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

[The Grand Nudger]

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

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. 

Here's something that might help.  Is "flat" a subjective a priori claim?  Why is flat?  Is flat just what you say it is?  Is flat flat because you say it's flat? Is flat not flat if people can't agree it's flat?  Immoral is an adjective.  It's descriptive.  In whatever moral system we're discussing... subjectivist, relativist, objectivist - immoral will have the same inter-contextual meaning.  These systems disagree with each other (and then have internal disagreements with themselves) but immoral always means the rejection or antithesis of the truth making properties in a given system.  Standing opposite to moral, distinguishable from amoral.

Emotivist "yuck!" is "immoral", for example.  An emotivist thinks that's what moral assertions are about, and in the strongest sense that this is also the underlying metaethical reality which explains the phenomena.  

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"?

In principle...subjectivist assertions report on some fact of the reporting subject, whereas objectivist assertions report on some fact of the object in the subjects apprehension.

If a person believes that the moral truth making properties are god properties then they may also believe that moral assertions, and specifically their gods moral assertions... are absolute.  They'll tell you this themselves six ways to sunday if you ask.  That is to say those assertions are good or bad for all people in all times without any respect for specific facts of the matters.  This is not tenable for moral objectivism, explicitly premised (or purported, if we prefer) on exactly those facts of those matters.  Not the unchanging shitlist of an almighty god.

I describe them as subjectivist because they are explicitly premised in gods nature as moral truth maker.

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. 

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? 

That would be the strong implication of a great number of moral and medical theories.  Harming yourself is bad.

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.

-and we're right back to the beginning again.  What abut emotivist worldviews they might be premised on?  What about relativist worldviews that they might be premised on?  What about objectivist worldviews they might be premised on?  

 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?

You agreed that my inclusion of harm consideration, at least as a matter of descriptive ethics, was (or could be) objectively premised.  I assumed you were asking why I thought we considered it as a matter of fact, why we do it.  If you're looking for something deeper...?  We consider harm for control.  For risk analysis.  To navigate in what seems to be a real world where we can really be harmed...and not just harmed in my opinion, harmed in fact.

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. 

Cognitivist positions... subjectivism, relativism, and objectivism, all share at least one idea.  That moral assertions are truth-alike.  The different cognitivist metaethical positions are mutually exclusive in that they posit competing moral truth making properties among the subset of truth alike assertions.  Are the real™ or valid truth making properties facts about reporting subjects, or facts about the societies or places or times the subject comes from, or are they facts about the object of the subjects report?  If the moral properties are our emotional reactions to objects - then none of them are true or false strictly speaking.  They are not truth-alike....and so, all cognitivist metaethical theories are false.    

The notion that an assertion (moral or otherwise) needs to tell you something about the object.....is an objectivist one.

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

That's exactly what objectivist would tell you.  

That it is subjective opinion, unsurprisingly. 

.............solely?  Is it ever really necessary to kill?  I mean, you could just die, right?  Even if somebody has to die that day you don't have to be the killer, do you?  

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.

Moral realism, objectivity, is the majority opinion of academic philosophy.  

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. 

Moral realists are saying that things are some way whether you/me/we recognized them or not, whether our society accepts or rejects them or not.  You're thinking about your own agency.  Your personal ability and drive to be moral, however you see it.  If you didn't want a more ordered and safer world, would that change anything about harm..or would all of the harmful things still do whatever harm is specified?  If you wanted a disordered and violent world, would crack addiction be less harmful?  Would that chemical compound suddenly have a different effect on or in human beings?  Would their addictions begin to improve them in some way?

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? 

The same way we do insomuch as we can with any other truth claim.  That's the central contention of moral objectivity.  That's what I mean when I say it's a non novel theory.  

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.

We have all sorts of reasons not to do the things we think are moral, to do the things we think are immoral, and to write our laws accordingly.  So, no, that there was or could be a correct answer™ doesn't mean that everyone would have the same answer, or that our laws would reflect that even if there were and we did all have it.  Laws are their own thing.  However, if that sort of commonality persuades you...you'll find a great deal of shared moral content between human societies.

I think we can say that things are objectively bad. I think we can say that murder is objectively bad. I also think..as a consequence, we can say that things aren't objectively bad...which is the side I'd start pruning our laws from. Let them go on record saying they can't decriminalize this or that because prison labor would dry up, or they'd lose social control.