Subjective Morality?

[The Grand Nudger]

A non naturalist might state, from the outset...that you either have a moral sense or you do not.  You may have feelings about the statement, but if all you are expressing with it is a primal or learned distaste for rape...then..nothing.  Nothing is objectively bad to a realist based on a persons distaste or displeasure for it, nor are moral propositions a way of registering that displeasure. You could no more be convinced that anything was good or bad if you lacked this sense than you could be convinced that I was blue if you lacked eyes.  

A naturalist would point you to whatever cluster of natural facts establishes that rape is among the category of things we refer to when we use the term. If you can't see those, then, similarly...you lack necessary faculties.

[Belacqua]

You could no more be convinced that anything was good or bad if you lacked this sense than you could be convinced that I was blue if you lacked eyes.  

A naturalist would point you to whatever cluster of natural facts establishes that rape is among the category of things we refer to when we use the term.  If you can't see those, then, similarly...you lack necessary faculties

I expect you know that famous thought experiment about Mary the Super-Scientist...? A quick reminder:

Mary has a dozen advanced degrees in various sciences. She knows absolutely everything there is to know about the physics of light, how it reflects off of objects etc. Also she knows everything there is to know about how our eyes and brains perceive and represent light in the mind. However, she is color-blind. She has never experienced the difference between red and green in her own mind. Is there something about color she doesn't know? 

What you say above indicates to me that there may be a sort of moral-blind Mary as well. She might know all there is to know about what rape is and what psychological effects it has on its victims, but doesn't have a moral sense that it is wrong. 

I still think that what your interlocutors are wanting here, when they look for evidence that morals can be objective, is something that color-blind/moral-blind Mary could describe. Something that is scientifically discoverable about the act even in the absence of our normal mental response. 

Whether the wrongness of rape is real or not, then, would depend on whether people accept that color is real. Some deny it's real just because it only appears in the mind. They say that it has to appear outside the mind to deserve the label "real." But other people will say that a reaction every normal person has to a certain stimulus -- whether a color reaction or a moral reaction -- does constitute a real thing. 

Is this a relevant description of what you have in mind?

[bennyboy]

I'd add an important caveat to that. While I accept that others respond to red, their version of "red-ness," whatever that might be, is not directly accessible to me. We can both acknowledge the physical reality, i.e. that there's light of a particular wavelength. What we cannot knowingly agree on is what it's like to experience redness. In fact, "red-ness" does not exist outside our experience of it, and conflating the experience with the thing it is about is an error.

[Belacqua]

I'd add an important caveat to that.  While I accept that others respond to red, their version of "red-ness," whatever that might be, is not directly accessible to me.  We can both acknowledge the physical reality, i.e. that there's light of a particular wavelength.  What we cannot knowingly agree on is what it's like to experience redness.  In fact, "red-ness" does not exist outside our experience of it, and conflating the experience with the thing it is about is an error.

I see what you mean. This seems consistent with your take on moral realism, too.

I guess I think that experiences are real things. That is, to say "it's not real it's just an experience" seems odd to me. 

For example, pain is real, although it is "just an experience." I wouldn't want to tell someone that his suffering isn't real because it's just something in his head.

[bennyboy]

We're not far off from agreement, I think. We'd both agree that red light is real, and say that this or that thing "is" red, though that's a bit of a simplification.

But in all cases, there are things and properties of them. We can talk about red light, and consider its wavelength a property. We can talk about an apple, and consider being red a property.

But for moral ideas, this seems much less clear to me: what's the object, and what's the property? Is wrongness a property of rape? Is wrongness itself an object, and our moral instincts a kind of sense of it, such that some of us sense it well, and others poorly?

I'd argue that I experience red. That's an experience I can have which is not really subject (for the most part) to interpretation. Most people will look at a stop sign and immediately see that redness is one of its properties.

But I'm convinced that many people actually do not believe, and cannot perceive, that rape for example is wrong. Suppose you give up your ten best cows for a healthy young teenage girl, one who is known in your community as a bit of a troublemaker but whom you are willing to take under your wing, and she spurns you on your wedding night. What an outrage! How lacking in understanding she is! How immoral she is!

So either wrongness is not a property of rape, or cultural bias prevents people from accessing their sense of wrongness. I think the former is infinitely more likely-- that wrongness is neither a thing, nor a property of any thing. Instead, it's one of the human emotions-- no less familiar and no better understood than love or a sense of beauty.

[Belacqua]

We're not far off from agreement, I think.  We'd both agree that red light is real, and say that this or that thing "is" red, though that's a bit of a simplification.

But in all cases, there are things and properties of them.  We can talk about red light, and consider its wavelength a property.  We can talk about an apple, and consider being red a property.

But for moral ideas, this seems much less clear to me: what's the object, and what's the property?  Is wrongness a property of rape?  Is wrongness itself an object, and our moral instincts a kind of sense of it, such that some of us sense it well, and others poorly?

I'd argue that I experience red.  That's an experience I can have which is not really subject (for the most part) to interpretation.  Most people will look at a stop sign and immediately see that redness is one of its properties.

But I'm convinced that many people actually do not believe, and cannot perceive, that rape for example is wrong.  Suppose you give up your ten best cows for a healthy young teenage girl, one who is known in your community as a bit of a troublemaker but whom you are willing to take under your wing, and she spurns you on your wedding night.  What an outrage!  How lacking in understanding she is!  How immoral she is!

So either wrongness is not a property of rape, or cultural bias prevents people from accessing their sense of wrongness.  I think the former is infinitely more likely-- that wrongness is neither a thing, nor a property of any thing.  Instead, it's one of the human emotions-- no less familiar and no better understood than love or a sense of beauty.

Yes, I think comparing morals to colors is an analogy, based on similarities but not the same thing. The differences you point out are important. 

In the case of the resistant bride you cite, that seems like a conflict of two moral convictions. The man in question might feel that obedience or child-bearing or other factors are more important morals that over-ride the rule against forced sex (just as governments can argue that capital punishment is a moral demand over-riding the rule against killing). I am absolutely not saying I agree with the violent husband, but I can see that different cultures might balance things differently. 

So whether or not morals are real, there will be real-world cases where total clarity is impossible. 

This reminds me a bit of aesthetic questions -- another similar but different field. I think we can make a good objective case that Beethoven's music is better than Justin Bieber's, but it's a lot harder to demonstrate that Beethoven's 5th is better than his 9th, or vice versa. Obvious cases are obvious. 

As I recall even Aristotle is careful to point out that we can't demand more clarity in a field than is possible. Measuring speed is just not the same as measuring goodness, even if we believe that the latter is real.

[bennyboy]

If you are a teenage girl, you will likely be willing to fight to the death insisting that Bieber's music is objectively better than Beethoven's.

[The Grand Nudger]

Whether the wrongness of rape is real or not, then, would depend on whether people accept that color is real. Some deny it's real just because it only appears in the mind. They say that it has to appear outside the mind to deserve the label "real." But other people will say that a reaction every normal person has to a certain stimulus -- whether a color reaction or a moral reaction -- does constitute a real thing. 

Is this a relevant description of what you have in mind?

Not exactly.  Whether or not x is wrong..to a realist, doesn't depend on anyone's acceptance of what is or isn't real.  We could repeatedly kick a rock while claiming that rocks aren't real - but that won't change anything about the rock, and realism encompasses naturalism and non naturalism.  I know that seems super pedantic, but consider the discussion so far. Yes, all realists together accept that -something- is real....but, they don't all think that the same things are real in the same way - so..a person can disagree on what they accept as real, and still be a realist. Most realists also think that whats happening in the mind is real..but objectivity, by definition, requires something more than just the contents of ones mind. It can include the contents of one's mind..but those contents must be referent to be objective in the meaningful and operative sense.

I'd add an important caveat to that.  While I accept that others respond to red, their version of "red-ness," whatever that might be, is not directly accessible to me.  We can both acknowledge the physical reality, i.e. that there's light of a particular wavelength.  What we cannot knowingly agree on is what it's like to experience redness.  In fact, "red-ness" does not exist outside our experience of it, and conflating the experience with the thing it is about is an error.

That's not a problem for moral realism as a whole.  A cornell realist would tell you that morality is like wavelength.  A non naturalist would tell you that your own personal experience either is or isn't compelling. Both are empirical, one makes additional demands on claims, neither can be discounted.

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We're not far off from agreement, I think.  We'd both agree that red light is real, and say that this or that thing "is" red, though that's a bit of a simplification.

Sure, and a realist can assert...in the same way..... harm is bad is also a simplification.  Hell, "harm" and "bad" both are simplifications of a massive set of variables.  

But in all cases, there are things and properties of them.  We can talk about red light, and consider its wavelength a property.  We can talk about an apple, and consider being red a property.

Are there things and properties of things, though?  If you think that there are - the realist is telling you that the only moral properties they are referring to are those "properties of things" (with wiggle room for idealists, ofc).  

But for moral ideas, this seems much less clear to me: what's the object, and what's the property?  Is wrongness a property of rape?  Is wrongness itself an object, and our moral instincts a kind of sense of it, such that some of us sense it well, and others poorly?

The object is the act itself.  Not your opinions about the act, not your emotional response to the act.  So..in the case of your example, rape.  To ask which property this is is going to be a wash..because both "harm" and "bad" could refer to many properties and the answer is fundamentally different between different realist positions.

I'd argue that I experience red.  That's an experience I can have which is not really subject (for the most part) to interpretation.  Most people will look at a stop sign and immediately see that redness is one of its properties.

Non naturalists can assert that morality is just like that.

But I'm convinced that many people actually do not believe, and cannot perceive, that rape for example is wrong.  Suppose you give up your ten best cows for a healthy young teenage girl, one who is known in your community as a bit of a troublemaker but whom you are willing to take under your wing, and she spurns you on your wedding night.  What an outrage!  How lacking in understanding she is!  How immoral she is!

You'll find that such a culture does not consider what happens in the marital bed (or in the bed of property) rape.  Consider magic book.  There are fines and penalties for rape...but are there fines and penalties for raping one's spouse?  No.  So..here, you're discussing an example of how we can get it wrong.  How we can fail to identify one act as being like (or even the same act) as another.  Realists are fully aware that we do this.  OFC, realism...they would contend, is the antidote to such silly fuckery.  

So either wrongness is not a property of rape, or cultural bias prevents people from accessing their sense of wrongness.  I think the former is infinitely more likely-- that wrongness is neither a thing, nor a property of any thing.  Instead, it's one of the human emotions-- no less familiar and no better understood than love or a sense of beauty.

I can state with confidence that you don't believe that at all, lol. I'm willing to go out on a limb and state that you actually do think rape is wrong. Hell..... just a few pages back you told me that begging the question was wrong..and rape...somehow...seems worse than that.

You're just going to get yourself yelled at with this, lol, and for no reason. Do you really want to maintain that you cannot conceive of a single property of rape...that might...just might...make it wrong? Wouldn't it be alot more productive to explain why you don't think that those things satisfy, particularly if you're going for the skepticism route?

[bennyboy]

I can easily think of properties of rape that make me feel bad about it, and to consider it foreign to my world view. I cannot think of any objective property at all that makes rape (or murder or a button that brings the entire Universe to and end or anything else) wrong without the assessment of a feeling agent.

You'll find that such a culture does not consider what happens in the marital bed (or in the bed of property) rape.

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.

[The Grand Nudger]

I can easily think of properties of rape that make me feel bad about it, and to consider it foreign to my world view.  I cannot think of any objective property at all that makes rape (or murder or a button that brings the entire Universe to and end or anything else) wrong without the assessment of a feeling agent.

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?

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.