What could make morality objective?

[Sculptor]

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A descriptive theory would include the messy stuff in morality, a reductive theory discards it.

I think you have missed the forrest for the trees somewhere.

Description IS reduction. Any descriptive theory has exactly the same utility as a definition. This was the entire point of me demonstrating..

This color is blue.
This color is blue.

You have absolutely no way of determining which descriptive theory is the "correct" one.

[henry quirk]

P1 A woman belongs to herself.
P2 A woman may need to lie in order to maintain her self-ownership.
C Therefore lying is not necessarily morally wrong.

QED

Fwa.

I might lie to save jews in my attic: defense of self and others is moral.

[henry quirk]

flash,

Explain why lying is morally wrong.

Flash lied to profit (to get sumthin' -- respect, attention, kudos -- he couldn't get honestly): theft.

Flash lied to besmirch (to deprive another of reputation): theft.

my purpose here is to show that Henry cannot account for the badness of lying

You failed...again.

What property did you lose?

My reputation (such as it is) is mine, yes?

You lie to besmirch: you injure me, you deprive me of what is mine.

You lie to profit (to gain sumthin' you can't come by honestly) you deprive someone of the opportunity to assess you honestly.

Try again.

[henry quirk]

It's so lame watching the sophists struggle for control of the narrative.

Why don't YOU explain why a non-reductive moral theory is better than a reductive one.
Why don't YOU explain why an objective moral theory is beter than a subjective one.

Why don't you tell us what standards; or authority you are implicitly appealing to in evaluating and rejecting moral theories?

It's just boresome watching you self-appoint yourself as the arbiter without making your criteria explicit.

A descriptive theory would include the messy stuff in morality, a reductive theory discards it, Henry's reductive theory discards far too much, yours is even worse because you have already boasted that your moral theory has no need for the concepts of right and wrong.

An objective moral theory would be lovely if it were possible, Pete's explained plenty of times why that isn't an available option. And his post above explains quite clearly why subjective moral fact doesn't acheive the obvious purpose for which we invoke the concept of a fact.

Everybody in the world participates every day in moral activity, conversation and reasoning. If your theory is so alien to that way of life that you have to discard entire regions of the vocabulary then your input hasn't been valuable except in so far as its failings are something to learn from.

The real game is to work something that isn't covered by the theory but which the author of said theory can't accept they have left out without a fight. Henry and VA are weirdly happy to agree that sexually misusing goats isn't immoral, but now we have Henry on record saying that lying is immoral, that's something his own moral theory doesn't seem to support though. So my purpose here is to show that Henry cannot account for the badness of lying with his reductive theory, and that therefore his theory isn't even sufficient for his own needs.

*I think Flash's argument is spot on, and nicely expressed.

**What's boresome is moral objectivists maintaining their faith-position with no evidence to back it up, and completely refuted arguments. ***The resort to ad hominems and abuse is evidence of failure. (I apologise for my failings in that respect.)

*well, of course you do

**what's bothersome, to you, is we moral realists not kneelin' at the altar of subjectivism

***yep, that's why flash lied

and: did you ever talk with your friend about why her rape was wrong? pretty sure you ddn't and we both know why

[FlashDangerpants]

flash,

Explain why lying is morally wrong.

Flash lied to profit (to get sumthin' -- respect, attention, kudos -- he couldn't get honestly): theft.

Flash lied to besmirch (to deprive another of reputation): theft.

my purpose here is to show that Henry cannot account for the badness of lying

You failed...again.

What property did you lose?

My reputation (such as it is) is mine, yes?

You lie to besmirch: you injure me, you deprive me of what is mine.

You lie to profit (to gain sumthin' you can't come by honestly) you deprive someone of the opportunity to assess you honestly.

Try again.

This is intriguing.

So the mechanism by which lying is bad is not because it is wrong to be dishonest and untruthful, but that it is stealing from somebody else.
The stealing doesn't need to refer to any sort of quantifiable loss though, and can be a matter of stealing from their feelings or something?
And the reason why you've gone haywire over a simple tease in a throwaway comment is that your feelings have been particularly badly stolen from.

So there are only very limited circumstances in which lying is immoral?

[FlashDangerpants]

and: did you ever talk with your friend about why her rape was wrong? pretty sure you ddn't and we both know why

Holy shit dude. I hope the answer is "of course not because it would incredibly callous to invoke such a conversation for the sake of an argument on the internet."

[henry quirk]

flash,

So...lying is bad...not because it is wrong to be dishonest and untruthful, but that it is stealing from somebody else.

If you lie to yourself, I'm a smart and good neo-liberal, how is that wrong? There ain't no real profit in it. You're just foolin' you.

If you lie to B...

...I like to make Henry and VA confess that they can't explain why it's immoral to shoot a dog...

...it's cuz you expect to profit (get B's favor) at our expense.

Morality is about what is and isn't permissible between and among men.

Holy shit dude. I hope the answer is "of course not because it would incredibly callous to invoke such a conversation for the sake of an argument on the internet."

Hey, Pete is the one who -- for the sake of an argument on the internet -- told the forum about how his friend was raped.

Go chew on his ass.

[FlashDangerpants]

flash,

Explain why lying is morally wrong.

Flash lied to profit (to get sumthin' -- respect, attention, kudos -- he couldn't get honestly): theft.

Flash lied to besmirch (to deprive another of reputation): theft.

my purpose here is to show that Henry cannot account for the badness of lying

You failed...again.

What property did you lose?

My reputation (such as it is) is mine, yes?

You lie to besmirch: you injure me, you deprive me of what is mine.

You lie to profit (to gain sumthin' you can't come by honestly) you deprive someone of the opportunity to assess you honestly.

Try again.

So tell us more about this reputation of yours. What is your reputation Henry?

[FlashDangerpants]

A man belongs to himself. (Or, as my good friend, age put it: A man is free).

I have NEVER and would NEVER "put it" NOR say, 'A man is free' without acknowledging that absolutely EVERY thing is free, including women and children. That is; until 'you', adult human beings, prison or contain things.

It seems I did you a terrible disservice Ken, apparently when Henry misrepresented your words he was actually stealing from your grand reputation to ennoble his own. You had legitimate grievance and I absolutely shouldn't have told you to fuck off and quit being a pissy little bitchboy over nothing.

My humblest and most grovelling apologies are yours.

[henry quirk]

What property did you lose?

My reputation (such as it is) is mine, yes?

You lie to besmirch: you injure me, you deprive me of what is mine.

You lie to profit (to gain sumthin' you can't come by honestly) you deprive someone of the opportunity to assess you honestly.

Try again.

So tell us more about this reputation of yours. What is your reputation Henry?

No, let's talk about yours.

[FlashDangerpants]

My reputation (such as it is) is mine, yes?

You lie to besmirch: you injure me, you deprive me of what is mine.

You lie to profit (to gain sumthin' you can't come by honestly) you deprive someone of the opportunity to assess you honestly.

Try again.

So tell us more about this reputation of yours. What is your reputation Henry?

No, let's talk about yours.

If I qualify for such a luxurious thing at all I would assume it is as a piss taking bastard who can't keep any conversation serious for five minutes, exactly as in real life.

But for the sake of the point you are trying to make, you need to big me up to be somebody who could harm your reputation with a throwaway comment. So if you want to tell me my reputation is a disaster, I kinda win, so what possible angle are you hoping to work by not just answering the question I asked you?

[henry quirk]

a piss taking bastard who can't keep any conversation serious for five minutes

you left out lyin'

[FlashDangerpants]

a piss taking bastard who can't keep any conversation serious for five minutes

you left out lyin'

Okay then. Now your reputation. What is it? What is this treasure from which I have plundered?

[henry quirk]

a piss taking bastard who can't keep any conversation serious for five minutes

you left out lyin'

Okay then. Now your reputation. What is it? What is this treasure from which I have plundered?

Does the car owner have to explain to the car thief the nature of the car, or its value?

Of course not.

All he has to say is: it's mine, leave it be.

[FlashDangerpants]

a piss taking bastard who can't keep any conversation serious for five minutes

you left out lyin'

Okay then. Now your reputation. What is it? What is this treasure from which I have plundered?

Does the car owner have to explain to the car thief the nature of the car, or its value to the owner?

Of course not.

Are you accusing me of knowlingly depriving you of property Henry? That's part of your whole eliminatavist moral theory is it not?

I am having enourmous trouble believing that your reputation has been harmed by anything I wrote, and I find it utterly absurd that you would think I consider my own enhanced by that nothingburger of a sentence. If you are suffering any reputational harm today it is the result of the really weird tantrum you have thrown over nothing.

So yes, I would like to know what is so valuable about your reputation on this forum. I would always have assumed you would want the reputation of somebody who doesn't care about stupid childish things like reputations, but that shipped has sort of fucked right off over the horizon now.