Is morality objective or subjective?

Should you think about your duty, or about the consequences of your actions? Or should you concentrate on becoming a good person?

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Age
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Age »

phyllo wrote: Sat Jun 08, 2024 8:54 pm If you don't have enough time to count the money in your wallet, it doesn't mean that you have an infinite amount of money in your wallet.
This is because there is no so-called 'infinite amount of money' in you wallet, nor ever.

There is, however, an 'infinite amount of numbers', or infinite numbers.
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phyllo
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by phyllo »

Age wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2024 7:59 am
phyllo wrote: Sat Jun 08, 2024 8:54 pm If you don't have enough time to count the money in your wallet, it doesn't mean that you have an infinite amount of money in your wallet.
This is because there is no so-called 'infinite amount of money' in you wallet, nor ever.

There is, however, an 'infinite amount of numbers', or infinite numbers.
My example is consistent with his reasoning about these experiments and his 'definition' of infinite.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Age »

phyllo wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2024 4:37 pm
Age wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2024 7:59 am
phyllo wrote: Sat Jun 08, 2024 8:54 pm If you don't have enough time to count the money in your wallet, it doesn't mean that you have an infinite amount of money in your wallet.
This is because there is no so-called 'infinite amount of money' in you wallet, nor ever.

There is, however, an 'infinite amount of numbers', or infinite numbers.
My example is consistent with his reasoning about these experiments and his 'definition' of infinite.
If the word 'his' here is referring to "immanuel can", then okay.

But, a lot of 'his reasoning' is not something that I would want to align anything to nor want to be consistent with at all. After all 'his reasoning' has led 'him' to believe, absolutely, that the absolute whole Universe was created from absolutely nothing at all, except from one 'him being', one 'him animal', one 'him creature', or one 'him human' who has, supposedly, lived forever, and ever.

Now, without going into all of the absolute 'insane reasonings' that could and did lead to this most insane of belief here, just the thought of what this one believes is true here is enough to make any clear thinker roll around laughing.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Skepdick »

phyllo wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2024 4:37 pm My example is consistent with his reasoning about these experiments and his 'definition' of infinite.
Maybe you should look at the etymology and meaning of "define". From the latin "finis" or "finire . End. Finish. To bring to an end.

To define the infinite is to put an end to the infinite. But the infinite is endless.

The sophist had you chasing our own tail because he's operating from a contradiction. He figures his salvation's guaranteed which gives him carte blanche to be intellectually dishonest - don't let him waste your time.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Skepdick wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2024 11:31 am
phyllo wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2024 4:37 pm My example is consistent with his reasoning about these experiments and his 'definition' of infinite.
Maybe you should look at the etymology and meaning of "define". From the latin "finis" or "finire . End. Finish. To bring to an end.

To define the infinite is to put an end to the infinite. But the infinite is endless.

The sophist had you chasing our own tail because he's operating from a contradiction. He figures his salvation's guaranteed which gives him carte blanche to be intellectually dishonest - don't let him waste your time.
I have a particular interest in the term 'define'.
Define: Etymology
Middle English diffinen, defynen, borrowed from Anglo-French definer, diffiner, borrowed (with conjugation change) from Medieval Latin dēfīnīre, diffīnīre (dif- by association with dif-, assimilated form of dis- DIS-), going back to Latin dēfīnīre "to mark the limits of, determine, give an exact description of," from dē- DE- + fīnīre "to mark out the boundaries of, limit"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/define
Infinite means limitless
but to define infinite is to put a limit to limitlessness.

My point is;
whatever the reality or definition of a term, it is always contingent upon a specific human-based framework and system.
Because it is human-based it follows deductively, whatever the resultant, it cannot be absolute independent of the human conditions [as p-realists like PH et al would claim].

It is the same with the "use of language" or "language is use".
Whenever or wherever language is used, one is entering the territory of defining, conceptualizing and abstracting.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Skepdick »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed Jun 12, 2024 3:58 am Infinite means limitless
but to define infinite is to put a limit to limitlessness.
And that idea doesn't strike you as paradoxical/contradictory?
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed Jun 12, 2024 3:58 am My point is;
whatever the reality or definition of a term, it is always contingent upon a specific human-based framework and system.
Yes. The limits you are imposing on yourself. That's what definitions do.

After what period N (of counting money in wallets) will you conclude that the money is infinite?
Never? That's limitless/infinite.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed Jun 12, 2024 3:58 am Because it is human-based it follows deductively, whatever the resultant, it cannot be absolute independent of the human conditions [as p-realists like PH et al would claim].

It is the same with the "use of language" or "language is use".
Whenever or wherever language is used, one is entering the territory of defining, conceptualizing and abstracting.
Which is the whole point of pragmatists like Rorty. No, I am not going to define my fucking terms - knowing how to use language is tacit, not explicit knowledge.

If you are insisting that I am using language "wrong" - show me your moral system.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Skepdick wrote: Wed Jun 12, 2024 9:31 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed Jun 12, 2024 3:58 am Infinite means limitless
but to define infinite is to put a limit to limitlessness.
And that idea doesn't strike you as paradoxical/contradictory?
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed Jun 12, 2024 3:58 am My point is;
whatever the reality or definition of a term, it is always contingent upon a specific human-based framework and system.
Yes. The limits you are imposing on yourself. That's what definitions do.

After what period N (of counting money in wallets) will you conclude that the money is infinite?
Never? That's limitless/infinite.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed Jun 12, 2024 3:58 am Because it is human-based it follows deductively, whatever the resultant, it cannot be absolute independent of the human conditions [as p-realists like PH et al would claim].

It is the same with the "use of language" or "language is use".
Whenever or wherever language is used, one is entering the territory of defining, conceptualizing and abstracting.
Which is the whole point of pragmatists like Rorty. No, I am not going to define my fucking terms - knowing how to use language is tacit, not explicit knowledge.

If you are insisting that I am using language "wrong" - show me your moral system.
"to define infinite is to put a limit to limitlessness"
It is obvious that it is paradoxical.

I have no contentious points with your above.

My claim,
whatever the reality, truth, knowledge, fact, objective, it is be contingent upon a human based framework and system [FS].
So there has to be a moral FS as with a scientific FS which is the gold standard of objectivity.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by wadu »

Harbal wrote: Tue Feb 27, 2024 1:30 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Feb 27, 2024 12:41 am
Harbal wrote: Mon Feb 26, 2024 11:53 pm

If there are things in nature, the world, the universe, that strike you as beyond explanation, what is wrong with just admitting you don't know the answer? That seems more sensible than just inserting whatever happens to please you most into the gap.
Absolutely. But when even your own eyes give you every reason to suspect something is true, a wise man checks it out, does he not?
Without being given a specific example of such a situation, I don't know what you are referring to, so I can't really respond.
And if a person doesn't happen to know the evidence for this or that proposition, does a wise person just assume there isn't any?
Again, without knowing what sort of thing you have in mind when you say that, I don't know what I can possibly say.
And yet, this is what Atheist skeptics seem to do all the time; their argument is, "If I don't know about it, it can't be real."
Well I am technically an atheist, and I am a bit sceptical by nature, but I don't say that. And I'm guessing you don't have any statistics to show how many "Atheist skeptics" do say it, so I must treat that claim with some scepticism. 🙂 Not that it matters, because I'm not speaking on behalf of anyone other than myself.
One wonders, then, who promised them that they would always be guaranteed to know everything.
I don't know anything about such promises, I only know none have been made to me.

I remember not knowing how a radio worked. The thought of someone speaking into a microphone several hundred miles away and the words almost instantaneously coming out of a speaker in a little box on my kitchen windowsill seemed quite magical to me once. Then, at some point, I had reason to do a bit of research into electronics, which subsequently removed most of the mystery. Not that I now thoroughly understand the intricacies of what is actually happening, but I know enough to realise the process is perfectly explainable. In the context of the entirety of human history, it is only recently that anyone knew anything about radio waves, and how to transmit them, and there was a time when everyone would have thought of such a thing as actual magic. What I am saying is that we have a long history of not knowing how things work, and then eventually finding out.
How does the shift from seeing a microphone transmitting voices as magical to understanding the scientific principles behind it reflect humanity's journey from viewing phenomena as mystical to comprehending them through technology?
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Peter Holmes »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2024 4:24 am
My claim,
whatever the reality, truth, knowledge, fact, objective, it is be contingent upon a human based framework and system [FS].
So there has to be a moral FS as with a scientific FS which is the gold standard of objectivity.
1 Notice the mash-up: [the] reality/truth/knowledge/fact/objective {sic]. Here, there's no distinction between: reality; truth (which is an attribute of some factual assertions about reality); and knowledge (which is things known, such as things known about reality). And this mash-up is programmatic. If these are the same things, then, of course, reality can't be independent from knowing and truth-telling beings: viz, humans. The stupid conclusion follows as night follows day.

2 If reality, knowledge and truth depend on a human framework and system, then there can be no measure of objectivity, which depends on facts (features) of reality independent from human or any other way of knowing and describing. If scientific objectivity is the gold standard, that can only be because science describes reality more accurately than other practices and discourses.

3 If 'frameworks and systems' are human creations or products or 'evolutions', then there does not have to be a moral framework and system. This doesn't follow at all.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Skepdick »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2024 4:24 am My claim,
whatever the reality, truth, knowledge, fact, objective, it is be contingent upon a human based framework and system [FS].
Yes. We know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingen ... Solidarity
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2024 4:24 am So there has to be a moral FS as with a scientific FS which is the gold standard of objectivity.
There is. You just can't express it in language. And calling it "God" isn't all that helpful.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Peter Holmes wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2024 1:13 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2024 4:24 am
My claim,
whatever the reality, truth, knowledge, fact, objective, it is be contingent upon a human based framework and system [FS].
So there has to be a moral FS as with a scientific FS which is the gold standard of objectivity.
1 Notice the mash-up: [the] reality/truth/knowledge/fact/objective {sic]. Here, there's no distinction between: reality; truth (which is an attribute of some factual assertions about reality); and knowledge (which is things known, such as things known about reality). And this mash-up is programmatic. If these are the same things, then, of course, reality can't be independent from knowing and truth-telling beings: viz, humans. The stupid conclusion follows as night follows day.
Strawman as usual.
You are merely insulting your own intelligence in creating your cheap strawman and misinterpreting my point.

I wrote above;
"whatever the reality, truth, knowledge, fact, objectivity,"
"whatever" meant they can be dealt separately & distinctively or as;
The truth, knowledge, fact & objectivity, of reality [all there is]; whatever or whichever, and however, they are all ultimately contingent upon a human-based Framework and System [FS]. (FSERC).

It is not because they are the same thing, it is because they are ultimately contingent upon a human-based FS that they cannot be absolutely independent of the human conditions.
2 If reality, knowledge and truth depend on a human framework and system, then there can be no measure of objectivity, which depends on facts (features) of reality independent from human or any other way of knowing and describing. If scientific objectivity is the gold standard, that can only be because science describes reality more accurately than other practices and discourses.
I argued:
There are Two Senses of Reality
viewtopic.php?t=40265
1. A human-based FSERC sense
2. The philosophical realists illusory sense of absolute human-independence

Your ignorance is you are grounding your reality on an illusion as an ideology of philosophical realism as in 2 above.

There are also two perspectives to science, i.e.
1. A human-based FSERC sense - scientific anti-realism
2. scientific realism grounded on philosophical realism which is illusory.

The reason science is the gold standard is because scientific anti-realism is grounded on a human based FS of emergence, realization of reality, cognition, knowledge and description of reality.

Your merely attributing science to describe [correspondence] reality more accurately is unrealistic and a farce.
You are ignorant of your ignorance that you are conjuring a thing-in-itself that your scientific realism is corresponding its description with.
The correspondence theory of truth is taboo to you, but you are ignorant you are using with to correspond your observations with an external reality beyond the observers.


3 If 'frameworks and systems' are human creations or products or 'evolutions', then there does not have to be a moral framework and system. This doesn't follow at all.
Morality is evidently a feature of human nature and thus within reality, i.e. all-there-is.
Since there is a FS of reality [all there is], there has to be a moral FS as a subset of reality
within all there is.
Can you see the deductive logic?

You cannot see the above logic because you are clinging [driven by the pains of cognitive dissonances] to an illusory sense of reality, i.e. the philosophical realism sense of absolute independence from the human conditions.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Skepdick wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2024 9:46 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2024 4:24 am My claim,
whatever the reality, truth, knowledge, fact, objective, it is be contingent upon a human based framework and system [FS].
Yes. We know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingen ... Solidarity
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2024 4:24 am So there has to be a moral FS as with a scientific FS which is the gold standard of objectivity.
There is. You just can't express it in language. And calling it "God" isn't all that helpful.
We have no choice but communicate it using language, [even Rorty conceded to using language but relying on vocabulary vs vocabulary] i.e. it is the best tool we have at present but we have to be mindful of the limitations of language.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Skepdick »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2024 5:25 am We have no choice but communicate it using language
Yes - we do. You can't communicate "it" in language. You can use language to reify aspects of it.
"Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.” – Marcus Aurelius
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2024 5:25 am , [even Rorty conceded to using language but relying on vocabulary vs vocabulary] i.e. it is the best tool we have at present but we have to be mindful of the limitations of language.
He made no attempts to communicate "it" using language. He simply implied "Good job! I have no better ideas (and neither do you, probably) - keep doing what you are doing."
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Skepdick wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2024 11:12 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2024 5:25 am We have no choice but communicate it using language
Yes - we do. You can't communicate "it" in language. You can use language to reify aspects of it.
"Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.” – Marcus Aurelius
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2024 5:25 am , [even Rorty conceded to using language but relying on vocabulary vs vocabulary] i.e. it is the best tool we have at present but we have to be mindful of the limitations of language.
He made no attempts to communicate "it" using language. He simply implied "Good job! I have no better ideas (and neither do you, probably) - keep doing what you are doing."
Point is there is no absolute 'it' by itself, i.e. it-in-itself.
So I would never want to communicate that "it" or it-in-itself because it is illusory if reified as something real.

When I refer to 'it', it is a relative 'it' that is human-based model or FSK dependent, i.e. as Rorty implied it is vocabulary to vocabulary relative to a context.
As such we can still use language [mindful of its limitations] in this sense to generate relative utilities that is pragmatic, e.g. science using language to communicate its polished conjectures [i.e. scientific truths].
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Peter Holmes »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2024 5:25 am ...we have to be mindful of the limitations of language.
What are the limitations of language?

What can language not do that it could do if it weren't so limited?

Can a sign be the thing for which it is a sign?

Can a description be the described?

Can S know that p iff p is true? (The JTB truth-condition - one of three.)

Answers, mindful of the limitations of language, on a postcard.
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