Philosophy Now Forum

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 11:44 am I don't even care about your language of "claims". I am not "claiming" anything - I am describing how scientists make decisions, under uncertainty, based on the available information/data.

Well I have been describing how morality is used by the relevant parties, and it does include is and ought claims (the second of which science cannot), and it does include right and wrong (neither of which are scientific concepts, and actual scientists wouldn't touch this conversation with a shitty stick for that reason). So your reductivist science is not remotely relevant here.

What little of a moral framework you ahve presented is clearly relative to a viewpoint anyway, so you are a relativist with a fantasy that some references to objective data is all it takes to escape relativism.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 11:56 am Well I have been describing how morality is used by the relevant parties, and it does include is and ought claims (the second of which science cannot), and it does include right and wrong (neither of which are scientific concepts, and actual scientists wouldn't touch this conversation with a shitty stick for that reason). So your reductivist science is not remotely relevant here.

What little of a moral framework you ahve presented is clearly relative to a viewpoint anyway, so you are a relativist with a fantasy that some references to objective data is all it takes to escape relativism.

Q.E.D still attempting to force the objective/subjective language down my throat.

Data is data.

Objective/subjective is a HUMAN assertion.

When you explain why you value objectivity more than subjectivity, when you explain why the objective/subjective distinction is a distinction with a difference and why that difference is important to you-the-subject, only then can we have a conversation.

Until then your dogma is impenetrable.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 11:58 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 11:56 am Well I have been describing how morality is used by the relevant parties, and it does include is and ought claims (the second of which science cannot), and it does include right and wrong (neither of which are scientific concepts, and actual scientists wouldn't touch this conversation with a shitty stick for that reason). So your reductivist science is not remotely relevant here.

What little of a moral framework you ahve presented is clearly relative to a viewpoint anyway, so you are a relativist with a fantasy that some references to objective data is all it takes to escape relativism.

Q.E.D still attempting to force the objective/subjective language down my throat.

Look at the title of the thread you fool.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 12:03 pm Look at the title of the thread you fool.

I know what the title is, dimwit. I wrote it.

Look at the second paragraph of the OP (I wrote that too).

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2020 1:55 pm For reasons that are well understood by anybody who sees the bias, and yet - we will not ask the unbiased question: Is morality subjective or objective? That would be too boring.

Look at the bias we bring into any discussion by ONLY focusing on "morality". It is a continuum, right?

There is immorality , amorality and morality. Right? If we were an actual relativist surely we would ask: "Who is to say that morality is better than immorality?". But we don't ask that question - we focus only on morality. Why? That's called Selection bias.

Or how about some ontological scepticism: Does morality even exist? Try and convince me that you are investing time and energy debating about something that you believe does not exist.

If you concede that morality exists, I'll take the war. You can have the battle.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 12:06 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 12:03 pm Look at the title of the thread you fool.

I know what the title is, dimwit. I wrote it.

Look at the second paragraph of the OP (I wrote that too).

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2020 1:55 pm For reasons that are well understood by anybody who sees the bias, and yet - we will not ask the unbiased question: Is morality subjective or objective? That would be too boring.

Look at the bias you bring into any discussion by ONLY focusing on "morality". It is a continuum, right?

There is immorality , amorality and morality. Right? if you were an actual relativist surely you would ask: "Who is to say that morality is better than immorality?". But you don't ask that question - you focus only on morality.

Or how about some ontological scepticism: Does morality exist? Try and convince me that you are currently engaging in a debate about something that you believe does not exist.

So you posed the question: What could make morality subjective? and I am the bad man for constantly harping on about both subjectivity and morality now?

I am not forcing you to consider subjectivity, and I am not ramming morality down your throat, this is the shit you chose to start a topic on. You need to grow up and accept that, tearful little tantrums don't work on me.

I couldn't care less whether you phrase your question as you did, or waste effort making out that " Is morality subjective or objective?" removes any bias. My answer was given pages ago: it is a shared subjective construct bound by linguistic rules that allow meaningful discussion. The distinction is not accompanied by any difference as far as I am concerned. Focussing on immorality would change that none much, morality is general topic and immoral actions are just one part its content.

Ontologically, morality is contained within human culture, it has no more of an independent existence than handshakes do. To put it in the usual terms of the field for which you show such respect: morality is invented, not discovered (even if founded on innate preferences such as desire for fairness, that are inherited via biology, or God given for that matter).

I'm going to bring back the questions you evaded you know. I've seen the tactics you are using here many times before and trying to turn the tables when you can't think of an aswer to a simple question is easily the most common.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 12:40 pm I am not forcing you to consider subjectivity, and I am not ramming morality down your throat, this is the shit you chose to start a topic on.

And I am not forcing you to engage me? This is the shit you chose to interact with!

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 12:40 pm You need to grow up and accept that, tearful little tantrums don't work on me.

Nothing works on you. That's not to say there is a flaw with my method.

It's to say that your position is unfalsifiable. I can't fix that for you.

Your attempt at shaming my "tearful little tantrums" have been noted and discarded.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 12:40 pm Ontologically, morality is contained within human culture, it has no more of an independent existence than handshakes do.

Rinse, repeat. Is human culture ontological. Does human culture exist?

Because as far as I am concerned, ontologically human culture is contained in existence.

The language of "independent existence" is yours not mine. Why do are you working over-time on trying to frame the debate in your Philosophical bias?

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 12:40 pm To put it in the usual terms of the field for which you show such respect: morality is invented, not discovered (even if founded on innate preferences such as desire for fairness, that are inherited via biology, or God given for that matter).

Well, no. To put it to you in clearer terms: all knowledge is socially and culturally constructed.

So back to the ontological question: does culture exist?

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 12:40 pm I'm going to bring back the questions you evaded you know. I've seen the tactics you are using here many times before and trying to turn the tables when you can't think of an aswer to a simple question is easily the most common.

You continue to miss the point. The process of answering questions is evidence of measurement!

Does you exist? Yes? Measurement.
Does morality exist? Yes? Measurement.

The fact that you can make up your mind is evidence of bias (in the statistical sense). Otherwise you would die like Buridan's ass!

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 12:40 pm So you posed the question: What could make morality subjective? and I am the bad man for constantly harping on about both subjectivity and morality now?

You are not the "bad man". You are just the biased man. You keep claiming "objectivity" but you just can't get rid of other people's language skewing your thinking.

You are harping about morality.
You are NOT harping about amorality or immorality.
You are NOT harping about the non-existence of morality.

It's fair to conclude that you believe in morality in the same way that theists believe in (and harp about) God.
You believe that the word "morality" has some an ontological status. Otherwise you would't harp about morality. You would harp about amoralism like an atheist harps about the non-existence of God.

That last set of evasions seems unproductive. So the same questions again.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 10:23 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 10:19 am In your zeal to do away with relativism you concocted a moral theory that dispenses with the archaic notions of things being right and wrong for reasons. Now stuff is right or wrong according to...

Strawman. Right/wrong is your vocabulary - that's a lame attempt to frame the argument.

There is no place for absolute notions such as "right" and "wrong" in a relativistic universe (such as ours).
There is only place for superlatives: better and worse relative to some fixed point. Where is that fixed point?

And so you make no claim that in a choice between two available actions, it is "right" to do the "better" thing and "wrong" to do the "worse" thing?

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 10:23 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 10:19 am Shall we call your thing "statistical relativism"? You should have a name for it.

I have name for it. Objective morality.

If you disagree, you are welcome to present your arguments/reasons for why steering the Titanic towards an iceberg is "better" than steering it away (As claimed by Relativist A - which is you); or why steering away from the iceberg is "worse" than steering towards it (which is claimed by Relativist B - which, by the way, is still you).

So I'll step aside while you two argue with yourself, but please start by elucidating how a relativist might even assert "betterness" and "worseness" in a relativistic framework. Relative to what fixed point?!?

But your own betterness and worseness are derived from objective preference data, yes?

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 1:36 pm But your own betterness and worseness are derived from objective preference data, yes?

No, they aren't. My own "betterness" and "worseness" data agrees with the preference data of others.

Incidentally or coincidentally - there is consensus amongst the subjects.

If your yardstick says X.
And my yardstick says X
And everybody's yardstick says X.

Then it's X.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 1:43 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 1:36 pm But your own betterness and worseness are derived from objective preference data, yes?

No, they aren't. My own "betterness" and "worseness" data agrees with the preference data of others.

And if the statistical evidence of that data supports a conclusion that betterness is fulfilled by action X, and Y has worseness as an outcome by common assent, then X is better and Y is worse?

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 1:47 pm And if the statistical evidence of that data supports a conclusion that betterness is fulfilled by action X, and Y has worseness as an outcome by common assent, then X is better and Y is worse?

Your question is ambiguous. Formalize it.

I have no idea how to even begin testing whether X supports conclusion Y; let alone falsifying it.

Can you design an experiment by which this can be empirically determined?

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 1:48 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 1:47 pm And if the statistical evidence of that data supports a conclusion that betterness is fulfilled by action X, and Y has worseness as an outcome by common assent, then X is better and Y is worse?

Your question is ambiguous. Formalize it.

I have no idea how to even begin testing whether X supports conclusion Y.

Let's exemplify. In a cohort of 700 million persons, there is revealed to be a strong preference for not having their toilets stolen by bandit plumbers (X). The corollary Y is that there are bandit plumbers who break into houses and steal toilets while their owners sleep. By quantifying the communal dislike of waking up in the morning and having nowhere to crap, we discover the worseness of having toilet bandits prowling our neighbourhoods at night.

Prior to qunatifying this, I guess we just have an intuition that people probably won't approve? Is it a hypothesis awaiting double blind testing that unauthorised toilet extractions are an act of enworsening? I'm not sure your thinking has extended to such matters yet.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 1:59 pm Prior to qunatifying this, I guess we just have an intuition that people probably won't approve? Is it a hypothesis awaiting double blind testing that unauthorised toilet extractions are an act of enworsening? I'm not sure your thinking has extended to such matters yet.

I have no idea dude! You are the one who insists on "objectivity". You are the one who insists that we must prove and measure things.
You are the one who demands rigour/proof.

I am not a moral sceptic. I accept "morality is objective" on intuition. I require no convincing. I don't need science for this.
You are a moral sceptic. You require convincing. You need proof and evidence.

IF you can be convinced (using evidence) that morality is objective, THEN science is the system by which you would obtain the evidence to support or dismiss the hypotheses on the table.

The scientific mechanisms by which you might test the hypotheses are in the links I've provided you.
That mode of thinking is intuitive to me - it's not intuitive to you.

Now you are just evading another question.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 1:43 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 1:36 pm But your own betterness and worseness are derived from objective preference data, yes?

No, they aren't. My own "betterness" and "worseness" data agrees with the preference data of others.

And if the statistical evidence of that data supports a conclusion that betterness is fulfilled by action X, and Y has worseness as an outcome by common assent, then X is better and Y is worse?

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:08 pm And if the statistical evidence of that data supports a conclusion that betterness is fulfilled by action X, and Y has worseness as an outcome by common assent, then X is better and Y is worse?

Your question is ambiguous. Formalize it.

I have no idea how to even begin testing whether X supports conclusion Y; let alone falsifying it.

Can you design an experiment by which this can be empirically determined?

You are using logic in a way that makes NO sense to me.

You think Premise -> Conclusions (Like a Philosopher)
I think Hypothesis -> Falsification (Like a Scientist)

When you have eliminated the impossible hypotheses, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.