(June 24, 2017 at 12:21 am)Little Henry Wrote: It seems when we make moral claims, ie, rape is wrong, murder is wrong, we are saying something with an intent for that statement to be fact. We are not just expressing preferences/likes/desires, but trying to say something that is fact.
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But when we talk about morality, we use the words right and wrong with an intent for it to be FACT.
Our intentions in talking about something can be mistaken. When people believed the earth was flat, they talked as if the world were flat. Their intention was irrelevant to the fact. Beyond that, all you've basically done is assert. You know what would show that morality is objective? An explanation of morality that can be demonstrated to be correct. That is how we show that something is objective. Do you have an explanation of morality that can be demonstrated to be correct? I see you making a lot of assertions, but haven't seen anything like an explanation of how morals work. Until you can do that, all you've got is an ipse dixit argument.
In your title you tentatively assert that morality being objective is a properly basic belief. I take that to mean you are employing reformed epistemology as a foundation for your beliefs. I reject reformed epistemology. Any framework that asserts that something is true until it can be shown false is nothing but a wholesale falsehood. In traditional foundationalism, a belief is basic if it is either self-evident or it is incorrigible. The belief that morality is objective is neither of these things.
For what it's worth, I'm not a subjectivist in the sense that you mean because I believe the foundation of our morals lies in evolution, not God. But it does point out an important question about morality. Does our metaphysics not alter what we view as moral and immoral. A middle eastern woman is killed because of being an abomination to God. To those who don't believe in God, this act itself is an abomination. Can we ever have objective facts about metaphysics?