What could make morality subjective?

[henry quirk]

I think yuck can be measured, it's findin' or makin' a common scale that's the problem.

Yuck tends toward the idiosyncratic; one man's yuck can be another's meh.

Mebbe findin' the yuck median would work.

Bellcurve that mother.

[Skepdick]

I think yuck can be measured, it's findin' or makin' a common scale that's the problem.

Yuck tends toward the idiosyncratic; one man's yuck can be another's meh.

Mebbe findin' the yuck median would work.

Bellcurve that mother.

First questions first. Why do you even want a common scale for "yuckness" ?

What would that be useful for?

[henry quirk]

I think yuck can be measured, it's findin' or makin' a common scale that's the problem.

Yuck tends toward the idiosyncratic; one man's yuck can be another's meh.

Mebbe findin' the yuck median would work.

Bellcurve that mother.

First questions first. Why do you even want a common scale for "yuckness" ?

What would that be useful for?

Hell if I know.

For new mothers to prepare new fathers, mebbe?

Honey, could you change lil Leon's diaper?

Sure, Babe.

Gotta warn you, his yuck factor is runnin' at a nine these days.

Good lord! A nine? I better get the gas mask...

[Skepdick]

Gotta warn you, his yuck factor is runnin' at a nine these days.

Good lord! A nine? I better get the gas mask...

But it's a bell curve?

Daddy is 7 standard deviations to the right - he's an outlier. He's immune to yuck-factor 9.999 even without a mask.

[henry quirk]

Gotta warn you, his yuck factor is runnin' at a nine these days.

Good lord! A nine? I better get the gas mask...

But it's a bell curve?

Daddy is 7 standard deviations to the right - he's an outlier. He's immune to yuck-factor 9.999 even without a mask.

mebbe so...

[FlashDangerpants]

Either that's a statement of Behaviourism, or it's just irrelevant. If you can't measure the phenomenon of the yucky of the coffee, but you cannot explain it away as non existent, you are merely quantifying the behaviour that you assume for the sake of argument at least tracks that yuck factor. You are still measuring a different thing. I don't give a fuck if that is "sufficient for scientific purposes", I am telling you a thing cannot be measured and you are trying to run a bait and switch on me.

I am not explaining it away as non-existent. I am outright acknowledging that you yuck-factor exists! You are just playing a dumb game of perspectivism.

Read back over your own words to which I was responding. I have never read such statements since I had to study behaviourism. Either way you are directly asserting that you can study the behaviour in place of the phenomenon and you are calling that an equivalent to direct study of said phenom. Unless you are commiting to that phenomenon being phantasmal in some manner, that makes no sense.

Obviously I can't measure your yuck-factor because I am not in your head.
But you can measure your yuck-factor because you are in your head.

Then what you are measuring is NOT the yucky of the coffee. You should stop saying that it is. You should not use phrass like "It is absolutely a measurable thing!" about stuff that you are openly admitting you cannot measure. Now you have granted it logical privacy, so there demonstrably no grounds for comparison. Therefore no objectivity. Subjective. Stop this silliness, just learn let the little losses go. You shouldbe trying to salvage whatever your main argument is, not defend a dumb side issue.

I am telling you that it can be measured and that it is being measured. YOU are measuring it.

I'd like to re-iterate - clearly subjective. This could be the working definition of subjective. It is not objective.

You can answer the question "Am I experiencing yuckyness when I drink sugary coffee?" in the affirmative or negative.

You have measured 1 bit of information.

So mean, I might get sad. Not really to the point though. I can think that sugary coffee is yucky, then I can change my mind, then I can change it back again. At no point has there been any source of information that I am wrong.

It's not about "right" or "wrong". Get your Philosophical head out of you Philosophical ass.

I would like to remind you of some stuff that occurred earlier in this thread...

The moral claim being made is thus: Murder and genocide are objectively wrong. I will not justify this claim nor define my terms. To the best of my knowledge, given all of the available evidence and the limits of my epistemology this claim is true, but it is a weakly held truth.

Instead, I will give you my falsification criterion. I will tell you what evidence I need to be convinced that the above claim is just my opinion, and it is not an objective truth. I will tell you how to prove me wrong.

So it is a question of right and wrong, as well correct and incorrect, substantiated and otherwise... and that is what you are trying to do, to show that something inherits truth via objectivity. This, presumably is the thing you still want to defend, or are you now persuaded on your original question?

This is not an area where there is sufficient objectivity from any source for there to be a right or wrong about whether sugary coffee is just blaaah.

If 100 cups of sugary coffee under a double-blind experiment FAIL to produce a "blaaaah" response in you, you can be pretty confident that whatever is causing the "blaaaah" response in your head - it's not the coffee!

Inversely, if the double-blind experiment agrees with your blaah-ness, then what's that for science! You have a blaaaah response to sugary coffee.

What more do you expect out of the process?

I expect nothing other than failure for the process I already explained was impossible. You have delivered. You place something else into the equation as a stand in for the thing you are pretending to measure, then you insist that you are measuring the thing you pretended to measure. Adding double blind methodology changes absolutely nothing. You are still failing to measure the thing I told you ages ago cannot be measured. So I am just going to tell you again, you cannot measure it, you can only substitute proxies and measure those. Quit telling me that is the same as measuring the actual thing.

[If morality is about semantic verbalism and definitions, then it's not the business of science.

It was never going to be the business of science. Science is not about ought, it is about is.

If morality is about measurement/behaviourism then it is the business of science.

An excellent way to demonstrate that morality is not about measurement or behaviourism. Good stuff.

Are you reducing morality to empty verbalism and semantics?

Not in my view, but your opinion that not being scientific makes it beneath you is something to which you are entitled.

Science can tell you that if you do MORE of X then less airplanes will crash. If you do LESS of X then more airplanes will crash.

You still get to decide whether your goal is to crash more or less airplanes.

Yes, that would be a moral issue and so science will not provide any answer. It would be profoundly unscientific to attempt otherwise.

[Skepdick]

Read back over your own words to which I was responding. I have never read such statements since I had to study behaviourism. Either way you are directly asserting that you can study the behaviour in place of the phenomenon and you are calling that an equivalent to direct study of said phenom. Unless you are commiting to that phenomenon being phantasmal in some manner, that makes no sense.

Arguing against your statistical ignorance is really tedious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_information

If your phenomenon of "yuckness" manifests as some measurable behaviour that is sufficient to infer correlation/inter-dependence.

Then what you are measuring is NOT the yucky of the coffee. You should stop saying that it is. You should not use phrass like "It is absolutely a measurable thing!" about stuff that you are openly admitting you cannot measure. Now you have granted it logical privacy, so there demonstrably no grounds for comparison. Therefore no objectivity. Subjective. Stop this silliness, just learn let the little losses go. You shouldbe trying to salvage whatever your main argument is, not defend a dumb side issue.

It's not a side issue. It's the frigging core of how ALL measurement works across ALL of science! if you don't understand or like this then I can't really help you correct your unrealistic expectations of what a measurement is and how evidence is quantified.

I have put the ruler/instrument in your hand - you are just tossing it on the floor, throwing a tantrum and refusing to use it.
You no more have to accept the bit as a measurement unit than you have to accept the meter, gram or volt as measurement units.

It is entirely up to you to reject it even though All scientists accept it.

Fight the establishment! Reject their axioms! Rebel!

I'd like to re-iterate - clearly subjective. This could be the working definition of subjective. It is not objective.

If you are claiming that the subjective/objective distinction is a distinction with a difference YOU ARE MEASURING 1 BIT OF INFORMATION.

So it is a question of right and wrong,

if you are claiming that the right/wrong distinction is a distinction with a difference YOU ARE MEASURING 1 BIT OF INFORMATION.

as well correct and incorrect

if you are claiming that the correct/incorrect distinction is a distinction with a difference YOU ARE MEASURING 1 BIT OF INFORMATION.

, substantiated and otherwise... and that is what you are trying to do, to show that something inherits truth via objectivity. This, presumably is the thing you still want to defend, or are you now persuaded on your original question?

In case it hasn't become clear to you yet - you can't persuade me with rhetoric. I can think for myself - your tendancy to try and "persuade" people makes you about as annoying as the average vacuum cleaner telemarketer.

What I need from you (in order to be persuaded) is not a counter-arguments. I need counter-evidence.

Do you know what evidence is? It's the same thing as information!

I expect nothing other than failure for the process I already explained was impossible. You have delivered.

By what objective measurement standard for success/failure?

You place something else into the equation as a stand in for the thing you are pretending to measure, then you insist that you are measuring the thing you pretended to measure.

One more time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_information

Adding double blind methodology changes absolutely nothing. You are still failing to measure the thing I told you ages ago cannot be measured.

One more time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_information

So I am just going to tell you again, you cannot measure it, you can only substitute proxies and measure those. Quit telling me that is the same as measuring the actual thing.

OK. I am going to tell you. It's the same thing as measuring the other thing (within a bound of statistical confidence - which goes without saying).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_information

It was never going to be the business of science. Science is not about ought, it is about is.

But I am not using science to arrive at an ought! I am using science in determine the ought that exists in people's heads!
I perform experiments to extract the information that I need (since I am well aware that self-reporting is unreliable).
That's why I keep pointing you at Revealed preference theory.

Human behaviour reveals human preference.

Having used science to determine a collectively shared goals, then we can further use science to optimise towards those shared goals.

An excellent way to demonstrate that morality is not about measurement or behaviourism. Good stuff.

Everything in this universe is about behaviourism, because the whole damn universe is a dynamic system.
So if you think morality is about "something else" then that's an excellent way to relegate morality to mysticism. Good stuff!

Not in my view, but your opinion that not being scientific makes it beneath you is something to which you are entitled.

Well, in so far as we have ascertained your view - it's mysticism. You can't really stoop any lower at this point.

Yes, that would be a moral issue and so science will not provide any answer. It would be profoundly unscientific to attempt otherwise.

It's profoundly scientific to use Revealed preference theory to determine that majority of people on Earth would behave in a way that reveals a preference towards survival and other favourable outcomes (as if that's not common sense). It's profoundly scientific to use Revealed preference theory to determine how people actually respond to trolley problems and how people actually make ought-choices.

It is profoundly scientific to use Monte Carlo simulations to determine which decisions get us closer to the desired OUGHT, and which decisions get us further away from the desired OUGHT.

This is your standard dutch book argument.

[FlashDangerpants]

So I am just going to tell you again, you cannot measure it, you can only substitute proxies and measure those. Quit telling me that is the same as measuring the actual thing.

OK. I am going to tell you. It's the same thing as measuring the other thing (within a bound of statistical confidence - which goes without saying).

You wouldn't need statistical confidence if you were actually measuring the thing.

Behaviourism is this by the way
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/

[Skepdick]

You wouldn't need statistical confidence if you were actually measuring the thing.

Like explaining the rainbow to the color-blind...

ALL "objective" measurements are inherently uncertain

You cannot escape the observer effect

Behaviourism is this by the way
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/

It's Philosophical lip service - it measures/predicts/informs nothing.

This is behaviourism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system
This is behaviourism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamical_systems_theory
This is behaviourism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_D ... ems_Theory
This is behaviourism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergodic_theory
This is behaviourism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modeling_and_simulation
This is behaviourism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_method
This is behaviourism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_analysis

It's about quantifying the behaviour of complex systems as they evolve over time. Without computers (read: time accelerators) you can't do the number-crunching in your tiny monkey-brain - it's way too complex.

What this produces is neither an "is" nor an "ought". It produces a "will be" (with all the statistical and model-theoretic fineprint)- clairvoyance about behavioural trends and the likelihood of future outcomes.

And moral philosophers on-board the Titanic (struggling to maintain job security) will still insist that there is a "real dilemma" at hand; a moral debate to be had on whether we ought to steer the ship towards or away from the iceberg. I can already hear the faux-sceptic's opening gambit: Who's to say it should be one way or the other in the absence of objective moral principles?

[FlashDangerpants]

Yawn to all of that. Let's just wrap this up.

In your zeal to do away with relativism you concocted a moral theory that dispenses with the archaic notions of things being right and wrong for reasons. Now stuff is right or wrong according to measurements of ehavioural responses that might take the form of an opinion survey, or a set of experiments conducted on prisoners or something. And then whatever is statistically preferred by the subjects is the right course of action.

Shall we call your thing "statistical relativism"? You should have a name for it.

[Skepdick]

In your zeal to do away with relativism you concocted a moral theory that dispenses with the archaic notions of things being right and wrong for reasons. Now stuff is right or wrong according to...

Strawman. Right/wrong is your vocabulary - that's a lame attempt to frame the argument.

There is no place for absolute notions such as "right" and "wrong" in a relativistic universe (such as ours).
There is only place for "better" and "worse" relative to some fixed point. Where is that fixed point?

Shall we call your thing "statistical relativism"? You should have a name for it.

I have name for it. Objective morality.

If you disagree, you are welcome to present your arguments/reasons for why steering the Titanic towards an iceberg is "better" than steering it away (As claimed by Relativist A - which is you); or why steering away from the iceberg is "worse" than steering towards it (which is claimed by Relativist B - which, by the way, is still you).

So I'll step aside while you two argue with yourself, but please start by elucidating how a relativist might even assert "betterness" and "worseness" in a relativistic framework. Relative to what fixed point?!?

[FlashDangerpants]

In your zeal to do away with relativism you concocted a moral theory that dispenses with the archaic notions of things being right and wrong for reasons. Now stuff is right or wrong according to...

Strawman. Right/wrong is your vocabulary - that's a lame attempt to frame the argument.

There is no place for absolute notions such as "right" and "wrong" in a relativistic universe (such as ours).
There is only place for superlatives: better and worse relative to some fixed point. Where is that fixed point?

And so you make no claim that in a choice between two available actions, it is "right" to do the "better" thing and "wrong" to do the "worse" thing?

Shall we call your thing "statistical relativism"? You should have a name for it.

I have name for it. Objective morality.

If you disagree, you are welcome to present your arguments/reasons for why steering the Titanic towards an iceberg is "better" than steering it away (As claimed by Relativist A - which is you); or why steering away from the iceberg is "worse" than steering towards it (which is claimed by Relativist B - which, by the way, is still you).

So I'll step aside while you two argue with yourself, but please start by elucidating how a relativist might even assert "betterness" and "worseness" in a relativistic framework. Relative to what fixed point?!?

But your own betterness and worseness are derived from objective preference data, yes?

[Skepdick]

And so you make no claim that in a choice between two available actions, it is "right" to do the "better" thing and "wrong" to do the "worse" thing?

I am saying, your ability to draw a distinction reveals the ontological existence of 1 bit of information. SOMEWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE (you are welcome to label this bit as "God", or "Conscience" or "Morality" - I don't really care).

If you are able to draw a distinction between "better" and "worse" that is a distinction with a difference. You are measuring.

But your own betterness and worseness are derived from objective preference data, yes?

It doesn't matter how they are derived. What matters is that if you are able to draw a distinction between "better" and "worse" then that is a distinction with a difference.

To a relativist better means the same thing as worse. The two words are a distinction without a difference.

The distinction between "distinction with a difference" and "distinction without a difference" is 1 bit of information, and I can recurse ad infinitum for every distinction you draw.

The concepts of "right" and "wrong" exist in your head.

If "right" and "wrong" is a distinction with a difference then 1 bit exists somewhere, which allows you to tell the difference.
if "right" and "wrong" is a distinction without a difference then you don't need the words. Stop using them.

No information - no measurement - no difference.

If you insist that the distinction between "morality" and "immorality" is a distinction with a difference, then there exists 1 bit of information which allows you to determine that difference.

If "morality" and "immorality" are distinctions without a difference - stop talking about it.

[FlashDangerpants]

You evaded. So the same questions again.

In your zeal to do away with relativism you concocted a moral theory that dispenses with the archaic notions of things being right and wrong for reasons. Now stuff is right or wrong according to...

Strawman. Right/wrong is your vocabulary - that's a lame attempt to frame the argument.

There is no place for absolute notions such as "right" and "wrong" in a relativistic universe (such as ours).
There is only place for superlatives: better and worse relative to some fixed point. Where is that fixed point?

And so you make no claim that in a choice between two available actions, it is "right" to do the "better" thing and "wrong" to do the "worse" thing?

Shall we call your thing "statistical relativism"? You should have a name for it.

I have name for it. Objective morality.

If you disagree, you are welcome to present your arguments/reasons for why steering the Titanic towards an iceberg is "better" than steering it away (As claimed by Relativist A - which is you); or why steering away from the iceberg is "worse" than steering towards it (which is claimed by Relativist B - which, by the way, is still you).

So I'll step aside while you two argue with yourself, but please start by elucidating how a relativist might even assert "betterness" and "worseness" in a relativistic framework. Relative to what fixed point?!?

But your own betterness and worseness are derived from objective preference data, yes?

[Skepdick]

You evaded. So the same questions again.

In your zeal to do away with relativism you concocted a moral theory that dispenses with the archaic notions of things being right and wrong for reasons. Now stuff is right or wrong according to...

Strawman. Right/wrong is your vocabulary - that's a lame attempt to frame the argument.

There is no place for absolute notions such as "right" and "wrong" in a relativistic universe (such as ours).
There is only place for superlatives: better and worse relative to some fixed point. Where is that fixed point?

And so you make no claim that in a choice between two available actions, it is "right" to do the "better" thing and "wrong" to do the "worse" thing?

Shall we call your thing "statistical relativism"? You should have a name for it.

I have name for it. Objective morality.

If you disagree, you are welcome to present your arguments/reasons for why steering the Titanic towards an iceberg is "better" than steering it away (As claimed by Relativist A - which is you); or why steering away from the iceberg is "worse" than steering towards it (which is claimed by Relativist B - which, by the way, is still you).

So I'll step aside while you two argue with yourself, but please start by elucidating how a relativist might even assert "betterness" and "worseness" in a relativistic framework. Relative to what fixed point?!?

But your own betterness and worseness are derived from objective preference data, yes?

What I am "evading" is your lame attempt at trying to force the objective/subjective vocabulary down my throat.
It is a silly framing tactic. Sillier even than asking loaded questions.

To adopt any vocabulary is to adopt the framework of the vocabulary and all the dogma and social stigma it brings with it.
I don't give a damn about realism, anti-realism, subjectivism, objectivism, moralism or any particular philosophical bias for that matter.

I don't even care about your language of "claims". I am not "claiming" anything - I am describing how scientists make decisions, under uncertainty, based on the available information/data.

If there can be such a thing as "Moral Philosophy" then there can also be such a thing as "Immoral Philosophy".

If devotees of "Moral Philosophy" arrive at the conclusion that genocide and murder are right, and devotees of "Immoral Philosophy" arrive at the conclusion that genocide and murder are wrong, which language game are you going to play then?

The language games don't fucking matter! What matters is that you are actually able to tell the difference!

What matters is that you are able to recognise (read: MEASURE) that "Moral Philosophy is immoral" and "Immoral Philosophy is moral".

What matters is that you are smart enough to understand that a "Moral Philosophy which preaches murder and genocide" is NOT actually a moral philosophy!

Because you (and most of humanity) have moral apparatuses whose functionality is objectively measurable.