What could make morality objective?

[Immanuel Can]

Nonsense. If there were no god and no creation, the factual assertion 'there is no god and no creation' would be true. And the claim 'a god created everything, so there are true factual assertions' is incoherent.

I did not say that. You did not read that.

So do you reckon differently? Do you reckon as if the world were a self-explaining accident of some kind? It's hard to see how "truth" could be a property of an accident, since accidents are -- well -- accidental. And there is no truth...only subjective impressions, then. And being thus totally subjective, none is intrinsically or objectively better than any other.

What are you on about?

The OP.

Whether the world was an accident or a creation has nothing to do with the nature and function of factual assertions.

Certainly it does. It makes all the difference to the question, "Can moral assertions be factual?" They cannot, as per subjectivism. If God exists, moral objectivism is true, and they can.

No kind of assertion can have a factual function if there are no facts. Such can, at best, have the function of creating a false sense of factuality. No more.

Your claim that, if there are no moral facts, then there can be no rational basis for moral judgement, is plainly and patently false.

That shouldn't be hard to show, then. Go ahead. Give me rational grounds for moral judgment, under subjectivism, and you'll have refuted me.

[Peter Holmes]

Nonsense. If there were no god and no creation, the factual assertion 'there is no god and no creation' would be true. And the claim 'a god created everything, so there are true factual assertions' is incoherent.

I did not say that. You did not read that.

So do you reckon differently? Do you reckon as if the world were a self-explaining accident of some kind? It's hard to see how "truth" could be a property of an accident, since accidents are -- well -- accidental. And there is no truth...only subjective impressions, then. And being thus totally subjective, none is intrinsically or objectively better than any other.

What are you on about?

The OP.

Whether the world was an accident or a creation has nothing to do with the nature and function of factual assertions.

Certainly it does. It makes all the difference to the question, "Can moral assertions be factual?" They cannot, as per subjectivism. If God exists, moral objectivism is true, and they can.

No kind of assertion can have a factual function if there are no facts. Such can, at best, have the function of creating a false sense of factuality. No more.

Your claim that, if there are no moral facts, then there can be no rational basis for moral judgement, is plainly and patently false.

That shouldn't be hard to show, then. Go ahead. Give me rational grounds for moral judgment, under subjectivism, and you'll have refuted me.

Nope. I've just pointed out that the rationality or otherwise of moral subjectivism has no relevance in this discussion about moral objectivity. And you dishonestly delete that part of my comment.

You claim morality is objective, so yours is the burden of proof. Stop deflecting. It's embarrassing. Produce a moral fact.

[Sculptor]

There there a single objective moral statement that is possible to make?

[Immanuel Can]

I've just pointed out that the rationality or otherwise of moral subjectivism has no relevance in this discussion about moral objectivity.

"Pointing out" in error doesn't count. And I explained why you were wrong.

Produce a moral fact.

Happily. Once you answer my question about God.

[RCSaunders]

And: you forgot prickly.

Yes! Yes I did, and tardy too.

[Dubious]

...a minds in the habit of creating absolutes as if they were fact. Aside from that, NOTHING.

[henry quirk]

And: you forgot prickly.

Yes! Yes I did, and tardy too.

One man's tardy is another's right on time.

Anyway...

I've completed my opus, am profoundly disappointed with it (it reads like all the long-winded philo-essays in this place [it's boring]). I think I'll let it sit in my drafts folder overnight & review it in the morning with a fresh eye (and a less inflamed sciatic nerve). If I like it, I'll post it; if I don't I'll toss it in the round file cabinet and post sumthin' short, pithy, and raw.

By Crom, I will add one more thread to this place (cuz I promised you all raw meat, and raw meat you'll have, you hyenas).

[Peter Holmes]

I've just pointed out that the rationality or otherwise of moral subjectivism has no relevance in this discussion about moral objectivity.

"Pointing out" in error doesn't count. And I explained why you were wrong.

Produce a moral fact.

Happily. Once you answer my question about God.

What was your question about your god? I must have missed it.

And whether moral subjectivism is rational has no bearing on the claim that morality is objective - that there are moral facts.

'If moral subjectivism is irrational, then morality is objective'. This is nonsense. There's no connection.

Produce a moral fact - a moral feature of reality, or an assertion describing a moral feature of reality.

Or if you can't - and of course you can't - consider changing your mind. Join the many theists who are happily moral subjectivists.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Objective scientific theories are grounded on subjectivism, i.e. the scientists as subjects has the final say based on their intersubjective consensus and peer review.

You're mistaking the idea that scientists are "subjects" for the idea that reality is "subjective." Those are not the same claim.

Human knowledge is inevitably only probabilistic in nature -- and that includes inductive and abductive knowing, upon which all science depends. But science does not refer to subjective realities. That is, it is not the case that there is nothing "out there," independent of the subject, that science is attempting to approximate.

And you can tell that's true, because that external reality does not behave slavishly in step with our subjective impressions, but rather "pushes back" and defeats many of those expectations. And that's precisely why we need the scientific method...because mere subjectivity simply isn't right much of the time.

If you think that's not right, then consider the person on LSD, who firmly believes she can fly by jumping from a rooftop. Subjectively, she's 100% in the game...but you and I both have a pretty good probabilistic idea of what's going to happen to her.

The person who is on LSD is related to individual personal subjectivity.

Do you understand meta-subjectivity, i.e. intersubjectivity among philosophical-subjects.

It is undeniable scientists like any other human beings are 'subjects' in the philosophical sense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_(philosophy)
A subject is a being who has a unique consciousness and/or unique personal experiences, or an entity that has a relationship with another entity that exists outside itself (called an "object").

Note this meta-subjectivity;

• Scientists as subjects {scientific method = scientific objective knowledge of an assumed external reality}

Whatever the scientific objective knowledge, the grounding of them are scientists as philosophical-subjects.
Therefore all scientific objective knowledge are ultimately meta-subjective, i.e. intersubjectivity.

Note, there is no absolute argument for an absolute external reality independent of the human conditions. This claim of absolute independent external reality by Philosophical Realism is not realistic and tenable and it is opposed soundly by Philosophical anti-Realism.
Note the intersubjectivity of scientific objective knowledge within Einstein's Observer's Effect and QM's subject-induced Wave/Particle element.

Thus my point stands;
"Objective scientific theories are grounded on subjectivism, i.e. the scientists as philosophical-subjects has the final say based on their intersubjective consensus and peer review."

[Skepdick]

'If moral subjectivism is irrational, then morality is objective'. This is nonsense. There's no connection.

The connection is trivial

If morality is subjective then you have no grounds whatsoever on using "irrationality" as a pejorative. You have no grounds whatsoever on Insisting that being rational is "better" than being irrational.

Rationality may be different to irrationality, but they are morally equivalent. One is as good (or as bad) as the other.

Or if you can't - and of course you can't - consider changing your mind. Join the many theists who are happily moral subjectivists.

If moral subjectivism is morally equivalent to moral objectivism, why should I change my mind ? Why should anyone?

Murder is morally equivalent to non-murder.
Slavery is morally equivalent to non-slavery.

If it's all the same why change anything?

[RCSaunders]

"Objective scientific theories are grounded on subjectivism, i.e. the scientists as philosophical-subjects has the final say based on their intersubjective consensus and peer review."

A lot of Japanese philosophers were saying that same thing in Hiroshima--the day before. The intersubjective consensus was, it couldn't happen and all the peer reviewed papers said so.

[Sculptor]

There there a single objective moral statement that is possible to make?

Let's have an example!

[Immanuel Can]

Produce a moral fact.

Happily. Once you answer my question about God.

What was your question about your god? I must have missed it.

It's whether we're going to dismiss God from consideration when we answer the question, how can morality be objective?

After all, if we do that, certain logical conclusions will follow. If we do not, others will. But the determinant in both cases will be our presupposition about what is possible.

[Peter Holmes]

Happily. Once you answer my question about God.

What was your question about your god? I must have missed it.

It's whether we're going to dismiss God from consideration when we answer the question, how can morality be objective?

After all, if we do that, certain logical conclusions will follow. If we do not, others will. But the determinant in both cases will be our presupposition about what is possible.

The point of objectivity is that we dismiss the opinions of agents (their judgements and beliefs) in assessing the truth-value of factual assertions - as you know perfectly well. So if a factual assertion such as 'water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen' is true, who produces it and who believes it's true are irrelevant. And if it's true, that a god thinks it is or isn't true - and the very existence of the god or any other agent - are irrelevant.

In other words, what we call truth - which is a function of some factual assertions - has to do with descriptions of reality, and nothing to do with who produces or endorses those descriptions. Truth isn't a matter of opinion, so it isn't a matter of a god's opinion.

Now, to repeat, produce a moral assertion that makes a factual claim, with the truth-value of 'true', about reality - as does any true factual assertion - that would be false if reality were different - as would be any factual assertion.

Or, instead, carry on dishonestly deflecting attention from your inability to do so - dishonestly and amazingly shamelessly.

[Immanuel Can]

What was your question about your god? I must have missed it.

It's whether we're going to dismiss God from consideration when we answer the question, how can morality be objective?

After all, if we do that, certain logical conclusions will follow. If we do not, others will. But the determinant in both cases will be our presupposition about what is possible.

The point of objectivity is that we dismiss the opinions of agents (their judgements and beliefs) in assessing the truth-value of factual assertions

No, "objectivity" only means dismissing the opinions of "agents" that can potentially be incomplete and incorrect, because they are bound to be mere opinions, not statements of certain truth. It does not include gratuitously dismissing the truth. That would be foolish, obviously.

That's the fundamental mistake: you're treating God as a mere concept, or as only "an agent," and thus thinking He's "subjective" in his assessments, like human beings are. But his "assessments" are not after-the-fact evaluations, as are the "assessments" of humans; rather, they are revelations of why God Himself constituted what we know as reality in the first place. As such, there is nothing more "true" than what God reveals about the constitution of reality.

Thus, when God, say, forbids incest, he's not responding to some pre-existing feature of the situation, or to some set of facts that pre-exist the ban. He's not "discovering" that two consanguineous people should probably not be together because it won't work out well, or because of some mere preference for certain relations over others. He's revealing, "This is the nature of what it genuinely means to be consanguineous." And the reasons for banning incest are not the consequentialist outcomes of the incest itself, bad as those might be; rather, incest is a violation of the God-created relationship between two particular human beings. As such, it's universally and objectively wrong -- and no excuses of an ex-post-facto sort can ever make it right.

Subjectivity cannot change that.

So there's your example, just as you asked.