yes yes, we know that you have issues with feminism, but the subject is morality.  No one contests that moral behavior might bring rewards, ofc, it may also be disadvantageous, or at least strongly seem so in a given moment.  I'll ask again, same as above.  In your view, that morality is an expression of personal disgust, wrong being something akin to revulsion....in what universe is someone being forced into sex that they "greatly dislike" -not- in the "rape is wrong" camp?

It's bad enough that you don't realize you agree with realists, some internal consistency in your confusion would be helpful.

(November 7, 2018 at 7:15 am)Khemikal Wrote:

(November 7, 2018 at 4:49 am)bennyboy Wrote: Acknowledging subjectivity is not the same thing as declaring inadequacy.  My feelings about things are self-evident and internally complete.

I'll ask again, since you make every claim that a moral realist makes, but reject moral realism - why is your experience inadequate or insufficient?  Are your beliefs always wrong?  I ask this, because it's quite literally the only way out for you, from being accurately classified as a moral realist.  

You do think that our moral propositions express states of belief.
You do think that those facts which constitute our beliefs are mind independent.
You even think that they are natural facts.

You're already deep into realism, and the only way out is to insist that our beliefs are or never can be true.  

Quote:Different world views.

For example, if your world view includes knights in shining armor that protect fair maidens from having their virtue robbed, rape is likely to disgust you, and the idea of doing it is likely to give you feelings of guilt or revulsion.

If you grow up in a world where women are treated as property, and where the status of a man is largely tied into his sexual conquests, then you are likely to have a different view.

Strangely enough, the people getting raped tend to have a different view than the man raping them with the seal of approval of his society, as well.  

Quote:Internally, sexuality is a balancing act.  The desire for sex is very strong in most people, and failure to achieve it might lead to all kinds of moral rationalizations (read: incel freaks).  The desire not to be demonized ("You monster.  You human garbage!  How could you do that to that poor young girl!") is also strong.  Not only that, signalling certain moral positions is likely to bring very real rewards.  Don't tell me that 90% of male feminists aren't just strutting their memes to try and get laid, cuz I'm not buying it.

Yes yes, we know that you have issues with feminism, but the subject is morality.  No one contests that moral behavior might bring rewards, ofc, it may also be disadvantageous, or at least strongly seem so in a given moment.  I'll ask again, same as above.  In your view, that morality is an expression of personal disgust, wrong being something akin to revulsion....in what universe is someone being forced into sex that they "greatly dislike" -not- in the "rape is wrong" camp?  

It's bad enough that you don't realize you agree with realists, some consistency in your confusion would be helpful.  

Read my lips: THERE ARE NO MORAL FACTS. No such thing. They don't exist. It's all made up, and is predicated on feelings. Feelings are subjective, and so morality, being predicated on feelings, is subjective.

(November 7, 2018 at 7:39 am)bennyboy Wrote: Read my lips: THERE ARE NO MORAL FACTS.  No such thing.  They don't exist.  It's all made up, and is predicated on feelings.  Feelings are subjective, and so morality, being predicated on feelings, is subjective.

Subjectivists insist that there -are- moral facts. They diverge from realists only in which set of facts they consider to be the relevant facts of the matter. The position, however, is not open to you, because you decided to include "the environment" in your rundown.

Human beings are subjective.  Human knowledge being predicate on human beings means that all knowledge is subjective....or does it? Unless our beliefs are never true, unless our observations are always false.......

(November 7, 2018 at 7:39 am)bennyboy Wrote: Read my lips: THERE ARE NO MORAL FACTS.  No such thing.  They don't exist.  It's all made up, and is predicated on feelings.  Feelings are subjective, and so morality, being predicated on feelings, is subjective.

Morality isn't predicated on feelings, but rather upon the supposed facts to which those feelings refer. If morality were solely predicated on feelings, you would be right in saying that morality is subjective. Since they are not, your belief that morality is subjective seems unsupported.

If morality were predicated on the -fact- of having those feelings- that would be subjectivism.

If morality is predicated on the -fact- of mind independent properties about which we have feelings.........this is moral realism

I'd echo Jor above.  I can even agree that a great deal of our morality is predicated on meaningful subjectivity.  We nevertheless insist that our experience and our observations provide us access to facts about the world we live in, about who we are..even (this, echoing jor again from far earlier in thread..it's unclear how or why moral realism is different from realism).  So the simple fact that we have feelings and base a morality on feelings wouldn't actually rule moral realism out.  Provided that those feelings are informed by some observation of our environment or the act - they can bee seen as a response to stimulus, sure - but a response with an meaningfully and objectively existent cause. We observe that x is wrong or bad....say, watching a bunch of adults kick an infant for five solid minutes. If bad means anything, we know that this is bad. It makes us feel shitty, because it's bad.

Our moral intuitions are clearly fallible...but we operated on them for quite some time before we even made the attempt to formalize a system or a description (and even when we have a system or a description..like the manual to your car..it largely stays in the glove box). I'm still looking for someone to bite on a question I asked earlier. How do we, as naturalists (as empiricists, even).....explain the success of moral intuitions if they do not refer to -any- natural fact (or objective fact)? If moral realism is categorically unacceptable, did we accidentally stumble upon this whole enterprise? It signifies nothing and refers to nothing..but...works? We'd have to appreciate this tremendous coincidence, lol.

(November 7, 2018 at 10:04 am)Jörmungandr Wrote:

(November 7, 2018 at 7:39 am)bennyboy Wrote: Read my lips: THERE ARE NO MORAL FACTS.  No such thing.  They don't exist.  It's all made up, and is predicated on feelings.  Feelings are subjective, and so morality, being predicated on feelings, is subjective.

Morality isn't predicated on feelings, but rather upon the supposed facts to which those feelings refer.  If morality were solely predicated on feelings, you would be right in saying that morality is subjective.  Since they are not, your belief that morality is subjective seems unsupported.

I'd like an example of any moral idea that isn't predicated on negative feelings.  Maybe I'm wrong, though you can imagine that I kind of doubt it.

Remember my original description of morality-- that it is a mediation among feelings, ideas, and environment, but that it is predicated upon the feelings-- without them, there's really nothing that could sensibly be called morality.  The Googletron Mind might have lots of ideas about how people should behave, but they are only moral ideas if it cares.  If not-- they are just behavioral recommendations (or demands).

---

(November 7, 2018 at 10:22 am)Khemikal Wrote: If morality were predicated on the -fact- of having those feelings- that would be subjectivism.

If morality is predicated on the -fact- of mind independent properties about which we have feelings.........this is moral realism

I disagree with your semantics.  The fact of having feelings is subjective agency-- it is not intrinsically moral.

Nor is the fact about objective properties informing feelings moral.  It is at the point of the feelings themselves that a moral idea is formed.

Do you think that stating that begging the question is wrong is, more accurately, just you saying "yuck", and not expressing any belief about begging the question or wrongness? There's your potential moral idea that isn't predicated on negative feelings. Can you tell me -why- begging the question is wrong.

I'm not going to argue with you on that point at all.

You don't even need to explain it...but if some explanation for why you said that, and think that, does come to your mind......instead of just "yuck!" - then you have your example, and it's one of your own positions.

As to disagreeing with my semantics..well..fine. Change any word I've used that you like, I'll still be talking about the same thing - I will still be explaining the position of moral realism to you, and noting all of the ways that you accept the realists position...even though you reject their language. The fact of having feelings are -subjectivists- moral facts....as I keep explaining to you, not to demonstrate realists moral facts, but to show you that the statement "there are no moral facts" is inconsistent with subjectivism and realism.

The subjectivist states that there are moral facts - and these facts are all mind dependent.

(November 7, 2018 at 11:14 am)bennyboy Wrote: I'd like an example of any moral idea that isn't predicated on negative feelings.  Maybe I'm wrong, though you can imagine that I kind of doubt it.

Quote:Ethical egoism is the normative ethical position that moral agents ought to do what is in their own self-interest. It differs from psychological egoism, which claims that people can only act in their self-interest. Ethical egoism also differs from rational egoism, which holds that it is rational to act in one's self-interest.[1] Ethical egoism holds, therefore, that actions whose consequences will benefit the doer can be considered ethical in this sense.

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

Well, bennyboy, here is a moral theory which renounces altruism... you know... good ol' altruism, the source of so many "warm & fuzzies"... the motivation of every Disney hero ever conceived of...

Ethical egoism flies in the face of all those warm & fuzzies and says that self-sacrifice for the greater good is immoral. Fuck you, Prince Charming.

Immanuel Kant had no problem with advancing an ethics which sometimes called for actions that most would find repugnant: