Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jul 27, 2022 2:20 pm
Chaos? Hmmm. That depends on what you are prepared to accept. Their policies have certainly led them into some profound social problems, with gangs now roving Malmo and Stockholm, and areas of both cities where it's simply not safe to go, at any time. Something's hugely wrong there, and very likely to get worse. It's no paradise now, if it ever was.
But just look around you. Look at LA or San Fran, for instance. And ask yourself, have mores changed in the US or UK in the last half century? But half a century ago, a nominal religiosity characterized most of public life in both countries. It hasn't taken long, and we're seeing profound social decay going on.
Total chaos it may not yet be: but it's clear what direction we're now moving.
In the last half century, women couldn't even open a line of credit without their husband's permission. Jim Crow wasn't that long ago either in the US. I think you're making that classic mistake whereby people think things are always getting worse when things are just
different. There's no era on this earth that you can point to where there weren't massively problematic things going on with society, and the causes of those problematic things are much more complex than whether people believed in gods or not.
Immanuel Can wrote:Interesting. I'm familiar with them. I'm tempted to ask more, but will restrain my curiousity.
It's not a sore point or anything so feel free to ask whatever you want.
Immanuel Can wrote:Indeed so. But would those belief be justified? That's the key question. And would they prove durable? For how long, especially once people started to realize they were totally arbitrary?
Moral beliefs aren't justified though outside of hypothetical imperatives, so the first question is somewhat moot. As for durability, compunctions against murder, theft, and rape seem pretty timeless (and also timelessly ignored by those with different values: none of that changes).
Immanuel Can wrote:
Some people like hurting others. Some find great advantage in it. That others value harmlessness or charity does not disturb them. Nor does it mean that charity and harmlessness are "morally better" than killing and rape, since nothing is actually, objectively "morally better" than anything else, then.
Astro Cat wrote:Correct.
Wow. That's one heck of a pill to swallow. Are you sure you want to do that? It has awfully unsavoury implications.
You're leaning closer and closer to actually making the fallacy of an appeal to adverse consequences with every post, though. Would it be more savory for there to exist moral truths? Who knows, such a thing would have to be defined in a cognitive way, first. The fact of the matter is that it describes reality to say that moral beliefs are hypothetical imperatives built on top of values and that no values are "correct" while other values are "not correct." There is nothing that corresponds to reality to say one would be correct while another would be incorrect. The only time some moral belief could be "incorrect" is if the hypothetical imperative leading up to it was formed incorrectly, e.g., "I value life, therefore I should kill my neighbor for fun."
I feel like there is a lot to say about whether it's "savory" or not to have moral truths, and I don't know where to say it, so perhaps I will make a quick aside here. What is the difference between a world with moral truths and one where there are not? If
this is a world with moral truths, then why is there so much suffering caused by people onto other people? What good does the existence of the "truths" do that makes a better world than a world where there is no such concept?
In the noncognitivist picture, people have moral beliefs which are essentially like preferences that stem from their values that they happen to have. People that value altruism will help other people and try to prevent suffering. People that don't value altruism, e.g. valuing selfishness, will hurt other people and not care about the suffering they sew. Well, that is exactly what we observe about the world.
What would be different in a world where something is "true" about whether one should be altruistic? The moral realist believes that
this world is such a world (where moral realism is cognitive, propositional, and true), but if so, what good has it done? Why does it still look
exactly like the noncognitivist picture? We can tell people here and now, today, "hey, murder is bad," and some people will still choose to murder and some will not even feel bad about it. Why is that? What work is the "truth" even doing, what good is it?
Where is it? How does it correspond to reality?
Even if moral realism
were true (and for the sake of argument I'm treating that sentence as if it were cognitive), someone would still have to value truth to even care. You could demonstrate to a person with some ostensibly logical and sound argument that murder is bad, and if they just don't give a shit about the truth, that's not going to stop them. What good is it? It still comes down to what
values a person happens to have.
Immanuel Can wrote:Astro Cat wrote:We can only judge things from our set of values.
But are those values objective or merely subjective, one might ask? For it makes a world of difference which one thinks it is.
If what our "values" are telling us is simply what I feel I prefer at a given moment, or what my arbitrary society indoctrinated me into supposing, then there's nothing defensible about any value I have...including, "You should love whom you want."
When the Southern Democrats had slaves, that wasn't wrong, because Southern culture gave them that value. And freeing the slaves wasn't "right," because nothing is. And in the Palestinian territories or Saudi, homosexuals are thrown off rooftops or set on fire. But that isn't "bad," per se, because nothing is actually "bad." And when rapes or pedophile assaults take place, they aren't "bad" either...because nothing is. And if our own society, in future, should for some reason become more conservative on these issues, it won't be wrong if they do such things again...
Is that the pill you'll be willing to swallow? That's the full implication, after all.
Yes, you keep describing reality like you expect it to be an argument
There is nothing about the universe that makes hurting people bad and helping people good. The only thing that makes something "good" or "bad" is the personal values an ostensibly free agent possesses. Slave ownership is bad to everyone that values freedom, but it is good to everyone that values selfishness or racism, etc. When people make utterances like "that is good," they are really saying "I prefer that," when they say "that is bad," they are really saying "I prefer not-that." The universe doesn't have preferences.
You are correct: society can shift towards things that don't align with altruistic values. We are watching some of that in real time in some places. Yet again, noncognitivism describes reality whereas moral realism seems to accomplish nothing (since ostensibly, to the moral realist, this
is a moral realist universe).
It has always been the case and will always be the case that whomever holds the numbers and power will set the values for the society. If people that value altruism, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, things like that want the world to reflect their values, then they had better take efforts towards that effect, and that does mean having numbers and power. Because it's always about numbers and power. That's a description of the world, not a
prescription for what it "should" be like (as if that made any cognitive sense).
You paint this picture as if it's some bleak alternative to some bright default, but I'm arguing that's nonsense. The moral realist picture doesn't seem to do any good as I've commented before (since the moral realist thinks
this world is a moral realist world, and this world contains everything that the moral realist "warns" about should moral realism fail to be true!)
Now luckily, the world isn't entirely bleak as I've said. There are probably evolutionary reasons for why most humans
generally value altruism to some degree, which leads most humans to agree with admonitions against murder, theft, rape, etc. It's not an entirely uphill battle for altruists to try to propagate their values over non-altruists. But it is an ever present danger to altruists that,
indeed, the non-altruists could start gaining the upper hand. This is the world.
Immanuel Can wrote:Astro Cat wrote:Those of us that value things like altruism, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness must depend on outnumbering and outpowering those that don't. That is the reality.
But for most of history, and in most of the world today, we have not succeeded in that. Those who believe as you do have been in the vast minority. And history, being indifferent to such things, will not guarantee us that the future will be more American than the past.
For most of history, and in most of the world, women have been significantly less important and more powerless than men...and children, lower still on the chain. Blacks have been captured and sold to Arab traders across the Sahara, or to other traders in places like Brazil, and even a lesser number to the US, of course, as you know. For most of history, barbarities of all kinds have been perpetrated, and few so common as war. But none of these is wrong, so long as the perpetrator has more power?
Power is a dangerous ally. It can turn on you in very short order. And those who live by that sword have a tendency also to die by it.
The argument isn't that might makes right. The argument is that "right" as a concept is conceptually empty. So no, none of those things are "wrong" from a neutral, universal, human-external perspective; they are just events from that perspective.
But to an altruist, yes, those events are wrong, infuriating,
terrible. In the noncognitivist picture, it doesn't mean you can't get outraged. It doesn't mean you can't demand and instantiate action against something. And before you point it out, of course defenders of slavery could get outraged as well (at abolition), and demand and instantiate action (
for slavery as a practice) as well. And that is what we see when we look at history and reality, yes.
I feel like you feel a sense of shock over the idea that right and wrong are preferential and individual because you keep pointing out, "Are you
sure you want to say that because then this thing you consider horrible wouldn't be mind-externally wrong?" but all I can do is continue saying "correct, the very idea that something could be "mind-externally wrong" is nonsense and you might as well be talking about slithey toves gyring and gimbling in wabes."
I hate the concept of slavery, I abhor it. I wouldn't feel that bad if I had to murder a slaver to stop them (and I would do that, too), and I have a
severe personal admonition against hurting people,
that's how strongly I hate it. But this is not inconsistent with acknowledging that there's nothing about the
universe that makes slavery "wrong," because "wrongness" outside of hypothetical imperatives made by thinking agents is a nonsensical concept.
I have my values and slavers have their values. I value their values going as near to extinct as possible, so I value maximizing ways that propagate my values. They may try to propagate their values too. That is the way of the world, and if this is a world with "moral realism," then it looks
weirdly like a world in which there isn't.
Immanuel Can wrote:Astro Cat wrote:The noncognitivist like myself submits that the moral realist isn't saying anything with cognitive substance when they say there is a moral truth.
Yes, I understand that's the supposition. And yet, so mamy who would, in theory, regard themselves as noncognitivists (if they could explain their view; many can't), also would be stridently convinced that, say, "oppression" is really wrong. In fact, if it's not, then what are they saying? Are they holding up signs we are to understand as meaning, "Oppression is okay, if you think it is?"
Is the sign that says, "My body, my choice" meant only to convey, "I think it's my body, and I happen to be of the opinion it should be my choice -- but you don't have to be?" If so, why are they even holding the sign? To whom are they 'talking,' and what are they trying to convey, that the moral noncognitivist might not already believe?
They are not saying "oppression is okay if you think it is." The moral noncognitivist isn't saying that we must tolerate values that don't align with our own (unless someone happens to hold such a strange value). As I have been saying, most of us hold values that include hostility towards values that don't align with our own. When someone holds up a sign saying "oppression is wrong," they are saying "I value liberty, and I value being an activist about it, and I value taking actions against those that do not value liberty." Furthermore this is what moral realists are really doing (I submit, read this as "I suspect"), they just don't realize it, because they do not form a cognitive picture any more than I do what it means for the universe to have "oughts" which are facts/truths.
Immanuel Can wrote:If I can know, simply by valuing something, that it's okay, morally speaking, then what if I value the feeling of really grinding women's faces in the dirt, or I like the idea of my race's power ruling everything? Noncognitively, why shouldn't I?
If you value those things then you would probably form the requisite hypothetical imperatives where you find that you
should do those things, yep. And people with different values would try to stop you. (And people with your values would try to stop them). Yes, you keep describing the real world that we observe.
Immanuel Can wrote:Of course, this goes back to your earlier claim that the lack of objective morality might not be problematic. If it isn't, then what's the big deal with Social Justice? It's then not "problematic" if a power greater than the numbers of lesbians in an area wishes to see them abused or extinguished. That's just what happens to be their "values." And they have the power to do it. What grounds for any plea for "justice" do you have to offer to women who are faced with such oppression? There's no objectivity to "justice" itself, it seems.
So this is why we make moral arguments. Because moral beliefs are based on hypothetical imperatives, they're effectively arguments. Arguments are capable of convincing people sometimes when people are exposed to new perspectives or new information. Recall that I've said some hard doxastic voluntarism is false, and I'm not sure we even disagree about that. But I think we agree that our values can change even if we can't consciously will them to do that.
Let me give an example. Let's say that I'm really into trying to save the environment, so I form the hypothetical imperative "I value the environment, so I ought to use ethanol gas to prevent drilling." Seems perfectly rational. However, I might not know the fact that growing and reaping the corn required for the "alternative fuel" causes more greenhouse gas emissions than the damage that might have been caused from drilling. So someone could come up to me and tell me that my moral belief is wrong because I have erred out of ignorance: given my values, I
should actually
not support the alternative fuel. I could be convinced because I would have been exposed to new information, and a belief revision process would take place.
Similarly, sometimes people aren't aware of different perspectives. Consider for instance people that are deeply anti-gay until a family member comes out as gay and they begin to think from a perspective they simply hadn't entertained before. Sometimes we can convince people in the same way by making arguments, and this is what social activists do: we try to get people to consider perspectives and understand facts that they might not have entertained before.
If someone values facts and values truly considering things, they may even listen and have their mind changed. If they don't value facts and they just value whatever they're doing more, then they won't and they'll continue doing whatever they're doing. Again, noncognitivism sure looks like it describes the reality that we see!
Immanuel Can wrote:Astro Cat wrote:For moral realists' position to be cognitive, they're going to have to give some theory for how oughts correspond to reality.
Of course. That's an
epistemic problem, rather than a
rational-ontological one. It's real enough, but it pertains to psychology, not truth.
I strongly disagree. If the moral realist doesn't even know what they're saying when they say "It is true that we ought to do x," then they might as well be saying "all mimsy were the borogroves, and the mome raths outgrabe." They aren't
communicating anything at all, they aren't
cognizing anything at all. It is absolutely necessary for the moral realist to be able to account for how an ought corresponds to reality to even talk about moral realism in the first place.
Immanuel Can wrote:
We haven't spoken about this so far, I think. But it's interesting.
Russell is, for one of the few times in his philosophical life, right about this one. It's like "married bachelor" or "square circle." We humans can form concepts for which there is no objective referent. Unicorns, for example. Or we can articulate paradoxes and self-contradictions and oxymorons.
"Subjective morality" is one of them. If it's "subjective," then it's not actually "moral": because "moral" implies "oughtness," and "subjectivity" implies the impossibility of moral "oughtness."
What we would have to say, to undo the oxymoronic implication there, is that the fact that people hold moral claims is
objectively true; but this doesn't help us, because it just means, "Objectively, people happen to like to delude themselves about morality." It does not imply, "Objectively, what they happen to believe is also true."
The noncognitivist does submit that people just use moral terminology wrong all the time, that "wrong" is really saying "prefer-not" and so on. The noncognitivist would submit that we just use the language we already naturally do, because that is what humans do all the time (we use a lot of oxymorons and the like in our speech and still understand one another); it would just be our understanding of what those terms mean that is clarified and enhanced from noncognitive gibberish to something that makes sense.
