(January 25, 2025 at 10:15 am)h311inac311 Wrote: What is a Woman?

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.”
― H. L. Mencken

(January 26, 2025 at 11:29 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(January 26, 2025 at 11:10 am)Ferrocyanide Wrote: It depends on how you define morality.
If you define morality as = causing harm is immoral.

And there's your subjectivity.

Not really.  If you and I both observe that there are two frogs on a log and there -are- two frogs on a log the assertion that there are two frogs on a log is not subjective or intersubjective and the next guy who comes along and says there may be three will not make it so.  He'll just be wrong in fact.  

Things aren't made meta ethically subjective by people disagreeing.  Not about definitions or anything else.  Things are made metaethically subjective in the specific sense in which the assertion derives exclusively from a fact of the subject making the report.  Such assertions exist, and are often clothed in the semantics or details of actual or other facts. People who think gods gonna strike us down for homosex babble on endlessly about this or that natural order as if natural anythings were compelling to them. For example. The line between metaethical objectivity and subjectivity in cognitivist moral systems is distinct even if misinformed, the line between subjectivity and relativity less so, in many ways relativity is just the subjectivity of large numbers. It's worth noting that insomuch as we disagree about moral this and thats, only objectivist moral systems can be wrong or incorrect in any non novel sense. No other type of moral disagreement is a dispute over facts of the matter being discussed. They are disputes over facts of other matters.

(January 26, 2025 at 2:14 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote:

(January 26, 2025 at 11:29 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: And there's your subjectivity.

Not really.  If you and I both observe that there are two frogs on a log and there -are- two frogs on a log the assertion that there are two frogs on a log is not subjective or intersubjective and the next guy who comes along and says there may be three will not make it so.  He'll just be wrong in fact. 

Sure, but you and I can count frogs. How do you count morals? First we need to agree on what is or isn't moral. If we share the same definition, we can agree an act is moral or immoral. But that definition is not something we can point to in nature and say, "That, my friend, is a frog."

(January 26, 2025 at 11:10 am)Ferrocyanide Wrote:

(January 24, 2025 at 3:32 pm)Sheldon Wrote: Whilst I'd agree that it is immoral to cause unnecessary harm, this is a subjective claim, it is not objectively true that causing unnecessary harm is immoral, obviously. That there is a broad consensus on any moral assertion, or even were it a universal consensus, doesn't make that moral assertion objectively true. 

Ultimately all moral assertions rest on subjective claims, though once we agree on a moral assertion, we can of course make objectively true claims about how to best avoid those immoral acts, or achieve moral ones. For example if we agree it is immoral to cause (I would add the word unnecessary here) harm, then it is objectively true that punching someone for no good reason is immoral, but the moral assertion that causing (unnecessary) harm is immoral is still a subjective one.

It depends on how you define morality.
If you define morality as = causing harm is immoral.

That's not how morality is defined:

Morality 
noun
1. principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.

Ultimately all moral assertions rest on subjective opinion. 

Quote:If you define morality as = causing harm is immoral.

Then, if person X punches person Y, person X is causing harm. He did an immoral act.

This is still a subjective assertion, all you have done is use a begging the question fallacy to assume your conclusion in your opening premise, it is both arbitrary and circular. Also moral assertions are relative, what if you punched someone for example, to prevent a greater harm, like murder or rape? 

Note the notion causing harm is immoral is a subjective one, not an objective one.

I'm person X. Person Y is threatening me with a knife. Am I wrong for punching him before I give him the chance to stab me?

(January 26, 2025 at 6:06 pm)Sheldon Wrote: Morality 
noun
1. principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.

Ultimately all moral assertions rest on subjective opinion. 
]
Also moral assertions are relative, what if you punched someone for example, to prevent a greater harm, like murder or rape? 

Note the notion causing harm is immoral is a subjective one, not an objective one.

Metaethical relativism and metaethical subjectivism are subtly different, but still mutually exclusive claims.  All moral claims cannot be metaethically subjectivist and metaethically relativist.  Relativist moral systems are often in direct conflict with subjectivist moral systems.  Think of an oppressive antimajoritarian ruling regime. The regime says x y and z, and the truth making property of the assertions are not found in facts of the subjects in question, but rather in the possession of power by the ruling regime. Whatever they said would be true. If they said x today and not x tommorrow, both claims would be true, in the metaethically relativist sense, even if nothing had changed.

The idea that there are greater (and worse) x's is an objectivist claim. Rightly or wrongly. It is a fact that circumstances between moral cases an be different regardles of the moral system the moral assertion comes from. Neither relativism nor subjectivism refer to those circumstances, or any fact of the matter in question. They refer to facts of ourselves and facts of our societies, respectively.

(January 26, 2025 at 7:04 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote:

(January 26, 2025 at 6:06 pm)Sheldon Wrote: Morality 
noun
1. principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.

Ultimately all moral assertions rest on subjective opinion. 
]
Also moral assertions are relative, what if you punched someone for example, to prevent a greater harm, like murder or rape? 

Note the notion causing harm is immoral is a subjective one, not an objective one.

Metaethical relativism and metaethical subjectivism are subtly different, but still mutually exclusive claims.  All moral claims cannot be metaethically subjectivist and metaethically relativist.  Relativist moral systems are often in direct conflict with subjectivist moral systems.  Think of an oppressive antimajoritarian ruling regime.  The regime says x y and z, and the truth making property of the assertions are not found in facts of the subjects in question, but rather in the possession of power by the ruling regime.  Whatever they said would be true.  If they said x today and not x tommorrow, both claims would be true, in the metaethically relativist sense, even if nothing had changed.

The idea that there are greater (and worse) x's is an objectivist claim.  Rightly or wrongly.  It is a fact that circumstances between moral cases an be different regardles of the moral system the moral assertion comes from.  Neither relativism nor subjectivism refer to those circumstances, or any fact of the matter in question.  They refer to facts of ourselves and facts of our societies, respectively.

Whilst I'd agree that Metaethical relativism and metaethical subjectivism are generally considered distinct concepts, I don't think they are mutually exclusive, as some interpretations of each could overlap in certain situations. 

Both notions suggest that moral assertions do not rest on objective truths though. I'd agree that moral judgments are not absolute, and that moral judgments are relative to a group's traditions, beliefs, or practices. which is Metaethical relativism. I'd also agree with the idea that the truth of moral statements is dependent on the attitudes or conventions of the people making the judgment, which is metaethical subjectivism, and in both cases moral assertions would not rest ultimately on objective truths, and I think there would be some overlap from both ideas.

There's the trouble. That's not metaethical reletivism. It's observational relativism. We're taught about subjectivism and relativism as critiques of objectivism (in the west). Of all the ways in which we get our objectivist claims wrong. On how we purport to report a fact about a thing but then misreport some other fact about ourselves or our cultures.

I do think that there is an objective difference between stepping on a toe and murder. I do think one is objectively more harmful than the other. Is this purely my private opinion with no basis in facts of toes and murder and harm? Is this purely the product of my cultural indoctrination with no basis in facts of toes and murder and harm?

(January 26, 2025 at 7:27 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I do think that there is an objective difference between stepping on a toe and murder.  I do think one is objectively more harmful than the other.  Is this purely my private opinion with no basis in facts of toes and murder and harm?  Is this purely the product of my cultural indoctrination with no basis in facts of toes and murder and harm?

Is the killing accidental and the toe-stepping intentional? If I hit a patch of ice on the road and lose control of my car, ram into another, and kill someone, does that have the same morality as me going out of my way to step on your toes simply for shits and giggles? What if in losing control of my car I only injure you, but by stepping on your toe out of spite I cause you to fall in front of the subway train?

I have my own clear-cut morality, as you obviously do yourself. The very fact that there's difference indicates that morality is not very objective. If you want to argue that one is objectively more right than the other, you'll need to bring more than "I do think" -- which is itself an acknowledgement of subjectivity. I don't care what you think. Show me an objective basis, not your thoughts. Count the frogs already.

Moral disagreement does not imply or prove that a moral system is not metaethically objective. I want to stress again that an objectivist moral claim can be wrong, and it's the only kind of moral claim that can be wrong, in any non novel sense. For a relativist claim to be true in it's specified sense it need only accurately reflect society's decrees. For a subjectivist claim to be true in it's specified sense it need only reflect an individuals opinions. You see how it's very difficult for such claims to be false when relaying such details? All three claims report true facts about something - or purport to, hence their clumping together as the cognitivist moral theories.

If you ask me for empirical examples of harm I can present you with toe stomping and murder. This is what I mean by harm. Both things are included (and many more). If you ask me which one is a worse harm I will refer to the empirical difference between toe stomping and murder. In one your toe is sore and the other you are dead. This seems demonstrative to me.

That is the truth making property of harm in my objectivist assertion..even if we lived in the upside down, and stepping on toes really was objectively more harmful, or no less harmful, than murder. I would still be an objectivist in that universe I would still be making an objectivist assertion. I would just be wrong.

The point of all of this, ofc, not being to prove some particular set of moral content the one and only true set of moral content (by any cognitivist theory). The point being that they are all available to all of us, and there is no logical necessity to make concessions to a nutter in their endless pursuit of imaginary hypocrisy. I believe, for example..that trans people exist, that trans people exist and can be harmed, and are being harmed. Up to and including being murdered. If we could get the people who murdered trans people to just step on their toes, that would be an improvement. I'm persuadable here and anywhere as an objectivist, but no fact about me or society will persuade me. The conclusion rests on those facts listed. The empirically demonstrable fact of trans peoples existence and the empirical fact of trans people ability to be harmed and the empirical evidence of that harm would have to be in error, for my conclusion as stated to be in error. The nuts don't own metaethical objectivity and empiricism, they're aren't even in the same county as metaethical objectivity and empiricism.