Is morality objective or subjective?

[Peter Holmes]

Let's see. What could make two moral codes mutually exclusive?

Homosexuality is morally wrong. Homosexuality is not morally wrong.

Now, what objective (factual) moral standard or reference or measure could adjudicate here? What's the moral fact of the matter?

VA: 'Which of these assertions avoids evil and promotes good - a net benefit to the individual and the community? And how is that assessed?'

Ffs. Stroll on.

[FlashDangerpants]

Let's see. What could make two moral codes mutually exclusive?

Homosexuality is morally wrong. Homosexuality is not morally wrong.

Now, what objective (factual) moral standard or reference or measure could adjudicate here? What's the moral fact of the matter?

Ffs. Stroll on.

So if we finish correcting the false syllogism we get, according to my reckoning something like...

P1 Assertoric facts emerge from within a human-based framework of understanding.
P2 There are uncountably many human-based moral frameworks of belief.
P3 The conflicting frameworks are incommensurable

• some assert animal rights, some refuse to aknowledge harm to animals at all

• some insist moral fact is indeterminable by human means, resulting in moral error unless god provides the answers (see IC)

• some assert that self-ownership via divine magic creates natural rights (ahem)

• others suppose that there is an innate 'oughtness' in physical matter, as long as it is a desirable ought for the author to purse ... (ahem)

• some recommend murder of homosexuals, others suggest that would be naughty

C Therefore, there are NO moral facts.

[Skepdick]

Let's see. What could make two moral codes mutually exclusive?

Homosexuality is morally wrong. Homosexuality is not morally wrong.

You left out a couple:

* Homosexuality is not a moral concern
* Homosexuality is sometimes morally wrong and sometimes morally right

Yes. All of those perspectives (and more) exist objectively, factually and simultaneously. This is no different to some people saying that this color is blue; and some people saying that this color is red.

No surprise there - humans can and do say whatever they want about anything they want.

What or where is their "mutual exclusivity?" Sure sounds like you have some moral pre-supposition in your reasoning...

[Peter Holmes]

Here's a logical contradiction - a 'speaking against'.

Homosexuality is a moral concern. Homosexuality is not a moral concern.

Now, what's the fact of the matter?

[Skepdick]

Here's a logical contradiction - a 'speaking against'.

Homosexuality is a moral concern. Homosexuality is not a moral concern.

Now, what's the fact of the matter?

Why are you avoiding the question?

Those two perspectives/sentences on the morality of homosexuality exist simultaneously. That's a fact.

What makes them "mutually exclusive" if not facts?

[Peter Holmes]

Some thoughts on the relationship between language and reality.

What we call facts are features of reality that are or were the case. So, of course, there are no mutually exclusive facts. There are, as it were, no contradictions in reality.

By contrast, logic deals with language, not reality. (Outside language, reality is not linguistic.) And in language, there can be contradictions - 'speakings against' - which are mutually exclusive.

[Skepdick]

What we call facts are features of reality that are or were the case. So, of course, there are no mutually exclusive facts. There are, as it were, no contradictions in reality.

That's not true.

P1. Reality contains language.
P2. Language contains contradictions.
C. Reality contains contradictions.

By contrast, logic deals with language, not reality. (Outside language, reality is not linguistic.) And in language, there can be contradictions - 'speakings against' - which are mutually exclusive.

If contradictiry statements are not "mutually exclusive" in reality (how could they be - they coexist simultaneously?!?!) then they aren't mutually exclusive in language either.

The only thing that makes contradictions "mutually exclusive is an objective moral fact. The law of non-contradiction.

[Iwannaplato]

Some thoughts on the relationship between language and reality.

What we call facts are features of reality that are or were the case. So, of course, there are no mutually exclusive facts. There are, as it were, no contradictions in reality.

I have two objections to this:
1) in my reality, I am and my community is always dealing with incomplete knowledge coupled with contradictions in that knowledge: anomalies, perhaps. We may assume that these anomalies and contradicitions have to do with problems in what we are considering facts and that everything will get worked out in the long run. But here we are chugging into the future with contradictions and having had them going back into the depths of time. It is perhaps a very good assumption that, really, out there, everything fits together and follows the same rules, but it is an assumption and other ontologies could fit both what seems stable and the existence of anomalies or contradictory facts. I am not sure where parsiomony comes it, but my main point to get thing down into our lived experience and away from the comprehensive model of reality we have in our heads.

2) There is experimental and theoretical evidence that facts about reality can contradict each other both be true...
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.05080.pdf
and a more lay interpretation of the paper here...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/scie ... 33341.html

The scientific method relies on facts, established through repeated measurements and agreed upon
universally, independently of who observed them. In quantum mechanics, the objectivity of observations is not so clear, most dramatically exposed in Eugene Wigner’s eponymous thought experiment
where two observers can experience seemingly different realities. The question whether these realities can be reconciled in an observer-independent way has long remained inaccessible to empirical
investigation, until recent no-go-theorems constructed an extended Wigner’s friend scenario with
four observers that allows us to put it to the test. In a state-of-the-art 6-photon experiment, we
realise this extended Wigner’s friend scenario, experimentally violating the associated Bell-type inequality by 5 standard deviations. If one holds fast to the assumptions of locality and free-choice,
this result implies that quantum theory should be interpreted in an observer-dependent way.

So, there are a few issues: 1) our lived experience through time with out limited knowledge that so far has always had contradictions and a confusing reality (or 'reality'); 2) perhaps even reality is more flexible than we realize and in a way that allows for contradictory facts. 3) I think there could be ontologies that allow for contradictions, changes in rules, non-objectivity - in the sense that different consciousnesses live in a certain sense in different realities - the above experiment provides some evidence this might be true in a limited-to-event way. But there could be ontologies where it is not limited to that level - either the subatomic or the specific event. We could perhaps say there is a fixed meta-ontology. But I think that also would be a working assumption.

And I do understand what you are saying about language as opposed to reality and that logic can only apply to the former. However 'contradictions' which could be seen as a logic judgment is a different idea than facts. We accumulate the last term and adjust our lists and this is ongoing. And we ruling new facts at a risk, always, whatever the basis, including contradiction. Even if reality is actually consistant with itself and not something much more chaotic and non-unitary, even at any or every given point.

[Skepdick]

(...)
But here we are chugging into the future with contradictions and having had them going back into the depths of time.
(...)

Contradictions go even beyond the "depths of time" because the various conceptions of time (e.g General relativity and Quantum Mechanics) contradict each other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_time

The flow of time breaks logic's law of identity. A rose is a rose is a rose, but now is not now is not now.

Contradictions are caused by self-reference - there is no escaping it because all we are ever doing with language is expressing ourselves.
If we eliminate self-reference then the expressivity and usefulness of language goes down the toilet.

Philosophers' desire to eliminate contradictions is a fool's errand.

[FlashDangerpants]

Some thoughts on the relationship between language and reality.

What we call facts are features of reality that are or were the case. So, of course, there are no mutually exclusive facts. There are, as it were, no contradictions in reality.

I have two objections to this:
1) in my reality, I am and my community is always dealing with incomplete knowledge coupled with contradictions in that knowledge: anomalies, perhaps. We may assume that these anomalies and contradicitions have to do with problems in what we are considering facts and that everything will get worked out in the long run. But here we are chugging into the future with contradictions and having had them going back into the depths of time. It is perhaps a very good assumption that, really, out there, everything fits together and follows the same rules, but it is an assumption and other ontologies could fit both what seems stable and the existence of anomalies or contradictory facts. I am not sure where parsiomony comes it, but my main point to get thing down into our lived experience and away from the comprehensive model of reality we have in our heads.

For two fact claims to be contradictory, at least one must assert by entailment the untruth of the other. This logical relationship places them in need of resolution, and until there is resolution, the fact statements are typically considered tentative, proposed, theoretical or moot (and so on).

We already have plenty of logical and linguistic tools to handle conflict and ambiguity because what we cannot accept is the notion that two statements that each entail the other is wrong could be simultaneously both true. The bullshit that VA and Skep are trying to sell us require the internalisation of the liar's paradox, which triggers a vomit reflex in all sane persons.

2) There is experimental and theoretical evidence that facts about reality can contradict each other both be true...
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.05080.pdf
and a more lay interpretation of the paper here...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/scie ... 33341.html

You see how they resolve the contradiction though, right?

That's correct, the thing can occupy two different states at once, which is something you cannot do, but apparently the things you are made out of can do.

So it isn't contradictory unless you insist that quantum things can only occupy a single state at a given time. "Particle A occupies state X" is not contradicted by "particle A occupies state Y" unless state Y entails not state X.

So, there are a few issues: 1) our lived experience through time with out limited knowledge that so far has always had contradictions and a confusing reality (or 'reality'); 2) perhaps even reality is more flexible than we realize and in a way that allows for contradictory facts. 3) I think there could be ontologies that allow for contradictions, changes in rules, non-objectivity - in the sense that different consciousnesses live in a certain sense in different realities - the above experiment provides some evidence this might be true in a limited-to-event way. But there could be ontologies where it is not limited to that level - either the subatomic or the specific event. We could perhaps say there is a fixed meta-ontology. But I think that also would be a working assumption.

Maybe the thing you presented should properly be thought of as actual contradictory facts. There was no way for you to convey that, the contradiction had to be resolved enough that you could actually describe the scenario and thus you end up with a thing being in two states at once or else a better way of looking at things might be that the observation is observer dependent.

Makes no odds, you couldn't convey the story with real contradictory facts because we aren't tooled to think about things that way. This is a private language problem.

And I do understand what you are saying about language as opposed to reality and that logic can only apply to the former. However 'contradictions' which could be seen as a logic judgment is a different idea than facts. We accumulate the last term and adjust our lists and this is ongoing. And we ruling new facts at a risk, always, whatever the basis, including contradiction. Even if reality is actually consistant with itself and not something much more chaotic and non-unitary, even at any or every given point.

Eventually though, if we find a fact to be both true and impossible by virtue of entailment from some other fact, then that other fact becomes falsified. And if we try to give up on just the notion of contradiction, we will fail as we would end up sacrificing the notion of falsification as well, and that would create a single-circuit self resolving paradox.

[Skepdick]

For two fact claims to be contradictory, at least one must assert by entailment the untruth of the other. This logical relationship places them in need of resolution, and until there is resolution, the fact statements are typically considered tentative, proposed, theoretical or moot (and so on).

Great!

So... here are two contradictory claims.

The color of this sentence is red.
The color of this sentence is not red.

We already have plenty of logical and linguistic tools to handle conflict and ambiguity because what we cannot accept is the notion that two statements that each entail the other is wrong could be simultaneously both true.

Do we now? Can you make those tools/mechanisms explicit?

Go ahead and tell us how to resolve the conflict above. Produce a mechanism which identifies which one is true and which one is false.

Without vomiting.

The bullshit that VA and Skep are trying to sell us require the internalisation of the liar's paradox, which triggers a vomit reflex in all sane persons.

What a cute escape hatch you've built into your argument. The moral high ground to claim that I am <insert pejorative here> and you are <insert moral self-agrandizement here>.

That's why philosophers are fucking idiots. Of course, psychologists have a term for your mental dysfunction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)

A large chunk of our moral cannons is about learning to manage your animal instincts. Including the default instinct to think yourself moral.

[Peter Holmes]

1 Philosophy is, and has always been, about the use of words, and particularly some important abstract nouns, such as truth, knowledge, identity, and so on. Imo.

2 Logic deals with language, not the reality outside language. Other disciplines deal with the reality outside language - such as the natural sciences. But every use of language depends on following the rules of one logic or another - on agreement on the use of signs.

3 By definition, contradictions - 'speakings-against' - occur only in language, and can't occur in the reality outside language. So even if quantum indeterminacy is fundamental, that would not mean there is a contradiction in reality outside language. And if there are different realities, they would not contradict each other. Only assertions can be contradictory.

4 Though it's necessary for communication, agreement on the use of signs in descriptions does not constitute what we call facts and, therefore, objectivity. If it did, then agreement on the use of words in there are pink unicorns on the moon would constitute a fact. And it doesn't.

[Iwannaplato]

For two fact claims to be contradictory, at least one must assert by entailment the untruth of the other. This logical relationship places them in need of resolution, and until there is resolution, the fact statements are typically considered tentative, proposed, theoretical or moot (and so on).

I'm not sure that is universal practice or even scientific practice. Often what happens in science is one team considers the other team's fact false. You can have this in paradigm shifts or in situations where something does or seems to go against a preferred model. But there can be situations where contradictory facts are held to be true in a variety of fields and communities.

We already have plenty of logical and linguistic tools to handle conflict and ambiguity because what we cannot accept is the notion that two statements that each entail the other is wrong could be simultaneously both true.

But out here in life, we often have to follow different ideas of truth at different times. Before the particle/wave dualism got resolved (if it did) people likely went on with one set of facts and other people or even the same people in other contexts going with other facts. We can look back and think, well, our concepts were limited and it merely seemed like a contradiction, but it wasn't. But one of my points was that here we are in the middle of processes of unraveling things. The other point is we presume things like natural laws, at least some do. So, we can't have a law as a fact and have things that go against those laws. However in recent decades there has been some scraping away at the idea that there are natural laws period.

The bullshit that VA and Skep are trying to sell us require the internalisation of the liar's paradox, which triggers a vomit reflex in all sane persons.

We don't have to view everything as teams.

2) There is experimental and theoretical evidence that facts about reality can contradict each other both be true...
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.05080.pdf
and a more lay interpretation of the paper here...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/scie ... 33341.html

You see how they resolve the contradiction though, right?

That's correct, the thing can occupy two different states at once, which is something you cannot do,

We don't know the limits of this phenomenon.

So it isn't contradictory unless you insist that quantum things can only occupy a single state at a given time. "Particle A occupies state X" is not contradicted by "particle A occupies state Y" unless state Y entails not state X.

I think you're missing what their experiment shows or is evidence of. The facts are different to different observers. What happened or what was is different to the different observers. It wasn't in two states for A and two states for B. Different things are observed, because different things happened in their worlds.

The research is something that has only recently been technologically possible to investigate.

Maybe the thing you presented should properly be thought of as actual contradictory facts. There was no way for you to convey that, the contradiction had to be resolved enough that you could actually describe the scenario and thus you end up with a thing being in two states at once or else a better way of looking at things might be that the observation is observer dependent.

And generally, as they discuss in the lay article, observer independence is quality of scientific research and confirmation. Not in the sense of the old qm thing that observers influence or cohere something out of superposition, but that two things can be cohered out of suposition at the same moment.

Makes no odds, you couldn't convey the story with real contradictory facts because we aren't tooled to think about things that way. This is a private language problem.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

I seem to be able to imagine a reality that is shifting laws and patterns and then also is not consistent between individuals. That at the macro level I and someone else could both correctly describe and event and contradict each other. And not because we saw only certain facets, which would always be the case, but because reality isn't a thing that we view in that old subject perception object model. I'm not sure what I can't think of here. But I likely missed your point.

Eventually though, if we find a fact to be both true and impossible by virtue of entailment from some other fact, then that other fact becomes falsified.

1) that's why I mentioned time. We can have two correct facts, until it resolves, if it does.
2) Both facts might get confirmed, however we understand the context is more complex.
3) Both could be disconfirmed or at least seem to be.

Here we are in the middle of time with incomplete knowledge and a lot of working assumptions about reality.

And if we try to give up on just the notion of contradiction, we will fail as we would end up sacrificing the notion of falsification as well, and that would create a single-circuit self resolving paradox.

Or we move ahead, instead of deciding the whole thing has to collapse, with everything even facts as tentative, in some way, and even what we consider obvious ontology also tentative, in some way. Language can contradict itself but reality has is consistant/has laws, rather than say habits, perhaps local ones/events are what they are and not also something else and so on. I think this is what we actually do in practice, with individuals having different awareness of this, committment to tentativeness, openness to radically different ontologies and so on.

You could even look at this as a special case of cognitive dissonance.

[Iwannaplato]

3 By definition, contradictions - 'speakings-against' - occur only in language, and can't occur in the reality outside language. So even if quantum indeterminacy is fundamental, that would not mean there is a contradiction in reality outside language. And if there are different realities, they would not contradict each other. Only assertions can be contradictory.

I don't know how much this is a response to me, but sure, contradictions, in the main, derived from the etymologicial sense of the term, has to do with language. But if you can have two people correctly create a fact about an event and those facts contradict each other reality may have qualities like language. We might need another word for that disconjunct between accurate descriptions of an event.

There is an assumption that reality must be consistant. Sometimes this is seen as consistant through time. Sometimes through space. So in different places the same rules apply unless other rules (conditions) override. There's also the assumption that events are non-contradictory and out of that we get facts and objectivity. But this might not be the case.

This discussion has been hinged on 'facts' (way too much in my opinion), with a lot of conflation of facts and events - not that I feel that schema is problem free.

It seems like both you and flashdangerpants say that contradictions can happen in language. Well facts are always language. We'd need some other language for 'facets of reality that facts describe'.

[Skepdick]

There is an assumption that reality must be consistant. Sometimes this is seen as consistant through time. Sometimes through space. So in different places the same rules apply unless other rules (conditions) override.

Reality must be consistent with respect to what?

If reality is consistently inconsistent is reality consistent; or inconsistent?