Is morality objective or subjective?

[Skepdick]

Duh! That's because 'betterness' is context dependent.

So tell us about the context in which you used it.

[Will Bouwman]

So tell us about the context in which you used it.

I already did:

If you have encountered circumstances in which calling this eaxct color something other than red, but which also would be appropriate for all the times you called this eaxct color red, then whatever you called this eaxct color other than red, is better than calling it red in numbers of applications.

If you're not going to pay attention, we can save a lot of time by cutting to the chase and saying "You're a useless cunt."
"No, you're a useless cunt."
I'll start. You're a useless cunt.

[Skepdick]

So tell us about the context in which you used it.

I already did:

If you have encountered circumstances in which calling this eaxct color something other than red, but which also would be appropriate for all the times you called this eaxct color red, then whatever you called this eaxct color other than red, is better than calling it red in numbers of applications.

If you're not going to pay attention, we can save a lot of time by cutting to the chase and saying "You're a useless cunt."
"No, you're a useless cunt."
I'll start. You're a useless cunt.

No.. you haven't. You just kicked the can down the road...

You "explained" "betterness" in terms of "appropriateness" without explaining "appropriateness" within the context.

I don't know about you but I find cunts very useful. Reproduction and all...

[Will Bouwman]

I don't know about you but I find cunts very useful. Reproduction and all...

Well, "useful" depends on context. Sometimes the product is a Skepdick.

[Skepdick]

I don't know about you but I find cunts very useful. Reproduction and all...

Well, "useful" depends on context. Sometimes the product is a Skepdick.

And sometimes the product is you - a stuck record who keeps talking about "the context, the context" without being able to tell us what this context is.

[Will Bouwman]

I don't know about you but I find cunts very useful. Reproduction and all...

Well, "useful" depends on context. Sometimes the product is a Skepdick.

And sometimes the product is you - a stuck record who keeps talking about "the context, the context" without being able to tell us what this context is.

Well again, duh!

So tell us about the context in which you used it.

I already did:

If you have encountered circumstances in which calling this eaxct color something other than red, but which also would be appropriate for all the times you called this eaxct color red, then whatever you called this eaxct color other than red, is better than calling it red in numbers of applications.

If you're not going to pay attention, we can save a lot of time by cutting to the chase and saying "You're a useless cunt."
"No, you're a useless cunt."
I'll start. You're a useless cunt.

[Skepdick]

Well, "useful" depends on context. Sometimes the product is a Skepdick.

And sometimes the product is you - a stuck record who keeps talking about "the context, the context" without being able to tell us what this context is.

Well again, duh!

So tell us about the context in which you used it.

I already did:

If you have encountered circumstances in which calling this eaxct color something other than red, but which also would be appropriate for all the times you called this eaxct color red, then whatever you called this eaxct color other than red, is better than calling it red in numbers of applications.

If you're not going to pay attention, we can save a lot of time by cutting to the chase and saying "You're a useless cunt."
"No, you're a useless cunt."
I'll start. You're a useless cunt.

Of course, I understand that it's in the spirit of philosophy to pat yourself on the back in a self-congratulatory fashion. It's probably even about as much fun as masturbation.

But that's not really useful in the context of group activities...

[Immanuel Can]

As I have pointed out before, I look at the same universe as you, I have read the same Bible as you and I have examined the same arguments as you.

I have no idea how you can imagine that's true. On what basis could you claim to know what arguments I have examined, or how I see the universe?

Well, I imagine that after nearly 20 000 posts in 10 years, you have presented at least the bulk of your arguments.

Not nearly, actually.

As for the universe, however you happen to see it, you clearly believe that we are looking at the same universe.

Yes, we are. But we may not be looking at it the same way.

For one thing, you and I have access to different sets of data. You were born in one place, I in another. You have had one set of experiences, I another. I am aware of some arguments, you of others. I have read some things, you others...and so on.

More importantly, though, you perhaps look at the universe with one set of expectations, and I another.

Have you ever asked yourself what would happen if (as the dubious story goes), Newton had not been the one sitting under his apple tree? When the apple fell on his head, what if it had been Fred Jones the novelist sitting there? Would gravity have then been discovered?

Probably not, right? It was because Newton was a brilliant physicist, somebody already interested in material phenomena and scientific explanations that he was able to recognize the apple falling for what it was: an exhibition of gravity. Newton was prepared to see in a certain way; and it turns out he was really onto something important. But Fred Jones, sitting in the same place and contemplating how to pen his latest romance novel would doubtless have felt only irritation that something had hit him on the head.

In the same way, a person has to be prepared to see the evidence as evidence of something. If he's already decided he's uninterested or skeptical of the idea of God, how is he going to recognize anything he sees, anything that happens to him, as an "act of God"? He's already ruled that explanation out, a priori. He's not open to the thought that anything that happens could be from God. So, naturally, nothing he sees seems to be that: his mind always finds an alternate interpretation of events -- "it was coincidence"..."I only thought I heard a voice"..."I just lucked out"..."It was only a dream or illusion"..."the Red Sea didn't actually part"..."the disciples stole the body"...and so on.

Unless there is something in "the relevant data set" to which you are party and I am not, you must attribute my failing to agree with you to my not being fair minded and rational. So which is it? Do you know something I don't, or am I irrational?

Oh, the former, of course. I wouldn't have any reason to think you're irrational, unless you had access to all the same data I do, and still refused to pay any attention to it.

Right. So it turns out that the extra knowledge that you have is deeply personal that you can express, but not actually demonstrate.

Don't worry: you could demonstrate it to yourself, if you were willing.

Would it be irrational to hypothesise that your emotional and intellectual response to some stimulus only you feel might have some cause other than God? For instance:
"... research in the field of “neurotheology” — or the neuroscience of theological belief — has made some surprising discoveries that are bound to change how we think about spirituality.

For instance, some scientists suggest that religious experience activates the same brain circuits as sex and drugs.

Other research has suggested that damage to a certain brain region can make you feel as though someone’s in the room when nobody’s there."
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articl ... xedContent
Would it be fair-minded to dismiss the findings of neuroscience?

No...but one would have to be careful how one interpreted those facts, or one could easily be fooled into a hasty conclusion.

The "finding of neuroscience" you indicate does not singularly conduce to the conclusion that God is a product of neurology. Hasty thought might incline us to jump to such a conclusion, but a little thought instantly dispels that confidence. The old axiom in logic, "correspondence is not causality" is very relevant here: the suggestion that mind states and brain states coordinate does not tell us which causes which, or whether a third thing causes both.

I have a favorite illustration of that, if I may indulge in a joke here.

A woman goes to her doctor, and says, "Doctor, doctor...every time I drink tea, my right eye hurts."

The doctor replies, "Take the spoon out of the cup."

See the point? It's not that the tea was causing the pain, as she surmised. It wasn't even her eye that was the problem, as we might have supposed. it was the third thing, the spoon, that accounted for the entire phenomenon.

So mind states and brain states are linked. Neurophysiology suggests that, and we agree. But do the brain states cause the mind states, the mind states cause the brain states, or does some third thing cause both? That, neuroscience does not know. Some mental phenomena are stimulated by the physical; but so too, we find that some physical states (like pain or healing) are stimulated by mental states. And in the case of psychological phenomena, some physical and mental states are stimulated by third things...My brain is in a state called "ball-perception," my mind tells me to think of a ball, and the reason for both is that there is a ball in front of me. The three are working in tandem, all agreeing about what is really there.

So, now, what can we say from neuroscience about this? Not much. Religious experiences may be stimulated by drugs. Religious experiences may be had without drugs. Religious experiences may be generated by external or experiential phenomena, as well. But do the drugs produce the experience, or do they merely "open up the doors of perception" to a spiritual reality that actually exists? If religious experiences can be had without altered brain states, then what is the significance of the brain states? If religious convictions can be altered by external stimulation by way of arguments or experiences of various kinds, then isn't the most natural conclusion that the mind and brain states follow from that?

But all of this fails to answer the essential question: is there any such thing as an actual object of religious knowledge? Is there a "ball" there?

[Immanuel Can]

But that isn't his fault; he has no choice but to act that way.

Quite so.

You'd think, if necessitarianism were true, that occasionally one would actually live as one. That is: if necessitarianism is true, and some of us are compelled to believe we're free wills and to live as though we were free wills, then some of us would be compelled not only to believe in necessitarianism but would also be compelled to live as necessitarians. None do. All necessitarians live as free wills. They talk and argue as free wills. They make choices as free wills. They reason as free wills. Not a one acts like a conduit for impersonal forces or acts like a domino or acts like a link in a causal chain.

Yes. I've often thought that.

Nobody should argue for Determinism. If they argue, they are presuming the existence of hearers not merely zombified by "antecedent conditioning," but free agents capable of changing their minds by way of immaterial forces such as arguments.

[Skepdick]

You'd think, if necessitarianism were true, that occasionally one would actually live as one.

If necessitarianism were true; what other choice do we have but to live exactly the way we live?

That is: if necessitarianism is true, and some of us are compelled to believe we're free wills and to live as though we were free wills, then some of us would be compelled not only to believe in necessitarianism but would also be compelled to live as necessitarians. None do. All necessitarians live as free wills. They talk and argue as free wills. They make choices as free wills. They reason as free wills. Not a one acts like a conduit for impersonal forces or acts like a domino or acts like a link in a causal chain.

From a necessitarian's view point you believe exactly what you believe and nothing else. You live exactly as you live and no other way. You act exactly as you act and no other way.

Even the whole game of pretend you play with yourself of improving the world and making a difference. It couldn't have been any other way.

Irrespective of the language you are using to talk about it.

The first rule of Tautology Club is the first rule of Tautology Club...

[Iwannaplato]

I don't think take nobody's word for it is the motto of the Royal Society.

It really is:

"The Royal Society's motto 'Nullius in verba' is taken to mean 'take nobody's word for it'. It is an expression of the determination of Fellows to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment."
https://royalsociety.org/about-us/history/

I had no idea what they claimed. My doubt was aimed at the reality of their practice. It's similar to my doubt about Socrates' actual position.

[CIN]

So you're a moral objectivist, then? Only a moral objectivist could say that anything is "evil," let alone that being an "interferer" made one a "monster."

What's the basis of your moral objectivism? Where did you find the precept written, "Thou shalt not even think to 'interfere with' the sexual pecadillos of others, else thou shalt be dubbed a 'monster'?"

Mind you, disagreeing with somebody else's view is pretty minor "interference," by any account.

I'm an objectivist about values ('you did a bad thing when you kicked the cat') but I'm not an objectivist about morals ('you did a morally bad thing when you kicked the cat') because an action can only be morally good or bad if there's free will, and I don't see how there can be (what's the evidence for it? how would it work?).

You've got this precisely backwards.

No, I haven't.

Ordinarily the terms are set up this way: "values" are plausibly subjective...at least, some are, because people can "value" all kinds of things, good and bad. It's "morals" that people take to be (possibly) objective. "Value" can be a verb; "moral" can't. You can "value" slavery; you can't "moral" slavery.

Values can be objective. Read my OP here (you are welcome to comment on that thread if you prefer): viewtopic.php?t=40641

But you're right that free will and morality are a pair. In a Deterministic universe, neither the term "good" nor the term "evil" have any objective meaning.

Incorrect. You are confusing 'good' and 'evil' with 'morally good' and 'morally evil'.

By 'evil' I just meant 'bad'.

A person who claims to believe in Determinism has already denied himself any legitimacy to using any value-laden terms, whether "good" or "evil" or "bad" or "desirable" or whatever. There are no such objective meanings to things in his universe, given his worldview.

Incorrect. Read my OP.

I don't get my values from written precepts, I get them from empirical observation.

How does that work?

Read my OP for an explanation.

I observe that people who try to impose their sexual mores on others are almost invariably motivated by religion,

But in the world you imagine yourself to be living in, that's not "wrong" or "evil" or "bad." All that you can say is, "Whatever is, is: it was all fated to be what it is, because of iron laws of cause and effect. Nobody's to blame, and nothing's ever wrong."

But you don't say that. Instead, you start using value-terms again, as if your worldview backed them. For you claim,

...a pernicious social disease which survives only through the indoctrination of the young and impressionable with proven falsehoods and unprovable woo-woo, and is therefore a form of child abuse.

None of these things is wrong, given Determinism. Nobody "of their own free will" is religious. Likewise, nobody "of their own free will" indoctrinates. Nobody "of their own free will" lies or is an abuser of children. They were all fated to be what they were, by the iron laws of cause and effect. So none of them are "a pernicious social disease" at all. They're all just inevitable facts of Determinism.

But I've never met a Determinist who could live or even talk as if his alleged Determinism were really true. And evidently, you're no exception to that rule: for you use morally-laden terms to describe things you don't like...but your creed tells you they're all inevitable, and could never have been other than they were, anyway.

None of this applies to me, because I didn't, and don't, use the words 'right' and 'wrong'. You will see this if you read my OP.

[CIN]

But of course, if God exists, morality IS created...

If God created morality, wouldn't that mean that he could have created a world in which morality worked the opposite way from the way it works in our world? A world in which healing the sick and feeding the hungry were evil, and murdering and torturing people was good? Is this what you believe?

[Immanuel Can]

Values can be objective.

Can be, if they are objectively valuable. Aren't necessarily. One can "value" worthless things.

But you're right that free will and morality are a pair. In a Deterministic universe, neither the term "good" nor the term "evil" have any objective meaning.

Incorrect. You are confusing 'good' and 'evil' with 'morally good' and 'morally evil'.

There's no kind of "evil" that is not "morally evil." There is a sort of use of "good" that is, say instrumental not moral, but if by "good' we mean something akin to "the opposite of evil," then that's not an instrumental use, but a moral use of the term.

By 'evil' I just meant 'bad'.

A person who claims to believe in Determinism has already denied himself any legitimacy to using any value-laden terms, whether "good" or "evil" or "bad" or "desirable" or whatever. There are no such objective meanings to things in his universe, given his worldview.

Incorrect.

Correct.

I don't get my values from written precepts, I get them from empirical observation.

How does that work?

Read my OP for an explanation.

No, it's far too long, and far too indirect. Just say what you mean. Give me an example of an empirical observation that issues in a value.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Incorrect. You are confusing 'good' and 'evil' with 'morally good' and 'morally evil'.
By 'evil' I just meant 'bad'.

There's no kind of "evil" that is not "morally evil." There is a sort of use of "good" that is, say instrumental not moral, but if by "good' we mean something akin to "the opposite of evil," then that's not an instrumental use, but a moral use of the term.

IC is correct in that 'evil' [not theological] is related to morality in the present philosophical thinking.
You are ignorant and out of date.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concept-evil/
Since World War II, moral, political, and legal philosophers have become increasingly interested in the concept of evil.
This interest has been partly motivated by ascriptions of ‘evil’ by laymen, social scientists, journalists, and politicians as they try to understand and respond to various atrocities and horrors, such as genocides, terrorist attacks, mass murders, and tortures and killing sprees by psychopathic serial killers.
It seems that we cannot capture the moral significance of these actions and their perpetrators by calling them ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ or even ‘very very wrong’ or ‘very very bad.’ We need the concept of evil.

I define 'morality' as the management of evil to enable its related good.
There are 'goods' which are not related to morality.
Then we have to define what is evil and provide an exhaustive list of evil acts via a taxonomy.

Your thinking re Morality is very outdated.