Deconversion and some doubts

[Acrobat]

Oughts implies duties and obligation, all of which implies rules, regardless of whether those rules are explicitly spelled out, or listed in their entirety.

If they didn't imply a rule, than it wouldn't be oughts at all. It wouldn't be I ought not steal, but rather synonymous with wishes, I wish you didn't' steal.

Sure, you're talking about oughts in the authoritarian sense. And I believe I have been going along with how you view oughts rather than look at oughts differently. To you, oughts require some form of rule-maker/rule-enforcer authority. And I am saying that the various human societies over the centuries have been playing that role quite easily. Thus, my answer to your question of where oughts come from.

It doesn't matter if you don't like that society has played the rule-maker/rule-enforcer role. Fact is, it has. And it doesn't even matter if you think society is a poor form of such authority. The answer stays the same.

And you need oughts for any sort of coherent moral statement, such as the holocaust is wrong. People ought not do things like the holocaust, rather than I wish people didn't do things like the holocaust.

Nope, not with the way you're describing oughts. "X is wrong" need no authoritarian rule-maker for it to be so. The holocaust is wrong because it caused death and suffering to a very large number of innocent people out of extreme prejudice towards them, not because <the Good entity says it is wrong>. There is no need for authoritarian ought here in order for the Holocaust to be wrong, though society (at the global level) has nevertheless enforced the dictum that such things as the Holocaust ought to not be committed.

If you still disagree, than perhaps you can tell me what you think the difference is between saying someone ought not steal, and saying I wish people didn't steal? What is the nature of "ought" as distinct from the nature of a "wish" here?

According to you, the difference has to do with authority. According to me, it's irrelevant what the difference is. What's relevant is who decides the rules here: humans or God. It's very clear to me that humans are the ones doing so because God (if it does exist) has stayed silent this whole time.

Nice strawman. I don’t believe in a rule maker, since I don’t view right and wrong as something created or made.

I’m using ought in regards to what the term implies ie obligations and duties, unlike terms like should or wish.

Saying I ought to do x, unlike saying i should or you wish I do x, implies I have an obligation of duty to do x. To use the term ought in place of where you might mean something like wish is just equivocating on your part.

And no, societies don’t see themselves as as moral rule makers, or as moral authorities, anymore so than they see themselves as makers of objective truth. They may see themselves as a political and legal authority but not a moral one. Pretty much all societies have seen morality as a matter of truth, not of their own making.

Secondly people don’t see their societies as the creators or authority on right and wrong either. If your society put all its legal and political support behind the holocaust, you wouldn’t say okay that means the holocaust is a morally good thing, for the same reason you wouldn’t say the earth is flat, just because most of your society thinks it is.

Secondly granting society moral authority, would be like granting the twitter verse moral authority. If you tried to derive right and wrong from twitter opinions, or social opinions, you’d be more a cartoon, than a good person, a tool, rather than someone to be respected