We gather moral facts the same way we gather scientific facts for the most part. It's a step-by-step process that often doesn't proceed linearly. There are paradigm shifts. New discoveries are made. Old presumptions are proven false.
You're treating moral facts as if they're somehow essentially different from other kinds of facts. They aren't different. They're just like regular facts. Otherwise we wouldn't call them moral facts. We'd call them something else. Intuitions perhaps.
I'm not sure what you're asking here Rob.
The Earth revolves around the Sun. But what if, for example, we were somehow magically given factual information that "the Earth doesn't revolve around the sun." The proposition seems incoherent, doesn't it? Just as an astrophysicist couldn't produce an intelligible answer to that quandary, so too a moral realist cannot produce an answer to yours.
I feel like I may be missing your point, though. Let me know if I am.
I think what you are saying here is that moral facts can't be proven. So why call them facts? You can empirically prove that the Earth goes around the sun. You cannot, in the same fashion, prove that torture is wrong.
Unless one is a moral naturalist, a moral fact need not be empirically provable. (Khem has argued in favor of moral naturalism before, but I disagree with the theory, precisely because I see no way that science can determine objective moral values.)
If something is not empirically demonstrable, this does not make it non-factual. It is a fact that the square of a right triangle's hypotenuse is equal to the sum of squares of its other sides, but one can understand it a priori, without empirical proof. I take this sort of axiomatic approach to moral facts.
But before I go into further detail, I'd like to make sure I haven't completely missed the spirit of your question. Have I?
You're treating moral facts as if they're somehow essentially different from other kinds of facts. They aren't different. They're just like regular facts. Otherwise we wouldn't call them moral facts. We'd call them something else. Intuitions perhaps.
(May 2, 2018 at 2:16 pm)robvalue Wrote: So for example, if we were somehow magically given factual information that "putting someone in solitary confinement is not wrong", then that would mean all the things we thought were harmful about it are somehow not as important as we thought; or else, there are some sort of countering benefits that cancel it out that we're unaware of.
I'm not sure what you're asking here Rob.
The Earth revolves around the Sun. But what if, for example, we were somehow magically given factual information that "the Earth doesn't revolve around the sun." The proposition seems incoherent, doesn't it? Just as an astrophysicist couldn't produce an intelligible answer to that quandary, so too a moral realist cannot produce an answer to yours.
I feel like I may be missing your point, though. Let me know if I am.
Quote:What I'm trying to say is that there is no single correct way of determining "harm" or "benefits", so the idea that there can be facts about them doesn't make sense.
I think what you are saying here is that moral facts can't be proven. So why call them facts? You can empirically prove that the Earth goes around the sun. You cannot, in the same fashion, prove that torture is wrong.
Unless one is a moral naturalist, a moral fact need not be empirically provable. (Khem has argued in favor of moral naturalism before, but I disagree with the theory, precisely because I see no way that science can determine objective moral values.)
If something is not empirically demonstrable, this does not make it non-factual. It is a fact that the square of a right triangle's hypotenuse is equal to the sum of squares of its other sides, but one can understand it a priori, without empirical proof. I take this sort of axiomatic approach to moral facts.
But before I go into further detail, I'd like to make sure I haven't completely missed the spirit of your question. Have I?
