Philosophy Now Forum

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Feb 28, 2022 6:49 am

Age wrote: ↑Mon Feb 28, 2022 1:41 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Feb 27, 2022 11:06 am
Okay. Here's a suggestion. Try setting out, in as few words as possible, and without slagging anyone off, and without self-advertising, and without using block capitals, why morality is objective and subjective. See if you can do it. You might enjoy the discipline.

You could also try setting out, in as few words as possible, and without slagging anyone off, and without self-advertising, and without using words the way you do, why 'morality' could NEVER EVER be 'objective' FOREVER MORE.

You might enjoy the discipline.

Here is another suggestion, you might take on what has been explained to you WHY your already explained reasons are NOT sufficient.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Feb 27, 2022 11:06 am You could do it in two sentences, one beginning 'Morality is objective because...' and the other beginning 'Morality is subjective because...'

Can you set out in one sentence WHY 'morality' could NEVER EVER be 'objective'?

Now,

If we AGREE and ACCEPT the word;

'morality', to mean; principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

'subjective', to mean; based on or influenced by personal feelings or opinions.

Then, 'morality' is 'subjective' because principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior are based on or influenced by personal feelings or opinions. As PROVED True by the personal 'views' of human beings.

And,

I will wait for you to define what 'objective' means, so that I can NOT be accused of ANY thing regarding this. Then, when and IF you do provide A definition for what 'objective' means, to you, then we can proceed.

Also, you asked for ANY one who disagrees with what you describe is a fact: something that just is or was the case, such as that water is H2O? I DO, and have EXPLAINED WHY. So, WHY do you NOT reply to that EXPLANATION.

Thanks. This is much clearer, though you still used block capitals, which makes reading harder, because it wrecks the scanning function we use to read fluently.

Does reading words with capital letters really make them harder, for you, to read?

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Feb 28, 2022 6:49 am Please stop doing it.

If you ask, instead of demand, then I would feel much more obliging.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Feb 28, 2022 6:49 am 1 I agree that morality is subjective, as you define the terms 'morality' and 'subjectivity'.

2 Morality can't be objective - factual or based on facts - because there are no moral facts - no moral features of reality, or states-of-affairs, that exist regardless of or independent from anyone's opinion.

I KNOW that this IS what you BELIEVE is true, or a FACT. But this is just your OWN 'opinion' and NOT a FACT, AT ALL.

We have gone through this ALREADY.

And, there are NO features of reality AT ALL, nor states-of-affairs, that exist regardless of or independent from ANY one of 'your', human beings, opinions. Besides, of course, there is 'matter' AND 'space'.

How this 'matter' AND 'space' IS, EXACTLY, or REALLY, is expressed, in words, made up and created by 'you', human beings. And, ALL of those words just come from your OWN opinions.

Now, let us SEE 'you' EXPLAIN a 'feature of reality', or state-of-affairs, which is NOT just 'an opinion' of a human being. And, your 'water is H20' is just, AN OPINION, ONLY, as has been explained to you ENOUGH TIMES ALREADY, SURELY.

'Water is H20' being a fact is ALSO just AN OPINION.

'There are no moral facts', is ALSO just AN OPINION.

EVERY 'thought' or 'view' are ALL just OPINIONS, ONLY.

Now, what makes ALL of these 'opinions' 'objective' WOULD HAVE BEEN DISCUSSED, BUT you did NOT provide a definition of what 'objective' IS, to you.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Feb 28, 2022 6:49 am (See #1 above.) For example, the moral rightness of being kind and wrongness of being unkind are not independently existing features of reality.

What is Right AND Wrong in Life is NOT KNOWN UNTIL one is able to LOOK AT and SEE 'things' from a Truly 'objective' VIEW-POINT.

How that is ACHIEVED has ALREADY been EXPRESSED. But NO one here wanted to continue on DISCUSSION 'that'.

WHEN one is ABLE to SEE and UNDERSTAND what is ACTUAL Right AND Wrong human behavior in Life, then what is ALSO SEEN and UNDERSTOOD is the Fact that 'this' KNOWLEDGE is INHERENTLY within the very 'make up' of the human being. This KNOWLEDGE was also HERE, 'in the genes', as some would say, but existing WITHIN 'matter' PRIOR to the human body and thinking evolving into 'being'.

The 'moral rightness of being kind and wrongness of being unkind', or whatever else one wants to call 'it', was existing LONG BEFORE human beings evolved into creation. 'It' is therefore an INDEPENDENTLY EXISTING feature of 'Reality', Itself.

Some just have NOT YET LEARNED how to SEE and UNDERSTAND this Fact.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Feb 28, 2022 6:49 am 3 The claim that what we call a fact is merely a matter of opinion - collapsing the fact/opinion distinction, and therefore the objectivity/subjectivity distinction - detonates itself. Is it a fact or merely a matter of opinion?

That ALL DEPENDS on what one, literally, THINKS, which IS; AN OPINION.

1. Work out what 'Reality', Itself, is FIRST.

2. Secondly, define the words being used so that 'they' FIT IN PERFECTLY WITH 'Reality', Itself.

3. And then LEARN and UNDERSTAND EVERY 'view' 'you' have is just, AN OPINION.

4. COMPREHEND that if EVERY 'one' is AGREEING and ACCEPTING on some 'thing', which MEANS EVERY 'one's' OPINION are IN AGREEMENT and ACCEPTANCE, then what 'that' is, which IS IN AGREEMENT and ACCEPTANCE with EVERY 'one', HAS TO BE IRREFUTABLY what 'Reality', Itself, ACTUALLY, and IRREFUTABLY, IS.

5. 'you' are NOW back at number 1.

And that is HOW 'objectivity', itself, is FOUND, and so, literally, UNCOVERED as well. Of which, when UNCOVERING was HOW what IS Truly morality Right AND Wrong in Life was SEEN and UNDERSTOOD as being Truly 'objective', ALSO.

BUT, there are MORE processes and steps one has to go through FIRST, BEFORE 'this' becomes FULLY UNDERSTOOD.

Age, or anyone else. Please.

Is the claim 'a fact is a matter of opinion' a fact, or a matter of opinion?

More than half a million hits, and 363 pages of comments. Way to go, guys. Will it stretch out to the crack of doom?

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Feb 28, 2022 10:12 pm More than half a million hits, and 363 pages of comments. Way to go, guys. Will it stretch out to the crack of doom?

You can get off the train any time you like, pete.

A touch of irony that no answer has proved satisfactory when I solved it for you guys ages ago --- lol!!

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 1:24 am A touch of irony that no answer has proved satisfactory when I solved it for you guys ages ago --- lol!!

I musta missed it: please, restate your solution.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 1:25 am

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 1:24 am A touch of irony that no answer has proved satisfactory when I solved it for you guys ages ago --- lol!!

I musta missed it: please, restate your solution.

Well, It goes back to the fact that all meaning is the property of the subject/read conscious subject and never the object. For morality to be in the world as meaning it has no other way of being and being meaningful other than if the subject creates it out of its knowledge and concepts. The physical world is utterly meaningless, something meaningful like morality must be bestowed upon the world by the consciousness that conjured it up. The subject would then give it some form in the outer world.

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 1:36 am

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 1:25 am

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 1:24 am A touch of irony that no answer has proved satisfactory when I solved it for you guys ages ago --- lol!!

I musta missed it: please, restate your solution.

Well, It goes back to the fact that all meaning is the property of the subject/read conscious subject and never the object. For morality to be in the world as meaning it has no other way of being and being meaningful other than if the subject creates it out of its knowledge and concepts. The physical world is utterly meaningless, something meaningful like morality must be bestowed upon the world by the consciousness that conjured it up. The subject would then give it some form in the outer world.

And this solves or bridges or negates the schism between the realist and the anti-realist...?

Well, It goes back to the fact that all meaning is the property of the subject/read conscious subject and never the object. For morality to be in the world as meaning it has no other way of being and being meaningful other than if the subject creates it out of its knowledge and concepts. The physical world is utterly meaningless, something meaningful like morality must be bestowed upon the world by the consciousness that conjured it up. The subject would then give it some form in the outer world.
[/quote]

And this solves or bridges or negates the schism between the realist and the anti-realist...?
[/quote]

Well it depends upon what you mean by those terms, there are no things/objects in the world in the absence of biological consciousness. How does that bode with your present concepts?

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 4:21 am

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 4:21 am Well, It goes back to the fact that all meaning is the property of the subject/read conscious subject and never the object. For morality to be in the world as meaning it has no other way of being and being meaningful other than if the subject creates it out of its knowledge and concepts. The physical world is utterly meaningless, something meaningful like morality must be bestowed upon the world by the consciousness that conjured it up. The subject would then give it some form in the outer world.

Well it depends upon what you mean by those terms, there are no things/objects in the world in the absence of biological consciousness. How does that bode with your present concepts?

You don't even understand your own damn perspective!

There are no objects in the world in the absence of biological consciousness, yet (somehow) there are subjects in the world in the presence of biological consciousness.

You are trapped in your distinctions. Like every idiot-philosopher. You are trapped in the subject/object distinction.

So, uuuh, what makes me a subject, but not an object?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 4:21 am there are no things/objects in the world in the absence of biological consciousness. How does that bode with your present concepts?

It doesn't bode well at all, I'm afraid.

I hold to the old-fashioned notion the world is real and independent of you and me.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 3:14 pm

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 4:21 am there are no things/objects in the world in the absence of biological consciousness. How does that bode with your present concepts?

It doesn't bode well at all, I'm afraid.

I hold to the old-fashioned notion the world is real and independent of you and me.

Henry is an honest materialist who says briefly and clearly what he thinks. Me and Popeye, we are immaterialists(idealists). We understand the materialist/physicalist point of view but we can see the viable alternative.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 9:17 am

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 4:21 am

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 4:21 am Well, It goes back to the fact that all meaning is the property of the subject/read conscious subject and never the object. For morality to be in the world as meaning it has no other way of being and being meaningful other than if the subject creates it out of its knowledge and concepts. The physical world is utterly meaningless, something meaningful like morality must be bestowed upon the world by the consciousness that conjured it up. The subject would then give it some form in the outer world.

Well it depends upon what you mean by those terms, there are no things/objects in the world in the absence of biological consciousness. How does that bode with your present concepts?

You don't even understand your own damn perspective!

There are no objects in the world in the absence of biological consciousness, yet (somehow) there are subjects in the world in the presence of biological consciousness.

You are trapped in your distinctions. Like every idiot-philosopher. You are trapped in the subject/object distinction.

So, uuuh, what makes me a subject, but not an object?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading

No, Skepdick, there are no subjects either. There is only experience of change. Subjects and objects are also ways to pin down experience of change.

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 4:12 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 9:17 am

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 4:21 am

Well it depends upon what you mean by those terms, there are no things/objects in the world in the absence of biological consciousness. How does that bode with your present concepts?

You don't even understand your own damn perspective!

There are no objects in the world in the absence of biological consciousness, yet (somehow) there are subjects in the world in the presence of biological consciousness.

You are trapped in your distinctions. Like every idiot-philosopher. You are trapped in the subject/object distinction.

So, uuuh, what makes me a subject, but not an object?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading

No, Skepdick, there are no subjects either. There is only experience of change. Subjects and objects are also ways to pin down experience of change.

I agree. I am just pointing out the mental gymnastics of the thing-ifying the subject.

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 4:09 pmHenry is an *honest **materialist

*I try.

**Nope. I believe God exists, that I'm a free will, that mind and brain are two separate things, that natural rights/morality is real, and that the world is real and independent of you and me.