Is morality objective or subjective?

[Peter Holmes]

Here's another way to understand why morality isn't and can't be objective - why there are no moral facts. Look at this argument:

We believe X is morally wrong; therefore X is morally wrong.

I hope no one thinks the conclusion follows from the premise - that the premise entails the conclusion. And notice that substituting 'I', 'some of us', 'many of us' or 'all of us' for 'We' in the premise makes no difference to the lack of entailment. It could always be that X is not morally wrong.

Now insert more information into the premise, as follows:

We believe X is morally wrong, because ... ; therefore X is morally wrong.

Now, what comes after 'because' can be anything at all: life begins at fertilisation, the murder rate is falling, a person own herself, humans are programmed not to do X, a god disapproves of X - and so on.

The point is, whatever reason(s) we have for believing X is morally wrong, it still doesn't follow that X is morally wrong. It could still always be that X is not morally wrong. Nothing does or can entail the moral conclusion except the main clause in the premise: we believe X is morally wrong - which, of course, makes the argument vacuous.

And if we delete the main clause - we believe X is morally wrong - we're left with numerous possible 'reasons' - countless possible facts - in a subordinate clause, with nothing for them to be reasons for anyway.

And that's the really hard thing for moral objectivists to grasp. Whatever reason we have to believe X is morally wrong, it could always be that X is not morally wrong, for some other reason. So 'X is morally wrong' can never be a fact. So there are no moral facts, and morality isn't and can't be objective.

As I had always maintained, your 'what is fact' is a traceable to the bastardized philosophy of the logical positivist.

Note again [the "thousand" times], the generally acceptable meaning of 'what is fact'.

Its ideological, you have been brainwashed to be ignorant and dogmatic, there are no moral facts from a rigid perspective.

Note the shift to this paradigm of 'what is a fact';

A fact is an occurrence in the real world.[1]
For example, "This sentence contains words." is a linguistic fact, and
"The sun is a star." is an astronomical fact.
Further, "Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States." and "Abraham Lincoln was assassinated." are also both facts, of history.
Generally speaking, facts are independent of belief.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact

In line with the above, why can't we have moral facts???

• All FSK produce their respective facts.
  Morality has its own FSK
  Therefore the Morality FSK has its respective moral facts.

• Justified Scientific facts from its FSK has the highest standard of credibility at present.
  The Morality FSK has similar features of the Scientific FSK
  Therefore the justified moral facts from its FSK are expected to have a high degree of credibility.

I had claimed justified true moral facts [JTB-m] must be justified empirically and philosophically.

So, 'A fact is an occurrence in the real world' and is, generally speaking, 'independent of belief'.

This is obviously too narrow, because a fact can also be a state-of-affairs, which can only indirectly be called an occurrence. But otherwise, I accept and have always used this definition of a fact. However, we also use the word fact to mean 'a description of a state-of-affairs', which is why we think of facts as things that are true. And only factual assertions are true or false; a state-of-affairs can be neither. Reality is not linguistic.

Moral objectivists have yet to provide an example of a moral fact - a moral occurrence or state-of affairs in the real world that's independent of belief, or a description of such an occurrence or state-of-affairs that has the truth-value 'true'.

And that's because the very idea of a moral occurrence or state-of-affairs is incoherent. There are only occurrences and states-of-affairs about which we can make moral judgements. Objectivists then mistake those moral judgements for facts - but they can produce no evidence 'in the real world' to justify that claim.

Moral wrongness isn't a property of slavery 'independent of belief'. Nor is it a property of abortion, capital punishment, eating animals, and so on. That's why there are opposed and yet rational beliefs about the morality of such things as abortion, capital punishment, eating animals, and so on.

The stupidity of moral objectivism beggars belief.

[Skepdick]

My willingness to not be murdered is not a fact.

[henry quirk]

My willingness to not be murdered is not a fact.

I don't wanna be murdered: a cleaner, more direct, construct

so: you, pete: your not wantin' to get off'd, is not a fact

there's nuthin' factual, real, or true when Pete sez I don't wanna be murdered

when Pete, a bit of self-motivatin' matter and electricity, takes a position on his continued existence: that position, that codification of his will & intent, is not real

you've declared your thinkin', your reasonin', to be fictions, illusions, trifles, nuthin' to be concerned about (so I won't be)


pete sez: The stupidity of moral objectivism beggars belief.

just another trifle: meh

[Skepdick]

My willingness to not be murdered is not a fact.

I don't wanna be murdered: a cleaner, more direct, construct

so: you, pete: your not wantin' to get off'd, is not a fact

there's nuthin' factual, real, or true when Pete sez I don't wanna be murdered

when Pete, a bit of self-motivatin' matter, takes a position on his continued existence: that position, that codification of his will & intent, is not real

you've declared your thinkin', your reasonin', to be fictions, illusions, trifles, nuthin' to be concerned about (so I won't be)


pete sez: The stupidity of moral objectivism beggars belief.

just another trifle: meh

Pete is just confused. The rules of philosophy don't allow him to say what he really thinks.

So he says dumb shit to appease the rules.

[henry quirk]

I don't wanna be murdered: a cleaner, more direct, construct

so: you, pete: your not wantin' to get off'd, is not a fact

there's nuthin' factual, real, or true when Pete sez I don't wanna be murdered

when Pete, a bit of self-motivatin' matter, takes a position on his continued existence: that position, that codification of his will & intent, is not real

you've declared your thinkin', your reasonin', to be fictions, illusions, trifles, nuthin' to be concerned about (so I won't be)


pete sez: The stupidity of moral objectivism beggars belief.

just another trifle: meh

Pete is just confused. The rules of philosophy don't allow him to say what he really believes.

So he says dumb shit.

agreed

[henry quirk]

We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation — anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature.’

‘But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. What about Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet.’

‘Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if we did not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. Oceania is the world.’

‘But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited.’

‘Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.’

‘But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals — mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever heard of.’

‘Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-century biologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man, if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is nothing.’

‘But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.’

‘What are the stars?’ said O’Brien indifferently. ‘They are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it.’

Winston made another convulsive movement. This time he did not say anything. O’Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection:

‘For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometres away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?’

-----

we know what happens to winston

be stronger than him: don't kneel

[Peter Holmes]

I don't wanna be murdered: a cleaner, more direct, construct

so: you, pete: your not wantin' to get off'd, is not a fact

there's nuthin' factual, real, or true when Pete sez I don't wanna be murdered

when Pete, a bit of self-motivatin' matter, takes a position on his continued existence: that position, that codification of his will & intent, is not real

you've declared your thinkin', your reasonin', to be fictions, illusions, trifles, nuthin' to be concerned about (so I won't be)


pete sez: The stupidity of moral objectivism beggars belief.

just another trifle: meh

Pete is just confused. The rules of philosophy don't allow him to say what he really believes.

So he says dumb shit.

agreed

The fact that we have values doesn't mean those values are facts. What sort of idiot would think that? Ah - a moral objectivist.

[Skepdick]

The fact that we have values doesn't mean those values are facts. What sort of idiot would think that? Ah - a moral objectivist.

What sort of idiot would deny the existence of their own values? Ah - Peter Holmes.

[henry quirk]

Pete is just confused. The rules of philosophy don't allow him to say what he really believes.

So he says dumb shit.

agreed

The fact that we have values doesn't mean those values are facts. What sort of idiot would think that? Ah - a moral objectivist.

what? I whispers on the wind...perhaps the rustlin' of leaves...trifles

[Peter Holmes]

agreed

The fact that we have values doesn't mean those values are facts. What sort of idiot would think that? Ah - a moral objectivist.

what? I whispers on the wind...perhaps the rustlin' of leaves...trifles

Funny. I just hear wafwottery.

[Skepdick]

Funny. I just hear wafwottery.

How could you possibly hear anything? The stuff in your head doesn't exist.

[henry quirk]

The fact that we have values doesn't mean those values are facts. What sort of idiot would think that? Ah - a moral objectivist.

what? I whispers on the wind...perhaps the rustlin' of leaves...trifles

Funny. I just hear wafwottery.

damn crickets

[henry quirk]

Funny. I just hear wafwottery.

How could you possibly hear anything? The stuff in your head doesn't exist.

hollow

an echo chamber

[Peter Holmes]

Funny. I just hear wafwottery.

How could you possibly hear anything? The stuff in your head doesn't exist.

hollow

an echo chamber

My head contains my brain, and both exist. But my brain doesn't contain abstract things. What sort of idiot would think it does, or that abstract things exist somewhere, somehow? Ah - a deluded metaphysician, furkling down a rabbit hole.

[Skepdick]

My head contains my brain, and both exist. But my brain doesn't contain abstract things. What sort of idiot would think it does, or that abstract things exist somewhere, somehow? Ah - a deluded metaphysician, furkling down a rabbit hole.

Your brain doesn't contain any ideas?

It shows.