Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Nov 09, 2022 7:31 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Wed Nov 09, 2022 3:29 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Nov 09, 2022 3:00 pm
Well, I asked you two questions...or rather, really the same question emphatically, and twice. And I don't see an answer.
But I'll rephrase that question, so as to reflect the claim above and circumnavigate the diversion.
Do you believe that moral language predicates
claims that have no truth value?
You asked if I think 'all moral premises are false'. And I pointed out that, if an assertion has no truth-value, then it can be neither true nor false.
Yes, yes...I know all that.
It's
assumptive on your part: you assume that (even accurate) moral statements do not articulate objective realities. I believe otherwise. But it really matters not at all, though, for the present question.
On the contrary - this issue is
all that matters. And poncing it up with 'articulate objective realities' doesn't help.
The question is: do moral assertions describe actually existing features of reality? And, pending evidence for the existence of anything non-physical,
actually existing means
existing physically.
To put it another way. Is moral wrongness an actually existing property of, say, abortion, such that to say abortion is morally wrong is to make a falsifiable claim whose truth-value is independent from opinion? I think it patently obvious that this moral realist/objectivist claim is ridiculous.
And here's why.
To say that a moral evaluation is "not false" technically, but refers to no objective quality present in reality is to say it's something just as bad. It is to mean that moral assessments, at best, are an utter fabrication total irrelevancy to reality, a complete delusion, a local social construct, and in total, illegitimate. Such exist, but only as errors, as impositions, as unrealistic ways of characterizing the situation.
What extraordinary nonsense. If I say Bach's music is sublimely beautiful, is that an utter fabrication with no relevance to reality, a complete delusion, a local social construct, illegitimate, an error, an imposition, an unrealistic way of characterising the situation? And would another's assertion that his music is tedious, footling rubbish have any better or worse status? And by what criterion?
If I yum marmalade as delicious, and loathe peanut butter as disgusting, are those not judgements about reality, just because deliciousness and disgustingness aren't independently existing properties of these edibles?
What I want to know, and what I'm asking you directly, is if you see ANY legitimate application for moral claims. Any at all. And if you do, I want to know on what basis you attribute that legitimacy.
Let's address that next, please.
Legitimacy isn't an independently existing quality, attribute or property. It's always contextual, and contingent upon other criteria whose 'legitimacy' is also contingent, and so on. So your demand for 'moral legitimacy' is flapping in the wind until you tie it down.
Seems to me, what we're asking is this: what makes something morally right or wrong? And: if there is such a thing, does it exist independently from belief, judgement or opinion? In other words: are moral rightness and wrongness
real things about which true and false assertions can therefore be made?
Have a go at answering those questions.