Proving What We Already "Know"

[The Grand Nudger]

I think I've figured out what you mean by a gods eye view - though I think you were simply expressing the idea that we have some better version of x. What do you think accounts for that difference, between car-worm-us?

There are any number of reasons that a thing could be bad in the absence of qualia.   To be blunt, there are more reasons that a thing could be bad -absent- any reference to qualia than to those references.  Do you think it would be more or less bad to beat a man in a coma, on the notion that they wouldn't experience it?  

At that moment in time, that person is a collection of organic materials and not much more.  I'd argue the badness comes from the observer (or in this case the imaginer of the hypothetical example).

Argue away, but facts of an observer are still facts - subjectivism is a cognitive position.  It makes statements that can be true or false.  Let's see how far into subjectivism you'd push this.  Let's say one of the facts of the observer (or the imaginer) is that they personally don't feel any shame, in fact, don't think it's wrong for them to do this at all.   Where does the badness come from then, or is it there at all?

I don't think rivers are in danger.  They are changing in composition, for sure.  The fish are in danger, because presumably they'd prefer not to suffer pervasive cancer and die-- their motivations to live, breed and by implication evolve may be thwarted.  In the context of assessment by humans, THEN rivers can be said to be in danger-- but that's a property of our view of goodness as sentient creatures with preferences about things, not of the river itself.

But take some inorganic liquid flow anywhere else in the universe-- could IT be said to be in danger?  Or is it just stuff that may or may not ever be noticed by anything?

The rivers, themselves, are in danger.  If whatever position you hold on some other thing requires you to argue counterfactually for rhetorical effect here, I worry for that other position.  Isn't it simpler to concede that things can be in danger without that being an issue of moral import in and of itself?  That, like your own ideas about beating a man in a coma..any moral import comes from how and by what the beating is delivered?  If a moral agent like us is altering the flow and capturing the headwaters and failing to prevent evaporation as a consequence of poorly implemented irrigation plans - then we might say that the danger a river is in is an item of moral import.  If a mountain rises up and creates a rain shadow...not so much.

The term "truth in context" is just my way of referring to scope.  I'm perfectly happy substituting "context" for "set of relevant facts," because that's what it means.  But I think my term sounds catchier and is less verbose.
[p/quote]
If you're comfortable with a set of relevant facts, then why do you consistently omit any fact other than the facts of some given subject?

Either way, the problem is the same.  If you draw conclusions base on one set of relevant facts, and you intend to assert that the same conclusion applies to a broader set of facts (or completely different ones), then you either have to justify that generalization, or accept it as axiomatic.

Your description of inanimate objects as being "in danger" is a pretty good example.  In the context of human experience, where fresh water is of fundamental importance, and where the misadventures of other animals serve as a canary in the coalmine, thinking of things like rivers as being alive and therefore in danger makes sense.  But actually, it's about a step away from shamanism or talk of Mother Gaia.

Another argument to consequence, not a successful disputation of a simple and demonstrable fact of a rivers circumstance.  I'm not too worried about being a step away from shamanism or mother gaia talk, myself.  It true, and simply true, to say that our rivers are in danger - and more broadly, that danger is a concept that applies to a very broad set of things - not all of which possess qualia, or sentience(by any description), or are alive.  If you're comfortable with a set of relevant facts as truthmaking, then why do you consistently omit and positively dismiss any fact other than the singular fact of some given subject?

Take away all the living things that might care about the river's composition, and you take away the "danger" that the river is in.  "Danger" requires the "set of relevant facts" in which states of material organization can have import, i.e. sentient creatures.  I'm reasonably certain that the river will be equally happy with or without sewage being dumped into it.

Perhaps you believe this because..despite wishing to avail yourself of the language of realism.... you can't shake a foundation of relativism and subjectivism, which you consistently mistake and miscommunicate as "scope" or "context"?  It may take a thing that cares (or..even if it doesn't, a thing that can know) to see that some thing x is bad - but, to use an easy example of the limits of this notion - you (or anyone) personally witnessing a murder, whether you would care or not, whether you would know better or not, whether it would make you happy or not...doesn't seem to change anything about that murder.  Whatever moral import there is to a murder can be independent of you caring, knowing, being happy about it...or even being.  Obviously this goes without saying for a river and whatever moral import there may be to it's destruction.  

We don't care that we're destroying our rivers.  We don't care about the living things that may give a shit about that.  We're happy to do it, because it brings us material wealth and general wellbeing.  Not caring, and being happy about it, doesn't seem to take those rivers out of danger, and like so, it would not mean that there was no moral import to their destruction.  It's simply an example of moral (and, in the end, practical) failure. How can we prove what we already know? Just like that. I don't think it's crucial, we do have apprehensions and we do feel a certain way about things. Both can obviously go awry with rivers as our example. We see destruction and we may already feel a certain way about it, we know something about it, or about us. That it's terrible, or that it makes us feel terrible - but we still do it, ofc. A rational explication is an overlay, in that regard. Though this one is pretty much a deepity. Sometimes doing bad things makes us feel good, and sometimes doing good things makes us feel bad. Even in a relativist or subjectivist framework these would still be observations of facts about a subject in relation to their moral system. You can probably think of multiple examples from your own experience. I know I can.