Subjective Morality?

[The Grand Nudger]

That's a cat realists position, the cat subjectivist denies the mind independent existence of the cat.

Fair enough.  No problem with that... "That cat exists" is a claim that can be validated or invalidated at the physical and empirical information layers and only needs consensus regarding the semantic layer (regarding the meaning of 'cat' and 'existence').  

What would be a similarly useful example of a 'moral fact'?

Cheers.

The cat realist and cat subjectivist both propose cat facts (and from whence those those facts arise).  Though not all subjectivists or realists agree that the same facts are the proper cat facts.  Cat error theorists think that while there may be cat facts..we always get them wrong.  Cat non-naturalists expect empirical information but not physical evidence.  

You can replace cat with moral in every one of these cat posts I make.  I can give you an example of a cat fact, but I'd need to know what sort of cat fact you were looking for.  Without that, I can only give you a broad description of the category under each position and leave you to meet those criteria with moral propositions known to you.  Each of the statements below is the fundamental and distinguishing moral fact of every matter according to each of the four positions above..describing two different positions on the immediate spectrum of the divide between subjectivism and realism.  

The error theorists facts are hypothetical.  We don't know what they are, but we know that we don't have them.

The subjectivists facts are variable.  They are facts about peoples perceptions or states of belief.  Facts about their opinions and minds.  They may even be intersubjective facts.
-This culture has a strong taboo against waving with their left hand.  They think it causes lethal bad juju.  They think this because.... [insert -long winded observations of cultural development and it's historical context and/or explanation of the relevant areas of the mind that might cause this common belief as an artifact of biology- here]  

The non naturalists facts are mind independent and non-natural.  They can be empirically known but not physically shown because they are not facts about anything...meaningfully speaking...physical or amenable to scientific investigation.  
-These facts are the facts of what's been called "the sensible world", and are those things that we can experience and assess by pure reason.  

The  cornell realists facts are those mind independent facts of some matter or act x that substantiate themselves in the natural world.  They are facts about what we contend to be able to know empirically and are capable of providing both physical evidence and a convincing demonstration of.
-We can establish by scientific process that some act x causes pain or harm by a variety of mind independent metrics.  If causing pain or harm is wrong, this act objectively does that, and so is wrong.  




 


 

There's a pretty important difference.  A cat, presumably, is more than an idea.  Whether or not there's really (really really) a cat there, I can see something, and can call it cat.

-not to a cat subjectivist or non naturalist, it's not.

That does lead us into the question immediately posed by cornell realism, it's commitment to scientific naturalism, and bias toward conservatism. Why don't you extend that common and casual assumption to other cats? If identical axioms and metrics lay beneath the justification for that "presumably" up there......then why are moral x's (or cats) the special case? You're asking for a list of moral facts..they're asking for a complete list of these special cases where we toss out our prior and binding ideological commitments.

What I can't see is liberty, or ownership, or the sanctity of sexuality, or any of the other ideas which morality is about.  Those are ideas-- for example, "This is MY cat.  It belongs to me, and I have special rights to its enjoyment that other people should not be allowed."

Ideas about feelings and labels for annoying, selfish animals aren't really in the same semantic category.

Sure, they're ideas...but that's not a barrier to realism. Moral non naturalists are moral realists. Resurrect your penchant for idealism. In their world, the cat and statements about the cat are ideas, as well.....ideas which we can empirically know to be true(or false). To objectively reflect some form or ideal (or not).

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You can go ahead and test hypotheses about assumed objects, without having to care about how "real" any aspect of the whole thing is. The results are there, and they make a difference. And clearly, you can test whether you can do such tests by... doing tests and getting the results.

You can’t test for morality in the same way;

Why not?

you can test for outcomes, and then assign values to those outcomes. Or you can assign values first, justifying them however you like, and then test for outcomes. You can’t test for the values, because they don’t even represent real objects by assumption. If they did, then the whole business would be entirely different.

That sounds alot like it describes piles and piles of scientific research, to me - how, if you think this...did you end up leading the statement with the claim above?