Atheism and Ethics

[The Grand Nudger]

If we're talking about different things and not using words to mean the same things there's just not alot of productive space there. If you cant agree that when I talk about morality I'm talking about a thing that references harm - that I am an authority in the simple matter of what I'm saying to you when I use a word.....rightly or wrongly...what else is there to say?

...and what words should I use to say whatever that is - rinse and repeat ad infinitum about everything.

[Disagreeable]

We certainly must start with definitions.

[The Grand Nudger]

-a truly meta moment; as we explore moral confusion, epistemic confusion, and semantic confusion, we find that these three things all share in it and along the same lines or avenues. Yet another way that moral statements are like epistemic statements are like semantic statements.

While I likely have all the concerns that anyone of any persuasion has about alike and fact-alike statements, the things which cause me to dismiss such concerns in the case of epistemic and semantic statements are the same things that lead to my dismissal of those same concerns in moral statements.

[Lucian]

Interesting study here on morality in action. Douchebaggery isnt something I can criticise based on an objective standard… sure can join my expressivist friends and say “boooooo”

[Angrboda]

If we're talking about different things and not using words to mean the same things there's just not alot of productive space there.  If you cant agree that when I talk about morality I'm talking about a thing that references harm - that I am an authority in the simple matter of what I'm saying to you when I use a word.....rightly or wrongly...what else is there to say?

...and what words should I use to say whatever that is - rinse and repeat ad infinitum about everything.

And yet, here you are, not a post later attempting to have dialogue under the very conditions under which you previously said dialogue was impossible.

Faced with such inconsistency, what is a thinking person supposed to conclude?

[The Grand Nudger]

A what? QED.

[Lucian]

I just ordered the new book “The Moral Universe” by Bengson, Cuneo, and Shafer-Landau
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0198914...434&sr=8-1

Will be interesting to see if it changes my mind

[Disagreeable]

"It has been widely believed that there are such deep disagreements between Kantians, Contractualists, and Consequentialists. That, I have argued, is not true. These people are climbing the same mountain on different sides." - Derek Parfit

[Disagreeable]

I'm a moral realist because there are facts about which actions are most and least harmful.

[Lucian]

I'm a moral realist because there are facts about which actions are most and least harmful.

I am still not because I can’t see an obvious link between harm and some mind-independent non-institutional categorical imperative existing as a property of the universe. I agree it is as plausible a candidate as any if such a standard does exist - but I can’t show it does and most attempts I have seen appeal to intuition and I am just not comfortable with that as a standard by which to make these kind of judgements. 
I guess you could define immorality easily using your standard, and if you defined morality as having to do with harm, then sure morality exists in the sense that harm exists. In that sense you would be a kind of naturalistic moral realist I think, but I still don’t see the standard itself can be shown to exist as something objective. But basing morality on what causes the least harm seems to ignore moral actions that don’t have to do with harm. As an example, going out of your way to do something nice for someone who doesn’t deserve it. Do you have thoughts on that side of it?

As mentioned in previous posts, this is probably my tediously boring standard move from Christianity to doubting other things, but I am not so sure. 

Mentally tired, so sorry if the above was a rant. In the process of moving house and finding it painful! Definitely immoral - I am swung