What could make morality objective?

[Skepdick]

That it's psychological, that this emanates from personal dispositions, desires, etc. is all that pegging it as "subjective" is saying.

And personal dispositions, desires etc have real-world effects/consequences. Like Gravity has effects/consequences.

And those consequences are measurable/testable/observable phenomena is all that pegging morality as "objective" is saying.

Because the "subjects" in the "subjective" are still objects in the larger context of the objective if one assumes an anthropological/empirical PoV.

So which PoV are you pre-supposing when making any claims about morality? The philosophical or the scientific?

[Belinda]

Peter Holmes wrote:

I think the generalised argument is: X is the case [factual assertion]; therefore Y is morally right / wrong [moral assertion].

Whatever X is (the premise), it can never entail the moral conclusion - unless the argument is question-begging.

If the premise is nature is the ground of being then everything that happens necessarily happens. However now that we understand nature quite a lot we do understand sapiens has insight into his own place in nature, which includes sapiens as a powerful agent of change. When I propose a synthesis of ideas

e.g. 'daisies are white'

e.g. 'I ought to help people not kill them'

e.g. 'Belinda likes an argument'

I am prognosticating as does everyone except the most depressed or quiescent.Whatever p or q you call moral is so-called because people who can do so have authorised p or q to be moral. Power relations underlie all human behaviours especially questions of morality.

Academia and science try to free their activities from power relations and it is a moot point whether or not they succeed.

The point is, the premise 'if nature is the ground of being, then everything that happens necessarily happens' has no moral implication. The consequent may follow, but it isn't a moral claim.

I agree about the imposition of moral values and rules by the powerful - and the insidious delusion of moral objectivity is part of that. But that obviously does nothing to support the objectivity of morality.

But if nature is the ground of being then the more I know of nature, its laws, and the things of nature including us, then the more I know truth. If I know truth and still act contrarily then I am both immoral and stupid. I.e. it's the same evaluation under different names.

[Belinda]

Peter Holmes wrote:

If the premise is nature is the ground of being then everything that happens necessarily happens.

That only follows if one buys strong determinism. But one need not buy strong determinism. In many opinions, that's a belief rooted in very outdated scientific notions, just like a belief in phlogiston or the aether.

I do buy strong determinism.
However strong determinism includes that due to the unpredictability of what necessarily happens we don't know what is possible; we know only that change happens until it doesn't. What necessarily happens is so enormous it need not be scary.

[Skepdick]

That only follows if one buys strong determinism. But one need not buy strong determinism. In many opinions, that's a belief rooted in very outdated scientific notions, just like a belief in phlogiston or the aether.

Science has no opinion on the determinism/non-determinism fiasco. It's epistemically undeterminable whether ontological reality is deterministic or non-deterministic. It is strongly and epistemically determinable that the heat death of the universe is the final destination.

In the theoretical domain we have Superdeterminism. Which is untestable/unfalsifiable - ergo it's not scientific given the current conception of science.

But just like all dialectics: soon enough one would expect to see Super non-determinism as an antithesis to Superdeterminism, and one can further expect to see SuperSuperdeterminism as a synthesis of Super non-determinism and Superdeterminism.

It's turtles all the way down...

[Terrapin Station]

Peter Holmes wrote:

If the premise is nature is the ground of being then everything that happens necessarily happens.

That only follows if one buys strong determinism. But one need not buy strong determinism. In many opinions, that's a belief rooted in very outdated scientific notions, just like a belief in phlogiston or the aether.

I do buy strong determinism.
However strong determinism includes that due to the unpredictability of what necessarily happens we don't know what is possible; we know only that change happens until it doesn't. What necessarily happens is so enormous it need not be scary.

I don't buy strong determinism, so I don't think that if we're talking about the "natural world," everything that happens necessarily happens.

[Peter Holmes]

Peter Holmes wrote:


If the premise is nature is the ground of being then everything that happens necessarily happens. However now that we understand nature quite a lot we do understand sapiens has insight into his own place in nature, which includes sapiens as a powerful agent of change. When I propose a synthesis of ideas

e.g. 'daisies are white'

e.g. 'I ought to help people not kill them'

e.g. 'Belinda likes an argument'

I am prognosticating as does everyone except the most depressed or quiescent.Whatever p or q you call moral is so-called because people who can do so have authorised p or q to be moral. Power relations underlie all human behaviours especially questions of morality.

Academia and science try to free their activities from power relations and it is a moot point whether or not they succeed.

The point is, the premise 'if nature is the ground of being, then everything that happens necessarily happens' has no moral implication. The consequent may follow, but it isn't a moral claim.

I agree about the imposition of moral values and rules by the powerful - and the insidious delusion of moral objectivity is part of that. But that obviously does nothing to support the objectivity of morality.

But if nature is the ground of being then the more I know of nature, its laws, and the things of nature including us, then the more I know truth. If I know truth and still act contrarily then I am both immoral and stupid. I.e. it's the same evaluation under different names.

1 To know nature - features of reality - is not to 'know truth'. Nature (reality) isn't true or false - that's completely incoherent. The truth isn't 'out there', any more than falsehood is. Only factual assertions - typically linguistic expressions - are true or false. The delusion that what we call knowledge is to do with truth demonstrates the myth of propositions at work - as in the JTB definition of knowledge.

2 Why is it immoral - morally wrong - to act contrarily to what we know to be the case? And is that a fact, or a matter of opinion?

[Skepdick]

Only factual assertions - typically linguistic expressions - are true or false.

Who assigns truth-values to "factual assertions" and how?
What makes a "factual assertion" true?

[Belinda]

The point is, the premise 'if nature is the ground of being, then everything that happens necessarily happens' has no moral implication. The consequent may follow, but it isn't a moral claim.

I agree about the imposition of moral values and rules by the powerful - and the insidious delusion of moral objectivity is part of that. But that obviously does nothing to support the objectivity of morality.

But if nature is the ground of being then the more I know of nature, its laws, and the things of nature including us, then the more I know truth. If I know truth and still act contrarily then I am both immoral and stupid. I.e. it's the same evaluation under different names.

1 To know nature - features of reality - is not to 'know truth'. Nature (reality) isn't true or false - that's completely incoherent. The truth isn't 'out there', any more than falsehood is. Only factual assertions - typically linguistic expressions - are true or false. The delusion that what we call knowledge is to do with truth demonstrates the myth of propositions at work - as in the JTB definition of knowledge.

2 Why is it immoral - morally wrong - to act contrarily to what we know to be the case? And is that a fact, or a matter of opinion?

Nature, or reality is not true or false but perceived features of nature or reality are relatively true or false.

You can't know for sure nature or reality is not 'out there' i.e. you can't know for sure whether or not nature or reality is mind-dependent or mind-independent.Or both.

It is stupid=immoral to intend to eat what you know to be poison, in order to stay alive. It is stupid=immoral to incite an insurrection in order to keep the peace. It is stupid=immoral to kill in order to demonstrate it is wrong to kill .It is stupid=immoral to divide your community so that it will continue to nurture you. It is stupid=immoral to be wilfully ignorant when by acquiring knowledge and good judgement you can act effectively.

[Peter Holmes]

But if nature is the ground of being then the more I know of nature, its laws, and the things of nature including us, then the more I know truth. If I know truth and still act contrarily then I am both immoral and stupid. I.e. it's the same evaluation under different names.

1 To know nature - features of reality - is not to 'know truth'. Nature (reality) isn't true or false - that's completely incoherent. The truth isn't 'out there', any more than falsehood is. Only factual assertions - typically linguistic expressions - are true or false. The delusion that what we call knowledge is to do with truth demonstrates the myth of propositions at work - as in the JTB definition of knowledge.

2 Why is it immoral - morally wrong - to act contrarily to what we know to be the case? And is that a fact, or a matter of opinion?

Nature, or reality is not true or false but perceived features of nature or reality are relatively true or false.

You can't know for sure nature or reality is not 'out there' i.e. you can't know for sure whether or not nature or reality is mind-dependent or mind-independent.Or both.

It is stupid=immoral to intend to eat what you know to be poison, in order to stay alive. It is stupid=immoral to incite an insurrection in order to keep the peace. It is stupid=immoral to kill in order to demonstrate it is wrong to kill .It is stupid=immoral to divide your community so that it will continue to nurture you. It is stupid=immoral to be wilfully ignorant when by acquiring knowledge and good judgement you can act effectively.

1 Perceived features of reality have no truth-value, relatively or otherwise. That claim is incoherent.

2 Whether mind-dependent or not, outside language, features of reality have no truth-value. Only sentences making factual assertions can be true or false. Perhaps something so glaringly obvious is hard to see. The myth of propositions is potent and pervasive.

3 Why is it morally wrong to eat what you know to be poison, in order to stay alive - and so on, for all your examples?

[Skepdick]

1 Perceived features of reality have no truth-value, relatively or otherwise. That claim is incoherent.

But you are the one claiming that only assertions about features of reality have truth-value! THAT claim is incoherent!!!

So this is how the data-flow goes, right?

1. There is a feature of reality (fact) that exists independently of minds. Lets call it F.
2. Person A observes and perceives F. Lets call this resulting perception P(F).
3. Person A expresses/asserts P(F) in English. Lets call this expression/assertion E(P(F))
4. Person B reads E(P(F))

So you are necessarily claiming that F and P(F) do DO NOT have truth-values.
And you are necessarily claiming that E(P(F)) has a truth-value.

So like. I have a question!

When is this truth-value assigned to E(P(F)))? At step 3 or at step 4?

And most most most importantly....

WHY is E(P(F)) true if P(F) and F have no truth-value?

[Belinda]

1 To know nature - features of reality - is not to 'know truth'. Nature (reality) isn't true or false - that's completely incoherent. The truth isn't 'out there', any more than falsehood is. Only factual assertions - typically linguistic expressions - are true or false. The delusion that what we call knowledge is to do with truth demonstrates the myth of propositions at work - as in the JTB definition of knowledge.

2 Why is it immoral - morally wrong - to act contrarily to what we know to be the case? And is that a fact, or a matter of opinion?

Nature, or reality is not true or false but perceived features of nature or reality are relatively true or false.

You can't know for sure nature or reality is not 'out there' i.e. you can't know for sure whether or not nature or reality is mind-dependent or mind-independent.Or both.

It is stupid=immoral to intend to eat what you know to be poison, in order to stay alive. It is stupid=immoral to incite an insurrection in order to keep the peace. It is stupid=immoral to kill in order to demonstrate it is wrong to kill .It is stupid=immoral to divide your community so that it will continue to nurture you. It is stupid=immoral to be wilfully ignorant when by acquiring knowledge and good judgement you can act effectively.

1 Perceived features of reality have no truth-value, relatively or otherwise. That claim is incoherent.

2 Whether mind-dependent or not, outside language, features of reality have no truth-value. Only sentences making factual assertions can be true or false. Perhaps something so glaringly obvious is hard to see. The myth of propositions is potent and pervasive.

3 Why is it morally wrong to eat what you know to be poison, in order to stay alive - and so on, for all your examples?

Features of reality or nature are real in proportion to how reasonable they are. For instance a reverie is less real than a realistic plan. E.g. an hallucination is less real than a perception in which memories are not taken to be real. E.g. waking awareness reveals more reality than dreaming sleep.

Besides isolated percepts there are frameworks of knowledge and belief that are more , or less, real.The more real Fs of K and B are those that are based on reason and more extensive knowledge of causes and effects.

I think the phrase 'truth value' is special to deductive logic and not to inductive reasoning .Again, as you say, "Only sentences making factual assertions can be true or false" applies only to deductive logic but not inductive logic which deals in relative values.. Deductive logic,same as mathematics, abstracts from nature or reality.

Ignorance is the basic barrier to goodness, truth, and beauty. While nobody can know everything the more a man knows the better man he is in any sphere of life you can think of. It is therefore immoral to keep a population, one's child, the electorate, or one's employees in ignorance or misapprehension.. Dissemination of the best knowledge available is a moral activity.

[Peter Holmes]

Nature, or reality is not true or false but perceived features of nature or reality are relatively true or false.

You can't know for sure nature or reality is not 'out there' i.e. you can't know for sure whether or not nature or reality is mind-dependent or mind-independent.Or both.

It is stupid=immoral to intend to eat what you know to be poison, in order to stay alive. It is stupid=immoral to incite an insurrection in order to keep the peace. It is stupid=immoral to kill in order to demonstrate it is wrong to kill .It is stupid=immoral to divide your community so that it will continue to nurture you. It is stupid=immoral to be wilfully ignorant when by acquiring knowledge and good judgement you can act effectively.

1 Perceived features of reality have no truth-value, relatively or otherwise. That claim is incoherent.

2 Whether mind-dependent or not, outside language, features of reality have no truth-value. Only sentences making factual assertions can be true or false. Perhaps something so glaringly obvious is hard to see. The myth of propositions is potent and pervasive.

3 Why is it morally wrong to eat what you know to be poison, in order to stay alive - and so on, for all your examples?

Features of reality or nature are real in proportion to how reasonable they are. For instance a reverie is less real than a realistic plan. E.g. an hallucination is less real than a perception in which memories are not taken to be real. E.g. waking awareness reveals more reality than dreaming sleep.

Besides isolated percepts there are frameworks of knowledge and belief that are more , or less, real.The more real Fs of K and B are those that are based on reason and more extensive knowledge of causes and effects.

I think the phrase 'truth value' is special to deductive logic and not to inductive reasoning .Again, as you say, "Only sentences making factual assertions can be true or false" applies only to deductive logic but not inductive logic which deals in relative values.. Deductive logic,same as mathematics, abstracts from nature or reality.

Ignorance is the basic barrier to goodness, truth, and beauty. While nobody can know everything the more a man knows the better man he is in any sphere of life you can think of. It is therefore immoral to keep a population, one's child, the electorate, or one's employees in ignorance or misapprehension.. Dissemination of the best knowledge available is a moral activity.

1 Sorry, but I find what you say ridiculous. 'Features of reality or nature are real in proportion to how reasonable they are.' Is a dog real in proportion to how reasonable it is? This is completely incoherent. The rationality (reasonableness) of a claim - such as that a dog exists - depends on the evidence for the claim. But a dog can't be reasonable or unreasonable - in the sense you're using the word 'reasonable'.

2 We use the words 'true' and 'false', assigning truth-value, to factual assertions. And the premises in an induction can be factual assertions. So there's no difference between inductions and deductions in this respect. That the truth-value of a factual assertion may be probabilistic is a separate matter. And your introduction of 'relative values' just confuses the issue, in my opinion.

3 That we should pursue goodness, truth and beauty is an opinion, not a fact.

[Skepdick]

2 We use the words 'true' and 'false', assigning truth-value, to factual assertions.

1. There is a feature of reality (fact) that exists independently of minds. Lets call it F.
2. Person A observes and perceives F. Lets call this resulting perception P(F).
3. Person A expresses/asserts P(F) in English. Lets call this expression/assertion E(P(F))
4. Person B reads E(P(F))

So you are necessarily claiming that F and P(F) do DO NOT have truth-values.
And you are necessarily claiming that E(P(F)) has a truth-value.

So like. I have a question!

When is this truth-value assigned to E(P(F)))? At step 3 or at step 4?

And most most most importantly....

WHY is E(P(F)) true if P(F) and F have no truth-value?

[Skepdick]

3 That we should pursue goodness, truth and beauty is an opinion, not a fact.

Special pleading.

"We should pursue goodness, truth and beauty" is a factual assertion, a linguistic expression, about a feature of reality.

That feature of reality being asserted about is my opinion.

Since it is, in fact, my opinion that we should pursue goodness, truth and beauty therefore the English expression "We should pursue goodness, truth and beauty" is a true factual assertion.

[Terrapin Station]

Features of reality or nature are real in proportion to how reasonable they are.

You seem to be using a sense of the term "real" that amounts to something akin to how "practical" something is, or how likely it would be to be able to carry something out or have it come to fruition. That's a completely different term than "real" as conventionally used in philosophy (even though the label for the two terms is the same--"real"). What philosophers are almost always talking about when "real" is at issue is whether something exists mind-independently or not.

I think the phrase 'truth value' is special to deductive logic and not to inductive reasoning.

It's not. Truth value is about a property of propositions in general.

.Again, as you say, "Only sentences making factual assertions can be true or false" applies only to deductive logic but not inductive logic which deals in relative values.

Inductive logic doesn't have anything to do with values. You're confusing inductive logic for deontic logic. Deontic logic isn't really about "relative" values, but just intuited relationships between obligation, permission and the like. When we say that morality/ethics is noncognitive, we're saying that moral or ethical utterances don't have truth values because there's nothing in the external-to-minds world for the utterances to match or fail to match. In deontic logic, this isn't the issue. Deontic logic is rather about how most folks think about the modal implications of saying that something is obligatory, permissible, impermissible, etc. That's largely about conventional concepts as such. For example, if something is obligatory, then semantically it must be permissible.