What could make morality objective?

[Iwannaplato]

What we call objectivity is reliance on facts, rather than beliefs, judgements or opinions. And often the word objective simply means factual or based on facts.

So it follows that an expression such as objective dog is incoherent. A dog isn't a kind of thing that can be objective - just as it can't be subjective.

And I think the expression objective value is similarly incoherent. Consider the following argument:

I/we/all of us value kindness; therefore, kindness is an objective value.

It could be that the nominal use of the word value - as in the noun phrase moral values - is the problem - as it certainly is with other so-called abstract nouns in philosophy, such as truth and knowledge.

'We use nouns to name things, so abstract nouns must be names of things of some kind, which can therefore be described.' It's an ancient, potent and pervasive delusion - as the 'objectification' of values demonstrates here.

It's a fact that people 'have' values, just as they 'have' opinions. But that doesn't those values and opinions are facts.

You come from your position. Here's me coming from his position. He started a new thread where realism is an evolutionary default - read, it worked for a while, but it's not really true or the best ontology. Fine, let's take that as given. Realism is a (mere) evolutionary default and VA amongst others has transcended it. Realism is not an authority, it is something that worked and works, but it's not as true as something else.

Well, let's turn that idea on the oughtnesses he considers exist in the neurons in brains.....
viewtopic.php?p=636271#p636271
Why should these oughtnesses carry objective weight, since they also are defaults. Perhaps we will find through some computer simulation that killing other humans more than we do now gives our species greater chance of long term survival. (that's an additional argument perhaps implicit in my linked post above, but not one that I stated.)

[Veritas Aequitas]

What we call objectivity is reliance on facts, rather than beliefs, judgements or opinions. And often the word objective simply means factual or based on facts.

I posted the following which counter your above views, but you ignored it totally and start blabbering your views without arguments nor references.

There are two senses of Objectivity
You are adopting the delusional sense of objectivity, thus to you there is no objective value.

PH's "Morality is NOT Objective" is False.

So it follows that an expression such as objective dog is incoherent. A dog isn't a kind of thing that can be objective - just as it can't be subjective.

Why incoherent?
It is because you are intellectually wanting [Intellectual disability (ID) ].

In my case, what is objective is based on a human-based fact that is conditioned to a specific human based FSK, e.g. scientific objectivity
Scientific Objectivity
Thus a scientific fact is a human-based objective fact conditioned upon the human-based scientific FSK.

Who is talking about 'objective dog'??

What is a 'dog' is a human-based biological fact conditioned upon the human-based science-biology FSK.

In common sense, we may simply state 'that is a dog' or 'it is fact [linguistic] that is a dog' but these are very philosophical immature statements.
To be very objective, 'that is a dog' must imply the imputation of the science-biological FSK, thus a 'it is a human based science-biology fact - that is a dog' as an objective scientific fact. i.e.

The dog (Canis familiaris[4][5] or Canis lupus familiaris[5]) is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf,[6][7] and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relative.

n 1758, the Swedish botanist and zoologist Carl Linnaeus published in his Systema Naturae, the two-word naming of species (binomial nomenclature). Canis is the Latin word meaning "dog",[15] and under this genus, he listed the domestic dog, the wolf, and the golden jackal. He classified the domestic dog as Canis familiaris and, on the next page, classified the grey wolf as Canis lupus.[2] Linnaeus considered the dog to be a separate species from the wolf because of its upturning tail (cauda recurvata), which is not found in any other canid.[16]

In 1999, a study of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) indicated that the domestic dog may have originated from the grey wolf, with the dingo and New Guinea singing dog breeds having developed at a time when human communities were more isolated from each other.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog

There is no 'objective dog' re your immature talk.
What is a 'dog' in the most objective sense is a human-based biological fact conditioned upon the human-based science-biology FSK.

And I think the expression objective value is similarly incoherent. Consider the following argument:

I/we/all of us value kindness; therefore, kindness is an objective value.

It could be that the nominal use of the word value - as in the noun phrase moral values - is the problem - as it certainly is with other so-called abstract nouns in philosophy, such as truth and knowledge.

'We use nouns to name things, so abstract nouns must be names of things of some kind, which can therefore be described.' It's an ancient, potent and pervasive delusion - as the 'objectification' of values demonstrates here.

It's a fact that people 'have' values, just as they 'have' opinions. But that doesn't those values and opinions are facts.

You think "objective value is similarly incoherent" is because you are too philosophically immature and not capable of deeper reflective thinking; because you are chained to the evolutionary default of realism.

When scientists assert 'that is a dog' within the science-biology FSK as a human-based objective-fact, there is a degree of evaluation and that entails degree of values.
That the scientific FSK is the most reliable and credible sort of implied degree of values, thus 'objective value'.

It is self-evident the majority of humans value kindness but that is conditioned upon some kind of human-based virtue-FSK.
Since it is a human-based virtue-FSK, it is objective [by definition].
The question is how reliable and credible is this kindness-virtue-FSK, thus its degree of objectivity relative to the scientific FSK as the standard.

If there are neural correlates to 'kindness' then it can be more objective since it is leveraging on the scientific FSK which is the most objective.
There has been a lot of research linking 'kindness' to its neural correlates and from that it is said, kindness can be self-developed by tweaking those neural correlates from a black-box basis.

The Neuroscience of Kindness
Several key emotional competencies contribute to the capacity for kindness – empathy (feeling with another), love (affection for another), compassion (feeling for another's distress), and the theory of mind (ability to understand another's beliefs and intentions). The brain networks involved in these competencies show hierarchical structuring, from relatively simple perceptual-motor circuits to highly complex ones such as those involved in the theory of mind. In particular, empathy and compassion have been found to involve three levels of processing:

• 1) an initial assessment performed by the amygdala and the components of mirror neuron system in the inferior frontal/pre-motor and inferior parietal cortex;
  
  2) affective simulation involving bilateral insula and the anterior and middle cingulate gyrus;
  
  3) the cognitive component engaging the executive system for emotion control via attention and re-appraisal in the frontoparietal and temporal areas, and the areas associated with theory of mind in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex and temporo-parietal junction.

Additionally, compassion, like love, has been found to activate systems for reward and positive affect, involving ventral tegmental area, nucleus accumbens and the orbito-frontal cortex.

Research in the field of contemplative neuroscience has shown that kindness and related competencies can be trained, resulting in both functional and structural neural plasticity. Training in such complex practices, which require simultaneous activation of perceptual, affective and cognitive capacities, increases global synchronisation and integration among different networks, leading to enhanced mobilisation of the brain's resources and increased processing efficiency. Future research will specify to what degree capacities such as kindness, love and compassion are innate predispositions as opposed to being learned skills. Such research could help us to realise the benefit of that ancient but extraordinary insight from spiritual traditions, which says that the highest good is already present in all of us, and it only needs liberating and cultivating, to blossom and bear fruits of benefit for all.

Note I always supplied related references to my claims.

You? ZERO references yet so arrogant to imagine your views are superior to others.

[Peter Holmes]

VA, I read and then mostly ignore your interminable blabbering for several reasons, as follows.

1 I'm not your grandmother, and I know how to suck eggs. You seem to think that no one else has come across your explanations of biological - including human - development. You're excited by well-known facts and interpretations. But I'm not.

2 I and others have repeatedly addressed and refuted your argument(s) for moral objectivity. How many times do you want me/us to do it?

3 Citing someone else's fallacious argument does nothing to improve your own. For example, if you think Putnam's argument is persuasive, summarise it syllogistically so that I an others can address it. Merely saying 'Putnam thinks so-and-so' is useless. Again, do you think I and others have never come across Putnam's ideas?

4 You advocate a fake and easily demolished anti-realist ontology, but then peddle moral realism founded (fallaciously) on neuroscience.

5 I repeatedly ask questions designed to expose one of your fallacies. And you repeatedly fail to address them, perhaps because you can't, or can't afford to. Here are two again.

To construct a model of reality is not to construct reality. If it were, of what is the model a model? And if all we can know about reality are the models we construct, then how can we construct them in the first place?

If there are no noumena (things-in-themselves), then of what are phenomena (appearances) phenomena?

Instead of just vomiting your standard evasive answers, how about really thinking about what these questions are getting at and trying to address them? Where is your intellectual integrity?

Oh, and I'd be delighted if anyone else - offensive, moronic trolls excepted - would like to address these questions. It'd be a welcome relief.

[Skepdick]

4 You advocate a fake and easily demolished anti-realist ontology

So "objective values" is an incoherent expression, but "anti-realist ontology" isn't ?

[Skepdick]

If there are no noumena (things-in-themselves), then of what are phenomena (appearances) phenomena?

If there are noumena (things-in-themselves) then what are values if not noumena?

[Skepdick]

Instead of just vomiting your standard evasive answers

That's fucking rich coming from Peter "Dumb Cunt" Holmes

[Peter Holmes]

Some thoughts on language games in relation to realism and anti-realism.

A factual assertion, such as water is H2O, is always contextual and conventional. That's the nature of any language game: it doesn't work outside its context and conventions. And there's no compulsion to play any game, or to abide by its rules. No one has to play chess, or play by its rules.

I think the realist position is, roughly, that agreement on the contextual use of signs in descriptions doesn't constitute what we call facts and, therefore, objectivity - when we play that language game. In other words, the truth of the chemical-language-game factual assertion, water is H2O, isn't merely a matter of agreement on the use of signs in that context - indeed that such agreement, though necessary for communication - is not the point of the language game.

So what is the anti-realist position? What exactly are anti-realists opposed to? These are genuine questions - and I think clear answers would be interesting. The following are just my suggestions.

Presumably, anti-realists aren't 'opposed to reality' - whatever that means. (But having said that, Platonism and some of the various kinds of idealism at least seem to deny the existence of what, to the rest of us, looks like reality. So this is an ontological claim: what realists call reality doesn't exist - it's an illusion - an insubstantial pageant faded.)

But if instead anti-realism is opposition to the idea of reality - what exactly does that mean?

My point is this: anti-realists also play language games. So, if there's nothing 'outside' the chemistry language game in which the factual assertion water is H2O makes sense, this is true of the assertion 'water is not H2O'. And is that itself supposed to be a chemistry-language-game factual assertion?

It seems to me that anti-realism depends completely on realist assumptions, including the assumption that descriptive language games can be about things outside language games - things that may or may not actually exist. That they can be described in many different ways - using different language games - doesn't mean they don't exist. Okay, so in another language game, water is not H2O. But so what?

A description is not the described. And, outside language, reality is not linguistic.

[Skepdick]

Okay, so in another language game, water is not H2O. But so what?

"So what?" is the nihilist gambit.

In some language gsames water is not H2O. So what?
In other language games watr is H2O. So what?

Objectivity is defined as dependence on facts. So what?
Objectivity that doesn't depend on facts is possible. So what?

X is a fact. So what?
X is not a fact. So what?

Murder is objectively wrong. So what?
Murder is subjectively wrong. So what?
Murder is wrong. So what?

You have a valid and sound argument for X? So what?

A description is not the described. And, outside language, reality is not linguistic.

Great! So we agree then. Objective moral values are not the linguistic description of objective moral values. And it doesn't matter whather the phrase "objective moral values" is coherent or incoherent because outside of language objective moral values are not linguistic; and coherence is a linguistic concern.

[Peter Holmes]

'The rules of chess are rigged.'

Okay, don't play chess. Or play it on your own, with your own rules. No worries.

[Peter Holmes]

Here's a nice paragraph.

'Objective moral values are not the linguistic description of objective moral values. And it doesn't matter whether the phrase "objective moral values" is coherent or incoherent because outside of language objective moral values are not linguistic; and coherence is a linguistic concern.'

How to untangle the conceptual confusion here? Let's see.

A description is not the described. So, if there are moral values, then a description of those moral values is not those moral values - just as the description water is H2O is not the thing being described. It's sensible to avoid confusing what we say about things for the way things are.

And that's because, outside language, reality is not linguistic - let alone linguistically coherent - and let alone logically coherent. Outside language, features of reality just are the way they are, unnamed and undescribed, neither coherent nor incoherent, neither true nor false. And that's the reality that realists and anti-realists talk about.

But then, dammit, talk means language games - one of which is the game of talking about - describing - features of reality - such as the chemistry-language-factual-assertion water is H2O. And there are also moral-language-assertions such as X is morally wrong.

Question is: are these similar games, played by the same rules? Do the assertions this turd consists of the following chemical substances and this turd is beautiful have the same function, so that they both have a classical factual truth-value: true or false? And what about abortion is morally wrong and abortion is not morally wrong? Are they factual assertions, with truth-value?

Linguistic coherence, like logical consistency, is a separate matter. Moral premises and conclusions can be perfectly linguistically coherent and consistent. But are they factual descriptions with truth-value? And if they aren't - or aren't meant to be - descriptions, then what is their function?

[Skepdick]

Here's a nice paragraph.

'Objective moral values are not the linguistic description of objective moral values. And it doesn't matter whether the phrase "objective moral values" is coherent or incoherent because outside of language objective moral values are not linguistic; and coherence is a linguistic concern.'

How to untangle the conceptual confusion here? Let's see.

A description is not the described. So, if there are moral values, then a description of those moral values is not those moral values - just as the description water is H2O is not the thing being described. It's sensible to avoid confusing what we say about things for the way things are.

And that's because, outside language, reality is not linguistic - let alone linguistically coherent - and let alone logically coherent. Outside language, features of reality just are the way they are, unnamed and undescribed, neither coherent nor incoherent, neither true nor false. And that's the reality that realists and anti-realists talk about.

But then, dammit, talk means language games - one of which is the game of talking about - describing - features of reality - such as the chemistry-language-factual-assertion water is H2O. And there are also moral-language-assertions such as X is morally wrong.

Question is: are these similar games, played by the same rules? Do the assertions this turd consists of the following chemical substances and this turd is beautiful have the same function, so that they both have a classical factual truth-value: true or false? And what about abortion is morally wrong and abortion is not morally wrong? Are they factual assertions, with truth-value?

Linguistic coherence, like logical consistency, is a separate matter. Moral premises and conclusions can be perfectly linguistically coherent and consistent. But are they factual descriptions with truth-value? And if they aren't - or aren't meant to be - descriptions, then what is their function?

The function is to make truthful assertions. Given the context and conventions being used.

The assertion "water is H2O" is true given the context and conventions being used.
The assertion "murder is wrong" is true given the context and conventions being used.

[henry quirk]

In Henry's case, it is;

I/we/all of us intuit within a human-based intuition-FSK within the common-sense

his intuition, that "slavery is an objective moral fact" thus 'ought not to enslave humans' is on target to be objectively true within a credible human-based moral FSK which is reducible to its physical neural correlates.

[Peter Holmes]

Here seems to be the rub.

'The assertion "water is H2O" is true given the context and conventions being used.
The assertion "murder is wrong" is true given the context and conventions being used.'

Not so. It isn't the context and conventions that make a factual assertion true or false. If it were, then nothing could show if the factual assertion 'water is H2O' was true or false. After all, the same context and conventions apply to the factual assertion 'water is not H2O'.

And, if context and conventions are all that constitute what we call facts and, therefore, objectivity, the factual assertion 'there are pink unicorns on the moon' could as well be true as false. There'd be no way to decide which.

By contrast, the moral assertion 'abortion is morally wrong' is not factual, and has no factual truth-value, which is precisely why it's perfectly rational to hold to its negation: 'abortion is not morally wrong'. The context and conventions are identical, but truth-value simply isn't relevant.

To repeat, agreement on the use of signs (context and conventions) does not constitute what we call facts and, therefore, objectivity. That claim is false.

[Skepdick]

Not so. It isn't the context and conventions that make a factual assertion true or false.

Yes it is.

If the context and convention uses the term "blue" to describe this color then it's true true that this color is blue.

By one set of conventions the identity 42 / 8 * 6 = 36 true.
By a different set of conventions the identity 42 / 8 * 6 = 1 is true.

[popeye1945]

To affect the concept, as in making it manifest in one's outer world.