Is morality objective or subjective?

[Peter Holmes]

VA, if the penny finally drops for you, and you realise there are no moral facts, will you then think it's morally okay for you or some morally imbecilic wanker to go out and shoot people in the face? Will you feel unable to morally judge the Dick for shooting you in the face?

As per the Principles of Normal Distribution, there will be a percentile of outliers, the 1% or up to 5-10% who will and potentially commit the most odious repulsive immoral acts.
When these outliers commit the most hideous, abhorrent immoral acts, they will be repugnant to the average moral inclined person regardless of whether there are moral fact or not.

I insist there are moral facts as I have justified them succinctly over various posts and threads.
It is because, I understand the existence of moral facts, I can use them as a standard to strive for improvement to the inherent standards, where all humans should be doing the same.
At present it is too late for improvements for the current generations, but moral facts provide improvements for future generations if the right direction and steps are taken.

Note the advantage of Moral Realism, i.e. there are moral facts which are truth-apt;

Moral realism allows the ordinary rules of logic (modus ponens, etc.) to be applied straightforwardly to moral statements. We can say that a moral belief is false or unjustified or contradictory in the same way we would about a factual belief. This is a problem for expressivism, as shown by the Frege–Geach problem.

Another advantage of moral realism is its capacity to resolve moral disagreements: if two moral beliefs contradict one another, realism says that they cannot both be right, and therefore everyone involved ought to be seeking out the right answer to resolve the disagreement. Contrary theories of meta-ethics have trouble even formulating the statement "this moral belief is wrong," and so they cannot resolve disagreements in this way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism#Advantages

In your case with Moral Subjectivism - there are no moral facts but merely subjective judgments - you and your likes will be indifferent to any moral improvements and progress and accept the status quo. Then you can only complain when someone shoot you in the face, especially in the present when the police dept is defunded thus no officer to investigate the shooter.

1 You fail to answer my question about the supposed impossibility of coherent moral judgement in the absence of moral facts. No surprise there. Your deflective digression about 'outliers' avoids the issue completely.

2 You have failed to provide one example of a moral fact. I and others have shown why every example you propose is not a fact.

3 Your argument for moral realism - that it allows logical deduction and dispute resolution - is utilitarian, which commits the fallacy of supposed desirable consequences. No surprise there, because there is no evidence for the existence of a moral reality, and therefore of moral facts. And anyway, moral realism can have morally catastrophic consequences.

4 Moral subjectivism does not lead to indifference to moral concerns. That is a flat out lie, for which you should be ashamed.

[Skepdick]

And anyway, moral realism can have morally catastrophic consequences.

Is moral subjectivism immune to that?

Not if I shoot you in the face.

[Veritas Aequitas]

VA, if the penny finally drops for you, and you realise there are no moral facts, will you then think it's morally okay for you or some morally imbecilic wanker to go out and shoot people in the face? Will you feel unable to morally judge the Dick for shooting you in the face?

As per the Principles of Normal Distribution, there will be a percentile of outliers, the 1% or up to 5-10% who will and potentially commit the most odious repulsive immoral acts.
When these outliers commit the most hideous, abhorrent immoral acts, they will be repugnant to the average moral inclined person regardless of whether there are moral fact or not.

I insist there are moral facts as I have justified them succinctly over various posts and threads.
It is because, I understand the existence of moral facts, I can use them as a standard to strive for improvement to the inherent standards, where all humans should be doing the same.
At present it is too late for improvements for the current generations, but moral facts provide improvements for future generations if the right direction and steps are taken.

Note the advantage of Moral Realism, i.e. there are moral facts which are truth-apt;

Moral realism allows the ordinary rules of logic (modus ponens, etc.) to be applied straightforwardly to moral statements. We can say that a moral belief is false or unjustified or contradictory in the same way we would about a factual belief. This is a problem for expressivism, as shown by the Frege–Geach problem.

Another advantage of moral realism is its capacity to resolve moral disagreements: if two moral beliefs contradict one another, realism says that they cannot both be right, and therefore everyone involved ought to be seeking out the right answer to resolve the disagreement. Contrary theories of meta-ethics have trouble even formulating the statement "this moral belief is wrong," and so they cannot resolve disagreements in this way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism#Advantages

In your case with Moral Subjectivism - there are no moral facts but merely subjective judgments - you and your likes will be indifferent to any moral improvements and progress and accept the status quo. Then you can only complain when someone shoot you in the face, especially in the present when the police dept is defunded thus no officer to investigate the shooter.

1 You fail to answer my question about the supposed impossibility of coherent moral judgement in the absence of moral facts. No surprise there. Your deflective digression about 'outliers' avoids the issue completely.

3 Your argument for moral realism - that it allows logical deduction and dispute resolution - is utilitarian, which commits the fallacy of supposed desirable consequences. No surprise there, because there is no evidence for the existence of a moral reality, and therefore of moral facts. And anyway, moral realism can have morally catastrophic consequences.

4 Moral subjectivism does not lead to indifference to moral concerns. That is a flat out lie, for which you should be ashamed.

If you cannot get the point you want, it is due to your bad communication and dogmatic views.

2 You have failed to provide one example of a moral fact. I and others have shown why every example you propose is not a fact.

You mean the three stooges, i,e, You, PantFlasher and Sculptor?
It is not about how many supporters and those who agree with you, rather it is about whether your arguments are well justified or not.

Note I just posted this from Wiki:

• A survey from 2009 involving 3,226 respondents[6] found that 56% of philosophers accept or lean towards moral realism (28%: anti-realism; 16%: other).[7]
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism

It is 56% of philosophers who agree with Moral Realism and only 28% for anti-realism.
Let this reality sink into you before you start yelping again about the imagined superiority of moral subjectivism based on the agreement of 3 stooges here.

Note my belief is Empirical Moral Realism which is foolproof towards the good.
Show me the morally catastrophic consequences based on what I have posted.
Don't counter with your own self created strawmen.

Read my new post before you comment;

• What is Moral Realism
  viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30034&p=466393#p466393

[Peter Holmes]

It is not about how many supporters and those who agree with you, rather it is about whether your arguments are well justified or not.

It is 56% of philosophers who agree with Moral Realism and only 28% for anti-realism.

And let your own words sink into you.

Note my belief is Empirical Moral Realism which is foolproof towards the good.

Adding 'empirical' doesn't make moral realism any less nonsensical.

Show me the morally catastrophic consequences based on what I have posted.

You believe there's a human moral reality from which other species (with reservations) are excluded. So you - and many others - have a morally disgusting attitude towards the treatment of some other species. There's a consequence of moral realism.

And I note your customary failure to address any of the points and arguments I make that you find inconvenient. Your much-vaunted intellectual integrity is a joke.

[Skepdick]

You believe there's a human moral reality from which other species (with reservations) are excluded.
So you - and many others - have a morally disgusting attitude towards the treatment of some other species.

Oh. And you don't have a "morally disgusting attitude" towards the treatment of other species?

What did you eat for breakfast, Peter? Did you murder some organism for your selfish sustenance?!?!?

You morally bankrupt piece of shit! Do the moral thing and die so all the organisms you consume can live.

[henry quirk]

I think your persona here is honest and probably reflects your real life person.
Honesty is the basic attitude of people living in societies. It would be impossible for a law abiding society to survive without most of the citizens' being honest. Look at Lebanon. The honest people are the young citizens who are trying to make order from the mess of a chronically corrupt ruling class.
I am not a great supporter of capitalism, but as far as I know Sears Roebuck makes honest money.

okay

still not gettin' your point (in the context of our -- you & me -- back & forth so far)

[Veritas Aequitas]

It is not about how many supporters and those who agree with you, rather it is about whether your arguments are well justified or not.

It is 56% of philosophers who agree with Moral Realism and only 28% for anti-realism.

And let your own words sink into you.

Note my belief is Empirical Moral Realism which is foolproof towards the good.

Adding 'empirical' doesn't make moral realism any less nonsensical.

As I had claimed your philosophical knowledge is too ignorant, narrow, shallow and dogmatic.

I adopted 'empirical moral realism' from the Kantian "Empirical Realism".

• Kant's Empirical Realism
  Paul Abela
  ABSTRACT
  Immanuel Kant claims that transcendental idealism yields a form of realism at the empirical level.
  Polite silence might best describe the reception this assertion has garnered among even sympathetic interpreters. This book challenges that prejudice, offering a controversial presentation and rehabilitation of Kant's empirical realism that places his realist credentials at the centre of the account of representation he offers in the Critique of Pure Reason.
  https://oxford.universitypressscholarsh ... 0199242740

Kant's Empirical Realism opposes the typical Philosophical Realism which the latter is actually Transcendental Empiricism and illusory.
This is a serious issue which exposes the illusion you are clinging onto.

I don't see you having the capacity understand [not to agree] and worst to challenge me on this the use of the term 'Empirical Moral Realism.'

Show me the morally catastrophic consequences based on what I have posted.

You believe there's a human moral reality from which other species (with reservations) are excluded. So you - and many others - have a morally disgusting attitude towards the treatment of some other species. There's a consequence of moral realism.

Yes, morality is confined to the human species only except where they are of social and other interests to humans.
This is essential to avoid the controversy with religious & ideological Vegans and others re the killing living non-human animals for food.

As you can see for yourself, you are desperate and disgusting by forcing in the term 'disgusting' into your statement.

Just as 'no man is an island' the same is "no species is an island by itself", there is a need to co-operate interdependence with other species within an eco-system, thus considerations [not necessary moral] must be given to other species.

Aside from Morality, humans are to avoid treating animals with cruelty, killing them for pleasure and other barbaric practices. This is accomplished via the development of their empathy and compassion along with the main development of their moral competence.

And I note your customary failure to address any of the points and arguments I make that you find inconvenient. Your much-vaunted intellectual integrity is a joke.

If I missed any, it is because it is irrelevant [ignored to save time] or an oversight.
I don't know which points are critical to you. You can show me any point I have missed which to you is critical and I will address it.

Your only critical point is 'fact cannot follow to moral statement.'

I have already show you re Searle's argument where,
A major and minor premise statement [speech acts, with thick concepts] can contain moral and other facts.
Thus the conclusion can be a moral, i.e. moral fact.
You have ignored to counter the above rationally but brush it off as fallacious.

[Veritas Aequitas]

You believe there's a human moral reality from which other species (with reservations) are excluded.
So you - and many others - have a morally disgusting attitude towards the treatment of some other species.

Oh. And you don't have a "morally disgusting attitude" towards the treatment of other species?

What did you eat for breakfast, Peter? Did you murder some organism for your selfish sustenance?!?!?

You morally bankrupt piece of shit! Do the moral thing and die so all the organisms you consume can live.

When Peter has an infection and has to take anti-biotics or take other food and things that kill loads [millions to billions] of the good useful symbiotic organisms within his body.
If Peter is so morally concern for other non-human species, he should not take antibiotics at all and commit other acts that killed entities of other species.

[Peter Holmes]

You believe there's a human moral reality from which other species (with reservations) are excluded.
So you - and many others - have a morally disgusting attitude towards the treatment of some other species.

Oh. And you don't have a "morally disgusting attitude" towards the treatment of other species?

What did you eat for breakfast, Peter? Did you murder some organism for your selfish sustenance?!?!?

You morally bankrupt piece of shit! Do the moral thing and die so all the organisms you consume can live.

When Peter has an infection and has to take anti-biotics or take other food and things that kill loads [millions to billions] of the good useful symbiotic organisms within his body.
If Peter is so morally concern for other non-human species, he should not take antibiotics at all and commit other acts that killed entities of other species.

I said some other species. So this piffle about bacteria is childish. And your defence of human moral exceptionalism, in your previous post, is pure sophistry. Your moral reality turns out to be what you want it to be. No surprise there.

[Peter Holmes]

It is not about how many supporters and those who agree with you, rather it is about whether your arguments are well justified or not.

It is 56% of philosophers who agree with Moral Realism and only 28% for anti-realism.

And let your own words sink into you.

Note my belief is Empirical Moral Realism which is foolproof towards the good.

Adding 'empirical' doesn't make moral realism any less nonsensical.

As I had claimed your philosophical knowledge is too ignorant, narrow, shallow and dogmatic.

I adopted 'empirical moral realism' from the Kantian "Empirical Realism".

• Kant's Empirical Realism
  Paul Abela
  ABSTRACT
  Immanuel Kant claims that transcendental idealism yields a form of realism at the empirical level.
  Polite silence might best describe the reception this assertion has garnered among even sympathetic interpreters. This book challenges that prejudice, offering a controversial presentation and rehabilitation of Kant's empirical realism that places his realist credentials at the centre of the account of representation he offers in the Critique of Pure Reason.
  https://oxford.universitypressscholarsh ... 0199242740

Kant's Empirical Realism opposes the typical Philosophical Realism which the latter is actually Transcendental Empiricism and illusory.
This is a serious issue which exposes the illusion you are clinging onto.

I don't see you having the capacity understand [not to agree] and worst to challenge me on this the use of the term 'Empirical Moral Realism.'

Show me the morally catastrophic consequences based on what I have posted.

You believe there's a human moral reality from which other species (with reservations) are excluded. So you - and many others - have a morally disgusting attitude towards the treatment of some other species. There's a consequence of moral realism.

Yes, morality is confined to the human species only except where they are of social and other interests to humans.
This is essential to avoid the controversy with religious & ideological Vegans and others re the killing living non-human animals for food.

As you can see for yourself, you are desperate and disgusting by forcing in the term 'disgusting' into your statement.

Just as 'no man is an island' the same is "no species is an island by itself", there is a need to co-operate interdependence with other species within an eco-system, thus considerations [not necessary moral] must be given to other species.

Aside from Morality, humans are to avoid treating animals with cruelty, killing them for pleasure and other barbaric practices. This is accomplished via the development of their empathy and compassion along with the main development of their moral competence.

And I note your customary failure to address any of the points and arguments I make that you find inconvenient. Your much-vaunted intellectual integrity is a joke.

If I missed any, it is because it is irrelevant [ignored to save time] or an oversight.
I don't know which points are critical to you. You can show me any point I have missed which to you is critical and I will address it.

Your only critical point is 'fact cannot follow to moral statement.'

I have already show you re Searle's argument where,
A major and minor premise statement [speech acts, with thick concepts] can contain moral and other facts.
Thus the conclusion can be a moral, i.e. moral fact.
You have ignored to counter the above rationally but brush it off as fallacious.

In vain, I'll ask again. Please produce an example - Searle's, if you like - of an argument in which a factual premise 'has a moral element' - an ought inside the is - and entails a moral conclusion. And I'll show you why the argument begs the question. Please put your money where your mouth is.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Oh. And you don't have a "morally disgusting attitude" towards the treatment of other species?

What did you eat for breakfast, Peter? Did you murder some organism for your selfish sustenance?!?!?

You morally bankrupt piece of shit! Do the moral thing and die so all the organisms you consume can live.

When Peter has an infection and has to take anti-biotics or take other food and things that kill loads [millions to billions] of the good useful symbiotic organisms within his body.
If Peter is so morally concern for other non-human species, he should not take antibiotics at all and commit other acts that killed entities of other species.

I said some other species. So this piffle about bacteria is childish. And your defence of human moral exceptionalism, in your previous post, is pure sophistry. Your moral reality turns out to be what you want it to be. No surprise there.

That is why I am insisting your knowledge database is shallow, narrow, full of ignorance and dogmatic.

When I stated Morality is specific to the human species, I have reflected deeply and widely into the issues to ensure my views are foolproof to cover such controversies and stick to the facts of the matter.

What I have stated are facts.
Bacteria is a species of living organisms with different sub-species.
Here is a clue, 'species' is mentioned 38 times in the following article relating to 'Bacteria'.

Most bacteria have not been characterised, and only about 27 percent of the bacterial phyla have species that can be grown in the laboratory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria

If you condemned my views and you are so concern for other non-human species, then you must be consistent throughout and maintain your principles.

[Veritas Aequitas]

In vain, I'll ask again. Please produce an example - Searle's, if you like - of an argument in which a factual premise 'has a moral element' - an ought inside the is - and entails a moral conclusion. And I'll show you why the argument begs the question. Please put your money where your mouth is.

There is really something wrong with you.

You have requested the above 'a thousand times' and each time I have provided the argument from Searle for you.
Don't insult your own intelligence with such glaringly blindness.

Here again;

How to Derive "Ought" From "Is" J. Searle
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29824

viewtopic.php?p=463022#p463022

Here is the core of Searle's argument in Section I of the paper;

• (1) Jones uttered the words "I hereby promise to pay you, Smith, five dollars."
  (1a) Under certain conditions C anyone who utters the words (sentence) "I hereby promise to pay you, Smith, five dollars" promises to pay Smith five dollars.
  (1b) Conditions C obtain.
  
  (2) Jones promised to pay Smith five dollars.
  (2a) All promises are acts of placing oneself (undertaking) an obligation to do the thing promised.
  
  (3) Jones placed himself under (undertook) an obligation to pay Smith five dollars.
  (3a) Other things are equal.
  (3b) All those who place themselves under an obligation are, other things being equal, under an obligation.
  
  (4) Jones is under an obligation to pay Smith five dollars.
  (4a) Other things are equal.
  
  (5) Jones ought to pay Smith five dollars.

[Peter Holmes]

When Peter has an infection and has to take anti-biotics or take other food and things that kill loads [millions to billions] of the good useful symbiotic organisms within his body.
If Peter is so morally concern for other non-human species, he should not take antibiotics at all and commit other acts that killed entities of other species.

I said some other species. So this piffle about bacteria is childish. And your defence of human moral exceptionalism, in your previous post, is pure sophistry. Your moral reality turns out to be what you want it to be. No surprise there.

That is why I am insisting your knowledge database is shallow, narrow, full of ignorance and dogmatic.

When I stated Morality is specific to the human species, I have reflected deeply and widely into the issues to ensure my views are foolproof to cover such controversies and stick to the facts of the matter.

What I have stated are facts.
Bacteria is a species of living organisms with different sub-species.
Here is a clue, 'species' is mentioned 38 times in the following article relating to 'Bacteria'.

Most bacteria have not been characterised, and only about 27 percent of the bacterial phyla have species that can be grown in the laboratory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria

If you condemned my views and you are so concern for other non-human species, then you must be consistent throughout and maintain your principles.

Your self-delusion is impenetrable. Your claim that 'morality is specific to the human species' is blatantly and irrefutably a matter of opinion - not a fact. The scope of our moral concerns is not some fixed feature of reality. I'm beyond amazed, yet again.

Oh, and where's that example of a moral fact? Still waiting.

[Veritas Aequitas]

I said some other species. So this piffle about bacteria is childish. And your defence of human moral exceptionalism, in your previous post, is pure sophistry. Your moral reality turns out to be what you want it to be. No surprise there.

That is why I am insisting your knowledge database is shallow, narrow, full of ignorance and dogmatic.

When I stated Morality is specific to the human species, I have reflected deeply and widely into the issues to ensure my views are foolproof to cover such controversies and stick to the facts of the matter.

What I have stated are facts.
Bacteria is a species of living organisms with different sub-species.
Here is a clue, 'species' is mentioned 38 times in the following article relating to 'Bacteria'.

Most bacteria have not been characterised, and only about 27 percent of the bacterial phyla have species that can be grown in the laboratory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria

If you condemned my views and you are so concern for other non-human species, then you must be consistent throughout and maintain your principles.

Your self-delusion is impenetrable. Your claim that 'morality is specific to the human species' is blatantly and irrefutably a matter of opinion - not a fact. The scope of our moral concerns is not some fixed feature of reality. I'm beyond amazed, yet again.

Oh, and where's that example of a moral fact? Still waiting.

After 'a thousand times' showing you the evidence,
I am not going to waste time.
You can find it in the various threads and in your two thread re 'Is Morality Objective'.

[Peter Holmes]

That is why I am insisting your knowledge database is shallow, narrow, full of ignorance and dogmatic.

When I stated Morality is specific to the human species, I have reflected deeply and widely into the issues to ensure my views are foolproof to cover such controversies and stick to the facts of the matter.

What I have stated are facts.
Bacteria is a species of living organisms with different sub-species.
Here is a clue, 'species' is mentioned 38 times in the following article relating to 'Bacteria'.



If you condemned my views and you are so concern for other non-human species, then you must be consistent throughout and maintain your principles.

Your self-delusion is impenetrable. Your claim that 'morality is specific to the human species' is blatantly and irrefutably a matter of opinion - not a fact. The scope of our moral concerns is not some fixed feature of reality. I'm beyond amazed, yet again.

Oh, and where's that example of a moral fact? Still waiting.

After 'a thousand times' showing you the evidence,
I am not going to waste time.
You can find it in the various threads and in your two thread re 'Is Morality Objective'.

Nope. You've failed every time so far. And I and others have shown you very clearly why you've failed. So.

Please produce a moral assertion that you think is a fact. And I'll show you why it isn't. Or produce an argument with a factual premise that entails a moral conclusion. And I'll show you why it doesn't.