'Ought' is 'Is'

[Skepdick]

You've had yor attention for today, but already you are back to writing ludicrous piles of hot garbage, fuck off.

Obviously you'd call it "garbage". You are constantly pretending that your normative claims are descriptive.

Almost as if the is-ought gap doesn't apply to you.

If Aquarium and Belinda want to use the fact word to mean something other than what everybody else means when they use it, this requires decalaration.

That's a convenient mis-direction away from the point.

Anything that you declare as a "requirement" is normative!

So, I am asking you again: who exempted you from the is-ought gap?

[Belinda]

Flashybreeks wrote:

If Aquarium and Belinda want to use the fact word to mean something other than what everybody else means when they use it, this requires decalaration.

Look to Wittgenstein for what 'facts' means. 'Facts' is analogous to a woven rope that does not include any one strand along all its length that can define the bit of rope.

What men know is invariably for the time being and dependent on social context. Get used to it.

If you want to bury your head in certainties go study mathematics and logic.

[FlashDangerpants]

Flashybreeks wrote:

If Aquarium and Belinda want to use the fact word to mean something other than what everybody else means when they use it, this requires decalaration.

Look to Wittgenstein for what 'facts' means. 'Facts' is analogous to a woven rope that does not include any one strand along all its length that can define the bit of rope.

What men know is invariably for the time being and dependent on social context. Get used to it.

If you want to bury your head in certainties go study mathematics and logic.

Look to Wittgenstein for what it means to misuse a concept. The common language concept of fact does not permit for mutually exclusive facts to exist. Thus, if you have a search for 'fact' grounded on opinions about what is important, the the question can only have meaning if the answer is no.

Get used to that.

[Veritas Aequitas]

(Yawn.)

What we call truth, facts and (therefore) objectivity are what we say they are - because how could they be otherwise? Words and other signs can mean only what we use them to mean. Only the metaphysically deluded think otherwise.

Any description - and so any truth-claim - is contextual and conventional. So the claim that truth is relative to a descriptive context is trivially true and inconsequential.

If what we call truth, facts and (therefore) objectivity are not what we say they are - the claim that there are moral facts (and therefore moral objectivity) is incoherent. We can choose not to value coherence and use logical rules. But we can't have it both ways.

The assertions 'the sky here today is blue' and 'abortion is morally wrong' don't have the same function. One makes a factual assertion, with a truth-value which, in context, is independent from opinion, about a feature of reality. The other doesn't, because it expresses a moral opinion and could not be falsified, because it has no truth-value.

You think you are a "god" on the knowledge of morality but you are actually on a fool's mission.

I have already countered your idea of what is fact in general and what is a moral fact, note,

• There are Moral Facts
  viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29777

It is very obvious 'the sky here today is blue' and 'abortion is morally wrong' don't have the same function because they are related to different Framework and System of Knowledge.

It is like the facts 'the sky here today is blue' [physical fact] and 'Trump is the 45th President of the USA' [political fact] are different and don't have the same function.

You are so ignorant and dumb in insisting in conflating facts from different FSK as exactly the same without any need for qualifications.

Moral facts exist as justified empirically and philosophical from within and conditioned upon a Moral Framework and System.

No, wrong again. 'The sky here today is blue' and 'Trump is the 45th POTUS' are factual assertions with truth-value, because they claim something about reality that may not be the case - and they can be verified or falsified. And for these reasons, they have the same function.

But 'abortion is morally wrong' isn't that kind of assertion. There's nothing in reality that can verify or falsify that assertion, which is precisely why people can rationally agree or disagree with it. Your FSK theory is irrelevant here, because you haven't demonstrated that morality constitutes a framework and system of knowledge in the first place. Just saying that it is gets you nowhere.

I am setting aside 'abortion is morally wrong' due to its complexity that need extensive arguments to arrive at a moral conclusion.

I have presented the moral fact of
'no human ought to kill another human'
as a justified true moral beliefs from a specific Moral Framework and System.
I have already done that a "1000" times over the various threads.

Generally why the above is rational and objective is inductively thus objectively,
as supported by the inductive fact,
No "normal" person would want to be killed voluntarily.
Start with asking yourself that question for a personal conviction.

Morality & Ethics is one of the major group of subject of Philosophy besides logic, metaphysics, epistemology.
Each has its own Framework and System of knowledge and its various sub-FSK.
Surely what is Morality and Ethics cannot be Science, economics, politics, anthropology and other specific FSK.
Therefore Morality and Ethics has its own FSK and sub-FSKs.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Flashybreeks wrote:

If Aquarium and Belinda want to use the fact word to mean something other than what everybody else means when they use it, this requires decalaration.

Look to Wittgenstein for what 'facts' means. 'Facts' is analogous to a woven rope that does not include any one strand along all its length that can define the bit of rope.

What men know is invariably for the time being and dependent on social context. Get used to it.

If you want to bury your head in certainties go study mathematics and logic.

The above is very wise philosophically.

The latter-Wittgenstein in his 'On Certainty' assert there is no certainty of truths [aka facts] without them being hinged on "door-hinges" or laid on "river-beds".
PantFlasher is stuck with the early-Wittgenstein focus on dogmatic linguistics.

The general understanding of 'what is fact' begin with this;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact
A fact is an occurrence in the real world.[1] The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability—that is whether it can be demonstrated to correspond to experience. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by experiments or other means.

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 both historical facts.

Generally speaking, facts are independent of belief.

What is bolded above are the specific Framework and System of Knowledge.
Water is H20 is a Chemistry and Scientific fact qualified to the Scientific Framework and System.

Therefrom moral facts are justified [imperative] from within specific Moral Framework and System, i.e. re my thread on;

There are Moral Facts
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29777

[Peter Holmes]

You think you are a "god" on the knowledge of morality but you are actually on a fool's mission.

I have already countered your idea of what is fact in general and what is a moral fact, note,

• There are Moral Facts
  viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29777

It is very obvious 'the sky here today is blue' and 'abortion is morally wrong' don't have the same function because they are related to different Framework and System of Knowledge.

It is like the facts 'the sky here today is blue' [physical fact] and 'Trump is the 45th President of the USA' [political fact] are different and don't have the same function.

You are so ignorant and dumb in insisting in conflating facts from different FSK as exactly the same without any need for qualifications.

Moral facts exist as justified empirically and philosophical from within and conditioned upon a Moral Framework and System.

No, wrong again. 'The sky here today is blue' and 'Trump is the 45th POTUS' are factual assertions with truth-value, because they claim something about reality that may not be the case - and they can be verified or falsified. And for these reasons, they have the same function.

But 'abortion is morally wrong' isn't that kind of assertion. There's nothing in reality that can verify or falsify that assertion, which is precisely why people can rationally agree or disagree with it. Your FSK theory is irrelevant here, because you haven't demonstrated that morality constitutes a framework and system of knowledge in the first place. Just saying that it is gets you nowhere.

I am setting aside 'abortion is morally wrong' due to its complexity that need extensive arguments to arrive at a moral conclusion.

I have presented the moral fact of
'no human ought to kill another human'
as a justified true moral beliefs from a specific Moral Framework and System.
I have already done that a "1000" times over the various threads.

Generally why the above is rational and objective is inductively thus objectively,
as supported by the inductive fact,
No "normal" person would want to be killed voluntarily.
Start with asking yourself that question for a personal conviction.

Morality & Ethics is one of the major group of subject of Philosophy besides logic, metaphysics, epistemology.
Each has its own Framework and System of knowledge and its various sub-FSK.
Surely what is Morality and Ethics cannot be Science, economics, politics, anthropology and other specific FSK.
Therefore Morality and Ethics has its own FSK and sub-FSKs.

1 Your appeal to induction (and, by implication, probabilism) is just more flummery. Until you demonstrate that a moral assertion, such as 'slavery is morally wrong', makes a factual claim with a truth-value, the argument that a moral conclusion is inductively likely to be true is incoherent. Wtf could the probability be that slavery is morally wrong? How the fuck could that be calculated? Bayesian analysis?

2 You seem to have a category misconception with branches of philosophy. Epistemology is theory of knowledge, which therefore covers beliefs and knowledge-claim of all kinds. Your claim that morality and ethics is a discipline alongside and co-equal with epistemology is just false.

3 'No human ought to kill another human' is NOT a moral fact, because it's not a fact of any kind. It expresses a moral judgement, belief or opinion. And for that reason it's rational to hold a different opinion, such as: 'Sometimes it's morally justifiable for a human to kill another human'. If these were factual assertions, they'd be contradictory - so both couldn't be true. It's because they're not factual - not true or false - that they're not logically contradictory.

[FlashDangerpants]

Flashybreeks wrote:

If Aquarium and Belinda want to use the fact word to mean something other than what everybody else means when they use it, this requires decalaration.

Look to Wittgenstein for what 'facts' means. 'Facts' is analogous to a woven rope that does not include any one strand along all its length that can define the bit of rope.

What men know is invariably for the time being and dependent on social context. Get used to it.

If you want to bury your head in certainties go study mathematics and logic.

The above is very wise philosophically.

The latter-Wittgenstein in his 'On Certainty' assert there is no certainty of truths [aka facts] without them being hinged on "door-hinges" or laid on "river-beds".
PantFlasher is stuck with the early-Wittgenstein focus on dogmatic linguistics.

You silly bastard, I responded to her post by invoking the Private Language Argument from the Philosophical Investigations.

As per Wittgenstein, there is a standard concept of a fact which is part of our shared language. It so happens that the standard concept does not allow for mutually exclusive facts, otherwise you get the absurd notion of "your facts, and my facts and all the other alternative facts". This is also compatible with Peter Holmes' point 3 above. It is you and Belinda who have the problem with the big W guy here.

[Belinda]

Flashybreeks wrote:

If Aquarium and Belinda want to use the fact word to mean something other than what everybody else means when they use it, this requires decalaration.

Look to Wittgenstein for what 'facts' means. 'Facts' is analogous to a woven rope that does not include any one strand along all its length that can define the bit of rope.

What men know is invariably for the time being and dependent on social context. Get used to it.

If you want to bury your head in certainties go study mathematics and logic.

Look to Wittgenstein for what it means to misuse a concept. The common language concept of fact does not permit for mutually exclusive facts to exist. Thus, if you have a search for 'fact' grounded on opinions about what is important, the the question can only have meaning if the answer is no.

Get used to that.

But many events are relative to other events.I understand certain electrochemical events are all or nothing . However social events including such as are mediated through language are relative.

For instance you may opine "This soup is thick", and thickness in soup relates to who thinks it is soup and who thinks it is stew.

E.g. "It is raining" and "it is not raining" relate to the perceived size of the prevalent water droplets, therefore it can be perceived to be raining and not raining at the same time.The detection instrument in ordinary social life would be subjective feelings acted upon by social norms.


If you want to know what 'fact' means in any given linguistic community you need to survey a large enough sample of utterances by people being sociable together. The meaning of the word is its use.

Besides everyday social usages that bind individuals into linguistic communities there are arbitrary and explicit usages. For instance there may be a legal definition of 'fact' for legal or policing
purposes. Or there may be professional usage of 'fact' by e.g. a surgeon whose expertise and reputation plus the remit of her job necessitates absolute decisions.

'Fact' may be regulated by specialist jargon. Or 'fact' may be unregulated except by local conventions.

Flashbreeks wrote:

As per Wittgenstein, there is a standard concept of a fact which is part of our shared language. It so happens that the standard concept does not allow for mutually exclusive facts, otherwise you get the absurd notion of "your facts, and my facts and all the other alternative facts". This is also compatible with Peter Holmes' point 3 above. It is you and Belinda who have the problem with the big W guy here.

Our shared language is often not explicit so that "It is raining" and "It is not raining" are not mutually exclusive but depend upon what people commonly say of the degree and texture of moistness. The standard concept that answers "What is a fact" can be got from a dictionary. I am not disputing that language communities are defined by bell curves where unusual usages are at the bottom

[FlashDangerpants]

Flashybreeks wrote:



Look to Wittgenstein for what 'facts' means. 'Facts' is analogous to a woven rope that does not include any one strand along all its length that can define the bit of rope.

What men know is invariably for the time being and dependent on social context. Get used to it.

If you want to bury your head in certainties go study mathematics and logic.

Look to Wittgenstein for what it means to misuse a concept. The common language concept of fact does not permit for mutually exclusive facts to exist. Thus, if you have a search for 'fact' grounded on opinions about what is important, the the question can only have meaning if the answer is no.

Get used to that.

But many events are relative to other events.I understand certain electrochemical events are all or nothing . However social events including such as are mediated through language are relative.

For instance you may opine "This soup is thick", and thickness in soup relates to who thinks it is soup and who thinks it is stew.

Indeed. And there are these guys called ISIS who think it is a moral fact that gay offends God and that homosexuals should be murdered for this reason. It i hard to see how this line of reasoning you are presenting is supposed to help with any plan to abolish moral relativism, which may not be your personal objective anyway, but certainly is for most of the other moral objectivists out there.

E.g. "It is raining" and "it is not raining" relate to the perceived size of the prevalent water droplets, therefore it can be perceived to be raining and not raining at the same time.The detection instrument in ordinary social life would be subjective feelings acted upon by social norms.

The fact claims are only mutually exclusive if one or more requires the other contenders to be untrue. If we set up the scenario in such a way that the question of whether it is True that it is raining is moot then that's great, there is no need for resolution. If we set up moral reasoning by that standard we find out that the question of whether stealing is wrong is moot though, and the same for slavery, it's just your view versus that of the slaver who claims to own you, and nobody has moral ascendancy. Is that the purpose of any of this?

If you want to know what 'fact' means in any given linguistic community you need to survey a large enough sample of utterances by people being sociable together. The meaning of the word is its use.

You seem to keep assuming I am a realist or an essentialist. I am not. I have been consistently describing concepts as Useful Rather Than True for years on this forum. What I am discussing here is not some ultra-facts that are unatainable. I am talking about the very concept of facts as used by every competent speaker of the English language. It doesn't cope with mutually exclusive facts and neither do our logical propositions. We mock presidents who talk of "alternative facts" for a very good reason.

Besides everyday social usages that bind individuals into linguistic communities there are arbitrary and explicit usages. For instance there may be a legal definition of 'fact' for legal or policing
purposes. Or there may be professional usage of 'fact' by e.g. a surgeon whose expertise and reputation plus the remit of her job necessitates absolute decisions.

'Fact' may be regulated by specialist jargon. Or 'fact' may be unregulated except by local conventions.

I already covedred this. If you are using some specialist definition of fact derived from some alternative reality logic where mutually exclusive facts are both true, that is fine. Just declare your special case and then we can wrap this up very quickly.

[Belinda]

Flash D wrote:

Indeed. And there are these guys called ISIS who think it is a moral fact that gay offends God and that homosexuals should be murdered for this reason. It i hard to see how this line of reasoning you are presenting is supposed to help with any plan to abolish moral relativism, which may not be your personal objective anyway, but certainly is for most of the other moral objectivists out there.

I believe ISIS is wrong. The decision ' ISIS is wrong' is common to everyone who shares my culture.
An evil ideology is partly characterised by extreme devotion to what is considered to be an absolute fact. That characteristic together with violence makes ISIS what it is, and the absence of these characteristics makes free communities what they are.

Some absolutist ideologies do no harm, such as most contemporary versions of Xianity, as long as they eschew violence.



FD

The fact claims are only mutually exclusive if one or more requires the other contenders to be untrue. If we set up the scenario in such a way that the question of whether it is True that it is raining is moot then that's great, there is no need for resolution. If we set up moral reasoning by that standard we find out that the question of whether stealing is wrong is moot though, and the same for slavery, it's just your view versus that of the slaver who claims to own you, and nobody has moral ascendancy. Is that the purpose of any of this?

This is similar to the issue of the evil of ISIS. Turning sentient beings into commodities is nowadays regarded as based on the fallacy that black Africans are not sentient beings. Cultural relativity goes wrong when it is allied to the Cartesian idea that souls are separate substances from bodies.

Some political interests do in fact judge that all property is theft. That idea is usually relatively diluted by the belief that property is theft only when it has been taken by violence, corruption, or subterfuge.


FD

You seem to keep assuming I am a realist or an essentialist. I am not. I have been consistently describing concepts as Useful Rather Than True for years on this forum. What I am discussing here is not some ultra-facts that are unatainable. I am talking about the very concept of facts as used by every competent speaker of the English language. It doesn't cope with mutually exclusive facts and neither do our logical propositions. We mock presidents who talk of "alternative facts" for a very good reason.

It is certainly hard for me to think of some 'facts' as relative matters. However in the name of scepticism (and so to he best truths) relativity has to be considered.


FD

If you are using some specialist definition of fact derived from some alternative reality logic where mutually exclusive facts are both true, that is fine. Just declare your special case and then we can wrap this up very quickly.

No alternative reality in this issue, for me. I base my idea on what people actually do when we are allowed to be free to talk and meet each other. Whether a 'fact' is to be regarded as absolutely or relatively true depends on the (usually implicit) purpose of the conversation. Basically, conversations may be sorted into two categories. The purpose of one category is generally social solidarity: the purpose of the other category is generally aimed at a pre-specified problem to be solved. The latter type of conversation needs the terms to be made explicit.

[Skepdick]

I have been consistently describing concepts as Useful Rather Than True for years on this forum. What I am discussing here is not some ultra-facts that are unatainable. I am talking about the very concept of facts as used by every competent speaker of the English language. It doesn't cope with mutually exclusive facts and neither do our logical propositions.

Such a banal point, why are you even wasting your time making it?

The very concept of "utility" is conceptually prior to the concept of "facts".

It follows a set of trivial questions: What do you need facts for and why?
And a trivial answer follows: I need facts in order to... <insert mission statement here>

Given coinciding goals (identical utility functions) there can be no such thing as mutually exclusive facts.
Either X gets you closer to achieving the goal (local or global maxima), or it doesn't.

Mutually exclusive outcomes are the problem. Facts are a red herring.

[FlashDangerpants]

Flash D wrote:

Indeed. And there are these guys called ISIS who think it is a moral fact that gay offends God and that homosexuals should be murdered for this reason. It i hard to see how this line of reasoning you are presenting is supposed to help with any plan to abolish moral relativism, which may not be your personal objective anyway, but certainly is for most of the other moral objectivists out there.

I believe ISIS is wrong. The decision ' ISIS is wrong' is common to everyone who shares my culture.
An evil ideology is partly characterised by extreme devotion to what is considered to be an absolute fact. That characteristic together with violence makes ISIS what it is, and the absence of these characteristics makes free communities what they are.

You are dropping into the language of believing not of knowing there. Suddenly morality is a matter of opinion again. Let's recap what got us started on this line of enquiry though...

Here is another ought which is a factual claim, and this ought is largely about owing to others rather than to self:

"One ought to be kind to others who are poor people, as the children of the poor need decent food."

By your own logic thus far, things become moral facts through some hazy mechanism, if they are founded upon moral assumptions. If you first assume that it is a moral requirement that we feed the poor, then it becomes a fact that we ought to to be kind to poor people so that they can feed their children.

If you do that, then other people can have whatever foundation they want for their moral facts though. ISIS uses scripture as their foundation, and Mannie uses a different scripture for his. It makes no difference, they have the same claim to fact that you have for your claim.

You have created a paradox for yourself through your failure to accept the bleeding obvious, completely tautologous truth, that mutually exclusive facts cannot both be true. You see, you have bound yourself to the outcome that if ISIS has moral facts and Belinda has moral facts, then ISIS and Belinda both have moral facts. But ISIS didn't sign up for relativism, their moral fact is that all contrarian facts are evil and false, including yours. So in this one-sided relativist love-fest, they win, you're wrong and they aren't. All because ISIS understands that mutually exclusive facts cannot coexist in that status.

[FlashDangerpants]

I have been consistently describing concepts as Useful Rather Than True for years on this forum. What I am discussing here is not some ultra-facts that are unatainable. I am talking about the very concept of facts as used by every competent speaker of the English language. It doesn't cope with mutually exclusive facts and neither do our logical propositions.

Such a banal point, why are you even wasting your time making it?

That might explain why needing to repeat it so often because all the people who think they are in a position to lecture me about basic reasoning evade it is proving irksome to me.

[Sculptor]

Flash D wrote:

Indeed. And there are these guys called ISIS who think it is a moral fact that gay offends God and that homosexuals should be murdered for this reason. It i hard to see how this line of reasoning you are presenting is supposed to help with any plan to abolish moral relativism, which may not be your personal objective anyway, but certainly is for most of the other moral objectivists out there.

I believe ISIS is wrong. The decision ' ISIS is wrong' is common to everyone who shares my culture.
An evil ideology is partly characterised by extreme devotion to what is considered to be an absolute fact. That characteristic together with violence makes ISIS what it is, and the absence of these characteristics makes free communities what they are.

You are dropping into the language of believing not of knowing there. Suddenly morality is a matter of opinion again. Let's recap what got us started on this line of enquiry though...

Here is another ought which is a factual claim, and this ought is largely about owing to others rather than to self:

"One ought to be kind to others who are poor people, as the children of the poor need decent food."

By your own logic thus far, things become moral facts through some hazy mechanism, if they are founded upon moral assumptions. If you first assume that it is a moral requirement that we feed the poor, then it becomes a fact that we ought to to be kind to poor people so that they can feed their children.

If you do that, then other people can have whatever foundation they want for their moral facts though. ISIS uses scripture as their foundation, and Mannie uses a different scripture for his. It makes no difference, they have the same claim to fact that you have for your claim.

You have created a paradox for yourself through your failure to accept the bleeding obvious, completely tautologous truth, that mutually exclusive facts cannot both be true. You see, you have bound yourself to the outcome that if ISIS has moral facts and Belinda has moral facts, then ISIS and Belinda both have moral facts. But ISIS didn't sign up for relativism, their moral fact is that all contrarian facts are evil and false, including yours. So in this one-sided relativist love-fest, they win, you're wrong and they aren't. All because ISIS understands that mutually exclusive facts cannot coexist in that status.

ISIS are continually making moral decisions to act towards the goals of their ideals.
It's a big shitty for people in the West on the shit end of that stick.

But you have to acknowledge that the 5 million dead Vietnamese that the US was responsible for during the Vietnam war was ALSO made through a series of moral choices by the US goverment and the the 58,000 US servicemen that were also killed.
WTF is the difference here?

[Skepdick]

That might explain why needing to repeat it so often because all the people who think they are in a position to lecture me about basic reasoning evade it is proving irksome to me.

You must be repeating it for yourself (having erroneously concluded that the problem lies elsewhere, but with you).

It's complex reasoning/higher order thinking where you trip over yourself.

First order logic says: Facts are a function of utility.

Higher order logic says: Facts about your utility function are a function of the utility function "describing my own utility function".