RE: Ben Shapiro vs Neil deGrasse Tyson: The WAR Over Transgender Issues
January 30, 2025 at 3:54 pm
(This post was last modified: January 30, 2025 at 3:56 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(January 30, 2025 at 6:58 am)Sheldon Wrote: Remained subjective in the sense that the conclusion was true only if one accepted another subjective claim. For example, if one (subjectively) accepts that X is immoral, and Y causes X, then it would probably be true that Y is immoral.Lets put this in a utilitarian context, utilitarianism being a popular objectivist theory.
When we say that crack addiction is bad for us we're not suggesting that a person has to accept this claim is true, or any underlying subjectivist claim as true, in order for the claim to be true. We're saying there's something about crack which is bad for us regardless of a subjects personal opinion or a groups predispositions. If a crack addict says "that's just your opinion, I think it's good for me" and his crackhead friends go "yeah, it's good for us!" this is not taken to be a cogent argument against the doctors assertion or advice, or proof that the statement is coming from a fundamentally subjective basis.
Quote:Punching someone causes pain, if causing pain is immoral, then punching someone must be immoral. See how the statement is true, but still ultimately based on a subjective opinion? The statement doesn't objectively demonstrate that causing pain is immoral. all the examples were like that.Similar to the above - and it's worth noting that not all true claims of pain or harm would qualify as objectivist pains or harms. We could go back and forth with examples of this one until the end of days but at the bottom of it all there's an accurate answer, which may be truly unsatisfying. Harm basis spring out at us from every metaethical angle. Ethicists, psychologists, sociologists, cultural anthropologists, neurologists and the reporting subjects themselves say that when people talk about morality they are talking about or considering harm - this conclusion is based upon a mountain of evidence.
Quote:We seem to be back at the start with me asking for a moral assertion that does not ultimately rest on subjective opinion. FWIW my moral worldview involves my emotions, but is not based solely on them, as I use my reason to weight consequences, but nor do I always use consequentialism, I also accept that moral relativism has some truth in it.You don't believe this claim as you've reported it. It's not even subjectively true to you. You understand moral emotivism and moral relativity and think they too exist and have some truth. That they too underlie some moral claims. That a person can accept those underlying emotivist and relativist claims and then objectivize after or around the/that fact. Analytic philosophy includes E opinions, objectivist opinions, the only ones which you claim cannot or do not exist thusfar.
It seems hard to place myself in a particular box, as if all those ideas have some merit, but none are entirely compelling.
Anyway, thanks for not talking down to me, or being condescending.
Let A be the set of subjectivist assertions or basis. Let X be the set of all other assertions or basis - and lets leave out objectivism- it's not in the set of X because it's a non entity. You cannot logically contend that all moral assertions or basis are A if you also contend that even some moral assertions or basis are X.
Now, in practice, in reality - in descriptive ethics...we observe that moral systems are more often than not hybrid systems. Not solely one or the other ism or ist. An objectivist can personally observe that even though they are an objectivist, and believe that only objectivist assertions are valid moral assertions, and only those objectivist moral assertions which succeed at reporting the fact they purport to report are true moral assertions...they have and find compelling all sorts of other moral beliefs and basis, emotional responses, cultural indoctrination, etc. Further....that we're specifically and generally incompetent. That we're intentionally and accidentally compromised agents. We might come that way factory standard, and the situation can be made worse in any number of ways.
I want to bowtie all of these things together by bringing your attention to the vmPFC.
The whole thing is fascinating. What's interesting to harm based objectivism and our convo in specific here is that the part of our brain that lights up when we moralize is associated with regulation and inhibition of the competing metaethical basis in analytic philosophy. In employing skepticism. In a cognitive process. That damage to the area correlates with alterations in harm evaluation. So, If I'm asked why I think harm is a valid metric in moral consideration, that it belongs in conversations about morality, that we could not fully describe morality without it's reference...I could point to it's manifestly apparent presence in our artifacts and anecdotal reports, I could invite the other person to consider the many ways in which they make such assertions..but I could also point to the the physical structure and function of the brain.
So, even if we contend that objectivism is metaethically false, harm is still an issue we're talking about or considering..when we discuss or consider morality, right? I didn't choose to include it. It's not arbitrarily placed. It's not unevidenced, and the sorts of evidence available for the assertion or basis not only satisfy our demands of objectivity in most other terms or senses...but can be found in what you or I might consider to be the very pinnacle of human objectivity in practice.
-but maybe we're wrong about that too. In content, or in principle.
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