What could make morality objective?

[TimeSeeker]

greatness is a factual, objective property.

It is a testable property. Either your species will exist in a million years or they won't. If you went extinct - you aren't all that great.
How do we test for greatness? By observing our own non-extinction!

Same mistake as above. It's the category error you've been making all along.

Back to square 1. All categories are artificial! Categories are HUMAN creations. Which begs an is-ought question (which is apparently unsolvable): Why ought we categorise reality? Just look at it and admire it. What are categories for?

Same confusion again. A fact is a true factual assertion.- true given the way we use the signs involved - true regardless of what anyone believes or claims to know.

That's a self-contradictory definition. Can you give me any fact that is true outside of human knowledge?

But at least we have something to work with. A fact is an ASSERTION. So a fact is the output of some process.

- and always falsifiable, because it claims something about a feature of reality that may not be the case!

If your definition of "fact" is correspondence then how can a fact be falsifiable?!? How can a feature of reality that is the case suddenly become not-factual! It seems your conception of 'facts' is rather flexible.

No, I've been saying the exact opposite all along. This is your category error at work, as usual.

I see. Then I guess back to square 1 it is again. Can you factually define this category which you call "objective"? Game over

Try this assertion: all facts are disputable.

Disputable to what end? Turning a fact into a non-fact? So if a fact can be successfully disputed then was it ever a fact to begin with?

Not so. But if the rules allow for us to make true factual assertions, to deny that we can is just to reject those rules. And on what grounds do you reject them?

On the grounds that if a fact is successfully disputed, and reality never changed then it was never a fact to begin with. It was an error in the process through which the fact was asserted. And that is evidence that the process is flawed. And so it is insufficient to dismiss the fact. One must also correct the process which was responsible for the erroneous assertion of 'factuality'.

For there are only two broad ways in which a fact can become non-factual: either reality changed, or you were wrong all along.

Which brings us full circle back to the important question: Do the rules truly allow you to make true factual assertions if the assertions you are making with said rules can be successfully disputed?

Said differently: if all "facts" are falsifiable, aren't they just best guesses?

[TimeSeeker]

All this verbiage is boring me. If you really care so much about logic you will read up on Tarski's work. There are claims whose truth-value cannot be asserted neither true nor false.

Here is one such claim: Humanity will not be extinct come year 100000AD.

The truth-value of my claim is suspended until such time the proposition is tested. And if you care about Truth as much as you pretend to then you will make sure the above claim is tested come 100000AD.

Or you we could falsify it at any moment...

[Peter Holmes]

greatness is a factual, objective property.

It is a testable property. Either your species will exist in a million years or they won't. If you went extinct - you aren't all that great.
How do we test for greatness? By observing our own non-extinction!

No, greatness is not a testable property, and that's the point. To call something great is to express a opinion about it. Why is a species that survives greater than one that doesn't? There isn't a property independent of opinion by which we can assess greatness.

Same mistake as above. It's the category error you've been making all along.

Back to square 1. All categories are artificial! Categories are HUMAN creations. Which begs an is-ought question (which is apparently unsolvable): Why ought we categorise reality? Just look at it and admire it. What are categories for?

Agreed, all categories are conventional. But having created them, we can use them to say true things about the things we categorise - 'true' always meaning given the way we use the signs involved. And there's no 'ought' about categorising reality. It's just useful to do so - and it's how language works. I thought you agree about that. Not sure what your point is here.

Same confusion again. A fact is a true factual assertion.- true given the way we use the signs involved - true regardless of what anyone believes or claims to know.

That's a self-contradictory definition. Can you give me any fact that is true outside of human knowledge?

That's parochial. An alien species could use their language to assert facts about their world. And there's no contradiction. A factual assertion could be true even if no one knows it is. You're muddling truth-value with knowledge - as does the JTB definition.

But at least we have something to work with. A fact is an ASSERTION. So a fact is the output of some process.

- and always falsifiable, because it claims something about a feature of reality that may not be the case!

If your definition of "fact" is correspondence then how can a fact be falsifiable?!? How can a feature of reality that is the case suddenly become not-factual! It seems your conception of 'facts' is rather flexible.

I apologise for my unclear expression. I meant that a factual assertion is one that is falsifiable, because it claims something about reality that may not be the case. And, as I've said, I don't accept any correspondence theory. But you seem to accept here that facts are indeed possible - that there can be true factual assertions about features of reality. A ray of light in the fog?

No, I've been saying the exact opposite all along. This is your category error at work, as usual.

I see. Then I guess back to square 1 it is again. Can you factually define this category which you call "objective"? Game over

I've repeatedly defined the words 'objective' and 'objectivity', explaining that they assume the possibility of facts and truth. I'm now confused as to whether or not you use those words conventionally, or still reject those uses.

Try this assertion: all facts are disputable.

Disputable to what end? Turning a fact into a non-fact? So if a fact can be successfully disputed then was it ever a fact to begin with?

As I remember, you claim that all facts are disputable - I don't. So I was asking if you think the factual claim 'all facts are disputable' is disputable? You seem to be into a contradiction with either a yes or no answer.

Not so. But if the rules allow for us to make true factual assertions, to deny that we can is just to reject those rules. And on what grounds do you reject them?

On the grounds that if a fact is successfully disputed, and reality never changed then it was never a fact to begin with. It was an error in the process through which the fact was asserted. And that is evidence that the process is flawed. And so it is insufficient to dismiss the fact. One must also correct the process which was responsible for the erroneous assertion of 'factuality'.

This may come from my clumsy expression earlier, for which I apologise again. But, again, you seem to be conceding that there can be facts - true factual assertions - which, by definition, are indisputable.

For there are only two broad ways in which a fact can become non-factual: either reality changed, or you were wrong all along.

Which brings us full circle back to the important question: Do the rules truly allow you to make true factual assertions if the assertions you are making with said rules can be successfully disputed?

Said differently: if all "facts" are falsifiable, aren't they just best guesses?

Back up to this: a factual assertion is falsifiable because it claims something about a feature of reality that may not be the case. We call a true factual assertion a 'fact'. And my argument is that there is nothing in reality that can falsify a moral assertion, because it isn't factual. And that is why morality isn't objective.

Of course, you can play a different game with these words - apply different logical rules - but then, so what? Like you, I'm finding this argument boring and I wish we could stop it now.

[Peter Holmes]

All this verbiage is boring me. If you really care so much about logic you will read up on Tarski's work. There are claims whose truth-value cannot be asserted neither true nor false.

Here is one such claim: Humanity will not be extinct come year 100000AD.

The truth-value of my claim is suspended until such time the proposition is tested. And if you care about Truth as much as you pretend to then you will make sure the above claim is tested come 100000AD.

Or you we could falsify it at any moment...

The factual assertion 'humanity will not be extinct come year 100000CE' is indeed falsifiable, which just means that it claims something about a feature of reality that may not be the case. The fact that we can't falsify it now is irrelevant. And the same applies to a factual assertion about a feature of reality in another universe to which we could never have access. You are simply wrong to say 'the truth-value is suspended'. A factual assertion just has a truth-value, end of story. Whether we know its truth-value is a completely separate issue.

I know a little about Tarski, in relation to Quine's work. But can you point to an idea of his that refutes my argument? I don't recall that bit.

[TimeSeeker]

No, greatness is not a testable property, and that's the point. To call something great is to express a opinion about it.

I just told you how. There is no value-judgment/opinion in my premise.

IF humans are not extinct in 100000AD THEN it can be said that humans are great.

Why is a species that survives greater than one that doesn't? There isn't a property independent of opinion by which we can assess greatness.

By definition. Length of survival/adaptation. I gave you a way to measure it. Tme-until-extinction. The dinosaurs hold the high score so far.

Agreed, all categories are conventional. But having created them, we can use them to say true things about the things we categorise

That's tautological. WHY did we create categories?

- 'true' always meaning given the way we use the signs involved. And there's no 'ought' about categorising reality.

Yes there is. Reality does not have categories and yet we categorize it. So there was a time in history in which we had not categorized reality. So Categorization was an ought.

It's just useful to do so - and it's how language works. I thought you agree about that. Not sure what your point is here.

Aha! Useful. So we are dealing with utility (welcome to my bus). Can you define your utility function?


And the rest of my post got erradicated by the failure of the quoting system. So I don't feel like re-writing it at this point.

[Peter Holmes]

No, greatness is not a testable property, and that's the point. To call something great is to express a opinion about it.

I just told you how. There is no value-judgment/opinion in my premise.

IF humans are not extinct in 100000AD THEN it can be said that humans are great.

Why is a species that survives greater than one that doesn't? There isn't a property independent of opinion by which we can assess greatness.

By definition. Length of survival/adaptation. I gave you a way to measure it. Tme-until-extinction. The dinosaurs hold the high score so far.

Agreed, all categories are conventional. But having created them, we can use them to say true things about the things we categorise

That's tautological. WHY did we create categories?

- 'true' always meaning given the way we use the signs involved. And there's no 'ought' about categorising reality.

Yes there is. Reality does not have categories and yet we categorize it. So there was a time in history in which we had not categorized reality. So Categorization was an ought.

It's just useful to do so - and it's how language works. I thought you agree about that. Not sure what your point is here.

Aha! Useful. So we are dealing with utility (welcome to my bus). Can you define your utility function?


And the rest of my post got eradicated by the failure of the quoting system. So I don't feel like re-writing it at this point.

One more try. Here are two assertions.

1 We categorise(d) things.

2 We ought to categorise (have categorised) things.

If you can't see the radical difference between the functions of these two assertions, we can go no further. 1 is a true factual assertion - a fact. 2 is an opinion.

With given objective criteria, we can measure the height of mountains, and falsifiably assert which is the tallest. But we can't measure the greatness of mountains and falsifiably assert which is the greatest. Same goes with anything else, including species. Any criterion we use to assess greatness is itself a matter of opinion, and therefore subjective. That's why the definition of a god as a maximally great being is incoherent.

I can't think of any other way to explain the fact-value distinction.

[TimeSeeker]

1 We categorise(d) things.

2 We ought to categorise (have categorised) things.

If you can't see the radical difference between the functions of these two assertions, we can go no further. 1 is a true factual assertion - a fact. 2 is an opinion.

Seriously? Your brain is completely unable to work across the temporal dimension.

"We categorised things" is an A POSTERIORI assertion of somebody's actions in the past!
That somebody had an A PRIORI intention to categorize things before they went and ACTUALLY categorised things.

To that person "categorisation" was an OUGHT. That person magically crossed the is-ought gap somehow to give us categories which we didn't have!

Do you not recognise that, or are you just happy to turn a blind eye because you don't want to give up the made-up categories?

Or perhaps you don't recognise that you are simply appealing to the authority of whoever created the categories, as well as the bandwagon fallacy of "well - now we are all using these categories so...".

The fact that those people did cross the is-ought gap begs a bunch of questions:
1. WHY? What were they trying to achieve with categorisation?
2. What if their categorisation is no longer relevant/necessary/sufficient for the utility/goal?
3. What if better categorisation is possible with things we have learned since?
4. Why do you refuse to cross the is-ought gap for something as important as morality?

With given objective criteria, we can measure the height of mountains, and falsifiably assert which is the tallest.

Yes. But we invent these "objective criteria". By inventing a measuring unit and calling it "foot" or "meter". It's axiomatic. It's used by all and accepted by all. This way we can agree that a mountain is X meters tall. It's just standardization of measurement units.

And you are no closer to answering the question of utility: Why do we want to assert "which is tallest"?

Necessity is the mother of invention. What necessity drove us to invent categories?

[surreptitious57]

What necessity drove us to invent categories

The necessity of simplification when knowledge become far too diverse to be treated as just a single entity
Categorisation allows one to instantly access what they need to know without having to see everything else

How would one operate in a world that was entirely without caregorisation
There would be no structure to anything and it would make no sense at all

[TimeSeeker]

What necessity drove us to invent categories

The necessity of simplification when knowledge become far too diverse to be treated as just a single entity
Categorisation allows one to instantly access what they need to know without having to see everything else

How would one operate in a world that was entirely without caregorisation
There would be no structure to anything and it would make no sense at all

We would operate in exactly the same way before we invented a category called "facts".
Or like any other creature which doesn't care about "facts".

[TimeSeeker]

Here is an extract from http://jkorpela.fi/wiio.html

Communication between computers (and animals) works often quite well. Human communication uses vaguely defined symbols. It has often been said, quite appropriately, that it is the use of symbols, i.e. the ability to define symbols for permanent or casual use, that separates man from (other) animals. It is also the thing that makes human communication fail, as a rule.

One reason to that is that by being conventional by their very essence, symbols are prone to misunderstanding. You use a word thinking it has a specific meaning by a convention; but the recipient of your message applies a different convention; what's worse, you usually have no way of knowing that.

A symbol is essentially a sign to which some meaning is assigned by convention rather than by any external similarity between the sign and its denotation. Thus, for example, a word like lion is a symbol: the word does not resemble a lion. An onomatopoetic word like whizzle is not a pure symbol in the same sense. And a picture, even a very stylicized picture, of a lion is not a symbol for a lion in the sense discussed here. A symbol like the word lion may sound very simple and unambiguous. But think about the various connotations. You perhaps meant just the lion, Panthera leo, as an animal species; the recipient may have taken it as a symbol of strength, or bravery, or danger, depending on his cultural and personal background. Perhaps the recipient has read the Narnia books with great enthusiasm; or perhaps a lion has killed a friend of his.

And so to speak of "facts" in the context of any two people communicating one must take so many things for granted.
1. Shared experiences
2. Shared meaning
3. Shared use of symbols
4. Lack of nuance in the use of sumbols
5. Shared goals/objectives

And the things we brush aside:
1. Cultural differences
2. Personal differences
3. Synonyms
4. The fallibility of language
5. Variability in phenomenological bracketing

To pre-suppose some category called 'facts' is to ignore all the systemic complexities in human communication.
To pre-suppose facts is to pre-suppose consensus and standardised convention on the use of symbols AND their interpretation. Which is perfectly fine when you want to discuss some other idealised philosophical point, but when you want to discuss what a fact IS (e.g the ontology of facts) you don't get to ignore how messy reality is, nor do you get to pretend like a convention on the use of symbols is the status-quo amongst humans!

To speak of "facts" while claiming to reject the correspondence theory of truth is a performative contradiction.

And I will leave you with the final example.

Suppose that we were having this conversation over good old snail mail (with no Google or encyclopedias around e.g no way to verify OR reject my claim) I wrote to you "Mount Everest is 21220 meters high". Do you accept or reject the 'factuality' of what I say?

[surreptitious57]

We would operate in exactly the same way before we invented a category called facts
Or like any other creature which doesnt care about facts

What about our natural sense of curiosity and our highly developed pre frontal cortex ?
What alternative uses would we have for them if categorisation was not to be permitted ?

Also other animals dont care about facts so the comparison between them and us is invalid

[TimeSeeker]

What about our natural sense of curiosity and our highly developed pre frontal cortex ?
What alternative uses would we have for them if categorisation was not to be permitted ?

Also other animals dont care about facts so the comparison between them and us is invalid

What of them? Because you are curious and BECAUSE you want to understand the world you categorize it. Which is perfectly rational and pragmatic thing to do.

But you ignore the fact that just as you have categorized the world in a way that makes sense to you, I may categorize it in a way that makes sense to me.

And now we have different taxonomies. Which produce different language. And different concepts/abstractions. So how do we communicate?

[surreptitious57]

Suppose that we were having this conversation over good old snail mail ( with no Google or encyclopedias around eg party no way to
verify OR reject my claim ) I wrote to you Mount Everest is 21220 meters high . Do you accept or reject the factuality of what I say ?

I would do neither as I would have no way of knowing whether or not it was true
But if there was no way of verifying or rejecting it then you wouldnt know either

[TimeSeeker]

I would do neither as I would have no way of knowing whether or not it was true
But if there was no way of verifying or rejecting it then you wouldnt know either

I measured it. Using measurement units that make sense TO ME. Measurement units that I MAY have invented...

Whether I have communicated my knowledge to you effectively (e.g is it a fact?) that's for YOU to decide.

[surreptitious57]

just as you have categorized the world in a way that makes sense to you I may categorize it in a way that makes sense to me

And now we have different taxonomies . Which produce different language . And different concepts / abstractions . So how do we communicate ?

In reality there are very few fundamentally different ways of looking at the world

Therefore as a consequence of this there is much consensus between human beings