What could make morality objective?

[Skepdick]

Under analysis, this falls apart.

1 A value isn't true or false. Only factual assertions are true or false. So of course there are no true values.

The existence of a value is true or false. Ontologically.

Either values exist, or you are a nihilist <---- this is a factual statement.

[Harbal]

Finally: Hidey-ho, Harbal! How goes it?

I'm all the better for seeing some of my old pals are still around, henry.

[Peter Holmes]

'The existence of a value is not true or false. Existence has no truth-value. Only factual assertions have truth-value.

[Skepdick]

'The existence of a value is not true or false. That's an elementary error. Existence has no truth-value. Only factual assertions have truth-value.

If you want to play dumb logocentric games, lets play dumb logocentric games.

*puts on tie, and a pompous, formal attitude*

I factually assert that values exist. <----- That's either true or false.

If my factual assertion is false (wrong, unjustified, incorrect, insufficient, <insert some other term of dismissal here>) - we are all nihilists.

One man's Modus Ponens is another's Modus Tolens.

[Immanuel Can]

Moral Nihilism entails the absolute, total and unequivocal denial that there are any true, objective or real values at all.

Under analysis, this falls apart.

1 A value isn't true or false. Only factual assertions are true or false. So of course there are no true values.

Nah, not even close. Hair-splitting and question-begging. Say "objective," if you prefer...that's the word in the OP.

2 A value can only be subjective, because it is something valued by a valuer or valuers.

Assumptive. Only true if humans are the only conscious entities in the universe; but even then, it's a merely contingent phenomenon.

Worse, if true, it means we can't know whether or not what is being "valued" is actually worthy of being valued, since no objective metric of "worth" can be acknowledge to exist. This makes a predilection for pedophelia to be of the same objective worth as a predilection to rescue abused children. Both are just predilections...and whether one or another is actually "valuable" is utterly impossible to establish objectively, then.

3 Unless there can be such a thing as an unreal value, the expression 'real value' is meaningless.

This complaint doesn't even make sense in physical terms. To parallel, "Unless there can be such a thing as an unreal gravity, the expression "gravity" is meaningless." Really?

Moral nihilists deny that there are moral facts, because moral assertions don't make factual claims in the first place - claims that have a truth-value independent from opinion.

You're just restating your own assumption, Peter, but not giving us any reason why we ought to think it's true. You don't know whether or not moral claims have an objective value independent of your opinion.

But if they do not, then "Peter happens right now to like..." and "Peter happens right now not to like..." are the sum and total of morality. And if you think it's more than that, you ought to be able to say why.

So I put the challenge to you, Peter: give one reason we should think otherwise, if you can. But If not, why should we not decide your moral subjectivism is manifestly just closeted nihilism?

So even if it were true that you know of no argument for moral objectivism, moral subjectivism would not win. Nihilism would.

Are you a nihilist?

[henry quirk]

I understand you've said your say, Henry. But I thought this formulation of moral objectivism would suit you:

People own themselves (this fact), therefore it's morally wrong to enslave people (this moral judgement).

Isn't this the gist of your claim or argument? I'm puzzled.

I object to moral judgement.

A man belongs to himself (fact), therefore it's wrong to leash him (moral fact). The fact leads to the moral fact.

Again: so much depends on that red wheel barrow (the definition of person).

If personhood is only legalistic (bestowed by authority) then you may do with a man as you like. Leash him, kill him, cook him up for supper. Any objection is mere opinion.

If personhood refers to sumthin' intrinsic to the person then usin' a man is wrong and an objection to usin' him is not opinion but recognition of that sumthin'.

[henry quirk]

Finally: Hidey-ho, Harbal! How goes it?

I'm all the better for seeing some of my old pals are still around, henry.

Yep, we're all still floatin'...

[Peter Holmes]

Moral Nihilism entails the absolute, total and unequivocal denial that there are any true, objective or real values at all.

Under analysis, this falls apart.

1 A value isn't true or false. Only factual assertions are true or false. So of course there are no true values.

Nah, not even close. Hair-splitting and question-begging. Say "objective," if you prefer...that's the word in the OP.

Nah. The expression 'true value' is incoherent, because 'true' can't be a property of a value. Sloppy language here indicates sloppy thinking. Sort yourself out.

2 A value can only be subjective, because it is something valued by a valuer or valuers.

Assumptive. Only true if humans are the only conscious entities in the universe; but even then, it's a merely contingent phenomenon.

Nah. This is definitional. A value can only be something valued, which entails a valuer - human or otherwise. Again, sloppy thinking.

Worse, if true, it means we can't know whether or not what is being "valued" is actually worthy of being valued, since no objective metric of "worth" can be acknowledge to exist. This makes a predilection for pedophelia to be of the same objective worth as a predilection to rescue abused children. Both are just predilections...and whether one or another is actually "valuable" is utterly impossible to establish objectively, then.

Patently specious. That anything is 'worthy of being valued' is a value-judgement. You're back to insisting that there's something to be known here, and that's what you've failed to demonstrate. And I bet that really pisses you off.

3 Unless there can be such a thing as an unreal value, the expression 'real value' is meaningless.

This complaint doesn't even make sense in physical terms. To parallel, "Unless there can be such a thing as an unreal gravity, the expression "gravity" is meaningless." Really?

Please. Stick 'real' back in - 'real gravity' - and your analogy confirms my point. Get a grip.

Moral nihilists deny that there are moral facts, because moral assertions don't make factual claims in the first place - claims that have a truth-value independent from opinion.

You're just restating your own assumption, Peter, but not giving us any reason why we ought to think it's true.

Look in the mirror.

[Harbal]

The other alternative, secularly speaking, is that "morality" is some sort of social or cultural construct,...

Yes, IC, that is exactly what I think it is. I'm glad you mentioned God, because he was obviously the elephant in the room. Now he's out in the open, I can deal with him. I don't want to get into a debate on the existence of God; we've been there before and it led nowhere. So I am going to allow for the existence of God, which is no difficulty, as my opinion of what morality is does not depend on God's non-existence. I should say one or two things about this possible God, before I get to morality. I see no reason why God should have any interest in morality. Evolution and natural selection is a fact, as far as I'm concerned. I cannot conceive of any other means by which this planet became populated by the many life forms that it did. If I have to include God -the creator- in that picture, I have only one choice: He put the elements in place, set the process in motion, and left it to run. I cannot allow the God of the Bible in, I'm afraid, so please don't expect it of me.

If I -or you, I'm sure- came across someone in distress, I would feel a compulsion to help them. That compulsion would not be the result of a conscious decision that I had arrived at through a thought process, it would be a spontaneous impulse. We have many spontaneous impulses. I had one immediately before I sat down to write this, as a matter of fact. I suddenly had the impulse to get myself something to eat, which was a response to a feeling of hunger. An internal sensation motivated me into some sort of action. Not totally unlike the way an internal feeling prompted me to offer help to that someone in distress. Hunger is a means by which we are prompted to attend to a physical need, whereas ethical behaviour is nothing to do with physical needs, but the same principle could easily be involved. Sexual attraction, which is a necessity as far as natural selection is concerned, is another thing that drives us into action. We cannot rationalise it and we can't easily ignore it, yet it is nothing to do with our beliefs or conscious reasoning, it happens to us regardless of our attitude towards it. I believe it is the same with morality. I wouldn't have any difficulty in setting out an argument explaining why natural selection would lead to us having a sense of morality, it is easy to make a case for its value in a social animal such as we are. I think you, too, could make that argument, if you could be persuaded to, although it would only be a hypothetical one in your case. Now I am hoping that you will at least admit that what I have described is a possibility in some hypothetical universe in which God has more on his mind than whether we little humans are being nice to each other. I can't say I'm optimistic, though.

[Immanuel Can]

... 'true' can't be a property of a value.

I gave you an option: use your own word, "objective."

But look here, Pete...we can go around and around, or we can get back to what your started with: your OP question.

You asked what could make morality objective? That question assumes that a thing called "morality" exists.

So describe this "morality," so we're clear on it. Or give an example. Otherwise, the question becomes absurd...it's like asking, "What could make an inherently non-existent thing objective?"

But if that's not what you meant, then convince us that "morality," as you understand it, is a word that refers to something...that "morality," as you understand it, "exists."

[Immanuel Can]

The other alternative, secularly speaking, is that "morality" is some sort of social or cultural construct,...

Yes, IC, that is exactly what I think it is.

That view has serious problems, of course...terminal ones, really.

I should say one or two things about this possible God, before I get to morality. I see no reason why God should have any interest in morality. Evolution and natural selection is a fact, as far as I'm concerned. I cannot conceive of any other means by which this planet became populated by the many life forms that it did. If I have to include God -the creator- in that picture, I have only one choice: He put the elements in place, set the process in motion, and left it to run. I cannot allow the God of the Bible in, I'm afraid, so please don't expect it of me.

Well, given the terms you require here, H., namely, that God is not allowed as a postulate in a description of morality, then there's a serious problem: there are no legitimative grounds for morality at all. There's nothing but impulses, which, as we know, can go either way.

That's not to say somebody who was entirely ignorant about the philosophical issues, or even somebody who was an outright Atheist, could not, if he chose to, behave in a way which others might conventionally regard as "moral." That could be, to borrow your word, "spontaneous" or planned -- it makes no difference which it is. For example, an anti-Theist could decide that he wants to give ice cream to orphans. Most people would call that "good" in some vague sense. But the important point is that they wouldn't be right: there would be no "rightness" in giving ice cream to orphans, anymore than beating and starving orphans was wrong. His apparent "niceness," in that scenario, would merely be an expression of what he happened to want to do at that moment. And whether or not other people approved or disapproved with him would likewise be merely a contingent fact, as well.

Evolution has no moral ideas. Evolution has already killed countless millions of organisms and species. In doing so, it would neither be moral nor immoral. One does not talk sense when one tells a lion not to kill a zebra, or a man not to kill the very last great auk and stick it in the York museum. (Which, in fact, they did! You have a couple of nice deceased specimens nearby, as it happens.) Things die, by Evolutionism...and when they do, inferior species are replaced with better or more vigorous ones, or better and more vigorous members of the same species. There's no "do" and "don't" in it, no "right" and "wrong" about it -- it's just how things go.

We have many spontaneous impulses. I had one immediately before I sat down to write this, as a matter of fact. I suddenly had the impulse to get myself something to eat, which was a response to a feeling of hunger. An internal sensation motivated me into some sort of action.

Perhaps so. But I notice you didn't try to peg your action of getting yourself something to eat as "moral." And I'd wonder what additional meaning you'd be attribution to the kind of impulse you would have called "moral."

That's why the analogy you draw from the sandwich doesn't work. For you continue,

Not totally unlike the way an internal feeling prompted me to offer help to that someone in distress.

And I suggest that unless it is very different, in some way, then there's no meaning behind speaking of the helping of people in distress as "moral." It's the same as sandwich-making, in your analogy...not an immoral action, nor a moral action, but merely one of the millions of amoral choices we all may make.

And the word "moral," then, means nothing at all. It imports no additional meaning to the claim "I had an impulse to...," to modify it to, "I had a moral impulse to..."

We can, and probably would do well to, leave the word "moral" out altogether, since it adds nothing and merely obscures...

And we're at Nihilism.

I wouldn't have any difficulty in setting out an argument explaining why natural selection would lead to us having a sense of morality, it is easy to make a case for its value in a social animal such as we are.

Well, I've seen a few attempts to do that, and if you've got a better one than I've seen, I'm all up for it.

But I have to confess that all the attempts to "evolutionize" morality that I've seen so far have immediately fallen into Hume's Guiloutine. If you've got one that doesn't, I'd love to see it. Personally, I don't think I can propose any evolution-premised account that doesn't.

[Harbal]

That view has serious problems, of course...terminal ones, really.

Okay, IC, at least I tried. And it's not as if I didn't know what to expect in return.

[Immanuel Can]

That view has serious problems, of course...terminal ones, really.

Okay, IC, at least I tried. And it's not as if I didn't know what to expect in return.

Well, it does...it wouldn't be honest of me not to say that.

After all, the problem, "which culture/which morality" pops up right away. Then the question of "Why are more people thinking something guaranteed to be 'moral,' whereas less or one person thinking exactly the same is guaranteed not to be," and Hume's Guillotine hangs over any answer the comes out of that....so there are layers of problems with the social constructionist answer, as popular as it currently is.

It's perhaps impolite to point that out, since folks depend on that answer, as if it would be okay, and would maybe work for them if they just kept it in fuzzy focus and don't look at it too hard. But I think that at the end of the day, it just doesn't hold up. And maybe it's actually really a courtesy to say so.

[Harbal]

Well, it does...it wouldn't be honest of me not to say that.

After all, the problem, "which culture/which morality" pops up right away. Then the question of "Why are more people thinking something guaranteed to be 'moral,' whereas less or one person thinking exactly the same is guaranteed not to be," and Hume's Guillotine hangs over any answer the comes out of that....so there are layers of problems with the social constructionist answer, as popular as it currently is.

It's perhaps impolite to point that out, since folks depend on that answer, as if it would be okay, and would maybe work for them if they just kept it in fuzzy focus and don't look at it too hard. But I think that at the end of the day, it just doesn't hold up. And maybe it's actually really a courtesy to say so.

I forgot what hard work you were, IC. I'm too old for it, I just don't have the stamina any more.

[Peter Holmes]

... 'true' can't be a property of a value.

I gave you an option: use your own word, "objective."

But look here, Pete...we can go around and around, or we can get back to what your started with: your OP question.

You asked what could make morality objective? That question assumes that a thing called "morality" exists.

So describe this "morality," so we're clear on it. Or give an example. Otherwise, the question becomes absurd...it's like asking, "What could make an inherently non-existent thing objective?"

But if that's not what you meant, then convince us that "morality," as you understand it, is a word that refers to something...that "morality," as you understand it, "exists."

The meaning of a word is not the thing (real or abstract) to which it refers. Meaning is use.

The idea that an abstract noun, such as morality, is the name of a kind of thing that either does or doesn't exist is the ancient metaphysical delusion at the heart of Platonism. So the question 'does morality exist?' misfires. Instead, all we can ask is 'how do we use the word 'morality' and its cognates?'

So. as you know, I think we're talking about the function of moral assertions, such as 'incest is morally wrong'. You say it functions as a true factual assertion, in the way an assertion such as 'the earth orbits the sun' functions - by claiming something about reality that is the case, independent from opinion. And I say a moral assertion doesn't have that function.

But this is all old news. We've been at this for ages - so I've no idea why you're still asking for clarification.

You know your task is to produce a moral fact and show why it's a fact. And I'm still waiting.