There is no 'Matter of Fact' [Analytic].

[Skepdick]

That's what I was referring to. I didn't mean your total post count.

Yeah, that's how confirmation bias works. You are ignoring the totality of the evidence.

[Skepdick]

So one way to falsify that for someone would be to acquire evidence that a particular person seems to have no capacity for observing and remembering anything that happens.

How is that in any way coherent?

Observations result in memories. Memories are always about the past (what was), not present (what is).

I don't believe that there was a milk in the fridge. I remember that there was milk in the fridge.
I don't know if there's milk in the fridge right now. Maybe my wife drank it.
I open the fridge and there's still milk inside.

Where does "belief" come into play?

[Veritas Aequitas]

Insofar as individuals have that opinion and take those actions. Again, this is in no way verifiable aside from verifying that the people in question have those opinions and take those actions.

Note I am referring to legal facts from within a legal Framework System and Knowledge.

"Insofar as individuals have that opinion and take those actions." that is irrelevant to the legal FSK.

When the laws are enacted, the legal oughtness are verifiable as authoritative and effective in the official papers in the legislative department.
These are legal facts within the legal FSK and are independent of individuals' opinion and belief.

Where the law states and enforces the legal-fact that "no citizen ought to kill humans" [with legal exceptions] and if they do they will be punished with serious imprisonment or death.

Some individuals may have their opinions and disagree with the laws [that has nothing to do with the legal FSK], but the legal oughtness is a legal fact and will take effect if they kill humans.
As such the legal fact within the legal FSK is objective, thus independent of individuals opinion and beliefs.

This is fundamentally wrong. The fact that a law exists does not mean that 'legal oughtness' exists - that we ought to obey the law. We don't use the word 'ought' in that way. We can always choose to obey or disobey a law - even if disobedience incurs punishment - so the claim that we ought to obey it expresses an opinion.
'We ought to obey the law' can never be a factual assertion with a truth-value independent from opinion.

And the same goes for the claim that we ought to follow our neural 'programming' - if such there is - to behave in certain ways.

The claim that, just as legal facts exist, so do moral facts - that there's a 'moral FSK' just as there's a 'legal FSK' - is false.

You are SO ignorant and dogmatic that you refuses to see the truth.

Leaving aside the moral FSK temporarily, how come you are so ignorant of the so obvious existence of a specific legal framework and system of reality [FSR] and knowledge [FSK].
The specific legal FSK of a country is grounded on its constitution and supported by the political FSK via its legislatures, police, courts and legal fraternity.
I have to say you are stupid in deny a specific legal FSK exists.

That the laws of any country exist is a legal fact within the legal FSK, note only within the legal FSK.
Once the laws are passed there is an inherent and intrinsic 'oughtness' within them that obligated all citizens to comply with the law.
In the case of the legal FSK, it is more than 'oughtness' rather the strong modal verb applies, i.e. MUST obey the law or else.
In this case, the legal machineries and forces are engaged in generating the 'MUST' [oughtness] as a fact, i.e. an active state [of affairs] within the community.

People can of course choose to comply or not comply, that is their opinion, but such opinions to do extirpate the factual existence of the laws legislated, enforced and in force.
Surely what is legislated as a legal fact can be verified to various evidences of its confirmation as an active law of the country.

The existence of the legal fact within the legal FSK can be tested,
say you refused to obey the law of your country or other countries, i.e.
'no citizens or other humans can kill citizens'
and then you kill the citizens of a country,
that country will surely persecute you by imprisonment or death depending on the legal facts of the law.

It would then also be a legal fact within a legal FSK, i.e. "Peter Holmes is a convicted murderer in country X."

One thing you cannot realize and is dogmatically denying is the existence of a Framework and System of Reality [FSR] and Knowledge [FSK] is grounding its specific fact.
To you a 'fact' is a fact because it is a fact as worded.

[Veritas Aequitas]

What's misleading about calling a factual error wrong, mistaken, false and incorrect? Why would it be reduced to merely "not in alignment" with a verified fact?

The use of 'wrong' is not appropriate for morality-proper.

If it's not about right and wrong it's not morality at all. Morality-garbage is what you are peddling. You are the purveyor of pseduo-morality.

This is what you and your predecessor Prof do all the time. You fail to analyse the phenomenon in question using the tools you desire because those tools are inapproriate to the task. So you simply substitute the phonemenon for whatever your tool can do instead.

Hey, note Wittgenstein's "meaning of a word is in its use" which must be verified and justified to its utilities.

WHO ARE YOU to insist "it is not morality at all?" and don't associate me with anyone else unless you can prove we are doing the same thing or that I agree with it. I don't in this case of your association.

The first thing we need to do with a word, e.g. "morality" is to present its definition for the purpose of one's thesis.
If you don't agree with MY definition, i.e. here,
viewtopic.php?p=469799#p469799
then we will need to trash it out till we agree and if there is no agreement or agree to disagree, then there is no use in continuing the discussion.

My point is what is discussed as morality within the philosophical community at present is merely pseudo-morality, e.g. theistic morality, religious morality, consequentialism, utilitarianism, deontology, traditional morality, and the likes.

I have researched in depth the phenomena of what is regarded as morality in general. What the above pseudo-moralities missed is the generic fundamental moral function within all humans embedded via evolution. This inherent moral system [not so obvious] is as generic as the digestive system within all humans.

You are on the same boat with the pseudo-moralists, i.e. groping on the surface and is ignorant of the fundamentals.

[Veritas Aequitas]

When the laws are enacted, the legal oughtness are verifiable as authoritative and effective in the official papers in the legislative department.
These are legal facts within the legal FSK and are independent of individuals' opinion and belief.

Where the law states and enforces the legal-fact that "no citizen ought to kill humans" [with legal exceptions] and if they do they will be punished with serious imprisonment or death.

Some individuals may have their opinions and disagree with the laws [that has nothing to do with the legal FSK], but the legal oughtness is a legal fact and will take effect if they kill humans.
As such the legal fact within the legal FSK is objective, thus independent of individuals opinion and beliefs.

At best, all you could be referring to here is the fact that the word "ought"--that is, sets of marks in that shape, an "o" shape, followed by a "u" shape, etc. occur on pieces of paper and so on.

But that in no way amounts to a normative. There is no meaning attached to it, there is nothing prescribing anything to anyone, etc. in those shapes on paper in themselves. They're just marks on a particular sort of material.

People can THINK a normative, and they can take particular ACTIONS such as imprisoning someone who commits murder, but then we're not talking about something independent of individuals' opinions and beliefs.

And the fact that Joe and Frank and Betty and Sue and so on think "You ought/ought not do x," and then Joe and Frank and Betty and Sue and so on taking action to imprison someone if they don't/do perform x, in no way amounts to a verifiable normative that Pete ought to do x. All we can verify is that Joe and Frank and Betty and Sue feel and thus said that "You ought/ought not do x" and then take the subsequent actions they do. That's in no way independent of their opinions or beliefs.

Note Searle's "institutional facts"
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 2813000219

• Abstract
  Nowadays society is a web of status functions, roles and power. People's main concerns no longer regard what Searle called brute facts, but rather the social acts and institutional facts, whose existence is observer-dependent. As Searle himself put it more than ten years ago, philosophy needs to break the recurring bifurcation of the mental and physical, as they are both part of the same single world. This theory, which is recurrent in most of his recent work and is at the foundations of his social ontology, is stated from an evolutionary perspective; whereas the philosophy of the 20th century revolved mainly around language and logic – both as methods and subjects – the 21st century will bring about a series of changes, namely the transmutation of focus towards social interactions.
  
  This paper aims to reflect John Searle's view regarding social institutions’ role and ontology and the reasons why this should be a subject of interest for contemporary philosophers.

What you overlooked is "Joe and Frank and Betty and Sue and others" are legal citizens of a country.
Once a person accepts and is recognized as a citizen of a country, then that citizen ought to comply with the laws of the country. That is a legal normative, i.e. a legal fact within the legal FSK of the specific country.
As I stated above, it is not only the lighter modal verb of 'ought' but in this case is the more severe form of 'MUST' or else legal punishments.

That Pete ought [MUST] must comply with law-X is verifiable to the the following;
1. Pete's birth certificate and no renouncement of his citizenship.
2. Law-X is verifiable to the passing of law-X by the legislature at time-t.
3. The constitution of the nation as accepted by the legislature.

Law-X is a legal fact within a legal FSK that implied a legal oughtness [MUST_ness] to be complied by all citizens of that legal FSK.
That legal oughtness is an active legal fact enforced and in-force.

Note the terms 'power of law' or 'force of the law' which denote the legal fact, i.e. the existence of such a state in force, i.e. a state of affairs or a feature of reality.

What opinions or belief "Joe and Frank and Betty and Sue and others" has of the above factual law-x enforced and in-force is independent of law-x in force.

Read my response to Peter and PantFlasher above.

[Peter Holmes]

Note I am referring to legal facts from within a legal Framework System and Knowledge.

"Insofar as individuals have that opinion and take those actions." that is irrelevant to the legal FSK.

When the laws are enacted, the legal oughtness are verifiable as authoritative and effective in the official papers in the legislative department.
These are legal facts within the legal FSK and are independent of individuals' opinion and belief.

Where the law states and enforces the legal-fact that "no citizen ought to kill humans" [with legal exceptions] and if they do they will be punished with serious imprisonment or death.

Some individuals may have their opinions and disagree with the laws [that has nothing to do with the legal FSK], but the legal oughtness is a legal fact and will take effect if they kill humans.
As such the legal fact within the legal FSK is objective, thus independent of individuals opinion and beliefs.

This is fundamentally wrong. The fact that a law exists does not mean that 'legal oughtness' exists - that we ought to obey the law. We don't use the word 'ought' in that way. We can always choose to obey or disobey a law - even if disobedience incurs punishment - so the claim that we ought to obey it expresses an opinion.
'We ought to obey the law' can never be a factual assertion with a truth-value independent from opinion.

And the same goes for the claim that we ought to follow our neural 'programming' - if such there is - to behave in certain ways.

The claim that, just as legal facts exist, so do moral facts - that there's a 'moral FSK' just as there's a 'legal FSK' - is false.

You are SO ignorant and dogmatic that you refuses to see the truth.

Leaving aside the moral FSK temporarily, how come you are so ignorant of the so obvious existence of a specific legal framework and system of reality [FSR] and knowledge [FSK].
The specific legal FSK of a country is grounded on its constitution and supported by the political FSK via its legislatures, police, courts and legal fraternity.
I have to say you are stupid in deny a specific legal FSK exists.

That the laws of any country exist is a legal fact within the legal FSK, note only within the legal FSK.
Once the laws are passed there is an inherent and intrinsic 'oughtness' within them that obligated all citizens to comply with the law.
In the case of the legal FSK, it is more than 'oughtness' rather the strong modal verb applies, i.e. MUST obey the law or else.
In this case, the legal machineries and forces are engaged in generating the 'MUST' [oughtness] as a fact, i.e. an active state [of affairs] within the community.

People can of course choose to comply or not comply, that is their opinion, but such opinions to do extirpate the factual existence of the laws legislated, enforced and in force.
Surely what is legislated as a legal fact can be verified to various evidences of its confirmation as an active law of the country.

The existence of the legal fact within the legal FSK can be tested,
say you refused to obey the law of your country or other countries, i.e.
'no citizens or other humans can kill citizens'
and then you kill the citizens of a country,
that country will surely persecute you by imprisonment or death depending on the legal facts of the law.

It would then also be a legal fact within a legal FSK, i.e. "Peter Holmes is a convicted murderer in country X."

One thing you cannot realize and is dogmatically denying is the existence of a Framework and System of Reality [FSR] and Knowledge [FSK] is grounding its specific fact.
To you a 'fact' is a fact because it is a fact as worded.

I can only repeat what I wrote - so that you can ignore it again.

The fact that a law exists does not mean that 'legal oughtness' exists - that we ought to obey the law. We don't use the word 'ought' in that way. We can always choose to obey or disobey a law - even if disobedience incurs punishment - so the claim that we ought to obey it expresses an opinion.
'We ought to obey the law' can never be a factual assertion with a truth-value independent from opinion.

And the same goes for the claim that we ought to follow our neural 'programming' - if such there is - to behave in certain ways.

The existence of laws is not in dispute, and nor is the existence of moral codes from various sources. Societies have both laws and moral codes. No argument. But whether societies ought to have and follow both laws and moral codes - and what those laws and codes should stipulate - those are matters of opinion.

As always, you seem unable to see and understand the gap between any fact and any moral conclusion. The one can never entail the other - though we can appeal to facts to explain and try to justify our moral judgements.

[Skepdick]

The fact that a law exists does not mean that 'legal oughtness' exists - that we ought to obey the law. We don't use the word 'ought' in that way.

You really need to stop saying "we" here. You don't speak for anybody but yourself.

Please explain to us how YOU use the word "ought".

What are the logical implications of an ought?
How are those implications of an ought different from the implications of an ought-not?

Ought -⇒ ????
¬Ought ⇒ ????

Unless you can address this, your use of "ought" is incoherent.

[FlashDangerpants]

The use of 'wrong' is not appropriate for morality-proper.

If it's not about right and wrong it's not morality at all. Morality-garbage is what you are peddling. You are the purveyor of pseduo-morality.

This is what you and your predecessor Prof do all the time. You fail to analyse the phenomenon in question using the tools you desire because those tools are inapproriate to the task. So you simply substitute the phonemenon for whatever your tool can do instead.

Hey, note Wittgenstein's "meaning of a word is in its use" which must be verified and justified to its utilities.

WHO ARE YOU to insist "it is not morality at all?"

Everyone. Find anyone who knows neither of us, tell them you have this theory that morality doesn't really include any right or wrong. They will politely inform you that this cannot be so because morality is exactly about right and wrong.

The absurdity of going about Wittgenstein for that nonsense is amazing. Morality exists as a language game about rightness and wrongness, who are you to tell everyone that to act imorally means deviation from a pattern, not wrongness.

You might note that he also said that concepts are not right or wrong, just useful or not. So telling the whole world that their concepts of morality, being that part of our language that discusses rightness and wrongness, is faulty and should be about something else entirely, won't get you anywhere.

[Peter Holmes]

Does anyone think 'we ought to obey the law' is a factual assertion with a truth-value which is independent from opinion?

If so, what feature of reality (what fact) could make that assertion true, the absence of which would make it false?

Hint. Answers that begin 'Well, if we don't obey the law, then [consequence] - merely substitute one 'ought' with another. Why ought we to avoid that [consequence]?

Moral realists and objectivists who realise the answer is always another 'ought' may wish to reconsider their position.

[Skepdick]

Everyone. Find anyone who knows neither of us, tell them you have this theory that morality doesn't really include any right or wrong. They will politely inform you that this cannot be so because morality is exactly about right and wrong.

The absurdity of going about Wittgenstein for that nonsense is amazing. Morality exists as a language game about rightness and wrongness, who are you to tell everyone that to act imorally means deviation from a pattern, not wrongness.

You might note that he also said that concepts are not right or wrong, just useful or not. So telling the whole world that their concepts of morality, being that part of our language that discusses rightness and wrongness, is faulty and should be about something else entirely, won't get you anywhere.

So what are the implications of wrongness in a world without oughts?

The rejection of any such implication doesn't seem to have gotten you anywhere either.

[Skepdick]

Does anyone think 'we ought to obey the law' is a factual assertion with a truth-value which is independent from opinion?

Does anyone think 'this is red' is a factual assertion with truth-value which is independent from opinion?

If so, what feature of reality (what fact) could make that assertion true, the absence of which would make it false?

What feature of reality (what fact) could make this assertion true, the absence of which would make it false?

red.png

[Peter Holmes]

Given the way we English speakers use the word 'red' - given the rule we learned - the factual assertion 'this patch of colour is red', in context, is true or false independent from opinion - though there can be marginal cases, such as at the 'border' between red and orange.

But the moral assertion 'we ought to obey the law' does not have such truth-value independent from opinion. It doesn't function in the same way as a factual assertion, which is why it's possible to disagree with it rationally. Modal 'ought to' has a different use from indicative 'is'.

[Skepdick]

Given the way we English speakers use the word 'red' - given the rule we learned - the factual assertion 'this patch of colour is red', in context, is true or false independent from opinion - though there can be marginal cases, such as at the 'border' between red and orange.

Given the way we English speakers use the word 'wrong' - given the rule we learned - the factual assertion 'murder is wrong', in context, is true or false independent from opinion - though there can be marginal cases, such as the 'border' between murder and self-defence.

OUGHT the rules we learned be obeyed? What a stupid question! You are already obeying them!

That's why you call this red! And that's why you aren't murdering anybody.

red.png

[FlashDangerpants]

Everyone. Find anyone who knows neither of us, tell them you have this theory that morality doesn't really include any right or wrong. They will politely inform you that this cannot be so because morality is exactly about right and wrong.

The absurdity of going about Wittgenstein for that nonsense is amazing. Morality exists as a language game about rightness and wrongness, who are you to tell everyone that to act imorally means deviation from a pattern, not wrongness.

You might note that he also said that concepts are not right or wrong, just useful or not. So telling the whole world that their concepts of morality, being that part of our language that discusses rightness and wrongness, is faulty and should be about something else entirely, won't get you anywhere.

So what are the implications of wrongness in a world without oughts?

The implications aren't Earth shattering.

It just means that if you want somebody to stop doing a bad thing such as holding their ice cream with the forbidden-food-hand, you need to use tools of persuasion to bring them round to your point of view rather than being able to whip out a goodnessometer to measure their wrongness. You already know this.

[Skepdick]

The implications aren't Earth shattering.

It just means that if you want somebody to stop doing a bad thing such as holding their ice cream with the forbidden-food-hand, you need to use tools of persuasion to bring them round to your point of view rather than being able to whip out a goodnessometer to measure their wrongness. You already know this.

It's Earth-shattering in as much as you think that "IF one disagrees with another's way of holding ice cream one OUGHT to persuade them to do otherwise"