(June 12, 2019 at 5:29 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote:

(June 12, 2019 at 1:42 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: -and ultimately not a conclusive or satisfying answer, either.  The best kind! 

The secret to Tantra is avoiding the orgasm

Having multiple and continuing ... is even better.

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Oh, by the way, I initially said that I think that ethical nihilism is incoherent but that was back when I was saying that I think all forms of ethical nihilism are noncognitivst. Now that I've modified my position so that error theory is still ethical nihilism, it's just weak ethical nihilism, I actually think that error theory isn't incoherent ... it's just wrong. There's nothing incoherent about saying that all normative statements are false. There *is* something incoherent about saying that all normative statements are neither true nor false.

Error Theory fails because it says that all moral statements are false but some moral statements are actually in fact true. Basically, error theory fails because error theory is itself in error.

Noncognitivism fails because it's incoherent.

Let me get out the flowchart I posted a while back...

I'm aware of how things are classified ... I just don't always agree with the standard classifications because some of those classifications are drawn from premises that seem to imply that they ought to actually be categorized differently.

For example ... X is classified as a subcategory of nihilism by definition. But to know what X is we also have to know what nihilism in general is ... and nihilism in general might imply that X can't be categorized as a subcategory of nihilism.

Here's an analogy. Somebody comes along and says they've discovered a new creature and that that creature by definition becomes named an insect. But the creature has 4 legs. So it can't be an insect because insects have 6 legs. So I don't care if somebody wishes to define this newly discovered creature as an insect ... if it has four legs it's not an insect.

I always understood nihilism as the view that X has no meaning. So ethical nihilism should be the view that ethical matters have no meaning ... regardless of how many philosophers come along and wish to say that a denial of the existence of X suffices as nihilism.

But, I guess, nihilism in general *is* sometimes defined as a denial of the existence of something. It's not always about deeming something to be totally meaningless. I guess existential nihilism isn't necessarily fundamentally what nihilism is all about. If it is though ... then only noncognitivism is the truly ethically nihilistic view.

But basically, regardless of whether Error Theory is or isn't a form of nihilism ... I am justified in questioning the way philosophers classify things. Because, as per my insect analogy, things can indeed be miscategorized.

Besides, I think that the philosophers who don't question the way that philosophers categorize things are bad philosophers.

Well, shit, while you were posting your objections to the standard classifications I was digging up the flowchart. It's actually a pretty decent flowchart, whether you agree with it or not:



I'll respond to your post momentarily.

I don't usually disagree with philosophical classifications. Only on occasion.

I'm quibbling over the meaning of what nihilism in general fundamentally involves, basically. And depending on what nihilism in general fundamentally involves I think it changes what does and does not qualify as a subcategory of nihilism.

it's 99% a good flow chart. I'll go through it myself now.

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Do moral judgments express beliefs?

Yes.

Are those beliefs sometimes true?

Yes.

Are those beliefs about facts that are constituted by something other than human opinion?

Yes.

Are those facts natural facts?

Yes. (What would be a "non-natural" fact?).

Are moral facts reducible to other natural facts?

Yes, (because literally everything is natural).

Are there surface-level analytic connections between moral predicates and naturalistic predicates?

What's a surface level analytic connection and how does it differ from a non-surface level analytic connection?

And if I've already said yes to whether moral predicates are naturalistic then how does a follow-up question asking how I connect the two together make any sense if I've already said that morals aren't in a separate realm of existence and are just another part of the natural world?

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I can't make sense of the last question in the flow chart ... but other than that it's good.

(June 12, 2019 at 6:04 pm)SenseMaker007 Wrote: Do moral judgments express beliefs?

Yes.

Are those beliefs sometimes true?

Yes.

Are those beliefs about facts that are constituted by something other than human opinion?

Yes.

Are those facts natural facts?

Yes. (What would be a "non-natural" fact?).

What would be a non-natural fact? Does 2+2=4 need empirical evidence to be true? Is the sum of the square of a right triangle's two angles equal to the square of the hypotenuse only true if we can find an example of such a triangle in nature?

So... here is an argument for error theory that is pertinent to the question "What is a non-natural fact?"

The Argument from the Scientific Test of Reality
1. If science cannot verify the existence of X, then the best evidence tells us that X does not exist.
2. Science cannot verify the existence of objective moral values.
Therefore, the best evidence tells us that objective moral values do not exist.
[quoted from my ethics textbook]

As I see it, you can go three ways with this argument. You could accept the conclusion and be an error theorist. You could disagree with the second premise and be a moral naturalist. -OR- You could disagree with the first premise (as I do) and be a non-naturalist like G.E. Moore or Plato (or maybe Spinoza and the Stoics too, among others). Notice that relativists have nowhere to go in the debate over this argument. Unlike you and GB, I find moral nihilism somewhat compelling. If you asked me what theories made no fucking sense whatsoever, I'd have to say all forms of moral relativism suffer from an irredeemable incoherence. Nihilism is crystal clear by comparison. It just so happens that I think non-naturalism is clearer.

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PLUS: I also could not understand the last question on the flowchart. I still can't.

(June 12, 2019 at 6:42 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: What would be a non-natural fact? Does 2+2=4 need empirical evidence to be true? Is the sum of the square of a right triangle's two angles equal to the square of the hypotenuse only true if we can find an example of such a triangle in nature?

Does 2+2=4 require minds to be true? Does empiricism require subjective experience? Does subjective experience require a mind?

I think 2+2=4 even without minds. But I think the whole world is natural because nothing is supernatural.

But if non-natural just means non-empirical then I don't think that 2+2=4 is a natural fact because it's a priori.

But I don't think moral statements can be true without the existence of minds ... and minds are natural phenomena.

Quote:As I see it, you can go three ways with this argument. You could accept the conclusion and be an error theorist. You could disagree with the second premise and be a moral naturalist. -OR- You could disagree with the first premise (as I do) and be a non-naturalist like G.E. Moore or Plato (or maybe Spinoza and the Stoics too, among others). Notice that relativists have nowhere to go in the debate over this argument. Unlike you and GB, I find moral nihilism somewhat compelling. If you asked me what theories made no fucking sense whatsoever, I'd have to say all forms of moral relativism suffer from an irredeemable incoherence. Nihilism is crystal clear by comparison. It just so happens that I think non-naturalism is clearer.

I think the first premise is false unless science includes empiricism as a whole (science in a wide sense).

If the first premise is referring to empiricism as a whole then I think the second premise is false instead.

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I should point out that I think that truth can be purely analytic but knowledge requires a combination of both empiricism and rationalism.

An idiot doesn't have knowledge because he isn't rational. A robot doesn't have knowledge because it isn't conscious. Hence, knowledge requires both logic and experience.

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(June 12, 2019 at 6:42 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: I'd have to say all forms of moral relativism suffer from an irredeemable incoherence. Nihilism is crystal clear by comparison.

Error Theory isn't incoherent. I do think noncognitivism is, though. Because noncognitivism says that moral statements are neither true nor false ... and I don't think it makes sense to say that any statement is neither true nor false. That would go against the law of identity as far as I'm concerned, which is the fundamental law of the whole of logic.

I initially said that nihilism was incoherent but that was because I was deeming nihilism to be synonymous with noncognitivism because I believed that the definitional core of nihilism is meaninglessness. I still wonder about that. "Is existential nihilism primary nihilism?" is an interesting question to me.

(June 12, 2019 at 6:46 pm)SenseMaker007 Wrote:

(June 12, 2019 at 6:42 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: What would be a non-natural fact? Does 2+2=4 need empirical evidence to be true? Is the sum of the square of a right triangle's two angles equal to the square of the hypotenuse only true if we can find an example of such a triangle in nature?

Does 2+2=4 require minds to be true? Does empiricism require subjective experience? Does subjective experience require a mind?

I think 2+2=4 even without minds. But I think the whole world is natural because nothing is supernatural.

But if non-natural just means non-empirical then I don't think that 2+2=4 is a natural fact because it's a priori.

But I don't think moral statements can be true without the existence of minds ... and minds are natural phenomena.

Quote:As I see it, you can go three ways with this argument. You could accept the conclusion and be an error theorist. You could disagree with the second premise and be a moral naturalist. -OR- You could disagree with the first premise (as I do) and be a non-naturalist like G.E. Moore or Plato (or maybe Spinoza and the Stoics too, among others). Notice that relativists have nowhere to go in the debate over this argument. Unlike you and GB, I find moral nihilism somewhat compelling. If you asked me what theories made no fucking sense whatsoever, I'd have to say all forms of moral relativism suffer from an irredeemable incoherence. Nihilism is crystal clear by comparison. It just so happens that I think non-naturalism is clearer.

I think the first premise is false unless science includes empiricism as a whole (science in a wide sense).

If the first premise is referring to empiricism as a whole then I think the second premise is false instead.

All a priori knowledge is non-natural. The point I was trying to make was that there is a such thing as non-natural knowledge. A priori knowledge is a perfect example.

But other than to demonstrate that non-natural knowledge is a thing, the a priori/a posteriori distinction is not identical with the natural/non-natural distinction. Non-naturalists consider empirical evidence all the time when formulating what is good and what is not.

A non-naturalist simply holds that moral facts aren't the same as natural facts. For example, a hedonist can say that the object of his morality is natural because it is (in principle) measurable by science. You could (in principle) measure via scientific investigation levels of happiness/suffering. Therefore, the level of happiness/suffering in the world is measurable by scientists. Ergo, moral facts are really natural facts.

A non-naturalist rejects that moral principles can be solely perceived by empirical investigation. In the simplest terms, the non-naturalist says (correctly, I think) that no amount of empirical investigation (by itself) will reveal a moral fact.

(June 12, 2019 at 7:01 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: All a priori knowledge is non-natural.

Well, it is if you define it that way. I just think of the whole of the universe is natural and I don't see how we can have knowledge of something that is not part of the universe.

Truth can be entirely a priori because the truth is still true even if we don't exist to experience it. But how can we know something without being aware of it? So isn't even a priori knowledge also fundamentally a posteriori at least in the sense that we have to experience the a priori truth in order to know it?

Quote:The point I was trying to make was that there is a such thing as non-natural knowledge. A priori knowledge is a perfect example.

But if non-natural knowledge is just a synonym for a priori knowledge then isn't that a meaningless distinction?

Quote:But other than to demonstrate that non-natural knowledge is a thing, the a priori/a posteriori distinction is not identical with the natural/non-natural distinction.

Okay, so if it's not identical, then what's the difference? How does non-natural knowledge differ from a priori knowledge (and perhaps I can just ignore my quibble regarding the impossibility of entirely a priori knowledge, for the time being).

Quote:A non-naturalist simply holds that moral facts aren't the same as natural facts.

In what way do they differ if the whole universe is natural?

Quote:A non-naturalist rejects that moral principles can be solely perceived by empirical investigation. In the simplest terms, the non-naturalist says (correctly, I think) that no amount of empirical investigation (by itself) will reveal a moral fact.

But does "not empirically verifiable" really mean "non-natural"?

And if that is what non-natural means ... then it would seem that non-natural is indeed identical in meaning to a priori ... because a priori equally refers to knowledge that is not empirically verifiable.

(June 12, 2019 at 7:12 pm)SenseMaker007 Wrote: Okay, so if it's not identical, then what's the difference? How does non-natural knowledge differ from a priori knowledge (and perhaps I can just ignore my quibble regarding the impossibility of entirely a priori knowledge, for the time being).

It's not that it's non-natural knowledge per se, it's that goodness refers to a non-natural object. ie... goodness is not identical with happiness (Happiness is a natural object.)

Moore Wrote:The chapter began by dividing the views to be criticised into (a) those which, supposing good to be defined by reference to some supersensible reality, conclude that the sole good is to be found in such a reality, and may therefore be called Metaphysical, (b) those which assign a similar position to some natural object, and may therefore be called Naturalistic.

http://fair-use.org/g-e-moore/principia-...chapter-ii