Is morality objective or subjective?

[Dontaskme]

I'm convinced myself of one thing...you're not prepared to be convinced of any contrary view, under any circumstances. So, I think I'd be wise to, as one old lady I knew used to say, "save my breath to cool my porridge."

Aww, cmon now IC surely you know by now that the No-God and the God are the same no difference God?

[Harbal]

Did that sneaky HArbal run off and become a non-cognitivist when I wasn't looking?

Somebody would have to explain to me what a non-cognitivist is before I could confirm or deny that.

[Immanuel Can]

If you will list all my claims relating to subjective morality that you think are absurd and irrational, and explain why each one is absurd and irrational, I will go through them with you.

Well, okay.

Let's start with this one, since it's so basic to your view: that "morality" is the same as "feeling."

My view is that our moral judgements (judgements about moral issues) are arrived at emotionally, or through sentiment.

For example: if we witness a sweet old lady being punched to the ground and having her purse ripped from her hand by some scruffy young thug, most of us would feel moral outrage, probably even you. That reaction would be instant; we wouldn't run and find a Bible to tell us what our response should be before we came to a decision on the moral status of the situation. We wouldn't have an internal debate with ourselves on the rationality of our feelings about the incident. Unless you are a sociopath, you must have experienced this yourself (not necessarily an incident involving old ladies).

Well, you don't like me pointing to it, but we can hardly avoid doing so, given today's headlines. Do Hamas murderers have the same "emotions and sensations" as Israeli captives, or as American onlookers, or as IDF rescuers, or as Neo-Fascist supporters of Hamas?

As I was pointing out earlier, it's a verifiable fact that one's emotions vary, depending on the role one is inhabiting in a single situation.

So what this points to is that we're not getting any moral clarity from thinking that if a person merely HAS an emotion, that that assures he/she is on the right moral side or sides of the same issue. There are immoral emotions...such as glee at the suffering of a rape victim or at the cries of terror of an Israeli baby.

I have no doubt whatsoever that those emotions exist, that they're strong, that a person is experiencing them -- we can see that glee in the supporters of "Palestine" who are ripping down the posters of the faces of the missing Israelis, for example; but you and I are going to agree, I think, that a person who is experiencing glee at the humiliation, suffering and horrible death of another person is not properly morally-ordered...regardless of what "emotions and sensations" he is having -- or more precisely, BECAUSE he is having the wrong "emotions and sensations" for the given circumstances.

I pause.

Is there any part of what I have said that you wish to deny, before we continue?

[Dontaskme]

So, I think I'd be wise to, as one old lady I knew used to say, "save my breath to cool my porridge."

Btw.. that old lady wasn’t wise. Else she’d be eating Goldilocks porridge.

Some wise questions for you IC


Does your God of the Bible have a biological father, like Goldilocks ?

How come he was able to be the father of all human children, where did he get the human sperm from that made all these humans?

[FlashDangerpants]

Did that sneaky HArbal run off and become a non-cognitivist when I wasn't looking?

Somebody would have to explain to me what a non-cognitivist is before I could confirm or deny that.

Non-cognitivists are the people who argue that '"morality" is the same as "feeling."' It's the position that when we say of something Hamas does that it is bad, all we are really saying is that we don't like it, or perhaps that it means exactly the same as saying "Hamas!" in a very angry tone of voice, or indeed of saying "Hamas bad naughty" while frowning very heavily. It is the positon that there is no difference of type between the words "this causes me anguish" and just a howl of anguish.

It's a real position that has been adopted to get round the problem of naturalising moral language by reducing moral terms such as "goodness" to non-ethical natural properties such as feelings of comfort. But I don't think it's your position, and therefore I don't think it is fair to say that ...

it's so basic to your view: that "morality" is the same as "feeling."

When it seems that your view is more like everyone else's view: that feelings strongly inform our moral positions, not that they are the position.

[Harbal]

Well, okay.

Let's start with this one, since it's so basic to your view: that "morality" is the same as "feeling."

My view is that our moral judgements (judgements about moral issues) are arrived at emotionally, or through sentiment.

For example: if we witness a sweet old lady being punched to the ground and having her purse ripped from her hand by some scruffy young thug, most of us would feel moral outrage, probably even you. That reaction would be instant; we wouldn't run and find a Bible to tell us what our response should be before we came to a decision on the moral status of the situation. We wouldn't have an internal debate with ourselves on the rationality of our feelings about the incident. Unless you are a sociopath, you must have experienced this yourself (not necessarily an incident involving old ladies).

Well, you don't like me pointing to it, but we can hardly avoid doing so, given today's headlines. Do Hamas murderers have the same "emotions and sensations" as Israeli captives, or as American onlookers, or as IDF rescuers, or as Neo-Fascist supporters of Hamas?

I can't answer questions about "Hamas murderers", because I don't know anything about them.

As I was pointing out earlier, it's a verifiable fact that one's emotions vary, depending on the role one is inhabiting in a single situation.

We have emotions that are prompted by moral issues, and we are often motivated by those emotions. I am not claiming we all experience the same emotions in any given set of circumstances, quite the contrary, in fact. Do you find this absurd and irrational?

So what this points to is that we're not getting any moral clarity from thinking that if a person merely HAS an emotion, that that assures he/she is on the right moral side or sides of the same issue. There are immoral emotions...such as glee at the suffering of a rape victim or at the cries of terror of an Israeli baby.

Whatever side of a moral argument we find ourselves on, is the right side as far as we are concerned. My view is that morality is, basically, subjective opinion, so any argument you present me with that assumes there is an objectively right or wrong side to any moral issue is senseless to me. I think what you are doing is begging the question, in philosophy speak. The assumption that you are right is part of your argument, and I'm sure that is against the rules.

I have no doubt whatsoever that those emotions exist, that they're strong, that a person is experiencing them -

Okay, so not absurd after all?

but you and I are going to agree, I think, that a person who is experiencing glee at the humiliation, suffering and horrible death of another person is not properly morally-ordered...regardless of what "emotions and sensations" he is having

Yes, I imagine we do agree on that, but I am not agreeing because I think God says I should, I am agreeing because it happens to be in tune with my own moral sentiments.

Is there any part of what I have said that you wish to deny, before we continue?

No, I fully acknowledge that you've said it.

[Harbal]

Did that sneaky HArbal run off and become a non-cognitivist when I wasn't looking?

Somebody would have to explain to me what a non-cognitivist is before I could confirm or deny that.

Non-cognitivists are the people who argue that '"morality" is the same as "feeling."' It's the position that when we say of something Hamas does that it is bad, all we are really saying is that we don't like it, or perhaps that it means exactly the same as saying "Hamas!" in a very angry tone of voice, or indeed of saying "Hamas bad naughty" while frowning very heavily. It is the positon that there is no difference of type between the words "this causes me anguish" and just a howl of anguish.

It's a real position that has been adopted to get round the problem of naturalising moral language by reducing moral terms such as "goodness" to non-ethical natural properties such as feelings of comfort. But I don't think it's your position, and therefore I don't think it is fair to say that ...

it's so basic to your view: that "morality" is the same as "feeling."

When it seems that your view is more like everyone else's view: that feelings strongly inform our moral positions, not that they are the position.

I don't think I qualify as a non-cognitivist based on my understanding of that definition. I would like to think there is more. to my position than that

[FlashDangerpants]

Somebody would have to explain to me what a non-cognitivist is before I could confirm or deny that.

Non-cognitivists are the people who argue that '"morality" is the same as "feeling."' It's the position that when we say of something Hamas does that it is bad, all we are really saying is that we don't like it, or perhaps that it means exactly the same as saying "Hamas!" in a very angry tone of voice, or indeed of saying "Hamas bad naughty" while frowning very heavily. It is the positon that there is no difference of type between the words "this causes me anguish" and just a howl of anguish.

It's a real position that has been adopted to get round the problem of naturalising moral language by reducing moral terms such as "goodness" to non-ethical natural properties such as feelings of comfort. But I don't think it's your position, and therefore I don't think it is fair to say that ...

it's so basic to your view: that "morality" is the same as "feeling."

When it seems that your view is more like everyone else's view: that feelings strongly inform our moral positions, not that they are the position.

I don't think I qualify as a non-cognitivist based on my understanding of that definition. I would like to think there is more. to my position than that

Then you would say that there is more to morality than feels? I hope mister Can is dilligent enough to update his records on the matter.

[Atla]

So it's like, emotional moral cognition + conceptual moral cognition = cognitivism, and emotional moral cognition only = non-cognitivism?
If so then this should get some kind of award for bad naming..

[Dontaskme]

IC

but you and I are going to agree, I think, that a person who is experiencing glee at the humiliation, suffering and horrible death of another person is not properly morally-ordered...regardless of what "emotions and sensations" he is having

I hardly think they experience feelings of glee. No more than they would experience glee at seeing their own loved ones horrible deaths.

They’re angry seeking revenge at having their own loved ones tortured - so it’s an eye for an eye mentality. If they were not morally outraged at the carnage inflicted on their own loved ones due to their compassion and empathy for them - why wouldn’t they get angry? That’s how the human condition works. They’re triggered into action by their emotions and feelings about matters that mean a lot to them even if it means taking other lives.

Morality is just another man made concept. It’s subjective.

[FlashDangerpants]

So it's like, emotional moral cognition + conceptual moral cognition = cognitivism, and emotional moral cognition only = non-cognitivism?
If so then this should get some kind of award for bad naming..

I'm sorry, I can't entirely make sense of that question. Everything in this field though is about the logical status of moral proposition, Philosophy of Ethics is not a branch of psychology. So I think we're using slightly different versions of 'cognition' here.

In non-cognitivism, some difference of type is claimed for sentences that express descriptions of real things, states of affairs and suchlike, versus normative sentences that are taken to express only .... <thing goes here>.... Different versions can put a different thing into that position, but the general point is that the reason why normative expressions don't have truth values under this type of theory is because the the thing that went into the box is in some way lesser than a thing that would fit into that box in a descriptive sentence. That missing ingredient is the cognisability factor.

Where this is all confusing for people like IC and VA is that they don't understand that non-cognitivism expresses one type of possible reason why normative statements wouldn't have truth values. They both have written stuff which could only be true if non-cognitivists were the only people who think moral sentences don't have a truth condition. This confusion has caused them to write some weird and misleading stuff, because neither of them is very good at this sort of thing. IC for instance is currently trying to railroad Harbal into asserting non-congitivist stuff because he thinks HArbal must be a non-cog, because he thinks that everyone except them is a realist. He isn't actually doing it to be disingenuous this time, it's just that he's ill-informed and not very clever.

[Harbal]

Non-cognitivists are the people who argue that '"morality" is the same as "feeling."' It's the position that when we say of something Hamas does that it is bad, all we are really saying is that we don't like it, or perhaps that it means exactly the same as saying "Hamas!" in a very angry tone of voice, or indeed of saying "Hamas bad naughty" while frowning very heavily. It is the positon that there is no difference of type between the words "this causes me anguish" and just a howl of anguish.

It's a real position that has been adopted to get round the problem of naturalising moral language by reducing moral terms such as "goodness" to non-ethical natural properties such as feelings of comfort. But I don't think it's your position, and therefore I don't think it is fair to say that ...

When it seems that your view is more like everyone else's view: that feelings strongly inform our moral positions, not that they are the position.

I don't think I qualify as a non-cognitivist based on my understanding of that definition. I would like to think there is more. to my position than that

Then you would say that there is more to morality than feels? I hope mister Can is dilligent enough to update his records on the matter.

Yes, I would say that. But my main, overriding, point is that there cannot be any such thing as objective moral truth, because morality does not come into the category of things that have a truth value. In the same way that the statement, "sunny days are nicer than rainy days", is not subject to being true or false, neither are moral assertions.

[Dontaskme]

I don't think I qualify as a non-cognitivist based on my understanding of that definition. I would like to think there is more. to my position than that

Then you would say that there is more to morality than feels? I hope mister Can is dilligent enough to update his records on the matter.

Yes, I would say that. But my main, overriding, point is that there cannot be any such thing as objective moral truth, because morality does not come into the category of things that have a truth value. In the same way that the statement, "sunny days are nicer than rainy days", is not subject to being true or false, neither are moral assertions.

Well put.

In Book II of the Groundwork (1785 [1996]) Kant claims the fundamental moral truths are synthetic a priori because moral truths are prescriptive.

[Atla]

So it's like, emotional moral cognition + conceptual moral cognition = cognitivism, and emotional moral cognition only = non-cognitivism?
If so then this should get some kind of award for bad naming..

I'm sorry, I can't entirely make sense of that question. Everything in this field though is about the logical status of moral proposition, Philosophy of Ethics is not a branch of psychology. So I think we're using slightly different versions of 'cognition' here.

In non-cognitivism, some difference of type is claimed for sentences that express descriptions of real things, states of affairs and suchlike, versus normative sentences that are taken to express only .... <thing goes here>.... Different versions can put a different thing into that position, but the general point is that the reason why normative expressions don't have truth values under this type of theory is because the the thing that went into the box is in some way lesser than a thing that would fit into that box in a descriptive sentence. That missing ingredient is the cognisability factor.

Where this is all confusing for people like IC and VA is that they don't understand that non-cognitivism expresses one type of possible reason why normative statements wouldn't have truth values. They both have written stuff which could only be true if non-cognitivists were the only people who think moral sentences don't have a truth condition. This confusion has caused them to write some weird and misleading stuff, because neither of them is very good at this sort of thing. IC for instance is currently trying to railroad Harbal into asserting non-congitivist stuff because he thinks HArbal must be a non-cog, because he thinks that everyone except them is a realist. He isn't actually doing it to be disingenuous this time, it's just that he's ill-informed and not very clever.

I don't really know what to say, so again just ignore it if you want. Umm.. is this entire field working from sentences towards morality, instead of working from morality towards sentences? (morality as in the inherent human morality)
Which is the basic direction? Or is there no direction?

[FlashDangerpants]

I don't think I qualify as a non-cognitivist based on my understanding of that definition. I would like to think there is more. to my position than that

Then you would say that there is more to morality than feels? I hope mister Can is dilligent enough to update his records on the matter.

Yes, I would say that. But my main, overriding, point is that there cannot be any such thing as objective moral truth, because morality does not come into the category of things that have a truth value. In the same way that the statement, "sunny days are nicer than rainy days", is not subject to being true or false, neither are moral assertions.

So yeah, IC has developed a belief that you are of that latter opinion for a very specific reason... ie that you think emotions and feelings are all that morality consists in at all, and that emotions have no truth value, therefore you think moral sentences express nothing capable of resolution to true and false. And I believe that in his confused little head, everyone who doesn't believe in moral fact believes that sort of reason accounts for it (which is the charge he levied at Pete when he got carried away with Frege).

But a couple of prominent other theories also express reasons why moral sentences are not true and false in the way you describe and it seems like one or both are more plausible underlying claims for IC to understand as your type of position (an amalgam of that sort of thing is workable for the two I shall list here):

1. Error Theory. In its simplest form, this holds that when we speak in moral sentences, unlike the claims of the non-cognitivist, we are speaking in the sort of sentences that could indeed be true and false if only some moral property of the worlkd could be found to make them verifiable as such. So if 'nice' was a real property of objects in the universe, then some way of measuring nice would confirm that sunny days are indeed nice.... but there is no such property, and thus when we speak of sunny days being nice, we are expressign a meaningful opinion, one that we can justify with reference to everyone's experience, but not one that is actually true or false, so to that particular extent we do so in error.

2. Fictionalism. This is more exactly similar to your words, although as a position it is far less common than Error Theory. Buy this holds that while we use language that is findamentally similar to descriptive language that could be true or flase when we express normatives, we don't actually intend that part, we know it's a fiction, we simply use moral language that was on an as-if basis.

Mister Can would really be well advised to carry out his work by just explaining what the moral properties that pertain to a situation, event,judgment, desire or whatever are rather than the move he is going for at present of just hoping he can leave moral truth as the last man standing after he has knocked down one of those and then nihilism. All he has to do is explain why God knows that stealing is wrong unless you need bread to feed your family in which case it is right. Then he can explain how you can find out by any means other than just asking God, and it's job done.

I asked him about such moral properties before though, and he said he'd already told you about them. So I'm not sure why he must suddenly switch to such a circuitous approach if he's already taken the direct route before.