(July 2, 2013 at 2:04 pm)Rhythm Wrote: In the bolded bit, you -conceded- the case of the italicized bit. Do most of us have something that doesn't exist? How does that work, I wonder?
I did not 'concede'. ONe cannot concede something one has been maintaining from the outset. Moral sensations and beliefs exist. There is no question of their existence. What is in doubt is the existence of morality itself. Only someone who confuses the sensation with the thing sensed, or the belief with the thing believed (the object of the belief) would think moral sensations and beliefs 'constitute' morality. But someone who thinks that is an idiot. It is as stupid as thinking a chair is a belief.
Beliefs has objects. Things they are 'about'. A belief can be about another belief (I can believe myself to believe X). But at some point a belief is about something that is not a belief. So, a belief about a chair is about a chair.
MOral beliefs are 'about' morality. THe belief that an act is wrong, for instance, is a moral belief. For it is the belief that an act has the property of wrongness. But the existence of the belief does not establish the existence of the wrongness.
Now stop being thick and tedious and try to grasp this.