Moral Oughts

[Acrobat]

I guess the things you do and don’t do will just have to be added to the growing list of stuff you know fuck all about?

Either caring makes a moral ought subjective or it doesnt. It doesn’t make it subjective when other people care( or not) but not when you care (or not).

This isn’t even basic moral theory, it’s basic rational thought. Your objection holds in both cases, or it doesn’t. Always been your call.

At this point, you’re just stalling for time. You don’t have any explanation for how or why other people’s oughts aren’t objective, and you don’t have any explanation for how or why yours are.

You didn’t even create the thread to figure either thing out. Just an excuse to air your faith and grievances.

I ought to only do things I care for.

I ought to do things regardless of whether I care or not.

Did you see why one view of ought is based on care, and the other is not?

[The Grand Nudger]

Doesn’t matter, no one’s told you that you should or shouldn’t do only the things you care about.

That probably is what you will do, though, lol.

You’re arguing with yourself.

Grand mentioned that you shouldn’t take the wallet for, among other reasons, the fact if you’re caught, you’ll be fined or jailed.

Fact check- true. Not his opinion, nothing to do with whether or not you care. Now, you may not care about the wallet, or even that stealing the wallet is wrong, or whether you’ll get fined or go to jail- but that doesn’t mean that any fact is no longer a fact.

It just means that you’re an irrational loon who can’t be compelled out of goodness or self interest.

Your confusion here is easy to clear up with the terms and distinctions employed in moral theory.....but I already know what you think about learning anything about moral theory while you ask questions about moral systems.

[Acrobat]

Doesn’t matter, no one’s told you that you should or shouldn’t do only the things you care about.

That probably is what you will do, though, lol.

You’re arguing with yourself.

It does matter, one view of ought is based on caring the other isn’t.

[The Grand Nudger]

No it doesn’t matter, you’re stalling for time by arguing with yourself.

Grand gave you a numbered list. Some items were explicitly subjective, others explicitly objective.

Ofc he cares about the items on his list, it’s his list, his personal motivations.

That he cares doesn’t turn the objective items on his list into subjective items.

I mentioned right when you responded to that that you were never going to be able to cogently comment on the subject of your own op if you couldn’t identify which belonged to either category.

Yet another now demonstrated objective truth that you are either unwilling to or incapable of recognizing.

[Acrobat]

No it doesn’t matter, you’re stalling for time by arguing with yourself.

It does matter, because other people here indicated that they don’t view oughts as objective truths, and indicated that their oughts derived by whether they “care” or not.

I indicated that I view oughts as objective truths, that are true regardless of whether I care or not.

My view could be false if course, by trying to equivocate between the two positions, is dishonest on your part,

---

No it doesn’t matter, you’re stalling for time by arguing with yourself.

Grand gave you a numbered list. Some items were explicitly subjective, others explicitly objective.

No Grand explicitly stated that oughts are not objective truths, unlike good and bad. None of his examples were claims of any of the oughts being objective truths, as a result. If you think they were you’re just misreading him, or he would be contradicting himself.

[GrandizerII]

Yes, I said as much a page ago that the selection of reason bit is subjective. The argument applies to me, not necessarily to you. But I've given an example argument as to why I ought not to steal someone else's wallet, and it was based on facts, not opinion.

It’s based on your personal feelings, how getting getting caught by your friends would  you feel bad. How much you care for their acceptance and approval.

No, it's based on the fact that I would care what my loved ones would think ...

That said, I can apply it to you as well. Even if you won't agree with the imposition.

Maybe, but I’m not a naturalist, and don’t believe in a purely physical objective/external reality.  I believe in an external reality that possess qualities something like an intrinsic beauty. Elements like this that don’t exist purely as extrinsic attributes of our minds.

I guess, for me, when it comes to the ought question, I don't necessarily see it as a moral question. Ought is the imposition of "shoulds" and "musts", with a moral/practical/personal reason as justification, and that is it.

[Acrobat]

It’s based on your personal feelings, how getting getting caught by your friends would  you feel bad. How much you care for their acceptance and approval.

No, it's based on the fact that I would care what my loved ones would think ...

Maybe, but I’m not a naturalist, and don’t believe in a purely physical objective/external reality.  I believe in an external reality that possess qualities something like an intrinsic beauty. Elements like this that don’t exist purely as extrinsic attributes of our minds.

I guess, for me, when it comes to the ought question, I don't necessarily see it as a moral question. Ought is the imposition of "shoulds" and "musts", with a moral/practical/personal reason as justification, and that is it.

“
If for instance I say that this is a good chair this means that the chair serves a certain predetermined purpose and the word good here has only meaning so far as this purpose has been previously fixed upon.
In fact the word good in the relative sense simply means coming up to a certain pre-determined standard.

Thus when we say that this man is a good pianist we mean that he can play pieces of a certain degree of difficulty with a certain degree of dexterity.


And similarly if I say that it is important for me not to catch cold I mean that catching a cold produces certain describable disturbances in my life and if I say that this is the right road I mean that it's the right road relative to a certain goal.

Used in this way these expressions don't present any difficult or deep problems.

But this is not how Ethics uses them.

Supposing that I could play tennis and one of you saw me playing and said "Well, you play pretty badly" and suppose I answered "I know, I'm playing badly but I don't want to play any better," all the other man could say would be "Ah then that's all right."

But suppose I had told one of you a preposterous lie and he came up to me and said "You're behaving like a beast" and then I were to say "I know I behave badly, but then I don't want to behave any better," could he then say "Ah, then that's all right"?

Certainly not; he would say "Well, you ought to want to behave better."
Here you have an absolute judgment of value, whereas the first instance was one of a relative judgment.

The essence of this difference seems to be obviously this: Every judgment of relative value is a mere statement of facts and can therefore be put in such a form that it loses all the appearance of a judgment of value: Instead of saying "This is the right way to Granchester," I could equally well have said, "This is the right way you have to go if you want to get to Granchester in the shortest time"; "This man is a good runner" simply means that he runs a certain number of miles in a certain number of minutes, etc.

Now what I wish to contend is that, although all judgments of relative value can be shown to be mere statements of facts, no statement of fact can ever be, or imply, a judgment of absolute value.

Let me explain this: Suppose one of you were an omniscient person and therefore knew all the movements of all the bodies in the world dead or alive and that he also knew all the states of mind of all human beings that ever lived, and suppose this man wrote all he knew in a big book, then this book would contain the whole description of the world; and what I want to say is, that this book would contain nothing that we would call an ethical judgment or anything that would logically imply such a judgment.”

-Wittgenstein

[GrandizerII]

No, it's based on the fact that I would care what my loved ones would think ...


I guess, for me, when it comes to the ought question, I don't necessarily see it as a moral question. Ought is the imposition of "shoulds" and "musts", with a moral/practical/personal reason as justification, and that is it.

“
If for instance I say that this is a good chair this means that the chair serves a certain predetermined purpose and the word good here has only meaning so far as this purpose has been previously fixed upon.
In fact the word good in the relative sense simply means coming up to a certain pre-determined standard.

Thus when we say that this man is a good pianist we mean that he can play pieces of a certain degree of difficulty with a certain degree of dexterity.


And similarly if I say that it is important for me not to catch cold I mean that catching a cold produces certain describable disturbances in my life and if I say that this is the right road I mean that it's the right road relative to a certain goal.

Used in this way these expressions don't present any difficult or deep problems.

But this is not how Ethics uses them.

Supposing that I could play tennis and one of you saw me playing and said "Well, you play pretty badly" and suppose I answered "I know, I'm playing badly but I don't want to play any better," all the other man could say would be "Ah then that's all right."

But suppose I had told one of you a preposterous lie and he came up to me and said "You're behaving like a beast" and then I were to say "I know I behave badly, but then I don't want to behave any better," could he then say "Ah, then that's all right"?

Certainly not; he would say "Well, you ought to want to behave better."
Here you have an absolute judgment of value, whereas the first instance was one of a relative judgment.

The essence of this difference seems to be obviously this: Every judgment of relative value is a mere statement of facts and can therefore be put in such a form that it loses all the appearance of a judgment of value: Instead of saying "This is the right way to Granchester," I could equally well have said, "This is the right way you have to go if you want to get to Granchester in the shortest time"; "This man is a good runner" simply means that he runs a certain number of miles in a certain number of minutes, etc.

Now what I wish to contend is that, although all judgments of relative value can be shown to be mere statements of facts, no statement of fact can ever be, or imply, a judgment of absolute value.

Let me explain this: Suppose one of you were an omniscient person and therefore knew all the movements of all the bodies in the world dead or alive and that he also knew all the states of mind of all human beings that ever lived, and suppose this man wrote all he knew in a big book, then this book would contain the whole description of the world; and what I want to say is, that this book would contain nothing that we would call an ethical judgment or anything that would logically imply such a judgment.”

-Wittgenstein

"You ought to play properly because if you lose it'll be your last professional game ever"

"If you want to pirate, go ahead. I have nothing to do with this."

"Donating to the poor is good in that - insert descriptive statement that promotes the moral goodness of it."

[Acrobat]

"You ought to play properly because if you lose it'll be your last professional game ever"

And if I say I’m okay with it being my last game professionally, than we would say okay.

We can see the goal here is relative.

But when most people make an equivalent moral statements, they’re appealing to some standard they see as absolute, as Wittgenstein points out.

If someone said “they’re okay with behaving badly, and they don’t want to behave any better”, that wouldn’t be seen as okay, something is not right about that, you ought to want to behave better.

Now maybe you and others here have developed your own particular moral language and meaning, but this is disconnected from the common moral language and it’s assumptions of most people, as highlighted by Wittgenstein.

[GrandizerII]

"You ought to play properly because if you lose it'll be your last professional game ever"

And if I say I’m okay with it being my last game professionally, than we would say okay.

We can see the goal here is relative.

But when most people make an equivalent moral statements, they’re appealing to some standard they see as absolute, as Wittgenstein points out.

If someone said “they’re okay with behaving badly, and they don’t want to behave any better”, that wouldn’t be seen as okay, something is not right about that, you ought to want to behave better.

Now maybe you and others here have developed your own particular moral language and meaning, but this is disconnected from the common moral language and it’s assumptions of most people, as highlighted by Wittgenstein.

I'm on the phone so can't comfortably quote bit by bit.

Regarding your last paragraph, prove it.

I am not seeing much difference between a moral ought and other types of oughts. You say relative this, relative that. But you haven't countered what I said earlier. Maybe if you meet the challenge right above, I'll be convinced.

Also I remind you, the OP argument is about oughts, not is's