Ben Shapiro vs Neil deGrasse Tyson: The WAR Over Transgender Issues

[Sheldon]

I think for clarity we can say that the assertion that using crack is objectively bad for your health, is a different assertion to using crack is immoral. I see how the first rests on objective evidence, but not the second assertion. 

I get that you don't think that they're the same claim, but the various objectivist positions refer to systems which explicitly premise them as the same type of of claim, attempt to form their moral assertions in that way, and succeed or fail (in their own estimation) by whether or not they satisfy that criteria.  The evidence their claims rest on can be objective,

Great, what is the objective evidence that the harm using crack on oneself causes, is immoral? 

It doesn't matter whether moral statements actually can be like other objective statements because the whole objective statements thing (or some fundamental component of objectivity) is exactly what we get wrong.  The world isn't like that.  We aren't doing what we think we're doing.  

Well we can objectively demonstrate that the world is not flat, I am not sure we can do this when we claim X is immoral, without using subjective a priori claims. 

I also I see harm as an expedient metric for moral discourse, I don't see the  fact that moral discourse among humans, generally uses it, as translating to it is objectively true that causing harm is immoral.  Theological and religious arguments claim objective moral absolutes exist, yet set harm aside as a metric, a deity that commits cats of genocide, or tortures a newborn baby to death, or endorses slavery for example, is considered perfectly moral.

Theological and religious arguments (at least here in the west) generally posit subjectivist moral absolutes.  The opinions of their god as the rules.  How their god feels about a thing.  If it likes torturing babies and the smell of burning flesh.....tough luck suckers.

Subjectivist absolutes? When I suggested earlier these moral philosophies might overlap in some areas, you asserted that metaethical objectivism and metaethical subjectivism were mutually exclusive. It seems clear that subjectivism cannot allow for moral absolutes, and yet theological morality claims they exist. On what basis then are you labelling their claims for moral absolute "subjectivist"?

Go easy, I am drunker than a professor of drunkenness, teaching a course in drinking at Oxford. 

Sheldon: I don't see those facts as demonstrating the conclusion that causing harm is objectively immoral. 

They demonstrate that my including harm is objectively premised, 

As I said I found that claim circular, since while it may be true true that an assertion contains a fact, it need not necessarily make the conclusion in the assertion a fact. So on what objective evidence do we assert: causing harm is immoral? That it is the most commonly used metric seems (to me)a bare appeal to numbers. 

Sheldon: This (underlined) is rather circular don't you think? 

I include blood pressure in consideration of health because blood pressure really is one of the things we're talking about when we discuss health.  Is this circular?

No, but that's a false equivalence, unless we equate immoral with "bad for our health". 

Is eating chocolate (even to excess) objectively immoral? 

Sheldon: I include harm in moral discourse, as the consequences of not doing so seem undesirable.  FWIW theists who claim objective moral absolutes exist, don't use harm as a metric, how many religious philosophers are there, is this a mountain of evidence that a deity is an essential or objective part of our moral discourse? Lets test the claim and see:
I include god in moral consideration because when we moralize we are considering god.  
I only hanged one word.

 

I think that claim is false, there are no gods....but there's no fundamental reason why gods can't be considered in moral discussions.  We have used them as vehicles for moral exploration and moral explication.  For example, the god who makes the moral rules by it's whims and desires isn't an objectivist god, morally speaking.  It may exist, and it may really have a shitlist, but that in and of itself is not relevant to objective moral theories, just like facts and science not being relevant to relativist or subjectivist moral theories. 

I don't know if there are any deities, and since I cannot base belief on a lack or absence of knowledge, or more accurately: belief for me would become meaningless if I did so, then I must withhold belief, and this makes me what we currently define as an atheist. Yes we can use Batman, or Superman et al for moral discussions, this does not help argue for moral objectivism though. And yes I agree, that subjective claims on behalf of a deity's subjective moral claims, don't represent moral objectivism. I also agree this in and of itself does not disprove moral objectivism, only makes a specific argument for it weak. Science helps increase our collective knowledge, and understanding of objective reality, it can only help us make more informed choices, but how moral or not those choices are, seem to rest on a subjective worldview.

Sheldon: I agree, but have to ask myself why? Is there anything beyond subjective assertion, an appeal to subjective consensus, or reasoned consequentialism?

We can be harmed.  If we couldn't be harmed, maybe we wouldn't - but we would be wrong.  Similar to how we don't include harmful things that we don't know are harmful or refuse to accept are harmful.  

 How does any of that objectively demonstrate why harming others is immoral?

Sheldon: For me personally yes I'd agree, but even if every person agreed,  all I see here is a universally shared subjective opinion. though of course even among objectivists and those who believe in moral absolutes, this isn't true, theists defer to god before worrying about harm, though one could of course argue that they are simply projecting harm onto anything that doesn't defer to their deity's moral diktat. 

1Objectivism is not absolutism.  2Objectivism is not theological subjectivism.  3Absolutism is a further claim that can be made or omitted from any of the cognitivist positions. 4 IDK if it can be included in emotivism because our emotional states aren't exactly stable.  Your favorite color today may not be your favorite color tomorrow, or twenty years from now.  Doesn't stop people from making claims like that though, lol.

1I never said it was? 2 I never said it was? 3 I agree, but this doesn't seem to address my point. 4 This means that the claim "my favourite colour is red"  contains an objectively true assertion, but also a subjective inference, since it tells us nothing objective about the colour in relation to other colours beyond my subjective preference, and as you point out it is also relative, and likely emotive, since it can change, and yet the objective truth in the assertion remain, which is also my point about trying to claim the philosophical positions are mutually exclusive, when they share some ideas. 

I don't believe theistic claims, but I cannot in a generic sense know they are ultimately wrong, unless the claims are falsifiable, and have been falsified. For me, it's the epistemological difference between withholding belief from a claim (atheism), and making a contrary claim (which whilst it might include atheism, is not in and of itself atheism). 

Sheldon: Well is they think they've done nothing morally wrong, then the we here comes to a matter of opinion surely? Not everyone who causes harm is simply content to do wrong, some have formed the opinion their actions are in fact moral. I suspect that you would accept it is not an absolute claim that causing harm is immoral? Just as I do. So who decides when and where and how? What objective facts determine this?

If they think they've done nothing wrong then they've done no evil to be described by and excused by it's alleged necessity.  Anyone who tells you they've done a necessary evil thinks they've done an evil, and that they were committed or compelled to do it.  It's an opinion in the way that everything is an opinion 

Except not everything is solely an opinion, facts and evidence rest on well defined epistemological limitations. 

 Some people do evil things because it is expedient and excuse themselves by objectively incorrect necessities.  The objective facts that would determine if their claim were true even just in it's own context would be facts of necessity.  You won't be surprised to find that I think many allegedly necessary evils are no such thing. A pacifist would suggest that killing people is never good or necessary, not even when they're trying to kill you, for example. What do we think about that?

That it is subjective opinion, unsurprisingly. 

You keep returning to the idea that "who decides" is itself a demonstration of subjectivity. 

No I don't think this is true at all, if 99.999% of people think a deity exists, but have no objective evidence, this tells me nothing, but if 99.999% of elite scientists in a particular field of study agree, then I know this is necessarily based on a methodology that requires objective testable evidence, that is falsifiable, replicable, and has been repeatedly tested and peer reviewed, and is never ringfenced from critical scrutiny.  
I only think it is subjective opinion, when that is all that is offered. For example: "Causing harm is immoral"
I recognise my subjective desire for an ordered safer world, and how curtailing unnecessary harm is objectively beneficial to achieving that, over a violent dystopia. I don't see how it is objectively true. 

Things aren't subjective merely because a person decides them,

I agree, nor I hope did I suggest this was the case, I have for example decided to believe the world is not flat, yet I have also decided that the "best" existence for most people can be achieved by avoiding causing and where possible preventing unnecessary harm, but that second claim is subjective, or at least, based on other subjective ideas. 

The claim that something is immoral is generally pregnant.

I think this perhaps is closer to the core of my problem with objectivism than anything that's been said. How do we remove subjective bias from what we perceive moral claims to mean? 

About when it is socially permissible to do some bad thing, not about whether or not the thing is bad.

I have clipped this as I agree, but the problem remains we can't say that X is objectively bad, if we could then laws across human history, places and cultures should be the same or at least contain a consistent metric (like your example of harm) no? Yet they are demonstrably not. 
Sorry for my tardiness, I was forced to deal with life's necessary banalities.