What is 'objective' value?

[Neo-Scholastic]

So you've decided to deny that value requires agency by resorting to a form of Platonism. Despite your attempts to muddy the waters below, such a hypothesis bears some heavy burdens.

I am not aware of any philosophical position that does not require a modicum of defense. I accept that neo-Platonism has the same obligations as any other position. I do not believe the problems are as insurmountable as you suggest. If by ‘muddy the waters’ you mean explore (as opposed to ignore) the many implications of ‘objective value’ then I stand guilty as charged.

The most important being the interaction problem, namely of demonstrating how such things as "The Good" inform the judgment of a rational agent. Are you planning to duck once again into asserting magical properties to consciousness? This property of the soul appears to be a nexus to all your defenses. It's a shame you aren't burdened with providing a defensible account of how value afflicts the rational mind using only material properties. Anytime you are pressed to explain the how, you can simply reply, "It just does."

So you want to know how I think non-physical substances interact with physical substances. Suppose I say , “I don’t know,” that’s still better than denying, like you seem to be tacitly doing, the existence of all non-physical things and associated facts about them. My other option is to point out that invoking the so-called interaction problem begs the question. Doing so assumes that interactions between non-physical substances and physical substances must be mechanistic and quantitative. Then there is the assumption you make that not knowing everything about something, like the specifics of its operations, means someone cannot still know a little bit about something, like the fact that it in some sense exists proscriptively. There are logical and mathematical facts that do not depend upon any physical substance. It is certainly not uncommon, even in contemporary philosophy, to place some things (like mathematical objects, propositional forms, and first principles) into categories of being not dissimilar to Platonic Ideas. How about you? Care to explain your solution to the cohesion problem?

“Magical properties”, you must mean all the things eliminative materialists consider illusions such as qualia, personal identity, and intentionality. Or maybe you think mental properties come into being out of nowhere whenever any old sensible body acquires a habitual response. To borrow your form, it's a shame you aren't burdened with providing a defensible account of how psychological phenomena, like values, experiences, and judgments, supervene on purely material properties. You just assume they do and a have the hutzpah to demand that everyone share your assumptions. In addition to supporting positive claims, those who engage in philosophy must also justify their criteria for excluding other options. Occam’s Razor may serve as a useful guide; however, you are treating it like a necessary hurdle that must be overcome before considering options that exceed your self-imposed limitations, limitations such as 1) that psychological facts are reducible to physical facts and 2) all phenomena must supervene on the physical. These are not default positions. At some point you need to stop critiquing and start openly professing your intellectual commitments.

At the very least teleology appears operative in nature, it takes a special effort to show that what is apparently true isn't actually true - the same kind of effort it takes to show that objects that appear solid are actually made of mostly empty space.

I think you're going to need to support this. What appears operative in nature to you sounds like more magical speculation.

I was quite clear. Your stance may ultimately be correct but in the meantime remains strongly counterintuitive. I say that sensible people take things as they appear to be until they have reasons to suppose otherwise.

Or perhaps that I just don't care that you don't subscribe to naturalism and fully expect that when you depart from it as the null hypothesis, you provide more than mere assertion by way of support.

More evasion on your part. The adherents to naturalism need to start admitting that their position willfully ignores meaningful questions about reality because they don’t like any of the possible solutions for ideological reasons.