Is morality objective or subjective?

[Atla]

Sorry...linguistically, that's exactly what it means: "exists" [in state X.] That's what "be" means.

Not in English. For example it can be objectively true that people have subjective moralities.

It's not actually redundant. It's what's called a "hypothetical syllogism," if you want to look it up. The rules are as follows.

The first Premise has to contain an "if." (Or other hypothetical marker. But, as in this case, the "if" can be the second premise; it won't change anything.)
The second premise has to affirm that the hypothetical condition (the "if") in the first premise is, in fact, the case.
The third premise is the conclusion deduced from the two.

It works like,

"If your house is on fire, you'll need a new one."
"Look, your house is now on fire."
You'll need a new one.

But if the second premise were: "Look, your house is NOT on fire," then the same conclusion would simply not follow.

Sorry to do the explanation. I though maybe you'd run into this before.

We can't infer "You'll need a new house" just from "Look, your house is now on fire."

But we can infer "Therefore, getting your little brother to kill is wrong." just from "Killing is wrong."

Simply because we are talking about morality, right and wrong, codes of conduct.

[Immanuel Can]

I really don't get it. When the premise of moral non-cognitivism is that we aren't expressing moral stuff because there's no such thing, then of course we also won't express moral stuff after a syllogism. We weren't anywhere morally before, and we aren't anywhere morally after.

That's why I say that subjectivism, in order to be consistent with what it, itself claims, has to assume that all moralizing is simply a sociological phenomenon entirely without reference to any objective truth or facts...a collective delusion, at best. There's no other possible deduction from subjectivism.

But it becomes really evident how bankrupt subjectivism is, when you are talking to people who refuse to accept that consequence, and want instead to pretend that morality can still be defended. Ask them to explain even one moral prohibition or endorsement, and they just can't.

So either they're right about morality being subjective, but then cowardly and inconsistent for losing their nerve in taking it to its logical conclusion, or they are simply wrong -- there IS such a thing as morality, and it's objective, and the reason they don't know anything about it is their own fault...the product of their insistence on subjectivism...and not a fault of morality itself.

So they can pick their poison, between those two possibilities. But so long as they can't mount even one coherent syllogism to illustrate any moral principle, the one thing you know is that either way, they're deceiving themselves. Even they can't make their own claim work.

[Atla]

Oh my, you weren't kidding.

You've misunderstood. Under a non-cog description, you still get to use all the moral words you are used to using, none of that goes away at all. And you are still expressing approval, and disapproval exactly as before. But it's not considered cognisable, which means that strictly in terms of what they communicate, they are on a par with a grunt or a frown.

The non cognitivist doesn't expect you to give up any of your daily life activities for the sake of this theory, he believes he is adequately describing what you experience as morality in your everyday life and that you don't need any extra assumptions about assertibiity of moral truth to have your daily moral activities and arguments.

When he says that 'killing is wrong' is the same as 'killing' while frowning, the frown completely, fully, and interchangeably expresses exactly the same content as the 'is wrong' part, not the 'killing' part.

I still don't get it. It says

Non-cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions (i.e., statements) and thus cannot be true or false (they are not truth-apt). A noncognitivist denies the cognitivist claim that "moral judgments are capable of being objectively true, because they describe some feature of the world".[1] If moral statements cannot be true, and if one cannot know something that is not true, noncognitivism implies that moral knowledge is impossible.[1]

but you seem to be saying that we've just transformed moral knowledge into another form.

[Atla]

I really don't get it. When the premise of moral non-cognitivism is that we aren't expressing moral stuff because there's no such thing, then of course we also won't express moral stuff after a syllogism. We weren't anywhere morally before, and we aren't anywhere morally after.

That's why I say that subjectivism, in order to be consistent with what it, itself claims, has to assume that all moralizing is simply a sociological phenomenon entirely without reference to any objective truth or facts...a collective delusion, at best. There's no other possible deduction from subjectivism.

But it becomes really evident how bankrupt subjectivism is, when you are talking to people who refuse to accept that consequence, and want instead to pretend that morality can still be defended. Ask them to explain even one moral prohibition or endorsement, and they just can't.

So either they're right about morality being subjective, but then cowardly and inconsistent for losing their nerve in taking it to its logical conclusion, or they are simply wrong -- there IS such a thing as morality, and it's objective, and the reason they don't know anything about it is their own fault...the product of their insistence on subjectivism...and not a fault of morality itself.

So they can pick their poison, between those two possibilities. But so long as they can't mount even one coherent syllogism to illustrate any moral principle, the one thing you know is that either way, they're deceiving themselves. Even they can't make their own claim work.

Err.. moral subjectivism is categorized under cognitivism. I don't know why you're mixing subjectvisim with non-cognitivism?

Anyway, of course moral subjectivism is based on the human conscience which is an objectively existing psychological thing in the human brain/mind, but does work subjectively.

[Immanuel Can]

Sorry...linguistically, that's exactly what it means: "exists" [in state X.] That's what "be" means.

Not in English. For example it can be objectively true that people have subjective moralities.

Think again. You've changed the statement from a claim about morality to a claim about sociology. You're now only saying that there is a (possibly halluncinatory or deceptive) perception among some people at the present time and in this place. You're not saying anything about the thing they're imagining...that is, about morality itself.

It is objectively true that people believe in astrology. That doesn't imply astrology is true.

It's not actually redundant. It's what's called a "hypothetical syllogism," if you want to look it up. The rules are as follows.

The first Premise has to contain an "if." (Or other hypothetical marker. But, as in this case, the "if" can be the second premise; it won't change anything.)
The second premise has to affirm that the hypothetical condition (the "if") in the first premise is, in fact, the case.
The third premise is the conclusion deduced from the two.

It works like,

"If your house is on fire, you'll need a new one."
"Look, your house is now on fire."
You'll need a new one.

But if the second premise were: "Look, your house is NOT on fire," then the same conclusion would simply not follow.

Sorry to do the explanation. I though maybe you'd run into this before.

We can't infer "You'll need a new house" just from "Look, your house is now on fire."

That's why we need the hypothetical premise at the start, and two premises are just not adequate. Right you are.

But we can infer "Therefore, getting your little brother to kill is wrong." just from "Killing is wrong."

No, we cannot. Because the second statement is about whether or not you do something, and the second is whether or not you get somebody else(i.e. your brother) to do the same action. One is about you killing, the other about you inducing people to kill. So without that bridging premise, the conclusion simply doesn't automatically follow.

[Immanuel Can]

...moral subjectivism is based on the human conscience which is an objectively existing psychological thing in the human brain/mind, but does work subjectively.

All you've said, again, is that certain humans exhibit a psychological phenomenon. But you've said nothing about the relationship between the phenomenon and reality.

Belief in bogeymen is a common psychological phenomenon. Are you going to argue that that proves bogeymen are real?

[Atla]

No, we cannot. Because the second statement is about whether or not you do something, and the second is whether or not you get somebody else(i.e. your brother) to do the same action. One is about you killing, the other about you inducing people to kill. So without that bridging premise, the conclusion simply doesn't automatically follow.

Of course it follows, we are talking about morality. How to behave, and how to behave towards others. If killing is wrong, then behaving in a way towards your brother that produces killing, is wrong.

[FlashDangerpants]

Oh my, you weren't kidding.

You've misunderstood. Under a non-cog description, you still get to use all the moral words you are used to using, none of that goes away at all. And you are still expressing approval, and disapproval exactly as before. But it's not considered cognisable, which means that strictly in terms of what they communicate, they are on a par with a grunt or a frown.

The non cognitivist doesn't expect you to give up any of your daily life activities for the sake of this theory, he believes he is adequately describing what you experience as morality in your everyday life and that you don't need any extra assumptions about assertibiity of moral truth to have your daily moral activities and arguments.

When he says that 'killing is wrong' is the same as 'killing' while frowning, the frown completely, fully, and interchangeably expresses exactly the same content as the 'is wrong' part, not the 'killing' part.

I still don't get it. It says

Non-cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions (i.e., statements) and thus cannot be true or false (they are not truth-apt). A noncognitivist denies the cognitivist claim that "moral judgments are capable of being objectively true, because they describe some feature of the world".[1] If moral statements cannot be true, and if one cannot know something that is not true, noncognitivism implies that moral knowledge is impossible.[1]

but you seem to be saying that we've just transformed moral knowledge into another form.

The non-cog says there is no moral knowledge, but that's just an aside, plenty of people who aren't non-cog also say there is no moral knowledge. That's been one of the persistent failings of this whole F-G thing, that both VA and IC seem to have got it into their heads that all moral antirealism is non-cognitivism because they've misread that exact thing you quote there.

You have to remember those non-cog guys (overwhelmingly Logical Positivists) were on a bit of a tear and were doing away with all sorts of other types of 'synthetic proposition'. The most influential argument for moral non-cog is from AJ Ayer, it's tobe found in chapter 6 of his book Langauge, Truth, and Logic. It's in Ch 6 because he had other shit to do that day. His real target was metaphysics and ethics was just the bystander that gets shot at the driveby.

So it's never been a question about whether there is moral knowledge, but why there isn't. Nonetheless, the moral language remains undisturbed and the ways you put the moral words together don't change, not for any of these theories.

[Atla]

...moral subjectivism is based on the human conscience which is an objectively existing psychological thing in the human brain/mind, but does work subjectively.

All you've said, again, is that certain humans exhibit a psychological phenomenon. But you've said nothing about the relationship between the phenomenon and reality.

Belief in bogeymen is a common psychological phenomenon. Are you going to argue that that proves bogeymen are real?

What bogeymen. The human conscience and its pathologies are perfectly well-established in psychology, it's been studied a lot and is in the textbooks.

[Immanuel Can]

No, we cannot. Because the second statement is about whether or not you do something, and the second is whether or not you get somebody else(i.e. your brother) to do the same action. One is about you killing, the other about you inducing people to kill. So without that bridging premise, the conclusion simply doesn't automatically follow.

Of course it follows, we are talking about morality. How to behave, and how to behave towards others. If killing is wrong, then behaving in a way towards your brother that produces killing, is wrong.

But that's not made explicit, unless you include the middle premise.

One of the values of logic is that it makes things we forget to mention explicit. It exposes our assumptions. In this case, the assumption that killing and inducing to kill are equivalent needs to be made explicit; or it leaves the argument possible that since you didn't do the deed personally, you aren't culpable, or not as culpable as the doer.

[Atla]

No, we cannot. Because the second statement is about whether or not you do something, and the second is whether or not you get somebody else(i.e. your brother) to do the same action. One is about you killing, the other about you inducing people to kill. So without that bridging premise, the conclusion simply doesn't automatically follow.

Of course it follows, we are talking about morality. How to behave, and how to behave towards others. If killing is wrong, then behaving in a way towards your brother that produces killing, is wrong.

But that's not made explicit, unless you include the middle premise.

One of the values of logic is that it makes things we forget to mention explicit. It exposes our assumptions. In this case, the assumption that killing and inducing to kill are equivalent needs to be made explicit; or it leaves the argument possible that since you didn't do the deed personally, you aren't culpable, or not as culpable as the doer.

We are talking about morality so it's implicit without the need for P2. Without any further details, "killing is wrong" counts universally.

[Immanuel Can]

...moral subjectivism is based on the human conscience which is an objectively existing psychological thing in the human brain/mind, but does work subjectively.

All you've said, again, is that certain humans exhibit a psychological phenomenon. But you've said nothing about the relationship between the phenomenon and reality.

Belief in bogeymen is a common psychological phenomenon. Are you going to argue that that proves bogeymen are real?

What bogeymen. The human conscience and its pathologies are perfectly well-established in psychology, it's been studied a lot and is in the textbooks.

The fact of human conscience has been studied. The justification of the content of that conscience is understudied. And the reasons for that are simple: socological facts, like the fact of social phenomena, can be studied by ordinary scientific methods. But the justifications of the content of the beliefs involved cannot be studied in the same way.

It is easy to say, for example, through ordinary historical and archaeological methods, that Aztecs sacrificed captives on their altars. It's quite another thing to show that they were right to do it.

In the same way, it's not hard to show that a majority in our society are against killing. What's harder to show is that a majority is against killing babies, because we do that all the time. It's even harder to show whether or not them killing their babies is wrong. And I know of no way to show that what the majority wants is inevitably right. These are different levels of question, each pushing us further into the meta-ethics of the situation.

[Immanuel Can]

Without any further details, "killing is wrong" counts universally.

So you're opposed to abortion, then? And euthanasia? And war? And self-defense, if you have a home invasion? And killing chickens and cows? And mosquitoes? And all that is unproblematically universal, you say?

Just asking.

[Atla]

All you've said, again, is that certain humans exhibit a psychological phenomenon. But you've said nothing about the relationship between the phenomenon and reality.

Belief in bogeymen is a common psychological phenomenon. Are you going to argue that that proves bogeymen are real?

What bogeymen. The human conscience and its pathologies are perfectly well-established in psychology, it's been studied a lot and is in the textbooks.

The fact of human conscience has been studied. The justification of the content of that conscience is understudied. And the reasons for that are simple: socological facts, like the fact of social phenomena, can be studied by ordinary scientific methods. But the justifications of the content of the beliefs involved cannot be studied in the same way.

It is easy to say, for example, through ordinary historical and archaeological methods, that Aztecs sacrificed captives on their altars. It's quite another thing to show that they were right to do it.

In the same way, it's not hard to show that a majority in our society are against killing. What's harder to show is that a majority is against killing babies, because we do that all the time. It's even harder to show whether or not them killing their babies is wrong. And I know of no way to show that what the majority wants is inevitably right. These are different levels of question, each pushing us further into the meta-ethics of the situation.

Yes, the conscience works subjectively.

[Atla]

Without any further details, "killing is wrong" counts universally.

So you're opposed to abortion, then? And euthanasia? And war? And self-defense, if you have a home invasion? And killing chickens and cows? And mosquitoes? And all that is unproblematically universal, you say?

Just asking.

You're the one who used a universal "killing is wrong" in an example. What does that have to do with my actual morality that's been shaped by an extremely complicated world?