Is morality objective or subjective?

[FlashDangerpants]

Agreed. I was trying to nail the stupidity of the red circle fallacy in relation to morality. It's supposed to be a gotcha to show that, since it's a fact that what we call a red circle is indeed a red circle, even though we can't prove that it is, so it can be a fact that abortion is morally wrong, even though we can't prove that it is.

I think this mistakes what we say about things for the things themselves, so that a description creates or changes the thing being described: it's only a red circle because we call it a red circle. The problem that, if an English speaker calls it a blue square, it's still a red circle seems not to disturb the delusion - whereas calling abortion morally wrong or morally right doesn't incur this difficulty. We can cheerfully and rationally call it either.

I just interpret the big red dot as a sort of traffic signal telling me that the current post doen't need to be read. it's quite a useful service in that respect.

You are running away from the facts I presented as if you are Dracula running away from daylight.

Note the currency here is valid, solid and sound arguments to be transacted.
You have provided none of the above.

wtf you on about? It's not you posting the big red dots you fool it's Skepdick.

[Veritas Aequitas]

I just interpret the big red dot as a sort of traffic signal telling me that the current post doen't need to be read. it's quite a useful service in that respect.

You are running away from the facts I presented as if you are Dracula running away from daylight.

Note the currency here is valid, solid and sound arguments to be transacted.
You have provided none of the above.

wtf you on about? It's not you posting the big red dots you fool it's Skepdick.

A mistake on my part.
Was meant to be a response to Sculptor's post, i.e.
viewtopic.php?p=504350#p504350

[Peter Holmes]

The thing English speakers call a red circle is what it is. That we call it a red circle doesn't create or change what it is. A description doesn't create or change the thing being described. That's why 'co-creationist' or 'constructivist' claims are false; why consensus theories of truth are misguided; why correspondence theories of truth are out of focus; and why to deny the existence of 'things-in-themselves' and 'absolute truth' is to entertain fantasies, if only to dismiss them.

Moral realism is the claim that an action is or is not morally right or wrong in exactly the same way that a thing is or is not a red circle; that moral rightness and wrongness are properties in the way that being a circle and red are properties; that the claim that an action is morally wrong could be false in exactly the same way that saying a thing is a red circle could be false.

The burden of proof for moral realist and (therefore) moral objectivist claims are with the claimants. And all we've had so far (and not just here) is unsupported claims, a lot of indignant hand-waving, abuse of skeptics and ... failure to meet the burden of proof. To my knowledge.

[Skepdick]

The thing English speakers call a red circle is what it is.

Weasel words. Everything anyone calls anything is what it is.

What makes the thing we call a "red circle"... a red circle?

That we call it a red circle doesn't create or change what it is. A description doesn't create or change the thing being described.

What does this have to do with the question "What makes this a red circle?"

That's why 'co-creationist' or 'constructivist' claims are false; why consensus theories of truth are misguided; why correspondence theories of truth are out of focus; and why to deny the existence of 'things-in-themselves' and 'absolute truth' is to entertain fantasies, if only to dismiss them.

Great! Sounds like you have it all figured out then. Now go ahead and answer the question: What makes this a red circle?

red.png

[tillingborn]

What makes this a red circle?

Call it anything you want, Skepdick, but should anyone call it a red circle, I know they mean and I agree.

[Terrapin Station]

What makes this a red circle?

Call it anything you want, Skepdick, but should anyone call it a red circle, I know they mean and I agree.

What makes something a red circle, objectively, is the wavelength/frequency of electromagnetic radiation it reflects or emits and its spatial extensional relations. Why would that be at issue? It's not something controversial.

[Skepdick]

Call it anything you want, Skepdick, but should anyone call it a red circle, I know they mean and I agree.

Irrelevant to the actual context.

I am asking why Peter Holmes why he gets to ask "What makes murder wrong?" from moral objectivists, but I don't get to ask "What makes the circle red?" from realists.

You are also welcome to call it what you want, but should anybody call murder wrong, I also know what they mean and I also agree.

It is Peter Holmes who disagrees that murder is wrong.

[tillingborn]

What makes something a red circle, objectively, is the wavelength/frequency of electromagnetic radiation it reflects or emits and its spatial extensional relations. Why would that be at issue? It's not something controversial.

Quite. A red circle is a red circle. Skepdick is spouting the first thing that comes into his head, in this case trying to draw an equivalence to moral objectivity, apparently oblivious to the fact that there is no radiation or extension that impacts our interpretation of stuff like abortion.

[Skepdick]

What makes something a red circle, objectively, is the wavelength/frequency of electromagnetic radiation it reflects or emits and its spatial extensional relations. Why would that be at issue? It's not something controversial.

That's not an explanation. That's an underdetermined backsplanation.

You are equating "red" to "600 and 700 nm wavelength"

I'll just keep asking the question then.

What makes this 600 to 700 nm wavelength?

red.png

[tillingborn]

...should anybody call murder wrong, I also know what they mean and I also agree.

So what do you see when you look at murder?

[Skepdick]

So what do you see when you look at murder?

I see the same thing you see!

Just like you see the same thing I see when you see the image below.

red.png

[tillingborn]

I see the same thing you see!

That may be true, but there are people who have different views on whether abortion is murder, euthanasia is murder or capital punishment is murder. What is the extension and wavelength of murder?

[Skepdick]

I see the same thing you see!

That may be true, but there are people who have different views on whether abortion is murder, euthanasia is murder or capital punishment is murder. What is the extension and wavelength of murder?

That's immaterial.

There are people who have completely different views on the above being "red" (but it's deemed red by majority-consensus). And there are measurement instruments which disagree on the exact wavelength of the light being emitted (but calibration of scientific measurements is done by consensus)

To appeal to extension/theory as justification of "What makes it red?" is to appeal to a Framework/System of Knowledge (an FSK) which is founded upon consensus. And so when you appeal to science for justification you are making VA's point about facts only existing within a consensus-frameworks.

Which is completely idiotic, because it implies that this was not red before Newton gave us his theory of optics; or Goethe gave us his theory of colors.

[Terrapin Station]

What makes something a red circle, objectively, is the wavelength/frequency of electromagnetic radiation it reflects or emits and its spatial extensional relations. Why would that be at issue? It's not something controversial.

Quite. A red circle is a red circle. Skepdick is spouting the first thing that comes into his head, in this case trying to draw an equivalence to moral objectivity, apparently oblivious to the fact that there is no radiation or extension that impacts our interpretation of stuff like abortion.

Yeah. I finally put him back on ignore, so I don't know what he's arguing, but with red circles, there's clearly something in the extramental world with respect to electromagnetic radiation and spatial extensional relations that we can all be wrong about, and that we can discover, whereas that's not at all the case with moral edicts or stances or whatever we'd like to call the supposedly extramental moral whatevers.

[tillingborn]

There are people who have completely different views on the above being "red"

Who would look at that and say it isn't red?