Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 10:31 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 10:06 pm Oh, and meanwhile, we're still waiting for a moral objectivist here to produce even one example of a moral fact...

Thou shalt not commit murder. Moral fact.

Done. What's the big deal?

'Thou shalt not commit murder' is called a command. Grammarians refer to it as the imperative clause form, contrasting it with the declarative, interrogative and exclamative. When we're talking about facts as linguistic expressions (one meaning of the word 'fact'), we're referring to the declarative clause form. So, no, 'Thou shalt not commit murder' isn't a fact, moral or otherwise.

Back to the drawing board, and maybe the elementary grammar textbook, may I suggest.

Or if you think 'murder is morally wrong' is a fact - since 'incest is morally wrong' sadly failed to fit the bill - then you'll need to demonstrate why it's a fact. (Hint: the problem is the function of the declarative - what a moral assertion actually does. Swapping murder for incest or slavery makes no difference. That's the wonderful generative flexibility of language.)

surreptitious57 wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 5:57 pm

Peter Holmes wrote:
So all we can do - all we ve ever and will ever be able to do - is make our own moral judgements
And to say such judgements can have no rational basis because they re not objective is false fatuous and libellous

Moral judgements can be rational - utilitarianism for example - but they can never be absolutely objective
You are incapable of having an absolutely objective thought never mind an absolutely objective morality
All human knowledge and experience is subjective by default - it is not possible for it to be anything else

Problem is Utilitarianism is too subjective at one level which do not enable it to reach relative objectivity.

Utilitarianism is a family of consequentialist ethical theories that promotes actions that maximize happiness and well-being for the affected individuals.

Now we know very well what is happiness* and well-being is very subjective to the individuals, groups and majorities.
One man's happiness can easily be another's sadness.

Happiness cannot be an end for morality nor can it qualify as the greatest-good.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat May 02, 2020 7:25 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 10:31 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 10:06 pm Oh, and meanwhile, we're still waiting for a moral objectivist here to produce even one example of a moral fact...

Thou shalt not commit murder. Moral fact.

Done. What's the big deal?

'Thou shalt not commit murder' is called a command. Grammarians refer to it as the imperative clause form, contrasting it with the declarative, interrogative and exclamative. When we're talking about facts as linguistic expressions (one meaning of the word 'fact'), we're referring to the declarative clause form. So, no, 'Thou shalt not commit murder' isn't a fact, moral or otherwise.

Back to the drawing board, and maybe the elementary grammar textbook, may I suggest.

Or if you think 'murder is morally wrong' is a fact - since 'incest is morally wrong' sadly failed to fit the bill - then you'll need to demonstrate why it's a fact. (Hint: the problem is the function of the declarative - what a moral assertion actually does. Swapping murder for incest or slavery makes no difference. That's the wonderful generative flexibility of language.)

IC's is a theistic moral model which is pseudo-morality.

What is morality-proper inherent within all humans is the secular moral model which rely on moral objectives [moral facts] inferred from empirical evidence and philosophical reasonings.

Btw, don't conflate empirical facts [e.g. Scientific] with moral facts, they are not the same since they are inferred from different frameworks.

Thus;
"No human ought to kill another human"
is a moral fact inferred from empirical evidence with philosophical reasonings.
Anyone can test for the above facts accordingly and it will be true at all times for humans.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat May 02, 2020 7:26 am

surreptitious57 wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 5:57 pm

Peter Holmes wrote:
So all we can do - all we ve ever and will ever be able to do - is make our own moral judgements
And to say such judgements can have no rational basis because they re not objective is false fatuous and libellous

Moral judgements can be rational - utilitarianism for example - but they can never be absolutely objective
You are incapable of having an absolutely objective thought never mind an absolutely objective morality
All human knowledge and experience is subjective by default - it is not possible for it to be anything else

Problem is Utilitarianism is too subjective at one level which do not enable it to reach relative objectivity.

Utilitarianism is a family of consequentialist ethical theories that promotes actions that maximize happiness and well-being for the affected individuals.

Now we know very well what is happiness* and well-being is very subjective to the individuals, groups and majorities.
One man's happiness can easily be another's sadness.

Happiness cannot be an end for morality nor can it qualify as the greatest-good.

A confusion seems to have taken root, introduced by the monstrous hybrid, 'relative objectivity'.

And we now have a mythological scale of subjectivity, from the pure end along to some undefined point where a little bit of subjective objectivity begins - perhaps near the other, impure end.

It's sociologically fascinating: how a bonkers idea beginning as an idle whisper spreads and becomes the new normal so quickly.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 6:23 pm So all we can do - all we've ever and will ever be able to do - is make our own moral judgements.
And to say such judgements can have no rational basis because they're not objective is false, fatuous - and libellous.

Do you mean own moral judgments like what Hitler et al did and their likes in the present can do the same?

Morality proper is not about making personal judgments.
Hume especially condemned actions for SELF-LOVE i.e. directed toward own moral judgments.

Do you think an individual can make a judgment for every thought and intention before he act it out? You are venturing into the ridiculous.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat May 02, 2020 7:39 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat May 02, 2020 7:26 am

surreptitious57 wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 5:57 pm

Moral judgements can be rational - utilitarianism for example - but they can never be absolutely objective
You are incapable of having an absolutely objective thought never mind an absolutely objective morality
All human knowledge and experience is subjective by default - it is not possible for it to be anything else

Problem is Utilitarianism is too subjective at one level which do not enable it to reach relative objectivity.

Utilitarianism is a family of consequentialist ethical theories that promotes actions that maximize happiness and well-being for the affected individuals.

Now we know very well what is happiness* and well-being is very subjective to the individuals, groups and majorities.
One man's happiness can easily be another's sadness.

Happiness cannot be an end for morality nor can it qualify as the greatest-good.

A confusion seems to have taken root, introduced by the monstrous hybrid, 'relative objectivity'.

And we now have a mythological scale of subjectivity, from the pure end along to some undefined point where a little bit of subjective objectivity begins - perhaps near the other, impure end.

It's sociologically fascinating: how a bonkers idea beginning as an idle whisper spreads and becomes the new normal so quickly.

What you are proposing is worst in the case of subjectivity, i.e. the individual to make one's own moral judgment.

Yes, relative objectivity has degrees, e.g. of confidence level, etc.
Scientific theories are objective, but they carry degrees of confidence based on the processes under taken.
For example theoretical scientific theories that are not testable like the Big Bang Theory do not carry the same degree of objectivity like "Water = H2O".
For example, the Earth is Spherical is objective has different degree of objectivity to "Water = H2O."

It is the same with the relative objectivity of moral facts, i.e. there will be degrees of relative objectivity depending the processes undertaken to establish the fact.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 6:32 pm And worse than that: it's probably what Nietzsche thought it was -- "slave morality." We fool people into believing that there's such a thing as "morality" merely to take advantage of them, or to compel the world to run on our terms...but we have no legitimacy in doing so; we're just lying.

For "Slave Morality" Nietzche was referring to Theistic Morality where believers are literally slave to a God.

surreptitious57 wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 10:09 pm

Peter Holmes wrote:
Which is why your claim that scientists subscribe to the subjective consensus theory of truth is ridiculous

Inter subjective consensus is a principle of the scientific method - scientists use it all the time - it is literally what they do
Also science does not deal in truth but in the study of observable phenomena and its properties so nothing to do with truth

Fashionable and lazy claptrap.

Of course scientists deal with and pursue the truth. Of course they want to record their observations and date accurately - to tell the trurh about what they find. Of course they work to counterract confirmation bias in themselves and others. And of course they hate and want to expose the liars and frauds in their ranks.

The fact that scientific theories have to be provisional - best explanations so far, accounting for the most data, with most predictive power - because of the problem of induction - doesn't mean that science isn't the pursuit of truth.

And it's the very fact that theory advances by means of intersubjective consensus - that scientists don't claim to have found 'the truth' - that demonstrates what I'm saying: no scientist, to my knowledge, EVER says that truth is and can only be the product of intersubjective consesnsus.

This is cool-sounding, postmodern, post-truth bollocks.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 6:43 pm Things that natural scientists do say:

1 Based on the evidence and our understanding so far, this factual assertion seems to be true - but we can't be sure it is.

2 New evidence and understanding may mean that any factual assertion we think is true at the moment may turn out to be false.

Things that natural scientists don't say:

3 If the intersubjective consensus of opinion is that a factual assertion is true / false, then it actually is true / false.

4 Because we can never be sure a factual assertion is true / false, then it can't actually be true / false.

5 Because our assessment of the truth / falsehood of a factual assertion may have to be probabilistic, then it can't actually be true / false.

Numbers 3-5 are the kind of fashionable nonsense that post-modern cooeys come out with to wow people at dinner parties. Ooo, I'm so edgily clever.

You are very unintelligent with the above.

• 3. Scientists do not explicitly use the term 'intersubjective consensus'.
  Fact is scientific theories and facts are concluded upon the consensus of a collective groups of scientists who have tested and verified the experimented and concluded hypothesis.
  
  4. Scientific conclusions by default are never claimed to be 100% certain but based on the requirements of the scientific methods based on observation of empirical evidences.
  Note scientific facts are relative objective based on the ASSUMPTION the facts proven do exists in reality.
  
  5. Probability is the central feature of QM.

You are lost on the above.
Suggest you retract all of them to save yourself the embarrassment.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 9:59 pm

surreptitious57 wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 7:48 pm

Peter Holmes wrote:
Things that natural scientists do say

I Based on the evidence and our understanding so far this factual assertion seems to be true - but we cant be sure it is

2 New evidence and understanding may mean that any factual assertion we think is true at the moment may turn out to be false

Things that natural scientists dont say

3 If the intersubjective consensus of opinion is that a factual assertion is true / false then it actually is true / false

4 Because we can never be sure a factual assertion is true / false then it cant actually be true / false

5 Because our assessment of the truth / falsehood of a factual assertion may have to be probabilistic then it cant actually be true / false

Numbers 3 - 5 are the kind of fashionable nonsense that post modern cooeys come out with to wow people at dinner parties

How many scientists did you actually ask before posting this and if the answer is less than one then how do you know what you say is true ?
These statements are all equivalent with the only difference being between natural and technical language so was that all you had to say ?
By the way science and post modernism are mutually incompatible

Which is why your claim that scientists subscribe to the 'subjective consensus' theory of truth is ridiculous. There may be post-modern, post-truth theorists of science who spew this kind of nonsense, of course.

Scientists themselves do not explicitly used the term "intersubjective consensus".
It is the scientific methods, processes, peer review that has the quality of "intersubjective consensus".

For example, that Trump is the current President of the USA is an objective fact conditioned upon the US Constitution and based on intersubjective consensus via provisions of the Electoral College system.

That Zozibini Tunzi of South Africa in Miss Universe 2019
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Universe_2019
is an objective fact,
but this objective fact is based on the intersubjective consensus of the appointed judges conditioned upon the rules within the Constitution of the Miss Universe organization.
You dispute the above is an objective fact?
But the irony here is beauty is always by default subjective but somehow can be objectified as a fact.

As I had implied, your philosophical thinking is too narrow and shallow.

surreptitious57 wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 11:24 pm Is abortion murder - some say yes and some say no - so how does the fact that murder is apparently a moral fact solve this conundrum
Not very well given how there is no objective methodology that can be employed to determine the answer to this question either way

And so the apparent acceptance of murder as absolutely objectively immoral now seems less absolute and objective and immoral
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin - enquiring minds would like to know - and so if you do know then please do tell

Btw, I can answer for that.
Killing a human [born or unborn] by another human is morally wrong - moral objective.
What is a Moral Objective is not enforceable but merely a GUIDE only.

Then one has to differentiate between Morality [Pure] and Ethics [Applied].
Under Ethics [practical], abortion is permitted under various circumstances.

I will NOT go into details for the above, it has to be in another OP.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat May 02, 2020 7:55 am

surreptitious57 wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 10:09 pm

Peter Holmes wrote:
Which is why your claim that scientists subscribe to the subjective consensus theory of truth is ridiculous

Inter subjective consensus is a principle of the scientific method - scientists use it all the time - it is literally what they do
Also science does not deal in truth but in the study of observable phenomena and its properties so nothing to do with truth

Fashionable and lazy claptrap.

Of course scientists deal with and pursue the truth. Of course they want to record their observations and date accurately - to tell the trurh about what they find. Of course they work to counterract confirmation bias in themselves and others. And of course they hate and want to expose the liars and frauds in their ranks.

The fact that scientific theories have to be provisional - best explanations so far, accounting for the most data, with most predictive power - because of the problem of induction - doesn't mean that science isn't the pursuit of truth.

And it's the very fact that theory advances by means of intersubjective consensus - that scientists don't claim to have found 'the truth' - that demonstrates what I'm saying: no scientist, to my knowledge, EVER says that truth is and can only be the product of intersubjective consesnsus.

This is cool-sounding, postmodern, post-truth bollocks.

Science only ASSUME there is the truth, thus no scientist will ever claim they have establish the truth, i.e. the true fact.
Popper asserted scientific truths are at best 'polished conjectures.'
This literally is correct because Science always start with 'conjectures; i.e. hypothesis then polished the hypothesis with evidences, test, and various scientific processes to arrive at a qualified* [conditional] level of certainty they accept as scientific truths.
* it will change if new evidence prove otherwise.

You have a problem with understanding what is essentially "intersubjective consensus".
Scientists themselves don't claim it but it is from the meta-deliberation of the Philosophy of Science that philosophers observe there is a process of "intersubjective consensus" involved in the concluding of scientific conclusions as theories.
Do you deny there is an inherent processes intersubjective consensus in arriving at a scientific theory, truth and fact.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat May 02, 2020 7:44 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 6:23 pm So all we can do - all we've ever and will ever be able to do - is make our own moral judgements.
And to say such judgements can have no rational basis because they're not objective is false, fatuous - and libellous.

Do you mean own moral judgments like what Hitler et al did and their likes in the present can do the same?

Morality proper is not about making personal judgments.
Hume especially condemned actions for SELF-LOVE i.e. directed toward own moral judgments.

Do you think an individual can make a judgment for every thought and intention before he act it out? You are venturing into the ridiculous.

This is the absurd canard that IC keeps a quacking: a personal moral judgement can only be selfish, self-regarding, incapable of sympathy or empathy, likely to exclude others from consideration in pursuit of me, me, me.

Why can't my moral judgement factor in the well-being of others as essential to my well-being? The identification of subjectivity with selfish individualism flows partly from the diseased religious idea of our fallen nature needing sacrificailly-earned forgiveness from a psychopathic god.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat May 02, 2020 8:38 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat May 02, 2020 7:44 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 6:23 pm So all we can do - all we've ever and will ever be able to do - is make our own moral judgements.
And to say such judgements can have no rational basis because they're not objective is false, fatuous - and libellous.

Do you mean own moral judgments like what Hitler et al did and their likes in the present can do the same?

Morality proper is not about making personal judgments.
Hume especially condemned actions for SELF-LOVE i.e. directed toward own moral judgments.

Do you think an individual can make a judgment for every thought and intention before he act it out? You are venturing into the ridiculous.

This is the absurd canard that IC keeps a quacking: a personal moral judgement can only be selfish, self-regarding, incapable of sympathy or empathy, likely to exclude others from consideration in pursuit of me, me, me.

Why can't my moral judgement factor in the well-being of others as essential to my well-being? The identification of subjectivity with selfish individualism flows partly from the diseased religious idea of our fallen nature needing sacrificailly-earned forgiveness from a psychopathic god.

How do arrive at what is the acceptable level of well-being of others that is essential to your well being?
Note the well being [not sick] of slaves are essential to the well-being of the slave owner.
It is the same problem with arriving at the well beings of prostitutes to their pimps, citizens to dictators and the likes.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat May 02, 2020 8:36 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat May 02, 2020 7:55 am

surreptitious57 wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 10:09 pm

Inter subjective consensus is a principle of the scientific method - scientists use it all the time - it is literally what they do
Also science does not deal in truth but in the study of observable phenomena and its properties so nothing to do with truth

Fashionable and lazy claptrap.

Of course scientists deal with and pursue the truth. Of course they want to record their observations and date accurately - to tell the trurh about what they find. Of course they work to counterract confirmation bias in themselves and others. And of course they hate and want to expose the liars and frauds in their ranks.

The fact that scientific theories have to be provisional - best explanations so far, accounting for the most data, with most predictive power - because of the problem of induction - doesn't mean that science isn't the pursuit of truth.

And it's the very fact that theory advances by means of intersubjective consensus - that scientists don't claim to have found 'the truth' - that demonstrates what I'm saying: no scientist, to my knowledge, EVER says that truth is and can only be the product of intersubjective consesnsus.

This is cool-sounding, postmodern, post-truth bollocks.

Science only ASSUME there is the truth, thus no scientist will ever claim they have establish the truth, i.e. the true fact.
Popper asserted scientific truths are at best 'polished conjectures.'
This literally is correct because Science always start with 'conjectures; i.e. hypothesis then polished the hypothesis with evidences, test, and various scientific processes to arrive at a qualified* [conditional] level of certainty they accept as scientific truths.
* it will change if new evidence prove otherwise.

You have a problem with understanding what is essentially "intersubjective consensus".
Scientists themselves don't claim it but it is from the meta-deliberation of the Philosophy of Science that philosophers observe there is a process of "intersubjective consensus" involved in the concluding of scientific conclusions as theories.
Do you deny there is an inherent processes intersubjective consensus in arriving at a scientific theory, truth and fact.

Oh, ffs. Read what I wrote, and really try to understand.

Yes, scientists arrive at theories by means of intersubjective consensus - an on-going process of checking to confirm results. And yes, the sensible ones never say: this is the truth - we've found the actual answer and we can't be wrong. Yes, their conclusions are always provisional, if only because of the problem of induction. Do you follow, AE? Yes to all of this. I know about it, and I understand it. Do you understand that?

Now, look at the difference between that and what you say here:

'Do you deny there is [sic] an [sic] inherent processes intersubjective consensus [sic] in arriving at a scientific theory, truth and fact[?]'

Yes, scientists arrive at theories (explanations) by means of processes of intersubjective consesnsus. (Pay attention to what I've just said.)

But no, scientists don't even begin to assume that processes of intersubjective consensus produce what we call 'truth' and 'fact'. And to say that what we call truth and fact are and can only be the products of intersubjective consesnsus is so utterly wrong that it's staggering.