Is morality objective or subjective?

[Skepdick]

So in your typical interaction with people offline, do you regularly judge if they're asking questions "they don't need to be asking" and then telling them this if you feel that the question is unnecessary?

In my typical interaction with people offline I would follow up with "The answer I was going to furnish would've seemed rather uninformative. Can you give me some broader context on why you are asking?"

Do you want me to butter you up?

[Veritas Aequitas]

Yes, it is a fact she was thinking,

So in what way are community, community verification, etc., or consensus necessary for it to be a fact that someone has whatever personal opinions, beliefs, or feelings that they do?

I wrote somewhere using Einstein as a example.

• 1. It is likely Einstein had an opinion, hunch, intuition of his General Theory of Relativity abducted from various sources. This would be his personal opinion thus very personal and highly subjective.
  
  2. Thereafter Einstein would have set about proving his own hypothesis which he did. But that can only be a personal belief with high conviction.
  
  3. Accordingly to the protocols of the scientific FSK, Einstein would have distributed his proof to his community of fellow physicists for them to test his theories, critique and peer review.
  
  4. Enter Arthur Stanley Eddington. An astronomer interested in Einstein’s theory because of its wide-ranging implications for astrophysics and cosmology, Eddington took on the task of proving it. By harnessing a total solar eclipse, he argued that the deflection, or bending, of light by the Sun’s gravity could be measured. This was a critical test, because Einstein’s theory predicted a deflection precisely twice the value obtained using Isaac Newton’s law of universal gravitation. The needed eclipse came 100 years ago, in 1919.
  https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01172-z
  
  5. Eddington testing was successful and confirmed Einstein's Theory.

So the above is the process for the respective scientific community to accept with consensus the verified and justified theory as an objective scientific fact knowledge or truth which is then independent of individual-Einstein's view and other individuals' views.

Einstein General Theory of Relativity is only a fact, truth and knowledge as conditioned upon the scientific FSK and do not standalone by itself.

Note;

• Model-dependent realism is a view of scientific inquiry that focuses on the role of scientific models of phenomena.[1]
  It claims reality should be interpreted based upon these models, and where several models overlap in describing a particular subject, multiple, equally valid, realities exist.
  
  It claims that it is meaningless to talk about the "true reality" of a model as we can never be absolutely certain of anything.
  The only meaningful thing is the usefulness of the model.[2]
  -wiki

Any urge to reify what is "true reality" will end up with an illusion.

Note;
The only meaningful thing is the usefulness of the model.
in contrast to your bastardized philosophies that
meanings are the words, names and reference, the fact, the state-of-affairs, that which is the case.

[Peter Holmes]

Fashionable claim: the only meaningful thing is the usefulnes of the model.
Another fashionable claim: all models are wrong, but some are useful.

1 The idea of a model that is 'right' is the fantasy of a description that actually is the thing being described: a saying that says it all. A description (a model) can never be the thing being described. So denying the existence of a 'right' model is fatuous.

2 The usefulness of a model depends on its power to model reality, which is therefore independent from any model. The idea of 'absolute or ultimate reality', to which we can have no access, is a fantasy. So denying its existence is fatuous.

3 What we call morality doesn't provide a descriptive model of reality - consisting of testable factual assertions - in the way that natural sciences do.

[Terrapin Station]

Yes, it is a fact she was thinking,

So in what way are community, community verification, etc., or consensus necessary for it to be a fact that someone has whatever personal opinions, beliefs, or feelings that they do?

I wrote somewhere using Einstein as a example.

• 1. It is likely Einstein had an opinion, hunch, intuition of his General Theory of Relativity abducted from various sources. This would be his personal opinion thus very personal and highly subjective.
  
  2. Thereafter Einstein would have set about proving his own hypothesis which he did. But that can only be a personal belief with high conviction.
  
  3. Accordingly to the protocols of the scientific FSK, Einstein would have distributed his proof to his community of fellow physicists for them to test his theories, critique and peer review.
  
  4. Enter Arthur Stanley Eddington. An astronomer interested in Einstein’s theory because of its wide-ranging implications for astrophysics and cosmology, Eddington took on the task of proving it. By harnessing a total solar eclipse, he argued that the deflection, or bending, of light by the Sun’s gravity could be measured. This was a critical test, because Einstein’s theory predicted a deflection precisely twice the value obtained using Isaac Newton’s law of universal gravitation. The needed eclipse came 100 years ago, in 1919.
  https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01172-z
  
  5. Eddington testing was successful and confirmed Einstein's Theory.

So the above is the process for the respective scientific community to accept with consensus the verified and justified theory as an objective scientific fact knowledge or truth which is then independent of individual-Einstein's view and other individuals' views.

Einstein General Theory of Relativity is only a fact, truth and knowledge as conditioned upon the scientific FSK and do not standalone by itself.

Note;

• Model-dependent realism is a view of scientific inquiry that focuses on the role of scientific models of phenomena.[1]
  It claims reality should be interpreted based upon these models, and where several models overlap in describing a particular subject, multiple, equally valid, realities exist.
  
  It claims that it is meaningless to talk about the "true reality" of a model as we can never be absolutely certain of anything.
  The only meaningful thing is the usefulness of the model.[2]
  -wiki

Any urge to reify what is "true reality" will end up with an illusion.

Note;
The only meaningful thing is the usefulness of the model.
in contrast to your bastardized philosophies that
meanings are the words, names and reference, the fact, the state-of-affairs, that which is the case.

First, let's clarify though that you're agreeing that community, community verification, etc., or consensus are not necessary in general for it to be a fact that someone has whatever personal opinions, beliefs, or feelings that they do?

[Veritas Aequitas]

So in what way are community, community verification, etc., or consensus necessary for it to be a fact that someone has whatever personal opinions, beliefs, or feelings that they do?

I wrote somewhere using Einstein as a example.

• 1. It is likely Einstein had an opinion, hunch, intuition of his General Theory of Relativity abducted from various sources. This would be his personal opinion thus very personal and highly subjective.
  
  2. Thereafter Einstein would have set about proving his own hypothesis which he did. But that can only be a personal belief with high conviction.
  
  3. Accordingly to the protocols of the scientific FSK, Einstein would have distributed his proof to his community of fellow physicists for them to test his theories, critique and peer review.
  
  4. Enter Arthur Stanley Eddington. An astronomer interested in Einstein’s theory because of its wide-ranging implications for astrophysics and cosmology, Eddington took on the task of proving it. By harnessing a total solar eclipse, he argued that the deflection, or bending, of light by the Sun’s gravity could be measured. This was a critical test, because Einstein’s theory predicted a deflection precisely twice the value obtained using Isaac Newton’s law of universal gravitation. The needed eclipse came 100 years ago, in 1919.
  https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01172-z
  
  5. Eddington testing was successful and confirmed Einstein's Theory.

So the above is the process for the respective scientific community to accept with consensus the verified and justified theory as an objective scientific fact knowledge or truth which is then independent of individual-Einstein's view and other individuals' views.

Einstein General Theory of Relativity is only a fact, truth and knowledge as conditioned upon the scientific FSK and do not standalone by itself.

Note;

• Model-dependent realism is a view of scientific inquiry that focuses on the role of scientific models of phenomena.[1]
  It claims reality should be interpreted based upon these models, and where several models overlap in describing a particular subject, multiple, equally valid, realities exist.
  
  It claims that it is meaningless to talk about the "true reality" of a model as we can never be absolutely certain of anything.
  The only meaningful thing is the usefulness of the model.[2]
  -wiki

Any urge to reify what is "true reality" will end up with an illusion.

Note;
The only meaningful thing is the usefulness of the model.
in contrast to your bastardized philosophies that
meanings are the words, names and reference, the fact, the state-of-affairs, that which is the case.

First, let's clarify though that you're agreeing that community, community verification, etc., or consensus are not necessary in general for it to be a fact that someone has whatever personal opinions, beliefs, or feelings that they do?

As I had already stated many times,
whatever is a fact must be verified and justified empirically and philosophically within a FSK and the credibility of the fact will depend on the credibility of the FSK.
For example scientific facts are the most credible.

Btw, don't conflate your definition of what is fact [the bastardized form] with my above as in the scientific sense.

[Skepdick]

3 What we call morality doesn't provide a descriptive model of reality - consisting of testable factual assertions - in the way that natural sciences do.

The natural sciences are incapable of testing ANY "descriptive models" of reality if the description does not imply consequences and possibility of falsification.

There is a red sentence on your screen right now.

What consequences does the above model imply?
How would you falsify it?

[Terrapin Station]

As I had already stated many times,
whatever is a fact must be verified and justified empirically and philosophically within a FSK and the credibility of the fact will depend on the credibility of the FSK.
For example scientific facts are the most credible.

Btw, don't conflate your definition of what is fact [the bastardized form] with my above as in the scientific sense.

Okay, but re this:

Imagine one person exists and that's it.

That one person thinks to herself--"That's a lovely sunrise."

Is it a fact that she thought to herself "That's a lovely sunrise"?

You agreed that was a fact re her personal opinion, but there's no community verification, consensus etc. happening. So aren't you agreeing that community verification or consensus are not needed for something to be a fact, and for it to be a fact re personal opinions, beliefs, or feelings?

[Veritas Aequitas]

As I had already stated many times,
whatever is a fact must be verified and justified empirically and philosophically within a FSK and the credibility of the fact will depend on the credibility of the FSK.
For example scientific facts are the most credible.

Btw, don't conflate your definition of what is fact [the bastardized form] with my above as in the scientific sense.

Okay, but re this:

Imagine one person exists and that's it.

That one person thinks to herself--"That's a lovely sunrise."

Is it a fact that she thought to herself "That's a lovely sunrise"?

You agreed that was a fact re her personal opinion, but there's no community verification, consensus etc. happening. So aren't you agreeing that community verification or consensus are not needed for something to be a fact, and for it to be a fact re personal opinions, beliefs, or feelings?

You misunderstood my point.

I believe I stated very clearly, it is a fact that she is making a statement [assuming I am facing her and hearing her statement]
The fact is "she is making a statement" which can be any statement.

It is also a fact that a schizophrenic made the statement 'the gnomes in the garden spoke to me'.
But 'the gnomes in the garden spoke to me' is a not a fact, i.e. the gnomes can't be real speakers.

The statement "That's a lovely sunrise" made by an individual is not a fact but merely a personal opinion.
It can only be a fact when her statement is verified and justified empirically and philosophically within a credible FSK.
A credible FSK entails a community.

[Belinda]

Veritas Aequitas wrote:

The statement "That's a lovely sunrise" made by an individual is not a fact but merely a personal opinion.
It can only be a fact when her statement is verified and justified empirically and philosophically within a credible FSK.
A credible FSK entails a community.

'That's a colourful sunrise' may also be a personal, and even eccentric, aesthetic ,
or scientific opinion.

"That's a stormy sunrise" may be a scientific opinion, aesthetic opinion,or a moral opinion according to the context.

All statements require a community in order to exist at all. And all statements pertain to some FSK or FSB however unreasoned or superstitious the knowledge or the belief.

So-called moral statements or aesthetic statements are so-called when they seem from the context to be relatively more about subjective feelings; and so-called scientific statements are so-called when they seem from the context to be relatively more about what is currently or locally taken to be objective knowledge.

[Belinda]

Veritas Aequitas wrote:

The statement "That's a lovely sunrise" made by an individual is not a fact but merely a personal opinion.
It can only be a fact when her statement is verified and justified empirically and philosophically within a credible FSK.
A credible FSK entails a community.

'That's a colourful sunrise' may also be a personal, and even eccentric, aesthetic ,
or scientific opinion.

"That's a stormy sunrise" may be a scientific opinion, aesthetic opinion,or a moral opinion according to the context.

All statements require a community in order to exist at all. And all statements pertain to some FSK or FSB however unreasoned or superstitious the knowledge or the belief.

So-called moral statements or aesthetic statements are so-called when they seem from the context to be relatively more about subjective feelings; and so-called scientific statements are so-called when they seem from the context to be relatively more about what is currently or locally taken to be objective knowledge.

It's a social but not an absolute fact that some eccentric statements are deluded.

__________________

Peter Holmes wrote in the first post

1 The assertion people eat animals and their products is a fact – a true factual assertion. But the vegan assertion eating animals and their products is wrong expresses a moral judgement, not a fact. The two assertions have completely different functions.

"Is a fact" and "is wrong" pertain to the opinion of the speaker and usually to the speaker's social milieu, not to the opinion of some absolute authority.

The other clauses in the sentences mean nothing without their social contexts and are accompanied by an obvious social situation that makes the intention of the speaker specific to the social situation. For instance "eating animals and their products is wrong " could be said by a chef who is famous for inventing vegetarian flavouring. Again , " people eat animals and their products " is not true . That some or most people eat animals and their products probably are true statistics but are not evidence for the hygiene of eating the flesh of animals.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Veritas Aequitas wrote:

The statement "That's a lovely sunrise" made by an individual is not a fact but merely a personal opinion.
It can only be a fact when her statement is verified and justified empirically and philosophically within a credible FSK.
A credible FSK entails a community.

'That's a colourful sunrise' may also be a personal, and even eccentric, aesthetic ,
or scientific opinion.

"That's a stormy sunrise" may be a scientific opinion, aesthetic opinion,or a moral opinion according to the context.

All statements require a community in order to exist at all. And all statements pertain to some FSK or FSB however unreasoned or superstitious the knowledge or the belief.

So-called moral statements or aesthetic statements are so-called when they seem from the context to be relatively more about subjective feelings; and so-called scientific statements are so-called when they seem from the context to be relatively more about what is currently or locally taken to be objective knowledge.

There is a big difference between what are moral facts and moral statements.

Moral facts are the inherent physical moral "machineries" in the brain which when activated will drive actions that are moral [as defined accordingly].
Physical moral "machineries" are moral facts as verified and justified empirically and philosophically within a credible moral FSK.

Moral statements, decisions, judgments are not directly from the moral 'machineries' but the activities and impulses of the moral 'machineries' triggers the person to make moral statements, decisions, judgements and other matters.

When the moral machineries within the person are working efficiently, the person just act spontaneously and that action would be moral without having to make any judgment, decision or moral statement.

Note a case of a morally active person who would act spontaneously & rationally to save someone who is in danger of death, without deliberating to do it for personal gain, fame, pride, money, whatsoever.

[Peter Holmes]

Peter Holmes wrote in the first post

1 The assertion people eat animals and their products is a fact – a true factual assertion. But the vegan assertion eating animals and their products is wrong expresses a moral judgement, not a fact. The two assertions have completely different functions.

"Is a fact" and "is wrong" pertain to the opinion of the speaker and usually to the speaker's social milieu, not to the opinion of some absolute authority.

The other clauses in the sentences mean nothing without their social contexts and are accompanied by an obvious social situation that makes the intention of the speaker specific to the social situation. For instance "eating animals and their products is wrong " could be said by a chef who is famous for inventing vegetarian flavouring. Again , " people eat animals and their products " is not true . That some or most people eat animals and their products probably are true statistics but are not evidence for the hygiene of eating the flesh of animals.

1 A linguistic expression means something only in a context. That's trivially true.

2 Perhaps I should have quantified and contextualised the examples about veganism - some people eat animals... and eating animals is morally wrong. But the factual/non-factual distinction remains. The first assertion has truth-value, but the second doesn't.

3 This isn't about the hygiene of eating animals - a factual matter. It's about the morality of eating animals - a non-factual matter.

[Terrapin Station]

You misunderstood my point.

I believe I stated very clearly, it is a fact that she is making a statement [assuming I am facing her and hearing her statement]
The fact is "she is making a statement" which can be any statement.

It is also a fact that a schizophrenic made the statement 'the gnomes in the garden spoke to me'.
But 'the gnomes in the garden spoke to me' is a not a fact, i.e. the gnomes can't be real speakers.

The statement "That's a lovely sunrise" made by an individual is not a fact but merely a personal opinion.
It can only be a fact when her statement is verified and justified empirically and philosophically within a credible FSK.
A credible FSK entails a community.

Okay, but for it to be a fact that the person had the opinion they did doesn't entail a community, does it?

[Peter Holmes]

The statement "That's a lovely sunrise" made by an individual is not a fact but merely a personal opinion.
It can only be a fact when her statement is verified and justified empirically and philosophically within a credible FSK.

More mantra-mumbling. How could 'that's a lovely sunrise' be verified (which means 'shown to be true') and justified (what does that mean if it's different from 'verified'?) empirically (what experience would that involve - would seeing the sunset do the trick?) and philosophically (what is philosophical verification and justification, when it's at home?)? And within which framework and system of knowledge would this verification and justification be possible, and in what way would it be credible?

What does this amount to? All it means is: [we] call such-and-such things lovely; therefore, this sunset is lovely.

[Belinda]

Veritas Aequitas wrote:

The statement "That's a lovely sunrise" made by an individual is not a fact but merely a personal opinion.
It can only be a fact when her statement is verified and justified empirically and philosophically within a credible FSK.
A credible FSK entails a community.

'That's a colourful sunrise' may also be a personal, and even eccentric, aesthetic ,
or scientific opinion.

"That's a stormy sunrise" may be a scientific opinion, aesthetic opinion,or a moral opinion according to the context.

All statements require a community in order to exist at all. And all statements pertain to some FSK or FSB however unreasoned or superstitious the knowledge or the belief.

So-called moral statements or aesthetic statements are so-called when they seem from the context to be relatively more about subjective feelings; and so-called scientific statements are so-called when they seem from the context to be relatively more about what is currently or locally taken to be objective knowledge.

There is a big difference between what are moral facts and moral statements.

Moral facts are the inherent physical moral "machineries" in the brain which when activated will drive actions that are moral [as defined accordingly].
Physical moral "machineries" are moral facts as verified and justified empirically and philosophically within a credible moral FSK.

Moral statements, decisions, judgments are not directly from the moral 'machineries' but the activities and impulses of the moral 'machineries' triggers the person to make moral statements, decisions, judgements and other matters.

When the moral machineries within the person are working efficiently, the person just act spontaneously and that action would be moral without having to make any judgment, decision or moral statement.

Note a case of a morally active person who would act spontaneously & rationally to save someone who is in danger of death, without deliberating to do it for personal gain, fame, pride, money, whatsoever.

But you might claim there are also 'physical rational machineries' or 'physical aesthetic machineries'.

Developmental theories of moral development are age related and some adults never attain the fully mature stage. Do we know of any parallel scientific studies about logical development, and aesthetic development? In all three cases, the developing child must be exposed to the society of others. Thus we are up against the nature or nurture problem.