Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Feb 14, 2020 9:33 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2020 9:35 am
I believe you are wrong in not differentiating a moral fact from an empirical fact and other facts.
In Arithmetic, it is an objective fact, 1 + 1 = 2 i.e. objective.
As Henry Quirk had requested, show us a sane human who would want to be enslaved?
Just start asking with yourself [given you are sane], your spouse, children, relatives, kins, friends, and the rest of sane people [verified by DSM-V].
Thus it would be fact that everyone agree slavery is morally wrong, and from this, it is a
moral-fact, slavery is morally wrong. There is no logical error in this.
Therefore "slavery is morally wrong" as reasoned is an absolute moral law within morality specifically and nowhere else.
Note there is no claim 'slavery is morally wrong' is a scientific fact, an empirical fact, an arithmetic fact, a legal fact, and economic fact, etc. but only that it is a justified moral fact.
A fact is either a state-of-affairs or a description of a state-of-affairs. A state-of-affairs exists independent from opinion, and has no truth-value. Am I right to assume you understand this and agree with this account of the way we use the word
fact? (I'm doubtful, because your expression 'justified moral fact' is incoherent if by 'fact' you mean 'state-of-affairs'.)
If so, to say there are moral facts is to say there are moral states-of-affairs that exist independent from opinion. And that's the claim you have to justify by meeting your burden of proof. Just saying there are moral facts is useless. You have to show why a moral assertion such as 'slavery is wrong' describes a state-of-affairs that exists independent from opinion.
Between 'the earth is flat' and 'the earth isn't flat', there's a fact of the matter - a state-of-affairs - that settles the argument, regardless of anyone's opinion. Now please show the fact of the matter - the state-of-affairs - that settles the argument between 'slavery is morally wrong' and 'slavery isn't morally wrong' - regardless of anyone's opinion. Because that's what objectivity means.
Rather than
'the earth is flat' and 'the earth isn't flat', it would be more accurate to say the "
the Earth has a Spherical Planet' which represent a state-of-affairs.
I presume you will agree this is a scientific fact [astronomy] and that is objective.
I agree that would be independent of anyone's subjective opinion.
BUT I had claimed 'objectivity' is intersubjectivity, i.e. grounded on intersubjective consensus.
As such a fact or your 'state-of-affairs' while independent of anyone's subjective opinion, it cannot be
totally-independent of the human conditions.
While a scientific fact is objective, it it fundamentally at best a
polished conjecture [according to Karl Popper] or in a way, it is a polished-opinion, i.e. polished by a community of astronomers and other authorized participants.
"Group polished opinion' in this case is polished to be a justified-true-belief specific within the Scientific Framework, Scientific Methods, Peer Review, and other prerequisites.
Therefore a fact or your 'state-of-affairs' whilst independent of anyone's subjective opinion, it is not independent of a group of humans-polished-opinions.
All you and Henry have offered, by way of evidence, is that everyone thinks slavery is morally wrong. But so what? That's just their opinion.
If the only evidence for the claim that the earth isn't flat were that everyone thinks the earth isn't flat - would that be conclusive?
Individual[s] may have a subjective opinion on 'slavery is right or wrong' and yes such individual's opinion cannot be a fact or in this case a moral fact.
If everyone individually thinks the "Earth isn't flat" that is not objective. There is no collective intersubjective consensus in this claim.
To be objective it that has to be backed with verified and justified evidence within a
framework of knowledge [Science - Astronomy for example] and has sufficient intersubjective consensus among its peers.
It is on this basis with the Scientific Framework that it is a scientific fact that the "Earth is not flat" but rather in some sort of spherical shape.
There is no fact, truth, reality that is independent of a
specific framework of the realization of reality. There is only scientific truths, legal truths, common sense truths, economic truths, x-related-reality. There is no truth or reality that can exists by itself. Note Kant's there is no thing-in-itself or things-in-themselves. Show me there is anything contrary to this claim.
The claim that 'slavery is absolute wrong' is not based purely on the point that everyone
thinks 'slavery is wrong'.
That 'slavery is wrong' is inferred from what the default human would experience with being enslaved. This is backed by empirical evidence of human experiences throughout its history.
In the case of moral fact, there is no need for a collective consensus, but rather it is reasoned based on available empirical evidence. Example of this is the same with Arithmetic, i.e. 1 + 1 = 2 which need not be based on some arrangement of collective consensus like Science's peer review.
In this case of Arithmetical fact, it is reasoned to be given and universal to all human beings, and this can be tested. This is the same with moral fact.
This absolute moral principle, "slavery is wrong" can be tested.
In this case, ask any
sane human being whether he/she want to be enslaved or not.
It would be confirmed within psychiatry those who want to be enslaved [chattel slavery] are likely to have a mental problem.
You seem to be stucked with "individual opinion" but missed out on collective intersubjective consensus [as in Science] and reasoning from the universality of human conditions as in moral fact.
