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

[Sheldon]

No, not equivalent, subjectivity / objectivity is a scale, not a binary condition. 

You're talking about the quality of the claim.  On a scale of true-false objective-subjective.  

Well of course, your question asked if a claim was "equivalent to" another claim, if truth making properties differ on a scale of objective evidence and epistemological knowledge then the two claims need not be equal, but sufficiently dubious to withhold belief from. 

Sheldon:  What makes them wrong if not lacking sufficient objective evidence, or being subjective? 

By being wrong-in-fact. 

This doesn't really help, would you agree that the more subjective bias we can remove from, and the more objective evidence we can demonstrate for, a claim, the more reliable belief in that claim becomes? If someone tells me the world is not flat, I know what this means, and know the objective evidence supporting it is overwhelming. Accepted scientific theories like gravity would have to be wrong for the world to be flat. 
Now conversely if someone say harming someone is immoral, this seems subjective to me. Especially as it is also relative, as it is not always considered immoral. 

Well I think this is true for the subjective axioms we decide to base our morals on, I don't see any way around that. A perhaps more troubling thought, is that moral progress is not possible in any objective way. What would we be measuring it against? 

I have no way to answer that question or engage in any rational conversation about this subject or any other without referring to an underlying mountain of axioms.  

I agree, but axioms are essential in this sense, but they need not be equally true, religious apologists often cite the existence of a perfectly moral deity as an axiom. 

Sheldon: Flatness can objectively measured, as an apprentice I learned this the hard way, when asked to hand scrape a surface table. I don't know how to objectively measure moral claims, without subjective axioms. Just as we can objectively measure the physiological harm of crack use / addiction, so I still think this is a false equivalence. 

Corpseness can also be objectively measured.  Your units of measure are axiomatic.

I don't know what corpseness means sorry, but my point is that flatness is not necessarily  a subjective term, rather it is contextual, in this context, the world is not flat is an objective fact, underpinned by a massive amount of objectively verifiable evidence. Flat earther have to deny the theory of gravity, on what basis then are they accepting any scientific facts. 

Sheldon: I agree, but those axioms vary, from person to person, place to place, across time, and cultures etc..

This would be relativism.  If relativism is true subjectivism is false.  

That's only partially correct, relativism and subjectivism are often linked, though they are not the same thing. Relativism does not necessarily mean subjectivism is false, but it places the basis of truth within a broader context like a culture or group, rather than solely within the individual's subjective experience. Though this seems to have ignored the fact, that this considered a strong argument against moral objectivism. 

Sheldon: metaethical relativism and subjectivism are two distinct philosophies, something can be both relative and subjective, so they overlap in some ways. As we discussed, the exclusion of moral absolutes for example. 

Not in a logically or descriptively true sense, no.

They cannot both be true, but nor are they entirely mutually exclusive. Since they both exclude moral absolutes for example. More importantly the fact cultural perceptions of morality change over time and from place to place, is a strong argument against moral objectivism. 

Pour one out for the experts.  Their science isn't sciencey enough.  

Well, we are back to the epistemological reliability of claims, and even were I to accept ethics is a science of some character, it is true that not all scientific disciplines are equally reliable. So when we choose to believe or disbelieve, the claims must reach the threshold we set for credulity, though this is an arbitrary choice of course. 

I am not sure where anyone thinks I said this? I know what an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy is, and I try to avoid them. I am simply saying that when people make what they call objective moral claims, in my experience they rest ultimately on subjective axioms. The claims the world is flat and the world is not flat, may both be subjective, but they are not equally subjective, and for a reason. 

The list keeps growing.  It now includes the idea that a round earth is a subjective claim.  I have to ask, more or less subjective than the claim the earth is flat, and what possible metrics could we use to determine that which weren't also subjective in this way?

If I implied that then I didn't mean to, it is an objective fact that the earth is round and not flat, I as just addressing your points about flatness being subjective. I don't have enough information to answer the question, but assuming I wanted to set a bar for credulity that most reliably achieved believing only true claims, then the more subjective bias ti removes the more reliable it would be. Perhaps you disagree? 

Sheldon: “variation in moral codes from one society to another and from one period to another, and also the differences in moral beliefs between groups and classes within a complex community… make it difficult to treat those judgments as apprehensions of objective truths” 

John Mackie

I am inclined to agree, and there are many others of course.

I agree as well, as an objectivist. Moral relativism is in error. 

He has offered that as argument against moral objectivism. 

The judgements of our societies are not the truth making properties of assertions. 

I agree, which is why though they represent moral relativism, they are also subjective. They differ mainly in the the derivation of the subjective claims, from cultures and societies rather than from individuals, it's not hard to see how these can overlap though. 

As an objectivist, I think that the truth making properties of moral assertions are to be found in facts about the object of the assertion itself. 

I guess we simply disagree there, as we are back to an assertion that is factual, X causes harm - for example, then drawing a subjective conclusion, harm is immoral, which is what I see, since even an individual who accepts causing harm can be immoral, need not always consider it immoral, and it is not universally accepted as a moral axiom of course, so the claim still seems both subjective and relative to me.
Anyway this has been interesting, but I sense we are just going over the same points of contention now. Thanks for your time on this.