apophenia Wrote:It appears to me that perhaps more clearly, one could say that morality has the effect of instructing, or morality is "like instruction," but saying that morality "is" instruction, in addition to being a category error, runs afoul of Moore's naturalistic fallacy (morality is "like morality," and likening it to anything but itself, without support, results in an error).
No, morality cannot be identified with something that gives the mere appearance of an instruction. For to sense that an act is wrong (or believe it to be) is to sense that it is actually instructed not to be done. An apparent instruction that never amounts to a real one is, by definition, not a real instruction. And so you would then be saying that morality does not instruct. Yet it does. One cannot capture the instructing nature of morality by identifying morality with something that does not actually instruct. And you can't deny that morality instructs without simply changing the topic.
You accuse me of committing Moore's naturalistic fallacy. This confuses me. Moore's naturalistic fallacy involves equivocation over the word 'is'. Basically, one commits the naturalistic fallacy when one slips from using the 'is' of predication to using the 'is' of identity. So, 'happiness is good' could be read as meaning either that happiness has the property of goodness, or that happiness and goodness are one and the same thing. it is this ambiguity that opens up the possibility of the fallacy being committed. One would conclude from happiness having the property of goodness that happiness 'is' the property of goodness.
I have not done this. I have simply highlighted two features of morality - its instructional nature and its rational authority - and argued that as the only thing that it seems possible could have these features is a god's instructions then morality 'is' a god's instructions.
