Is morality objective or subjective?

[Will Bouwman]

Everyone is guessing.

That depends on what you think "guess" means.

If you mean "wildly guessing," you'd be incorrect. If you mean, "operating probabilistically, based on what's most likely to be true," then you'd be right...but that's true of all scientific knowing, as well as all moral inquiry, so it's not a very important thought.

Ultimately, I mean "wildly guessing". When it comes to the sort of philosophical questions that remain unresolved, does God exist? Is gravity caused by warped spacetime? Where is the line between art and science? and things of that sort, however well informed, a guess is still a guess. The same is true of what is good and why be it?

...analytic philosophers work with analytical claims and linguistic concepts, so they don't have to guess, since they deal with the meanings of words, not their reference to reality. But any empirical claims are certainly of that sort.

If you think analytic philosophy has no bearing on reality, you have thrown away the ontological argument for God. Anyway, analytic philosophers stick their noses into other people's fields as much as you or I are doing right now.

However, that's not a stroke against empirical knowledge. If it were, all science would instantly become impossible -- and you can see that it isn't. Probabilistic knowledge (or, if you like, high-probability "guesses") are very good stuff; they're likely right.

By "probabilistic knowledge" do you mean "empirical knowledge"? Are you talking about hypotheses? If you drop a brick, what is the probability that it will fall to Earth? Pedantic objections aside, the probability is 100%. What is the probability that the cause is warped spacetime, that no one has ever seen, or the exchange of gravitons that have never been detected? If those were the only options, and they're not, anyone who plumps for either has exactly the same chance of being right as if they flipped a coin. None of which makes the slightest difference to falling bricks. Likewise, in my view, none of the reasons that people give for objecting to murder make much, if any difference to the objection.

But morality is not science, of course. Science deals with facts, and morality with values.

People object to murder. That is a fact. People have different reasons for objecting to murder. That is also a fact. Even if God says murder is wrong it is still a value; just one that is held by an almighty being.

[Immanuel Can]

It is an imperative ought of human nature that ALL humans must breathe.

No, it's not.

If "nature" had any such "ought" then humans would all keep breathing, and not die. As it is, both individuals and species of all kinds die all the time.

Nature is not a person. It has, and is capable of having, no opinion at all about what "ought" to be. Things live if they're fit to survive, and they die if they're not. Nature sheds no tears for them.

That's how the Darwinian story goes.

[Immanuel Can]

I didn't learn about Frege-Geach a few days ago from a 500 word essay in PN.

It really has zero effect what nomenclature the author uses. The problem he poses remains. He could have called it "the Wimble-Wobble" problem, and it would look exactly the same.

It's still the challenge to make up just one moral syllogism that makes sense, in accordance with one's own suppositions. It's not even necessary that everybody must agree with your first premise; it's only necessary for it to add up on its own terms. That's the minimum somebody should be able to do...at least if they want you to think you have any reason at all to believe them.

If you've got such a syllogism, let's see yours. If you don't, you also fail the F-G or W-W problem.

[Harbal]

It is an imperative ought of human nature that ALL humans must breathe.

No, it's not.

If "nature" had any such "ought" then humans would all keep breathing, and not die. As it is, both individuals and species of all kinds die all the time.

Nature is not a person. It has, and is capable of having, no opinion at all about what "ought" to be. Things live if they're fit to survive, and they die if they're not. Nature sheds no tears for them.

That's how the Darwinian story goes.

And that's how it actually does go. I knew you'd get it eventually, IC.

[Peter Holmes]

Thanks for this discussion. I have some questions.

Is the moral rightness or wrongness of eating animals/capital punishment/abortion (and so on), a matter of guesswork?

Is a moral conclusion inductive or abductive - or probabilistic?

To my mind, none of these implied claims makes sense. Classical polar truth/falsehood and dependent intermediate possibility/probability simply don't apply to moral assertions. So I think the following question is incoherent:

What is the possibility/probability that [abortion] is morally wrong?

Nothing in reality can provide an answer, because nothing in reality can confirm or disconfirm a truth-value for a positive or negative moral assertion. Which is why morality isn't and can't be objective.

To deplore the supposed consequential meaninglessness of moral assertions is to assume that only assertions with factual and falsifiable truth-value have any meaning at all. Which is a logical positivist fallacy.

Does the assertion 'X is valuable' have a classical truth-value? And if not, does that render it meaningless?

[FlashDangerpants]

I didn't learn about Frege-Geach a few days ago from a 500 word essay in PN.

It really has zero effect what nomenclature the author uses. The problem he poses remains. He could have called it "the Wimble-Wobble" problem, and it would look exactly the same.

It's still the challenge to make up just one moral syllogism that makes sense, in accordance with one's own suppositions. It's not even necessary that everybody must agree with your first premise; it's only necessary for it to add up on its own terms. That's the minimum somebody should be able to do...at least if they want you to think you have any reason at all to believe them.

If you've got such a syllogism, let's see yours. If you don't, you also fail the F-G or W-W problem.

How bad is your sin of pride? I am much better educated in this matter than you are, and whether you like it or not you are in no position to condescend to me here, so this is an opportunity for you to grow as a human.

Here's a 10 minute video about the Frege-Geach problem. It skips some stuff such as compositionality, but it's fine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wg1l7_ldf4

It is absolutlely only a problem for non-cognitivism which I have already explained for you several times.

• It is so because it is entirely dependent on the reduction of moral properties to emotional states, opinions, judgments etc (the definitive move that makes a theory non-cognitive). Again, I have explained that several times.

• The bit where you say that "stealing is wrong" is exactly the same as "boo stealing" is Frege's Principle of Identity Substitution, this would be true with any name for the argument and the argument would be called a 'Fregean argument' irrespective of its name because of this.

So you see, I am not a non-cog, therefore I don't perform a reduction of meaning when I say "lies are usually wrong" to "I normally frown when people lie". Thus I can do your silly little syllogism problem...

If bullshitting about stuff you don't understand on the internet is wrong, then Immanuel Can bullshitting about stuff he doesn't understand on the internet is wrong.
Bullshitting on the internet is wrong.
Therefore Immanuel Can bullshitting about stuff he doesn't understand on the internet is wrong.

I don't have to try and make a composition of a concept that only fits premise 2 work in premise 1 because I don't have any translation to make in either premise.

Do you get it yet?

[Immanuel Can]

Everyone is guessing.

That depends on what you think "guess" means.

If you mean "wildly guessing," you'd be incorrect. If you mean, "operating probabilistically, based on what's most likely to be true," then you'd be right...but that's true of all scientific knowing, as well as all moral inquiry, so it's not a very important thought.

Ultimately, I mean "wildly guessing".

Then that's obviously not the case. There are better and worse probabilistic calculations, and your view would mean that science was totally impossible: any "guess" would simply be just as good as any other, and so science would not reveal anything.

...analytic philosophers work with analytical claims and linguistic concepts, so they don't have to guess, since they deal with the meanings of words, not their reference to reality. But any empirical claims are certainly of that sort.

If you think analytic philosophy has no bearing on reality, you have thrown away the ontological argument for God.

The Ontological Argument is not what you think it is. You're making the common mistake about that. But I'd refer you to Robert Maydole's exposition of that, if you're curious.

However, analytics deals with the meanings of concepts and words, not with their empirical veracity. So it is possible to do analytics without reference to empirical facts at all. But you can find that out, too.

However, that's not a stroke against empirical knowledge. If it were, all science would instantly become impossible -- and you can see that it isn't. Probabilistic knowledge (or, if you like, high-probability "guesses") are very good stuff; they're likely right.

By "probabilistic knowledge" do you mean "empirical knowledge"? Are you talking about hypotheses? If you drop a brick, what is the probability that it will fall to Earth? Pedantic objections aside, the probability is 100%.[/quote]
Actually, it's not. If you drop a brick when you're standing on a firm surface of any kind above the earth, then the brick will not fall to earth. The chances of that are smaller than that it will, but it's not a particularly rare happening. You could, for example, do that when standing on some part of the top floor of your own house.

That's why probability is part of all empirical knowing: even things that are highly unlikely can still intervene in any experiment, because that's the nature of how things work in the physical world. So what science aims for is very-high-probability hypotheses, not absolute certainties. In empirical matters, absolute certainty is just not available. But that's not really a problem for science.

All of that's not even controversial anymore among philosophers of science. Again, you can check that.

But what it has to do with morality is not readily clear. Science may provide facts we consider relevant to forming our value judgments, but it doesn't provide any of the moral judgments themselves. That's Hume's fact-value distinction.

But morality is not science, of course. Science deals with facts, and morality with values.

People object to murder. That is a fact.

Some do; some do not. That's actually the fact.

But it also doesn't matter if they do. People do wrong things all the time. Remember that at one point in history, 100% of the people on the Earth thought they were standing on a flat plane. And all 100% were wrong.

So whether people (even ALL people) were to believe something is not automatically informative to us of what the truth is. They can all be wrong. But in the case of murder, plenty of rationales and excuses for that have manifestly been made thoroughout human history, so the "fact" you suggest just isn't so. Sometimes, murder has actually been hailed as meritorious...as it was by, for example, Aztec human-sacrificers, or today's abortionists, or by Hitler's attempts to "purify the race."

...if God says murder is wrong it is still a value; just one that is held by an almighty being.

Now you've got it! But you're now talking like a moral objectivist. You're supposing that value is intrinsic. But it can only be intrinsic if it's created that way. You and I are not capable of putting intrinsic value into things, because we are not the creators of the things we find. We inherit them as givens, not produce them. Not so, with God; He's the Creator; consequently, He alone can say for what reason, purpose and role they exist.

[Immanuel Can]

If bullshitting about stuff you don't understand on the internet is wrong, then Immanuel Can bullshitting about stuff he doesn't understand on the internet is wrong.
Bullshitting on the internet is wrong.
Therefore Immanuel Can bullshitting about stuff he doesn't understand on the internet is wrong.

You've invoked an objective moral espression in your attempted syllogism: "is wrong."

But you're not an objectivist, so this isn't a syllogism that can possibly represent your view. You need to put in the term that you believe will warrant the value judgment, not merely borrow a concept from the objectivism in which you do not believe.

Try again, if you would. But this time, put in the name of the dynamic you think actually warrants the prohibition, rather than relying on a stock term you deny can exist. Check the "boo" version, and you'll see how it should work.

[Immanuel Can]

It is an imperative ought of human nature that ALL humans must breathe.

No, it's not.

If "nature" had any such "ought" then humans would all keep breathing, and not die. As it is, both individuals and species of all kinds die all the time.

Nature is not a person. It has, and is capable of having, no opinion at all about what "ought" to be. Things live if they're fit to survive, and they die if they're not. Nature sheds no tears for them.

That's how the Darwinian story goes.

And that's how it actually does go. I knew you'd get it eventually, IC.

I also know "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." It doesn't make the story the true story.

[Harbal]

No, it's not.

If "nature" had any such "ought" then humans would all keep breathing, and not die. As it is, both individuals and species of all kinds die all the time.

Nature is not a person. It has, and is capable of having, no opinion at all about what "ought" to be. Things live if they're fit to survive, and they die if they're not. Nature sheds no tears for them.

That's how the Darwinian story goes.

And that's how it actually does go. I knew you'd get it eventually, IC.

I also know "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." It doesn't make the story the true story.

I agree completely. Just because it says something in a book, that doesn't make it true.

[FlashDangerpants]

If bullshitting about stuff you don't understand on the internet is wrong, then Immanuel Can bullshitting about stuff he doesn't understand on the internet is wrong.
Bullshitting on the internet is wrong.
Therefore Immanuel Can bullshitting about stuff he doesn't understand on the internet is wrong.

You've invoked an objective moral espression in your attempted syllogism: "is wrong."

But you're not an objectivist, so this isn't a syllogism that can possibly represent your view. You need to put in the term that you believe will warrant the value judgment, not merely borrow a concept from the objectivism in which you do not believe.

Try again, if you would. But this time, put in the name of the dynamic you think actually warrants the prohibition, rather than relying on a stock term you deny can exist. Check the "boo" version, and you'll see how it should work.

I made a statement that uses normal language in the normal way as is my entitlement, that does not entail anything either way about the supposed objectivity of the judgement 'is wrong'.

I am not performing the Fregean substitution you request because I don't subscribe to any theory that requires moral language to be so reduced. I would do so if I were a non-cognitivist, they do subscribe to such a theory.

[Peter Holmes]

Premise: Thinking or saying something is so doesn't make it so.
Conclusion: Therefore, thinking or saying something is morally right/wrong doesn't make it morally right/wrong.

Denying this conclusion in relation to a god, real or (as they all are) invented, is special pleading.

[Immanuel Can]

And that's how it actually does go. I knew you'd get it eventually, IC.

I also know "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." It doesn't make the story the true story.

I agree completely. Just because it says something in a book, that doesn't make it true.

Or on the internet.

[Immanuel Can]

If bullshitting about stuff you don't understand on the internet is wrong, then Immanuel Can bullshitting about stuff he doesn't understand on the internet is wrong.
Bullshitting on the internet is wrong.
Therefore Immanuel Can bullshitting about stuff he doesn't understand on the internet is wrong.

You've invoked an objective moral espression in your attempted syllogism: "is wrong."

But you're not an objectivist, so this isn't a syllogism that can possibly represent your view. You need to put in the term that you believe will warrant the value judgment, not merely borrow a concept from the objectivism in which you do not believe.

Try again, if you would. But this time, put in the name of the dynamic you think actually warrants the prohibition, rather than relying on a stock term you deny can exist. Check the "boo" version, and you'll see how it should work.

I made a statement that uses normal language in the normal way

But it is normal, then for people to believe in objective morality. For "is wrong," means "exists as wrong." If something already "exists as" or "exists in the state of being" wrong before you arrive, then it's objective, not subjective.

So if you're prepared to give away the whole game of ever justifying subjectivism, right at the first gate, you can insist on your usage. But if you're not prepared simply to concede my rightness about moral objectivism, you should revise.

[Immanuel Can]

Premise: Thinking or saying something is so doesn't make it so.

If that's applicable to morality, then you're an objectivist.

A subjectivist has to say that all "morality' is, is "thinking," that it's all valuation, in the total absence of objective criteria. Barring that, the subjectivist has to say what criteria apply to making a correct moral valuation...but then, he/she has to point to something he/she insists is objectively right. So he/she is going to end up being an objectivist again.

The only thing a subjectivist can do, to be consistent with his/her subjectivism is insist that all "moralizing" is merely imaginary, and does not participate in objective realities in any way. But the price of that move is that morality then becomes nothing.

But again, Pete, you can prove me wrong: just do your own version of a syllogism prohibiting (or endorsing) some value, but not employing any objectivist suppositions or terms, like "wrong" or "evil" or "bad" or whatever.

"Boo" would be one...the equivalent of emotional disapproval rather than objective wrongness; but we've seen the problems with that proposal already. So maybe you've got a different proposal?