10k Philosophy challenge

[Daniel McKay]

Atla - I'm afraid I think your objective best omelette doesn't exist. I think there is no objective and universal standard by which the quality of omelettes can be measured. Also, to make a further and distinct linguistic claim, I think what we are talking about when we discuss good omelettes is something subjective.

What's the crucial difference between objectively measuring the quality of omelettes and objectively weighing freedoms (and moral realism in general)?

We have at least some reason to believe in one, and not the other.

[Atla]

Atla - I'm afraid I think your objective best omelette doesn't exist. I think there is no objective and universal standard by which the quality of omelettes can be measured. Also, to make a further and distinct linguistic claim, I think what we are talking about when we discuss good omelettes is something subjective.

What's the crucial difference between objectively measuring the quality of omelettes and objectively weighing freedoms (and moral realism in general)?

That would be why he mentioned the linguistic claims.

There's (arguably) a difference of type between the linguistic claims 'this omelette is bad' and 'stealing cars is bad'. In one case you intend it such that anyone who disagrees with you must be mistaken, that there really is something bad about stealing a car. In the other, somebody may just dislike fluffiness in their eggs and you likely don't intend to say that they are mistaken if that is their preference.

I think you may have missed the point. He's the one trying to find objective truths about how we should live our lives. I'm asking him why we should expect to find objective truths about weighing freedoms (and moral realism in general), but not expect to find objective truths about how to make omelettes (and why this isn't part of morality).

[Atla]

Atla - I'm afraid I think your objective best omelette doesn't exist. I think there is no objective and universal standard by which the quality of omelettes can be measured. Also, to make a further and distinct linguistic claim, I think what we are talking about when we discuss good omelettes is something subjective.

What's the crucial difference between objectively measuring the quality of omelettes and objectively weighing freedoms (and moral realism in general)?

We have at least some reason to believe in one, and not the other.

What's that reason?

[Daniel McKay]

Atla - I'm afraid I think your objective best omelette doesn't exist. I think there is no objective and universal standard by which the quality of omelettes can be measured. Also, to make a further and distinct linguistic claim, I think what we are talking about when we discuss good omelettes is something subjective.

What's the crucial difference between objectively measuring the quality of omelettes and objectively weighing freedoms (and moral realism in general)?

That would be why he mentioned the linguistic claims.

There's (arguably) a difference of type between the linguistic claims 'this omelette is bad' and 'stealing cars is bad'. In one case you intend it such that anyone who disagrees with you must be mistaken, that there really is something bad about stealing a car. In the other, somebody may just dislike fluffiness in their eggs and you likely don't intend to say that they are mistaken if that is their preference.

Moral subjectivism is ultimately a linguistic claim. The claim being that when we say "murder is wrong" we mean "murder, yuck" or "I don't approve of murder" or "don't murder" or something similar. This is a less interesting point than whether objective morality (which is certainly the kind I mean when I use the word) exists or not. I was differentiating between the two claims as regards omelettes and making a position on both clear independently of one another.

[Daniel McKay]

What's the crucial difference between objectively measuring the quality of omelettes and objectively weighing freedoms (and moral realism in general)?

We have at least some reason to believe in one, and not the other.

What's that reason?

That if we don't believe that right and wrong exists, we might do something wrong. So to the extent that we should do anything, we should act as though morality exists.

[Daniel McKay]

There is no standard setter to the truth of reality

If this is so: your project has already failed. No measurer, no measure (or rather, 8 billion & change measurers, all vying to get the upper hand).

Good luck, have fun, watch out for bears.

And: Euthyphro dilemma. Mannie! He's singin' your song!

No standard setter is not the same as no measurer. We might well measure the height of a mountain, but that is very different from someone deciding the height of that mountain. Further, if everyone decided that the mountain in question was a different height (assuming we keep the meaning of the words the same and aren't just pulling some linguistic funny business), then that wouldn't change the height of that mountain. The truth is true even when nobody believes it.

[Daniel McKay]

Harbal - I mean, I think the reasons why we don't think there is a reason to believe in any gods are pretty clear. Specifically, there's no evidence to suggest that any exist. As for why that has no bearing on morality, morality is more than rules made by the guy with the biggest stick. It, if it exists at all, is a necessary truth baked into the fabric of all possible reality. Gods don't make A equal to A, it simply is. And it is in all possible worlds, those with deities and those without, as is also the case for morality. But, if you prefer less reliance on necessity and more of an intuition pump, we could instead use the classic Euthyphro dilemma, which leads to either any god's arbitrariness or irrelevance in the matter of morality.

I agree with you about the unlikelihood of gods, but not about anything to do with morality being baked into the fabric of reality. It might be baked into the human psyche, but, in reality, I don't think morality extends beyond human sentiment.

I don't think it's baked into the human psyche at all. I think we have a kind of proto-morality as the result of our evolutionary history, but the way of getting beyond that is through reasoned analysis, rather than looking deep inside ourselves for answers.

[Atla]

We have at least some reason to believe in one, and not the other.

What's that reason?

That if we don't believe that right and wrong exists, we might do something wrong. So to the extent that we should do anything, we should act as though morality exists.

Well that looks like a coward's excuse to me, not an actual reason. Why not just say that humanity should act morally because not only is that the best for us, in fact there is no alternative? Either morality or guaranteed self-destruction. Genuine moral realism isn't even really needed, just a quasi-realism with subjectivist roots.

But more importantly, that didn't address my question. Why should I expect that freedoms can be weighed objectively, but the quality of omelettes can't be?

[henry quirk]

Dan, you want the omelet without the cook. Hell, you want the egg without the chicken. Shoes without cobblers, watches without watchmakers. And, yes, you want the Yardstick without the Yardstick Maker.

You want slavery to be wrong just becuz. You want rape to be wrong just as a matter of brute fact. You want morality set by an amoral, unthinking universe.

As I say: your project has already failed.

Good luck, have fun, watch out for bears.

[Dubious]

Dan, you want the omelet without the cook. Hell, you want the egg without the chicken. Shoes without cobblers, watches without watchmakers. And, yes, you want the Yardstick without the Yardstick Maker.

You want slavery to be wrong just becuz. You want rape to be wrong just as a matter of brute fact. You want morality set by an amoral, unthinking universe.

As I say: your project has already failed.

Good luck, have fun, watch out for bears.

What a dumb response! You really are one of the clan leaders when it comes to stupid. Yup! You're definitely made in the USA; no question.

[Harbal]

Harbal - I mean, I think the reasons why we don't think there is a reason to believe in any gods are pretty clear. Specifically, there's no evidence to suggest that any exist. As for why that has no bearing on morality, morality is more than rules made by the guy with the biggest stick. It, if it exists at all, is a necessary truth baked into the fabric of all possible reality. Gods don't make A equal to A, it simply is. And it is in all possible worlds, those with deities and those without, as is also the case for morality. But, if you prefer less reliance on necessity and more of an intuition pump, we could instead use the classic Euthyphro dilemma, which leads to either any god's arbitrariness or irrelevance in the matter of morality.

I agree with you about the unlikelihood of gods, but not about anything to do with morality being baked into the fabric of reality. It might be baked into the human psyche, but, in reality, I don't think morality extends beyond human sentiment.

I don't think it's baked into the human psyche at all. I think we have a kind of proto-morality as the result of our evolutionary history, but the way of getting beyond that is through reasoned analysis, rather than looking deep inside ourselves for answers.

Well it seems to me that we come into the world with a capacity for having moral attitudes; we are hard wired for it, you might say, but the attitudes themselves are not hard wired. We seem to accumulate those as we go through life, but I disagree that reasoned analysis has much, if anything, to do with the process. We pick up our moral attitudes from our parents, and from our society in general, without even questioning them, although we may well do that later in life. I'm pretty old, and way back when I was young, sex outside marriage and homosexually were morally wrong as far as my society was concerned, but that is no longer the case. I wouldn't say that is because we subjected the matter to rational analysis, but quite the opposite; we just came to realise that there was no rational basis for that attitude towards those things. And think of things like incest, where there is a rational reason for inhibiting it. Most of us avoid it because we have an emotional aversion to it, not at all because of any rational reason not to engage in it. Maybe I'm overlooking something, and you can explain the part that reasoned analysis plays in morality.

[henry quirk]

What a dumb response!

No, a dismissive one.

[FlashDangerpants]

What's the crucial difference between objectively measuring the quality of omelettes and objectively weighing freedoms (and moral realism in general)?

That would be why he mentioned the linguistic claims.

There's (arguably) a difference of type between the linguistic claims 'this omelette is bad' and 'stealing cars is bad'.

How big the difference in type, then, between henry quirk's, "this wall is 10 by 7", and stealing cars is wrong?

I guess it depends where you draw the line with Henry's thing. The wall being 10 by 7 is dewscriptive of observable properties of the object that is a wall, that's sort of the ideal for an objective statement. In terms of linguistic assertability, it seems obvious that if somebody says "that wall is 11 by 4" then they are wrong interms equivlaent to those of the person who says 'stealing cars is not wrong' but not equivalent to 'fluffy omelettes are bad'.

The other stuff Henry is bleating about, with spooky ontological entailments, that's just a syphilitic rant. He's out of his depth, it doesn't really matter.

[Immanuel Can]

I really can't see any way round the combination of empathy and sympathy being at the core of any genuinely moral system, because morality would just be a set of rules that we have no way to evaluate, otherwise.

Well, empathy clearly isn't reliable, either. It can go wrong very easily. So you'd have to conclude, then, that there really is no such "way to evaluate."

I don't really know what "reliable" and "go wrong" mean in reference to empathy,

I think you do. You know, for example, that the women empathetic to a Charles Manson, or the people who have empathy for Che Guevera and run around wearing t-shirts of a man who shot Cuban dissidents into ditches, you know that empathy has gone wrong.

When you argue against abortion, you don't just say, "God says it's wrong", and leave it at that. You use terms like "murder",

Sure. But I can. Because I believe we can evaluate that by "Thou shalt not murder."

In which case you have lost the element of rationality, because abortion isn't murder when carried out legally.

It's never "legal" in an ultimate sense. It's always against the Law of God, even among those who refuse to recognize that Law. And it's against conscience, too...as the abortionists own rhetoric so often makes clear, when they wince at being told the details of what they're doing, or when they claim it needs to be "safe, legal and rare." Why "rare," if it's such a wonderful thing? And why do abortionists never want women to see the baby they're considering killing? After all, the doctor will show you an x-ray of your cancerous kidney or your broken kneebone, but never a picture of your own preborn child. But they know what it really is. We all know. As Jay Budziszewski the ethicist has put it, "those who pretend not to are merely playing pretend, and doing it badly."

Human laws can't make evil good. That's only to make an evil law...of which there are many and well known instances.

and talk about a human being beings ripped apart.

That's exactly what happens. That's just description.

But a description chosen specifically for its emotive quality,

No; just for its accuracy and clarity. There's a lot of smoke plown around the topic to hide what it is. I'm just calling a spade a spade, to use the old poker term.

But if their plight didn't first cause me to weep and moan, what would move me to try to bring about their relief?

I can't speak for you. What would move some people, though, is a belief in justice and fairness. But behind that would have to be more, of course.

But if you could even conceive of things like justice and fairness without having a sense of empathy in the first place, and I'm not sure that one could, why would you actually care about them?

Maybe you wouldn't. Many people don't. But they know they're wrong, too. We all know what fairness and justice look like: a toddler, deprived of her toy, will scream "No fair!" And toddlers are notoriously unempathetic creatures, as you'll know from raising a child.

But we can only base that judgement on our own feelings about what it must be like to be in their position.

That doesn't seem obvious to me. If I'm getting paid well for a particular job, and somebody else is getting paid less for doing exactly the same work, it's really irrelevant whether or not I have tummy pains over it. What's relevant is my realization that unfairness is taking place, and my desire to right a wrong.

But that's what those irrelevant tummy pains you mentioned were; your desire to right a wrong.

No pain. Just the calm realization of an injustice, and a normal desire to see the right thing done.

Be rational and logical, you mean? So what would be my rational reason for caring what happens to people I don't even know?

Again, it's not fair for me to speak for you. So I assume you mean other people too, not just yourself.

I think some people have no sense of justice. It could be that they never did, or it could be that they've seared it by a pattern of habitual callousness. But somebody who does have that sense might well be motivated by something as calm and reasonable as a recognition of inequality, or exploitation.

Recognising inequality and exploitation may well involve rational thought, but caring about them requires emotion.

The caring's optional.

Ask anybody who's experiencing an injustice if they'd rather have a) somebody who feels deeply for them and does nothing, or b) somebody who makes it right, whether he feels anything or not.

[Atla]

So, the kind of freedom that freedom consequentialism is concerned with is specifically freedom over those choices that belong to the person in question. The choices that belong to a person, or the choices a person has a “right” to make if you prefer, are the ones over those things that they own, specifically their mind, body, and property.

This looks pretty specific and will also have to be somehow written into the fabric of all possible worlds. Will it work with cultures and species that have no concept of ownership? Can slaves be property?