SEP: Supervenience in Ethics

[Veritas Aequitas]

Supervenience in Ethics
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/supe ... ce-ethics/

It is common for philosophers to endorse ethical Supervenience without much argument (an important exception is Smith 2004; for critical discussion of a variety of the arguments that have been offered, see Roberts 2018, 10–18).

Part of the reason for this is that ethical Supervenience is taken to be both obvious and uncontroversial.
(Rosen 2020 calls it “The least controversial thesis in metaethics”.)

Further, ethical Supervenience is often claimed or assumed to be an obvious conceptual truth, doubts about which are supposed to reveal conceptual incompetence.

The most common view in the literature is that the Supervenience of the ethical is a conceptual truth.

As the preceding sections have shown, philosophers have tried to extract a number of striking conclusions using ethical Supervenience as a premise.
Part of the motivation for these attempts is that ethical Supervenience is widely assumed to be a powerful dialectical weapon, such that if your view is incompatible with ethical Supervenience, it is in trouble. [5.0]

The above are positive claims the ethical Supervenience is very tenable, i.e. the thesis, moral facts do supervene on natural facts. The articles also provide counter arguments against the above thesis. However, I do not think the counter arguments can dent the thesis.

Here is AI with a summary of 2.0 Argument for Ethical Supervenience with a list of of the principles of the 'for' argument with examples:

From the idea that moral properties depend on natural properties. Here are some of them in simpler terms, with examples:

1. Argument from Explanation:
2. Argument from Metaphysical Dependence:
3. Argument from Analogy:
4. Argument from Queerness:

1. Argument from Explanation:
This argument suggests that if we can fully explain something (like moral properties), we need to explain it in terms of more basic things (like natural properties).
Example: Imagine trying to explain why stealing is wrong. You might explain the negative consequences of stealing (natural property) on trust and cooperation within a society (another natural property). These natural properties help explain why stealing is considered morally wrong.

2. Argument from Metaphysical Dependence:
This argument claims that if something wouldn't exist without something else, then the first thing depends on the second.
Example: Moral judgments often rely on facts about the natural world. For instance, judging harming someone as wrong depends on understanding pain as a natural property. Without the natural property of pain, the moral judgment wouldn't be possible.

3. Argument from Analogy:
This argument compares moral properties to other properties that are widely accepted to depend on natural properties.
Example: Just like the color red depends on the physical properties of light and our visual system, maybe moral properties like "good" depend on the natural properties of promoting well-being or flourishing.

4. Argument from Queerness:
This argument suggests that if moral properties were completely independent of the natural world, they would be strange and inexplicable.
Example: Imagine a world with completely different laws of physics. Our current moral framework might not make sense in such a world. This suggests a connection between morality and the underlying natural world.

It's important to note that:
These are just some of the arguments for ethical supervenience. The article discusses them in more detail and also explores counterarguments.
Not everyone agrees with these arguments. Some philosophers believe moral facts are independent of the natural world.
Hopefully, these simplified explanations and examples give you a better understanding of the arguments for why some philosophers believe moral properties supervene on natural properties.

The above merely summarize the principles with an example.
To grasp the above principles we will have to go into the details [elsewhere].

My point:
The Supervenience in Ethics is merely one from the whole set of other arguments that support the thesis: there are moral facts [FSERC] and thus morality is objective.

Thus people like PH & gang should not merely brush off the claim there are no moral facts and morality cannot be objective based on the old paradigm of traditional arguments [currently losing bite] against moral facts apparently from a God and various philosophical realists.

Discuss??
Views??

[Veritas Aequitas]

Notes:

Can I state the article is about Ethical Supervenience and present arguments for and against Ethical Supervenience.
Ethical Supervenience in the article refer moral properties [facts] upon natural properties [facts].
Is this a reasonable view of the theme of the SEP article.
If not, what is the most effective way to present the theme of that article.

Here's AI-wR:
Your interpretation the article is merely about situational ethics is a sham and display your shallow knowledge of supervenience in Ethics.

Yes, you can definitely state that the article is about Ethical Supervenience and present arguments for and against it. You've also grasped the core idea of moral properties (facts) supervening on natural properties (facts). This is a reasonable view of the article's theme.

Here's how you can effectively present the theme of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) article on "Supervenience Ethics":

Theme: The article explores the concept of ethical supervenience. This theory suggests that moral properties (like good, bad, right, wrong) depend on or are grounded in underlying natural properties (like biological facts, social structures, or physical laws).

Key Points:
The article discusses various arguments for ethical supervenience.
These arguments try to show why moral properties wouldn't exist without natural properties and how understanding natural properties can help explain moral judgments. (You can mention some arguments like the Argument from Explanation or the Argument from Metaphysical Dependence, as discussed previously).

The article also explores arguments against ethical supervenience. Some philosophers argue that moral facts are independent of the natural world or that the relationship between them is more complex than simply one supervening on the other.
Additional Considerations:

The article goes beyond just arguments. It delves into different types of supervenience (strong, global, weak) and how they might apply to morality.
It also explores various explanations of the relationship between moral and natural properties (reductive, functionalist, grounding, analytic/conceptual, and ethical).
By mentioning these key points, you can effectively capture the main theme of the SEP article while acknowledging the complexity of the debate around ethical supervenience.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Notes:

[Flannel Jesus]

A lot of words about how obvious and uncontroversial it is, but yet very few words on what exactly YOU mean by it and why you care so much.

"Ethical supervenience" is often taken to mean, for example, that murder is immoral generally but if someone is threatining your wife and children with a gun, then murdering that guy becomes an exception to the rule that murder is immoral.

Is that all you mean by it? Do you just mean "there are circumstances where something that's usually immoral becomes moral"?

If that's not what you mean, then spend less time talking about how obvious supervenience is and more time talking about exactly what you mean by it.

[FlashDangerpants]

The "Argument from Explanation" one assumes moral realism and then says that supervenience is the best explanation for it. It isn't an argument for moral realism.

The "Argument from Metaphysical Dependence" has exactly the same problem.

That interpretation of the "Argument from Queerness" is available only by pre-supposing that morality has a reality, and it then works backwards to justify supervenience. Mackie's actual argument goes the other way round, it assumes supervenience and then uses the queerness of resulting moral properties to cast shade on the idea of justified moral knowings. Using the big argument for moral error theory this way while also using the word "uncontroversial" is why real philosophers don't use ChatGPT for this sort of work.

The "Argument from Analogy" is just an Argument from Analogy, there's no need to bother with it.

It seems that when Rosen says it is “The least controversial thesis in metaethics” that must mean something much more limited than VA understands by it. Probably that almost all moral realists agree with it and almost all anti-realists agree that if morality were real there would need to be some naturalising principle from the moral proposition to the concrete and that supervenience is more plausible than reduction. I haven't read him, but there's no way he could possibly have written those words to be taken in the sense that VA has: to assume that it resolves the completely unrelated controversy of moral realism/antirealism.

Again, the limits of VA's understanding of other people's minds and motives is on display here.

[Iwannaplato]

My point:
The Supervenience in Ethics is merely one from the whole set of other arguments that support the thesis: there are moral facts [FSERC] and thus morality is objective.

If you read the Stanford article it is clear that both moral antirealists and moral realists (some from each group) have accept supervenience in ethics.

And then they go on to support BOTH positions using supervenience in ethics.

That sword cuts both ways.

[Veritas Aequitas]

I have always quoted AI with Reservations, i.e. AI-wR.

Obviously I have taken into accounts AI's own reservation in the OP, i.e.

It's important to note that:
These are just some of the arguments for ethical supervenience. The article discusses them in more detail and also explores counterarguments.
Not everyone agrees with these arguments. Some philosophers believe moral facts are independent of the natural world.
Hopefully, these simplified explanations and examples give you a better understanding of the arguments for why some philosophers believe moral properties supervene on natural properties.

I stated in the OP;

The above merely summarize the principles with an example.
To grasp the above principles we will have to go into the details [elsewhere].

As such I have not taken any serious position with the above except to open it up for discussion.

Repeat:
My point:
The Supervenience in Ethics is merely one from the whole set of other arguments that support the thesis: there are moral facts [FSERC] and thus morality is objective.

[Veritas Aequitas]

A lot of words about how obvious and uncontroversial it is, but yet very few words on what exactly YOU mean by it and why you care so much.

"Ethical supervenience" is often taken to mean, for example, that murder is immoral generally but if someone is threatining your wife and children with a gun, then murdering that guy becomes an exception to the rule that murder is immoral.

Is that all you mean by it? Do you just mean "there are circumstances where something that's usually immoral becomes moral"?

If that's not what you mean, then spend less time talking about how obvious supervenience is and more time talking about exactly what you mean by it.

PH & Gang argue morality is not objective because to be objective there must be moral facts which are absolutely mind-independent.
I have argued there are no absolutely mind-independent but there are relatively mind-independent FSERC moral facts which can be justified based on supervenience as coherent [re coherentism vs foundationalism] with other mode of justifications.

Supervenience in this case justify the existence of moral facts i.e. moral facts supervene on natural facts.
One clue given the the emergence of moral facts [properties] from biological facts [properties], i.e. in the case of certain aspects of mirror neurons [physical biological properties] supervened by moral properties of 'oughtnotness to kill of humans' from within the brain.
The changes in the state of the related mirror neurons will effect changes in the moral properties [inhibiting degrees of competencies] of the 'oughtnotness to kill of humans'.

[Flannel Jesus]

Okay, the fact that you cannot clearly explain what you mean by supervenience leads me to think you still don't know what it means. It's jargon you found that you're convinced gives you legitimacy - it doesn't apparently even matter to you what it actually means. As long as it sounds smart and you think smart people agree with it, that's enough for you.

Another thread started in the gutter, doomed to meaninglessness.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Okay, the fact that you cannot clearly explain what you mean by supervenience leads me to think you still don't know what it means. It's jargon you found that you're convinced gives you legitimacy - it doesn't apparently even matter to you what it actually means. As long as it sounds smart and you think smart people agree with it, that's enough for you.

Another thread started in the gutter, doomed to meaninglessness.

Where have you presented anything that you are an authority on what is supervenience and in this case supervenience in Ethics?
Your earlier comments on the article as something situational, that is way off.

This OP is opened for discussion.
re supervenience on ethics, present something that is solid from your point of view with the relevant references?

[Iwannaplato]

Repeat:
My point:
The Supervenience in Ethics is merely one from the whole set of other arguments that support the thesis: there are moral facts [FSERC] and thus morality is objective.

But that point contradicts the article. Using supervenience in relation to ethics has been used to both support and criticize moral realism.

If one reads you post it is as if the article presents the case for supervenience in ethics supporting moral realism and the counterarguments to that. But that is incomplete and severely incomplete. Supervenience is used by moral antirealists to support their positions.

[Iwannaplato]

Supervenience in this case justify the existence of moral facts i.e. moral facts supervene on natural facts.[/quote]
Again and again, not in the way you mean.
There are facts about morals. Morality exists. People have ideas about morals. These are connected to their physical make-up and states.

Contradictory moral attitudes are facts.
Antiabortionist ideas and beliefs supervene on their physical bodies.
Abortionist ideas and beliefs supervene on those people physical bodies.

We don't get objective moral facts (relative or absolute) with the aid of supervenience.

Every single moral position out there supervenes on physical entities (for those who are monist physicalists and perhaps some dualists and for some physicalists who accept emergence in different ways).

It does not in any way justify any particular moral position, whether deonotological, attitudinal, consequentialist.

It does not support your moraI position based on empathy because aggression supervenes on bodies aIso.

One clue given the the emergence of moral facts [properties] from biological facts [properties], i.e. in the case of certain aspects of mirror neurons [physical biological properties] supervened by moral properties of 'oughtnotness to kill of humans' from within the brain

You just continue to repeat this. This numinous oughtness, and a cherry-chosen, cherry-focused on, cherry-made up one, which is not in the scientific Iiterature, where we find neurons and neurotransmitters and brain regions.

The changes in the state of the related mirror neurons will effect changes in the moral properties [inhibiting degrees of competencies] of the 'oughtnotness to kill of humans'.

And every human behavior and attitude.

This argument means that today's behavior by humans is moraI. Period. The current situations, since aII actions supervene on physicaI matter and brain states. War, rape, abortion, niceness, compassion, greed, aII these supervene on brain states and neurotransmitters and are thus objective moraI facts.

[Flannel Jesus]

Your earlier comments on the article as something situational, that is way off.

Fantastic, so you must have a better idea of what it means than me. Why don't you share that with the rest of the class?

[Flannel Jesus]

The changes in the state of the related mirror neurons will effect changes in the moral properties [inhibiting degrees of competencies] of the 'oughtnotness to kill of humans'.

Your writing style kind of hid your answer to my question - you wrote a whole bunch of irrelevant stuff that didn't answer the question, and then ended on one sentence that kind of got close to answering the question.

So when you talk about supervenience in morality and ethics, you're just saying "each persons sense of morality is defined by their brain state". Some people have mirror neurons that make murder feel bad, so for them murder is bad. Some people don't have those, and instead maybe they have a brain state that makes murder feel good, and for those people murder is good.

This is what you mean by supervenience here? That different peoples physical brains give them different senses of morality or ethics?

If this one sentence is finally you spelling out what you think supervenience if ethics means, then OF COURSE it's not controversial you silly goof. "People's sense of mortality changes based on their brain state" ... almost everyone can agree with that, except maybe some subset of religious people. You don't have to be a moral realist to agree with that. Agreeing with that type of "supervenience" doesn't seem to do any work towards supporting your argument for moral realism at all - unless your moral realism just means "it's really true that most people really do have a personal sense of mortality".

[Iwannaplato]

The changes in the state of the related mirror neurons will effect changes in the moral properties [inhibiting degrees of competencies] of the 'oughtnotness to kill of humans'.

Your writing style kind of hid your answer to my question - you wrote a whole bunch of irrelevant stuff that didn't answer the question, and then ended on one sentence that kind of got close to answering the question.

So when you talk about supervenience in morality and ethics, you're just saying "each persons sense of morality is defined by their brain state". Some people have mirror neurons that make murder feel bad, so for them murder is bad. Some people don't have those, and instead maybe they have a brain state that makes murder feel good, and for those people murder is good.

This is what you mean by supervenience here? That different peoples physical brains give them different senses of morality or ethics?

Nicely, concisely phrased.

Notice how the sentence presumes the brain's core oughtness is not to kill. Then if someone murders, something inhibited the oughtness. This is propaganda and a wide range of assumptions that it seems he is not aware he is making. Our brains contain aII sorts of urges in brain states. AII of them shouId, if one foIIows his Iogic be caIIed oughtnesses. We don't kiII when something inhibits our oughtness to kiII and dominate.

No justification for caIIing patterns in the brain oughtnesses.

No justification for considering noumena non-existent and false, but basing his whoIe position on a non-sensory 'oughtness'.

No understanding that if brain states show us what objective moral facts are, then the current state of the world is perfect. Because every action - from rape to donating to charity - in exactly those frequencies of performing those actions supervenes on brain states.

The current world is the perfect manifestation of the oughtnesses in our brains.

Brain states are right now leading to the ideal expression of oughtnesses.

How do we know this, because all actions supervene on brain states and neurons and molecules and atoms and quarks.......

That sentence manages to contain many unjustified assumptions and at no point does he seem to consider what his position entails.

We point out what it entaiIs and he disagrees with the conclusion, but never quite manages to show that it isn't entaiIed.

I don't know how to let him know how much special pleading is involved because he only focuses on the parts he likes.....

Special pleading occurs when someone applies standards, principles, or rules to other situations or people while exempting other obvious conclusions without providing a logical reason for the exemption. Essentially, it involves making an exception to a general rule without justifying why this case is different from others.

In this fallacy, the person avoids focusing on the full implications of an idea or rule, only applying it selectively to suit their preferences or desired conclusions. This creates an inconsistency in reasoning, as similar cases are not treated similarly.