Subjective Morality?

[Dr H]

My point is that "conditional" is not the same as "subjective".

Two people might view the same killing, under the same conditions, and one might judge it to be moral, and the other might judge it to be immoral.  That is subjective.

I'm not talking about the difference between two people (intersubjectivity I think), I'm addressing one person's moral position and how that changes based on conditions. A change in conditions changes their opinion of what is moral.

Thanks for clarifying that.

My point stands.  While a single person's moral position might well change based on different conditions, 
it might also change for no apparent reason whatsoever.  That is, I believe, a characteristic of subjectivity -- its causes are not necessarily discernable, and it therefore resists rational prediction.

---

The existence of opinions and their place in the mind does not make any other thing necessarily subjective.  We contend that some opinions are fact based, and others are free floating opinions.  Since a moral realist sees a moral proposition as the equivalent of any other (purported) fact..this would also be true of moral statements.  The simple fact that you are expressing your opinion isn't enough to determine whether the moral statement is subjective or objective, and this is mostly due to the fact that both subjective and objective statements or positions are privately held in the mind (which is the sense of subjectivity to which possesion of the concept refers).  

I can only say this so many ways and so many times...but moral realism does not contend that we are not necessarily subjective agents who hold opinions.  That this is true is not a counterargument to the position.  The question being asked (by moral realism, in contrast to moral subjectivism, lol) is not whether you have an opinion...but whether some x causes that opinion, or whether the opinion causes some x.  That's the ground floor.  Does it purport to report facts.

I believe you've nailed it here.  Moral realism recognizes that human beings are subjective creatures. 
Indeed, to be classified as "realism" it has to recognize that demonstrable fact.

[The Grand Nudger]

The problem is that "wrong" / "immoral" means absolutely nothing at all (scientifically) without a non-circular definition. Once you’ve made that definition, you’ve moved away from morality itself, and into the study of behaviour and consequences under specific goals. You’re then talking about achieving and enacting certain stated ethics, according to the vision of a person or group of people.

It’s the equivocation between the defined "wrong" and the general "wrong" that leads to mistakes I often see.

In moral realism..there is only one definition for any kind of fact..including purported moral facts...so...not really any room to equivocate on that end...and if you prefer we can use the term wrong to refer to things inaccurate and immoral to refer to explicitly bad things.

A moral statement can call something bad, get it's facts wrong, and so be false as a proposition - in the view of a moral realist.

[bennyboy]

The problem is that "wrong" / "immoral" means absolutely nothing at all (scientifically) without a non-circular definition. Once you’ve made that definition, you’ve moved away from morality itself, and into the study of behaviour and consequences under specific goals. You’re then talking about achieving and enacting certain stated ethics, according to the vision of a person or group of people.

It’s the equivocation between the defined "wrong" and the general "wrong" that leads to mistakes I often see.

Yeah, well put.

Subjective morality is easy-- this is what we think right now.

It seems that every single attempt to establish objective morality is really a convoluted begging of the question, or simply of conflation between definition and discovery.
1)  Define morality in a certain way
2)  Demonstrate that morality as you've defined it is either objective, or has objective components.

The obvious problem is that morality itself is an abstract term, and even its definition is an act of the whims of agency.

[The Grand Nudger]

The trouble is that it's highly unlikely to be what you think now.  What you're likely to think right now is that some y is wrong because of x, and x is true.

As to definition and discovery...well..yes and no.  We define the good, so that we know what we're talking about when we talk to each other (just like we define the word cat)...but in an objective system.....the conclusions are based upon what we discover that conforms to that definition.   Whereas, in a legitimately subjective system...nothing that we discover really matters.  The value of y is set by our opinion of y, not by our discovery of some x about y.

All terms are fundamentally abstract. We are abstraction engines that utilize a common language for transfer. This may be a problem for moral facts - but if so (or when so) it is equally a problem for fact, in general.

[bennyboy]

Why would it be that in a subjective system, nothing that we discover really matters? I'm a product of my environment, and I'm part of it. In fact, I could probably best view myself as a constructive wave-- an interaction of very many cross-currents that manifest as someone with my face and ideas. When something happens to me, then it is another cross-current slapping me in my face-- what I am is re-defined.

I can't accept that criterion, which I think begs the question-- if it's true that "in a legitimately subjective system. . . nothing that we discover really matters," then there's no debate, because you are talking about some kind of immortal archetypal Benjamin, rather than the real, dynamic, flow-of-consciousness one. Perhaps archetypes can't change, by definition, but subjective agents can and do, and they do so based on external influences.

But forming ideas ABOUT objective facts is not the same as a moral system BEING objectively factual.

---

All terms are fundamentally abstract.   We are abstraction engines that utilize a common language for transfer.  This may be a problem for moral facts - but if so (or when so) it is equally a problem for fact, in general.

That's why I coined, and frequently use, the word "truth-in-context."  There may or may not be a really real truth out there in the ether somewhere, but so far, I've not seen any method by which we can extract it with any certainty.  What we can do, however, is establish truth in context.

Rape, for example, may not ultimately be wrong.  Maybe suffering magi-specially sends energy to the center of the Universe, and is required to sustain it.  Maybe pan-dimensional godlike voices echo through eternity, weaving themselves with screams in a tapestry that allows the Universe to arrive at the answer 42.  Who knows?

But in the context of 21st-century America, I'd say it's a fact that rape is not generally acceptable: there are laws about it, movements about it, people wear ribbons about it.  It's pretty clear.

[The Grand Nudger]

Why would it be that in a subjective system, nothing that we discover really matters?  I'm a product of my environment, and I'm part of it.  In fact, I could probably best view myself as a constructive wave-- an interaction of very many cross-currents that manifest as someone with my face and ideas.  When something happens to me, then it is another cross-current slapping me in my face-- what I am is re-defined.

Because it is your opinion that matters, in a subjective system, not any fact of the matter x that you may discover - and you don't need to discover any fact of any matter to have an opinion.  Facts of the matter are the purview of moral realism, as thats the position of moral realism, that there are facts of the matter. Subjectivism denies this, fundamentally obviating discovery since it contends that there is no there...there...to discover.

I can't accept that criterion, which I think begs the question-- if it's true that "in a legitimately subjective system. . . nothing that we discover really matters," then there's no debate, because you are talking about some kind of immortal archetypal Benjamin, rather than the real, dynamic, flow-of-consciousness one.  Perhaps archetypes can't change, by definition, but subjective agents can and do, and they do so based on external influences.

Sure, a subjective agent can change, moral realism doesn't contend otherwise - but ofc there's no debate about whether or not facts of the matter(discovered or waiting to be discovered)...matter..in a subjectivist system, because a subjectivist system is defined by it's rejection of any fact of that matter.  

 

But forming ideas ABOUT objective facts is not the same as a moral system BEING objectively factual.

Well, sure, it has to get the facts right, too.  A moral statement based on objective facts, that gets those facts right, is as objectively factual as any other objectively factual statement we make.

That's why I coined, and frequently use, the word "truth-in-context."  There may or may not be a really real truth out there in the ether somewhere, but so far, I've not seen any method by which we can extract it with any certainty.  What we can do, however, is establish truth in context.

Not a problem specifically for moral fact, but a problem for all facts, including whether or not you think what you just said was a fact. 

Rape, for example, may not ultimately be wrong.  Maybe suffering magi-specially sends energy to the center of the Universe, and is required to sustain it.  Maybe pan-dimensional godlike voices echo through eternity, weaving themselves with screams in a tapestry that allows the Universe to arrive at the answer 42.  Who knows?

None of your "who knows" would have an effect on my moral assessment..so....I do.  For the moral status of rape to change, something would have to change about the -act- -in an objective moral system.  The center of the universe, irrelevant.  Godlike voices echoing, irrelevant.  My opinion of the act, irrelevant.  Tomorrow, a rape energy black hole could form in my living room..powering the universe, and rape would still be bad. Some eldritch god could start babbling to me, still bad. I could change my mind the moment I see the prettiest girl who ever lived and my spider brain just had to have her....still bad. There could be any number of reasons to do The Bad Thing™...but none of them make the bad less than bad, they can only make it compelling.

The human condition.

But in the context of 21st-century America, I'd say it's a fact that rape is not generally acceptable: there are laws about it, movements about it, people wear ribbons about it.  It's pretty clear.

Sure, but the difference between a subjective and an objective moral system is not that rape is considered wrong in one and not the other.  It's the underlying cause for the assignation that determines between the two. Moral realism is a position on things being good or bad based on facts of the matter. Moral subjectivity is not. Many people who consider morality subjective make realist truth claims in order to establish their allegedly subjective moral positions and this confusion accounts for most of the hand-wringing around the issue.

The above..for example...is a clear statement of epistemic objectivity (that carefully avoids any invocation of ontological objectivity). That's actually enough for moral realism to proceed, particularly in the face of nihilism or error theory (and it's how fundamentally scientific definitions of moral realism proceed). We can know that something is bad, if we know what we're talking about, and take a look at those relevant facts of the matter.

We can know that in the context of 21st century america, rape is bad. Now, you likely believe this claim to be true, and reporting facts? Moral realists state that moral statements are formed in the same way. They are things that purport to report facts, do (or don't), and so, are true (or false). If you told me the above and we went out and did a survey and found that people were very rape friendly, instead, you would have gotten your facts objectively wrong, and your conclusion would be false..but it still would have been objectivism. This brings us all the way back round to the beginning, where you contended that having an opinion about objective facts is not the same as that opinion being objectively factual. Things can be objective..without being objectively factual. We call that being objectively wrong. We call that false. The job for any moral skeptic is to provide some reason not to employ consistent semantics and axioms to moral statements.

That we can get x wrong, or that there may be a compelling reason to do x, does not accomplish that (the first is an affirmation of objectivity at the base level - we can't get things wrong or right unless there's a right and a right, eh?)

[Duty]

Judges in law courts must have a hell of a job. Mitigation, mitigation, mitigation, all day long till the cows come home.

[The Grand Nudger]

You probably have to really love the job, right, lol?  I wouldn't do it.

[Duty]

I hear on the grapevine they're generally very proud, jealous kinds of people - sensitive might be a better term - any contempt in court and BAM you're in deep trouble etc - perhaps due to the fact they often feel so very uncertain in their rulings!

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah...gotta figure that in any ruling at least one party is getting the shaft...so 50% of the people who go through a court proceeding..at a minimum (lol) think that the judge fucked the pooch. The other 50% think he short changed them.