Is morality objective or subjective?

[Belinda]

Philosophy works neither cooperatively nor combatively but progressively as dialectic. A dialectic encounter may seem superficially combative even hostile, but in the longer term, and in the absence of bigotry, dialectics are how free cultures are dynamic and change as necessary alongside larger environmental changes; changes which include encounters with foreign ideas.

It's always a dialectic when it's not a monologue. The question of cooperation is simply a question of whether the interlocutors consciously choose to work towards consensus or not.

Philosophy strives for keeping the conversation going ad infinitum, which necessitates disagreement. Which is the opposite of consensus.

Like scientific search for falsification then?

The element of cooperation remains in the positive attitude towards disinteredness as pointer to reality.

[Skepdick]

Like scientific search for falsification then?

You can describe it that way, sure.

But I am explicitly describing the goals/incentives/strategies which influence the choices of the interlocutors. To use the nomenclature of Computer Science.

Angelic non-determinism is the execution of a non-deterministic program (read: dialectic/discourse/interaction) where all choices are made in favour of termination (read: consensus/conclusion/agreement)
Demonic non-determinism is the execution of a non-deterministic program (read: dialectic/discourse/interaction) where all choices are made in favour of non-termination (read: disagreement)

The element of cooperation remains in the positive attitude towards disinteredness as pointer to reality.

This is incoherent to me. There's no such thing as unmotivated reasoning. If you are "disinterested" then why are you pointing?

To point is to choose to point. It necessitates a "Why?" What's the point of pointing?

[Belinda]

Like scientific search for falsification then?

You can describe it that way, sure.

But I am explicitly describing the goals/incentives/strategies which influence the choices of the interlocutors. To use the nomenclature of Computer Science.

Angelic non-determinism is the execution of a non-deterministic program (read: dialectic/discourse/interaction) where all choices that are made in favour of termination.
Demonic non-determinism is the execution of a non-deterministic program (read: dialectic/discourse/interaction) where all choices are made in favour of non-termination.

The element of cooperation remains in the positive attitude towards disinteredness as pointer to reality.

This is incoherent to me. There's no such thing as unmotivated reasoning. If you are "disinterested" then why are you pointing?

To point is to choose to point. It necessitates a "Why?"

Disinterest is never 100% but is always (except for Jesus Christ, Buddha,etc) no more powerful than an aim of people who feel beneficent towards others.

Regarding angelic, and demonic, non-determinism. I am bewildered at your suggesting any computer programme is non-deterministic. Unless by 'non-determinism' you mean that there is no original axiom that applies throughout, so that the method , but not the original axiom or synthesis, is the defining thread that determines the programme . Like Dawkins's "Climbing Mount Improbable".

1. WHY do you want to describe reality "as it truly is"?
2. WHY do you believe "describing reality as it truly is" is an attainable (terminating) goal?

1.Curiosity.
2.God may be there. Truth goodness and beauty may be there. It is not attainable except maybe via beauty.

[Skepdick]

Disinterest is never 100% but is always (except for Jesus Christ, Buddha,etc) no more powerful than an aim of people who feel beneficent towards others.

It's easy to have the best intentions and produce the worst outcomes. If you don't understand WHY your interlocutor is in the game (what they are looking for) it's easy (and very tempting) to give them the advice you think they want to hear instead of the advice they actually need.

Regarding angelic, and demonic, non-determinism. I am bewildered at your suggesting any computer programme is non-deterministic.

There are, indeed, plenty such programs.

This bewilderment probably arises from the fact that most people conceptualise computer programs as imperatives - blind rule-following, but non-deterministic programs are more like "searching" than "blind rule following". You tell the computer what "it's looking for" and how to know when it has "found it" and you start the program. It's goal-driven behaviour. It's no surprise that the main operation/function in non-deterministic programming languages is called "choice".

Unless by 'non-determinism' you mean that there is no original axiom that applies throughout, so that the method , but not the original axiom or synthesis, is the defining thread that determines the programme . Like Dawkins's "Climbing Mount Improbable"

It sounds like what I mean. Hill-Climbing (as Dawking describes it) is one particular kind of optimisation algorithm for sure.

The metaphor Dawkins uses is what we call greedy algorithm. You get to the "top of the mountain" and you see that there's an even higher mountain in the distance, and you climb that one and you see a new one. Each mountain-top is a local maxima. The only way to end up at the global maxima is by luck.

Quantum Physics is helping us navigate around these kinds of problems by searching for global maximas in parallel. Think: send somebody to climb every hill all at once, then come back and report what you found.

[Skepdick]

1. WHY do you want to describe reality "as it truly is"?
2. WHY do you believe "describing reality as it truly is" is an attainable (terminating) goal?

1.Curiosity.
2.God may be there. Truth goodness and beauty may be there. It is not attainable except maybe via beauty.

The paradox emerges in the non-terminating nature of the pursuit.

Your life terminates, your search with it.

[Belinda]

1. WHY do you want to describe reality "as it truly is"?
2. WHY do you believe "describing reality as it truly is" is an attainable (terminating) goal?

1.Curiosity.
2.God may be there. Truth goodness and beauty may be there. It is not attainable except maybe via beauty.

The paradox emerges in the non-terminating nature of the pursuit.

Your life terminates, your search with it.

Yes, and that is why it is immoral to deny the best of education to every man woman and child.

[Skepdick]

Yes, and that is why it is immoral to deny the best of education to every man woman and child.

Education happens one way or another, but encouraging the non-termination of pursuit is as immoral as it gets in my books.

Perhaps it is education to learn to disengage/terminate the search.

Or perhaps you terminate the search when you find what you are looking for.

[Belinda]

Disinterest is never 100% but is always (except for Jesus Christ, Buddha,etc) no more powerful than an aim of people who feel beneficent towards others.

It's easy to have the best intentions and produce the worst outcomes. If you don't understand WHY your interlocutor is in the game (what they are looking for) it's easy (and very tempting) to give them the advice you think they want to hear instead of the advice they actually need.

Regarding angelic, and demonic, non-determinism. I am bewildered at your suggesting any computer programme is non-deterministic.

There are, indeed, plenty such programs.

This bewilderment probably arises from the fact that most people conceptualise computer programs as imperatives - blind rule-following, but non-deterministic programs are more like "searching" than "blind rule following". You tell the computer what "it's looking for" and how to know when it has "found it" and you start the program. It's goal-driven behaviour. It's no surprise that the main operation/function in non-deterministic programming languages is called "choice".

Unless by 'non-determinism' you mean that there is no original axiom that applies throughout, so that the method , but not the original axiom or synthesis, is the defining thread that determines the programme . Like Dawkins's "Climbing Mount Improbable"

It sounds like what I mean. Hill-Climbing (as Dawking describes it) is one particular kind of optimisation algorithm for sure.

The metaphor Dawkins uses is what we call greedy algorithm. You get to the "top of the mountain" and you see that there's an even higher mountain in the distance, and you climb that one and you see a new one. Each mountain-top is a local maxima. The only way to end up at the global maxima is by luck.

Quantum Physics is helping us navigate around these kinds of problems by searching for global maximas in parallel. Think: send somebody to climb every hill all at once, then come back and report what you found.

Your language is so neutral in tone! This, to me, is mind- alteringly worthy of poetry.

[Belinda]

On a huge hill,
Cragged and steep, Truth stands, and he that will
Reach her, about must and about must go,
And what the hill's suddenness resists, win so.
Yet strive so that before age, death's twilight,
Thy soul rest, for none can work in that night.
To will implies delay, therefore now do;
Hard deeds, the body's pains; hard knowledge too
The mind's endeavours reach, and mysteries
Are like the sun, dazzling, yet plain to all eyes.

Donne .Satire 111

[Skepdick]

Your language is so neutral in tone! This, to me, is mind- alteringly worthy of poetry.

I am a scientist, after all. I must remain objective

If neutral tone could be poetic, then poetry is more than just emotion...

[Terrapin Station]

then all normal people will act from the same based of ought/should thus will not feel differently.
Only the abnormal [psychiatric cases] will feel differently.

There's nothing normative about statistical normalcy. You keep assuming that there is.

We don't equate statistic normalcy with normative directly.

Note the meaning of 'normative'

Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good or desirable or permissible and others as bad or undesirable or impermissible. A norm in this normative sense means a standard for evaluating or making judgments about behavior or outcomes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative

In this case, we have to verify and justify whatever has statistic normalcy qualify to be a normative as defined above.

I want to just focus on this for a moment, because I think this is at the heart of the disagreement here.

If Joe Smith says, "One ought to not supply alcohol to minors," that doesn't imply that one ought to not supply alcohol to minors.

If Joe Smith, Alice Jones and Frank Jackson say, "One ought to not supply alcohol to minors," that doesn't imply that one ought to not supply alcohol to minors.

If we have a society consisting of, say, 100 million people, and there's a group 10,000 strong that says, "One ought to not supply alcohol to minors," that doesn't imply that one ought to not supply alcohol to minors.

And in that society, if 99,999,998 people say "One ought to not supply alcohol to minors," that doesn't imply that one ought to not supply alcohol to minors.

No matter how many people we're talking about, no matter what percentage of a society we're talking about, the fact that they say one ought to not do something doesn't imply that one ought to not do that thing.

Now, we could say with the last example that the society in question has an evaluative standard, where they're going to judge people negatively (and where they're probably going to have laws in line with this) if they supply alcohol to minors, but this doesn't make it a fact, and it doesn't make it true, that (at least in that society) one ought to not supply alcohol to minors.

[Terrapin Station]

Moral oughts are not about thinking.

Moral oughts only obtain via thinking. They occur nowhere else.

This isn't to say that for a particular person, their moral oughts do not in some way depend at least partially upon their DNA, but they don't obtain in their DNA. They only obtain via their brain functioning in a manner that amounts to a conscious thought a la "x ought to do y."

[Skepdick]

If we have a society consisting of, say, 100 million people, and there's a group 10,000 strong that says, "One ought to not supply alcohol to minors," that doesn't imply that one ought to not supply alcohol to minors.

And in that society, if 99,999,998 people say "One ought to not supply alcohol to minors," that doesn't imply that one ought to not supply alcohol to minors.

No matter how many people we're talking about, no matter what percentage of a society we're talking about, the fact that they say one ought to not do something doesn't imply that one ought to not do that thing.

Well duuuuh! When you conceptualise what people say as non-causal states of mind then nothing we say/think ever implies anything.

[Skepdick]

Moral oughts only obtain via thinking. They occur no where else.

If that's the only place where oughts obtain then they are worthless.

There can be no difference anywhere that doesn't make a difference elsewhere - no difference in abstract truth that doesn't express itself in a difference in concrete fact and in conduct consequent upon that fact, imposed on somebody, somehow, somewhere and somewhen. --William James

[Terrapin Station]

Philosophy works neither cooperatively nor combatively but progressively as dialectic. A dialectic encounter may seem superficially combative even hostile, but in the longer term, and in the absence of bigotry, dialectics are how free cultures are dynamic and change as necessary alongside larger environmental changes; changes which include encounters with foreign ideas.

It's always a dialectic when it's not a monologue. The question of cooperation is simply a question of whether the interlocutors consciously choose to work towards consensus or not.

Philosophy strives for keeping the conversation going ad infinitum, which necessitates disagreement. Which is the opposite of consensus.

Yeah, the goal isn't really consensus. The goal is being able to understand other arguments, other points of view, being able to challenge various things in those other points of view if they could use challenging, being able to successfully meet challenges to a point of view if possible (which can include modifications of a point of view), further challenging, further meeting challenges as required, and being able to continue to understand other points of view as they meet challenges and undergo modifications.

Understanding a point of view is ultimately tested via being able to successfully paraphrase the point of view in a manner that the person espousing that point of view would agree is a more or less accurate representation of what they're saying.

There's no expectation that everyone is going to agree on anything, and it's not seen as a failure if they do not. This is due to philosophy's focus on its methodology, where that's seen as a big part of what philosophy is all about--the method is at least if not more important than any conclusions, and where a big part of that methodology is about trying to root out and address various assumptions that are made, where the assumptions can be difficult to identify because they're so second nature to us.