What could make morality objective?

[Veritas Aequitas]

There's no "significant difference".

The perpetual sleight of hand Peter Holmes engages in is between using "morality" as a collective noun for talking about both "right" and "wrong".

As well as using "morality" (without its counter-part "immorality) as synonymous for "right" (without its counter-part "wrong").

And then VA does the exact same thing. "Morality-proper" is the same thing as PH's "morality" (when used as collective noun).

They are both talking about a context/setting in which we express moral judgments. That is - they are agreeing. But because philosophy they have to play the stupid dance and disagree in words, even though they agree in behaviour.

Peter Holmes' right and wrong of moralists is claimed to be derived from subjective feelings, opinions, beliefs and judgments of individual[s].

As I had explained a '1000 times' in various posts;
my 'ought-ness' and 'ought-not-ness' are not related to personal subjective feelings directly but rather traceable to the physical biological* elements, the neural machineries, the algorithm, the genes, DNA, atoms and quarks that generate the potentials of the ought-ness and ought-not-ness that drive moral behaviors that subsequently resulting in subjective moral feelings.

*thus my call to;
Sociobiology of Morality

and rightly so,

"The time has come to turn moral philosophy into an applied science .."
Moral Philosophy as Applied Science: Michael Ruse and Edward O. Wilson

[Peter Holmes]

Elsewhere, VA quotes this passage:

'What Wilson proposed is, to enable morality and ethics to progress expeditiously we need to dig deep into biology, i.e. genes, the 'neural machineries' and DNA in addition to all other necessary factors.'

The context and authorship don't matter here. What matters is the confusion. Why should morality and ethics 'progress expeditiously'? And what constitutes 'the expeditious progress of morality and ethics' anyway?

It could mean that we need to - and can - understand more accurately why we do what we do, and why we think some actions are morally right or good, and others are morally wrong or evil. In other words, science (biology, neurology, genetics) can give us objective, factual knowledge in this area.

But such knowledge - of why we don't do X, or why we think X is morally wrong or evil - doesn't tell us that we shouldn't do X. or that X is morally wrong or evil.

We can't deduce moral facts from physical facts - because there are no moral facts. So we have to start with a moral opinion, which we can then assume and ignore - as VA does, in order to construct a misguided moral theory.

When asked why we should avoid evil and promote good, VA, like all other moral realists and objectivists, has no coherent answer whatsoever. Any non-moral reason they provide can't entail a moral conclusion. And any moral reason they provide doesn't establish moral objectivity, because it just chains moral assertions.

[Skepdick]

There's no "significant difference".

The perpetual sleight of hand Peter Holmes engages in is between using "morality" as a collective noun for talking about both "right" and "wrong".

As well as using "morality" (without its counter-part "immorality) as synonymous for "right" (without its counter-part "wrong").

And then VA does the exact same thing. "Morality-proper" is the same thing as PH's "morality" (when used as collective noun).

They are both talking about a context/setting in which we express moral judgments. That is - they are agreeing. But because philosophy they have to play the stupid dance and disagree in words, even though they agree in behaviour.

Peter Holmes' right and wrong of moralists is claimed to be derived from subjective feelings, opinions, beliefs and judgments of individual[s].

As I had explained a '1000 times' in various posts;
my 'ought-ness' and 'ought-not-ness' are not related to personal subjective feelings directly but rather traceable to the physical biological* elements, the neural machineries, the algorithm, the genes, DNA, atoms and quarks that generate the potentials of the ought-ness and ought-not-ness that drive moral behaviors that subsequently resulting in subjective moral feelings.

*thus my call to;
Sociobiology of Morality

and rightly so,

"The time has come to turn moral philosophy into an applied science .."
Moral Philosophy as Applied Science: Michael Ruse and Edward O. Wilson

None of that shit matters if you both agree; or agree that you disagree with any given moral conclusion.

[Agent Smith]

Good to see peeps/folks asking these typa questions. Keep it up!

[Iwannaplato]

None of that shit matters if you both agree; or agree that you disagree with any given moral conclusion.

There's that, yes.
But...

As I had explained a '1000 times' in various posts;
my 'ought-ness' and 'ought-not-ness' are not related to personal subjective feelings directly but rather traceable to the physical biological* elements, the neural machineries, the algorithm, the genes, DNA, atoms and quarks that generate the potentials of the ought-ness and ought-not-ness that drive moral behaviors that subsequently resulting in subjective moral feelings.

Who said anything about subjective feelings.
There no oughtness in the neural machines or DNA and certainly not in the quarks.
There's something that leads to feelings of oughtness and oughtnotness of doing or not doing things
Which could just as easily be worded as...
There's something that's leads to feelings of rightness and wrongness of doing or not doing things.

But that would be obvious so he avoided the comparison between oughtness/oughtnotness and rightness and wrongness
and dragged in a strawman.

Flags have been placed in the ground and mottos proclaimed:

No, I will never go drive a car.
I drive an auto.

I still want a short essay at least on quarks and morals.

I asked the chatAI about this and it said...

Quarks are elementary particles that are the building blocks of protons and neutrons, which in turn make up the nucleus of atoms. They are governed by the laws of quantum mechanics and do not have any moral or ethical properties.

Morals, on the other hand, are principles or beliefs that guide human behavior and decision-making. They are shaped by a variety of factors, including culture, religion, personal experiences, and social norms.

There is no direct connection between quarks and morals, as they operate on different levels of reality.

VA once used this AI in an appeal to authority...just trying to build bridges.

[CIN]

When asked why we should avoid evil and promote good, VA, like all other moral realists and objectivists, has no coherent answer whatsoever.

Some of us, Peter, would say that if something was evil, that was a sound reason to avoid it. But if you're happy to spend your time doing evil, don't let us spoil your fun.

[CIN]

Peter Holmes' right and wrong of moralists is claimed to be derived from subjective feelings, opinions, beliefs and judgments of individual[s].

As I had explained a '1000 times' in various posts;
my 'ought-ness' and 'ought-not-ness' are not related to personal subjective feelings directly but rather traceable to the physical biological* elements, the neural machineries, the algorithm, the genes, DNA, atoms and quarks that generate the potentials of the ought-ness and ought-not-ness that drive moral behaviors that subsequently resulting in subjective moral feelings.

And since morality is not a matter either of feelings or of biological elements, you're both wrong.

What a wonderful forum this is. Where else can we be regularly entertained by an endless head-to-head between two chronic sufferers of the Dunning-Kruger effect?

[Veritas Aequitas]

Elsewhere, VA quotes this passage:

'What Wilson proposed is, to enable morality and ethics to progress expeditiously we need to dig deep into biology, i.e. genes, the 'neural machineries' and DNA in addition to all other necessary factors.'

The context and authorship don't matter here. What matters is the confusion. Why should morality and ethics 'progress expeditiously'? And what constitutes 'the expeditious progress of morality and ethics' anyway?

It could mean that we need to - and can - understand more accurately why we do what we do, and why we think some actions are morally right or good, and others are morally wrong or evil. In other words, science (biology, neurology, genetics) can give us objective, factual knowledge in this area.

But such knowledge - of why we don't do X, or why we think X is morally wrong or evil - doesn't tell us that we shouldn't do X. or that X is morally wrong or evil.

We can't deduce moral facts from physical facts - because there are no moral facts. So we have to start with a moral opinion, which we can then assume and ignore - as VA does, in order to construct a misguided moral theory.

When asked why we should avoid evil and promote good, VA, like all other moral realists and objectivists, has no coherent answer whatsoever. Any non-moral reason they provide can't entail a moral conclusion. And any moral reason they provide doesn't establish moral objectivity, because it just chains moral assertions.

You are so ignorant, very unintelligent [aka stupid] and do not have the wisdom [philosophically] to understand what morality-proper is. You are wallowing in the mud-pit of your traditional views on morality.

Morality-proper can be reduced to a "numbers game" [negative].
Morality-proper is eliminating 'evil acts' to enable its related 'goods'.
There is a need to have an exhaustive list of evil acts ranked in degrees of evilness.
For example, those in the higher degrees are, genocides, murders, rapes, extreme tortures, violence, slavery, etc.

Note for example, the evil acts of murder, i.e. which contra morality:

• More than 400,000 people die from homicide each year – in some countries it’s one of the leading causes. [ https://ourworldindata.org/homicides : 2019]

"What Wilson proposed is, to enable morality and ethics to progress expeditiously we need to dig deep into biology, i.e. genes, the 'neural machineries' and DNA in addition to all other necessary factors."

Expeditiously means humanity need to reduce this '400,000 homicide cases' to ZERO [if not near zero] in the fastest optimal trend with quantum leaps in the reduction over say 100 years or more in the future.

To achieve the above effectively, there is a need to ground moral actions on objective moral facts conditioned upon a moral FSK which are conditioned upon scientific-biology FSK facts.

In this case of murder as an evil act that contra morality, we are grounding on the objective moral fact conditioned upon the biological-based "ought-not-ness to kill humans" which is inherent in ALL humans as a feature of human nature.

It is not a matter of ' why should we ..' as if forced to by some external authority.
Since it is a matter-of-fact that the natural biological-based "ought-not-ness to kill humans" exists inherently in ALL humans and it is already unfolding naturally* [slow trend at present], what we are doing is a matter of expediting this naturally-ongoing-unfoldment* to make it more active in ALL [if not most] humans.
The reduction in murders in this exercise will naturally and gradually have a reducing trend and with quantum leaps when catalytic-efforts are imputed therein.

*alluded in,

• The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined is a 2011 book by Steven Pinker, in which the author argues that violence in the world has declined both in the long run and in the short run and suggests explanations as to why this has occurred. WIKI

As I had stated, your dogmatic and resistant view and stance on morality [Moral Subjectivism - has no fixed goal post] will not enable the progress of morality but instead enable the possibility of the extermination of the human species [when evil people get their hand on very accessible and cheap WMDs - nuclear and/or biological].

[Peter Holmes]

Elsewhere, VA quotes this passage:

'What Wilson proposed is, to enable morality and ethics to progress expeditiously we need to dig deep into biology, i.e. genes, the 'neural machineries' and DNA in addition to all other necessary factors.'

The context and authorship don't matter here. What matters is the confusion. Why should morality and ethics 'progress expeditiously'? And what constitutes 'the expeditious progress of morality and ethics' anyway?

It could mean that we need to - and can - understand more accurately why we do what we do, and why we think some actions are morally right or good, and others are morally wrong or evil. In other words, science (biology, neurology, genetics) can give us objective, factual knowledge in this area.

But such knowledge - of why we don't do X, or why we think X is morally wrong or evil - doesn't tell us that we shouldn't do X. or that X is morally wrong or evil.

We can't deduce moral facts from physical facts - because there are no moral facts. So we have to start with a moral opinion, which we can then assume and ignore - as VA does, in order to construct a misguided moral theory.

When asked why we should avoid evil and promote good, VA, like all other moral realists and objectivists, has no coherent answer whatsoever. Any non-moral reason they provide can't entail a moral conclusion. And any moral reason they provide doesn't establish moral objectivity, because it just chains moral assertions.

You are so ignorant, very unintelligent [aka stupid] and do not have the wisdom [philosophically] to understand what morality-proper is. You are wallowing in the mud-pit of your traditional views on morality.

Morality-proper can be reduced to a "numbers game" [negative].
Morality-proper is eliminating 'evil acts' to enable its related 'goods'.
There is a need to have an exhaustive list of evil acts ranked in degrees of evilness.
For example, those in the higher degrees are, genocides, murders, rapes, extreme tortures, violence, slavery, etc.

Note for example, the evil acts of murder, i.e. which contra morality:

• More than 400,000 people die from homicide each year – in some countries it’s one of the leading causes. [ https://ourworldindata.org/homicides : 2019]

"What Wilson proposed is, to enable morality and ethics to progress expeditiously we need to dig deep into biology, i.e. genes, the 'neural machineries' and DNA in addition to all other necessary factors."

Expeditiously means humanity need to reduce this '400,000 homicide cases' to ZERO [if not near zero] in the fastest optimal trend with quantum leaps in the reduction over say 100 years or more in the future.

To achieve the above effectively, there is a need to ground moral actions on objective moral facts conditioned upon a moral FSK which are conditioned upon scientific-biology FSK facts.

In this case of murder as an evil act that contra morality, we are grounding on the objective moral fact conditioned upon the biological-based "ought-not-ness to kill humans" which is inherent in ALL humans as a feature of human nature.

It is not a matter of ' why should we ..' as if forced to by some external authority.
Since it is a matter-of-fact that the natural biological-based "ought-not-ness to kill humans" exists inherently in ALL humans and it is already unfolding naturally* [slow trend at present], what we are doing is a matter of expediting this naturally-ongoing-unfoldment* to make it more active in ALL [if not most] humans.
The reduction in murders in this exercise will naturally and gradually have a reducing trend and with quantum leaps when catalytic-efforts are imputed therein.

*alluded in,

• The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined is a 2011 book by Steven Pinker, in which the author argues that violence in the world has declined both in the long run and in the short run and suggests explanations as to why this has occurred. WIKI

As I had stated, your dogmatic and resistant view and stance on morality [Moral Subjectivism - has no fixed goal post] will not enable the progress of morality but instead enable the possibility of the extermination of the human species [when evil people get their hand on very accessible and cheap WMDs - nuclear and/or biological].

Read back what you've written. You'll find you don't answer my questions.

Why should we enhance the 'oughtness-not-to-kill' in human brains? Why should we not enhance the 'oughtness-to-kill' in human brains? Why is murder evil? Why should we avoid evil and promote good?

You've fooled yourself into thinking there are factual answers to these questions. Perhaps you could try to formulate a valid and sound syllogism - that concludes with one of the above assertions: 'Therefore, we should enhance the oughtness-not-to-kill in human brains / murder is evil / we should avoid evil and promote good.'

Hint: 'Murder is a moral matter' is a useless premise.

[Peter Holmes]

Elsewhere, VA quotes the following, and adds a gloss.

Cognitive Relativism consists of two claims:
(1) The truth-value of any statement is always relative to some particular standpoint;
(2) No standpoint is metaphysically privileged over all others.
https://iep.utm.edu/cognitive-Relativism-truth/#H3
The above stated there are no independent objective reality other than the reality that is conditioned upon the human related paradigms, standpoints and frameworks.

But the gloss is false. The claims refer to statements and standpoints. They say nothing about the existence - or non-existence - of a reality independent from 'the human conditions' [?].

And, btw, the words cognition is just a fancy, technical-sounding substitute for thinking or thought - designed to give the impression of scientific accuracy.

Here's what the two claims actually mean.

A description - and therefore a truth-claim - is contextual and conventional, and is therefore 'relative to' or 'dependent on' our linguistic practices in a specific context. This is trivially true and inconsequential.

A thing can be described in many different ways; and no one kind of description is inherently superior to or more fundamental or 'truer' than any other. A description is not the described. And a thing can't be described into or out of existence.

VA is not alone in mistaking what we say for the way things are.

[FlashDangerpants]

Peter Holmes' right and wrong of moralists is claimed to be derived from subjective feelings, opinions, beliefs and judgments of individual[s].

As I had explained a '1000 times' in various posts;
my 'ought-ness' and 'ought-not-ness' are not related to personal subjective feelings directly but rather traceable to the physical biological* elements, the neural machineries, the algorithm, the genes, DNA, atoms and quarks that generate the potentials of the ought-ness and ought-not-ness that drive moral behaviors that subsequently resulting in subjective moral feelings.

And since morality is not a matter either of feelings or of biological elements, you're both wrong.

What a wonderful forum this is. Where else can we be regularly entertained by an endless head-to-head between two chronic sufferers of the Dunning-Kruger effect?

Erm.... you are the dude that paired a bog-standard off the shelf utilitarianism with a randomly chosen modifier (roll a die to select from "niceness", "fairness", "predictability", "universalizability", "maximisation of .... (roll more dice to find out which of countless desideratum we are choosing to maximise)") aren't you?

That guy shouldn't be throwing the DK accusation around willy and nilly.

[Skepdick]

Erm.... you are the dude that paired a bog-standard off the shelf utilitarianism with a randomly chosen modifier (roll a die to select from "niceness", "fairness", "predictability", "universalizability", "maximisation of .... (roll more dice to find out which of countless desideratum we are choosing to maximise)") aren't you?

That guy shouldn't be throwing the DK accusation around willy and nilly.

You know you can do multivariate optimisation, right?

Maximise for everything "good".
Minimise for everything "bad".

In so far as you are pedling a bunch of normatives (and unstated) desideratum and optimising how philosophy should and shouldn't be conducted you are in the exact same boat.

[tillingborn]

You know you can do multi-variate optimisation, right?

Maximise for everything "good".
Minimise for everything "bad".

In so far as you are pedling a bunch of normatives (and unstated) desideratum on how philosophy should and shouldn't be conducted you are in the exact same boat.

I suppose you might have a sense of irony, perhaps even humour:

Dumb. Fucking. Philosopher.

Well yes. All of the above.

[Skepdick]

You know you can do multi-variate optimisation, right?

Maximise for everything "good".
Minimise for everything "bad".

In so far as you are pedling a bunch of normatives (and unstated) desideratum on how philosophy should and shouldn't be conducted you are in the exact same boat.

I suppose you might have a sense of irony, perhaps even humour:

Dumb. Fucking. Philosopher.

Well yes. All of the above.

None of the above. Rorty said everything there's to be said about irony and ironism in philosophy. Of course - he was right, but then he died cynical and miserable - so let that be a warning.

I am just on-board with the idea of (philosophy as) conceptual design - the old idea of The Creation, in a shiny, new wrapper.

Engineering the experience, not shoving it down people's throats.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Elsewhere, VA quotes this passage:

'What Wilson proposed is, to enable morality and ethics to progress expeditiously we need to dig deep into biology, i.e. genes, the 'neural machineries' and DNA in addition to all other necessary factors.'

The context and authorship don't matter here. What matters is the confusion. Why should morality and ethics 'progress expeditiously'? And what constitutes 'the expeditious progress of morality and ethics' anyway?

It could mean that we need to - and can - understand more accurately why we do what we do, and why we think some actions are morally right or good, and others are morally wrong or evil. In other words, science (biology, neurology, genetics) can give us objective, factual knowledge in this area.

But such knowledge - of why we don't do X, or why we think X is morally wrong or evil - doesn't tell us that we shouldn't do X. or that X is morally wrong or evil.

We can't deduce moral facts from physical facts - because there are no moral facts. So we have to start with a moral opinion, which we can then assume and ignore - as VA does, in order to construct a misguided moral theory.

When asked why we should avoid evil and promote good, VA, like all other moral realists and objectivists, has no coherent answer whatsoever. Any non-moral reason they provide can't entail a moral conclusion. And any moral reason they provide doesn't establish moral objectivity, because it just chains moral assertions.

You are so ignorant, very unintelligent [aka stupid] and do not have the wisdom [philosophically] to understand what morality-proper is. You are wallowing in the mud-pit of your traditional views on morality.

Morality-proper can be reduced to a "numbers game" [negative].
Morality-proper is eliminating 'evil acts' to enable its related 'goods'.
There is a need to have an exhaustive list of evil acts ranked in degrees of evilness.
For example, those in the higher degrees are, genocides, murders, rapes, extreme tortures, violence, slavery, etc.

Note for example, the evil acts of murder, i.e. which contra morality:

• More than 400,000 people die from homicide each year – in some countries it’s one of the leading causes. [ https://ourworldindata.org/homicides : 2019]

"What Wilson proposed is, to enable morality and ethics to progress expeditiously we need to dig deep into biology, i.e. genes, the 'neural machineries' and DNA in addition to all other necessary factors."

Expeditiously means humanity need to reduce this '400,000 homicide cases' to ZERO [if not near zero] in the fastest optimal trend with quantum leaps in the reduction over say 100 years or more in the future.

To achieve the above effectively, there is a need to ground moral actions on objective moral facts conditioned upon a moral FSK which are conditioned upon scientific-biology FSK facts.

In this case of murder as an evil act that contra morality, we are grounding on the objective moral fact conditioned upon the biological-based "ought-not-ness to kill humans" which is inherent in ALL humans as a feature of human nature.

It is not a matter of ' why should we ..' as if forced to by some external authority.
Since it is a matter-of-fact that the natural biological-based "ought-not-ness to kill humans" exists inherently in ALL humans and it is already unfolding naturally* [slow trend at present], what we are doing is a matter of expediting this naturally-ongoing-unfoldment* to make it more active in ALL [if not most] humans.
The reduction in murders in this exercise will naturally and gradually have a reducing trend and with quantum leaps when catalytic-efforts are imputed therein.

*alluded in,

• The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined is a 2011 book by Steven Pinker, in which the author argues that violence in the world has declined both in the long run and in the short run and suggests explanations as to why this has occurred. WIKI

As I had stated, your dogmatic and resistant view and stance on morality [Moral Subjectivism - has no fixed goal post] will not enable the progress of morality but instead enable the possibility of the extermination of the human species [when evil people get their hand on very accessible and cheap WMDs - nuclear and/or biological].

Read back what you've written. You'll find you don't answer my questions.

Why should we enhance the 'oughtness-not-to-kill' in human brains?
Why should we not enhance the 'oughtness-to-kill' in human brains?
Why is murder evil?
Why should we avoid evil and promote good?

You've fooled yourself into thinking there are factual answers to these questions. Perhaps you could try to formulate a valid and sound syllogism - that concludes with one of the above assertions: 'Therefore, we should enhance the oughtness-not-to-kill in human brains / murder is evil / we should avoid evil and promote good.'

Hint: 'Murder is a moral matter' is a useless premise.

PH: Why is murder evil?
You don't sound like you are a normal human being.
To a serial killer or a child torturer-killer, murder is not a moral matter.
Moral Nihilists who deny 'morality' are sickos.

PH: Why should we avoid evil and promote good?
For all normal human beings, 'morality' is a feature of human nature and humanity. Show me which normal person would deny the existence and reality of morality?
Even for those who deny the impulses of morality, it can be easily demonstrated it is inherent in their being as human beings.

Since morality is natural and being part of human nature, obviously we need to define what is morality-proper within a credible moral FSK from the traditional pseudo-morality.

I define morality-proper [as evident in human nature] as eliminating evil acts to enable its related good.
What is evil is net-negative to the well-being & flourishing of individual[s] and therefrom humanity.

PH: Why should we not enhance the 'oughtness-to-kill' in human brains?
All humans are programmed with the 'ought-ness-to-kill' but when this is directed to other humans deliberately, that is murder which is evil, i.e. destroyed the well-being of humans.
We do not enhance " 'oughtness-to-kill' in human brains" because that is contradicting what is morality-proper.

PH: Why should we enhance the 'oughtness-not-to-kill' in human brains?
To ensure the evident necessity of the well-being & flourishing of individual[s] and therefrom humanity, humans are also programmed via evolution with the 'ought-not-ness-to-kill-humans'. However, this algorithm is not strong and active in the majority.

It is very evident, there is great concern within humanity with an urgency to reduce the number of murders.
It is not a question of "SHOULD" but rather it is natural for humans to flow with the natural impulses embedded in one's human nature to meet with the urgency of reducing the number of murder [evil act] around the world.

I repeat;
As I had stated, your dogmatic and resistant view and stance on morality [Moral Subjectivism - has no fixed goal post] will not enable the progress of morality but instead enable the possibility of the extermination of the human species [when evil people get their hand on very accessible and cheap WMDs - nuclear and/or biological].
You're a sicko in this case.