Ben Shapiro vs Neil deGrasse Tyson: The WAR Over Transgender Issues

[The Architect Of Fate]

The war is over.

Nope it's just beginning and history is on our side this a setback and nothing more progress cannot be stopped only delayed you already lost in long run

 Gender ideology has been fully discredited.

There is no such thing as" Gender ideology "there are facts about gender you right wing lunatics deny, but there are also people who deny the earth is round and that's the category future generations will put people like you in  

 Some lunatics that cannot tell the difference between real and makebelieve will continue to wail but no one cares anymore.

Nah, people like use know the difference between real and make-believe and will continue to lose as time goes on and no one will care. One day people will look but on people like you the way they looked geo-centrists Dumpf and the right wing can push all the laws they like Trans-People aren't going away nor is influence in society, and you will wail and no one will care

[Sheldon]

It occurs to me that if we do lack an objective standard, that doesn't prevent us from determining that a given action is morally worse or better than another.

Well it demonstrably doesn't, and I think the golden rule is a pretty reliable leveller here. 

Torturing a healthy human baby to death is worse than cooing at it, and I'm prepared to die on that hill.

Me too, though the deity depicted in the bible didn't share our subjective sensibilities. 

I came to terms with subjective morality a long time ago, but it is clear it scares the crap out of many people. generally it's theists and religious apologists, but I think empathy serves the majority, better than intolerance, even if this is a subjective opinion, and I'd rather live in a tolerant free society, than a dystopian Orwellian "hell", or a totalitarian state...

It may be idealistic of me, but since morals are subjective, no one can say that this is objectively wrong.

[Sheldon]

The trouble you'll run into trying to argue for the assertion that all moral statements are subjective, at least when you're having that discussion with someone advocating for any form of analytical realism..is that there's no disqualifier to true statements you can offer of moral assertions that they cannot then apply to many or any of your other assertions to truth, including those ones you make in argument against realism.  In any logical debate about morality, objectivism has a home field advantage, rightly or wrongly.

So firstly I think we have established we can make objectively true statements about morality, but only when we form a subjective moral worldview. 

Secondly, something either is or is not objectively true, whatever rationale one advocates for, indeed, independently of that rationale I would say. 

Lastly, I don't agree that morality must ultimately rest on objective truth, especially as the objective evidence does not support it. 

Objective evidence is superior to subjective opinion, only in ascertaining what is objectively true. It is not objectively true that murder, rape, slavery etc are immoral, but it is objectively true, that most people would live happier contented lives if they and those they cared for were not murdered, raped or enslaved...though I cannot say it is objectively true that the majority of people ought to live happier contented lives of course... this is just a subjective opinion I hold.

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't think it must, either, in fact I think it rarely does.

From an objectivists viewpoint, that people would live happier and more contented lives might be true, and if so would be a happy coincidence - but is not the reason that murder, rape, enslavement etc are wrong. Consider this. It might be the case that some group of 100 people might have happier and more contented lives if they enslave some group of ten people. Most people, in this formulation..are the slavers. It may be the case that trying to end this practice or stand up to it, even as a member of the 100, gets you killed, or tossed in with the ten.

In an objectivists understanding, we can suffer from doing right - as we see it, and we can be satisfied in doing wrong, as we see it. There is daylight between these things, between our self interest and our moral assertions or principles. This observation also does double duty against the idea that moral content is only or can only be subjectivist, as a self evident truth. So while I think a great deal of moral content is or is influenced by subjectivity, that gap, those disparities, establish that there is additional content not covered by explicitly and exclusively subjectivist groundings. IOW, no, not all moral assertions are or even can be based on subjectivism..objectively or empirically speaking.

[Sheldon]

If moral realism were nothing else it would be the insistence that moral statements be true as stated, to be considered true as stated. 

I am happy to use reason to weigh moral claims, but I have never seen anyone able to offer a moral claim that did not ultimately rest on a subjective opinion. I would also add, that you added some example you claimed were moral assertions that were objectively true, and while some were (at least partially) true, and were assertions about, or involving morality, the idea they made objectively true moral claims is still dubious to me. 

I make moral judgments and claims, because I care how I treat others, and how others treat me, that surely is enough?

[The Grand Nudger]

Toes and murder is still on the table.

Because I care is metaethically ambiguous, depending on what we mean there that's not at all clear from the written word but that would be in life or conversation. When we say things (and mean them) like.."I just follow my heart". In this case morality (or this moral explanation) isn't subjectivist, it's not even cognitivist. An objectivist notes that a pitch black heart also follows itself. To an objectivist, a things rightness and wrongness, a moral statements truth or falsity, isn't determined by or interchangeable with our emotional responses, attitudes, or predispositions. Sometimes they line up, sometimes they don't..and here again, like before, even as we see them.

So we have daylight again. In this case daylight between subjectivism and emotivism, but also between subjectivism and emotivism and our moral assertions or principles. There is additional content not described by explicitly or exclusively emotivist or subjectivist moral groundings individually or together. Our hearts and our care can be misplaced, mistaken, misused, misbegotten, and simply absent. Whether or not I care, in either sense, is not the truthmaking property in all moral statements, objectively or empirically speaking.

Just some bit of trivia about how much of an asshole I am, relatively speaking.

[Sheldon]

Toes and murder is still on the table.  

Because I care is metaethically ambiguous, depending on what we mean there that's not at all clear from the written word but that would be in life or conversation.  When we say things (and mean them) like.."I just follow my heart".  In this case morality (or this moral explanation) isn't subjectivist, it's not even cognitivist.  An objectivist notes that a pitch black heart also follows itself.  To an objectivist, a things rightness and wrongness, a moral statements truth or falsity,  isn't determined by or interchangeable with our emotional responses, attitudes, or predispositions.  Sometimes they line up, sometimes they don't..and here again, like before, even as we see them.  

So we have daylight again.  In this case daylight between subjectivism and emotivism, but also between subjectivism and emotivism and our moral assertions or principles.  There is additional content not described by explicitly or exclusively emotivist or subjectivist moral groundings individually or together.   Our hearts and our care can be misplaced, mistaken, misused, misbegotten, and simply absent.  Whether or not I care, in either sense,  is not the truthmaking property in all moral statements, objectively or empirically speaking.

Just some bit of trivia about how much of an asshole I am, relatively speaking.

You seem to have trimmed some words off my claim? So we went from:

"I make moral judgments and claims, because I care how I treat others, and how others treat me..."

So while yes, one could claim a Nazis based their moral judgments by "following their heart", whatever that means, this seems to me like a false equivalence to my claim. FWIW I was not claiming this in any way represented or supported objective morality. 

Toes and murder is still on the table.

Why? No one has explained why it is objectively immoral to murder someone, or step on their toes, nor has anyone argued the two actions are comparable. 

When we say things (and mean them) like.."I just follow my heart".

To be fair I neither said, nor would I ever say that, even as a metaphor, and I find myself grinding my teeth when others use it. 

Our hearts and our care can be misplaced, mistaken, misused, misbegotten, and simply absent. 

I agree, our emotion alone are not a sufficiently reliable indicator or judge for me to base my moral judgments on, I must also use my reason. None of which changes the fact that all moral assertions ultimately rest on subjective opinions, however well reasoned. 

Whether or not I care, in either sense, is not the truthmaking property in all moral statements, objectively or empirically speaking.

Indeed not, nor did I mean to suggest it was, I was merely pointing out that empathy to me is / must be a sufficient basis for my (subjective) morality, as I don't believe that absolute or objective morality is possible, as ultimately all moral assertions rest on subjective opinions.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm just showing you how and why I employ the terms this way. If the truthmaking property of moral statements is whether a person cares..no reason given or present, just that emotional experience - that is metaethical non-cognitivism. Emotivism. Metaethical subjectivism is a cognitivist theory. The mere existence of moral assertions like these logically demonstrates that the statement "all moral claims are subjective" is false. Empirically speaking, such assertions and rationales do exist. If we trust in critical theories a great deal more than just the ones that express themselves as such. You, we, apparently, just think they're wrong. Wrong...by what?

Harm is a popular objectivist basis. Harm is an explanation that has repeatedly been given. There are more, ofc. A person might think that only one thing matters in moral statements or they may be a value pluralist. You've harmed someone by stomping on their toes, and harmed them more by murdering them. The corpse seems like pretty good evidence to that effect, don't you think? Another person offered cooing at babies iirc, as a thing that isn't harmful, in contrast to things that are.

[Thumpalumpacus]

 The mere existence of moral assertions like these logically demonstrates that the statement "all moral claims are subjective" is false.  Empirically speaking, such assertions and rationales do exist.  If we trust in critical theories a great deal more than just the ones that express themselves as such.  You, we, apparently, just think they're wrong.  Wrong...by what?

Who is judging, and by what standard? Sure people hold individual rationales. What makes one rationale more right or wrong than others? You were an infantryman. How did you justify your use of force, and what differentiates you killing a Serbian from any other gunshot death? Can you do that and support your argument for objective morality without appealing to relativism or subjectivism?

A person might think that only one thing matters in moral statements or they may be a value pluralist.

And how is that not an appeal to subjectivism and an abnegation of objective morality?

[The Grand Nudger]

So while yes, one could claim a Nazis based their moral judgments by "following their heart", whatever that means, this seems to me like a false equivalence to my claim. FWIW I was not claiming this in any way represented or supported objective morality. 

This seemed like a particularly apt place to continue a survey of the moral field and metaethics in analytic philosophy.  While all instances of emotvism..by nazis or cooking baking grannies or you or me or the housecat actually are metaethically equivalent....I don't think that's what happened for the nazis.  

Specifically nazi ideology and nazi moral assertions were a distinct cultural phenomena.  Beyond non cognitives like emotivism, beyond our first cognitivist theory, subjectivism, there is additional moral content that comes down to the dictates and decrees our society.  Where those facts are the truth making properties of moral assertions.  This is cognitivist content too.  It says something that can be true or false just as subjectivism did, and unlike emotivism which isn't about true or false things.  A society really does make this or that demand,  a person can accurately relate the contents of their culture to another person - or they can butcher it.  The mere existence of this content, of these basis and these assertions, logically demonstrates that not all moral assertions or basis are or even can be subjective.

A person can also reject their cultural indoctrination in general or in specific, though.  They can know what society has to say about x, and reject that..both in specific on a statement by statement basis, but also in general as rejecting the set of all things "because society says so" as truth making properties in moral assertions.  Thus the statement "all moral assertions are relative" is demonstrably false.  So much daylight everywhere.  Daylight between non cognitivism and cognitivism.  Daylight between cognitivist theories like subjectivism and relativism.  Daylight between all of these isms and one, some, or many of our moral assertions.  We have still not exhausted the totality or circumscribed the total bounds of moral content or moral assertions even though we've drawn a map that includes emotivism, subjectivism, and relativism.  

The overwhelming majority of moral assertions you'll ever see or hear are presented as objectivist assertions...even if they are not.  As the thing x being bad.  The emotivist homophobe says queerness is bad but really means yuck.  The subjectivist says queerness is bad but really means it's not for him.  The relativist says queerness is bad but really means..and this one is on the nose, queerness is queer.  Maybe every purportedly objective moral assertion is one of these things in disguise....but I don't think so.  I think that's a very difficult claim to make or implicitly rely on.