PH: What is 'Morality' and 'Objectivity'
Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2023 2:11 am
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Jan 15, 2023 11:58 am 1 What we call objectivity is independence from opinion when considering the facts. Which assumes that there are such things as facts. Objectivity and facts go together like a coach and four.
2 What we call a fact is a feature of reality (sometimes called a state-of-affairs) that is or was the case, independent from opinion.
3 A factual assertion is one that asserts the existence of a feature of reality. So it has a (classical) truth-value which is independent from opinion: true, if the feature of reality is or was the case; and false, if it isn't or wasn't.
4 A moral assertion is one that says something is morally right (good) or wrong (bad/evil), or that we should or shouldn't (ought or oughtn't to) do something because it's morally right (good) or wrong (bad/evil).
5 Moral objectivism is the claim that there are moral facts, so that moral assertions - such as 'abortion is morally wrong', 'capital punishment is not morally wrong', 'we oughtn't to eat animals' and 'humans ought not to kill humans' - have a truth-value (true or false) independent from opinion.
This amounts to the belief that moral rightness and wrongness are things or properties that are or were the case - that exist or existed. And, pending evidence for the existence of abstract or non-physical things, 'exist or existed' means 'exist or existed physically', along with other physical things and properties.
So the burden of proof (demonstration) for the physical existence of moral things or properties is with moral objectivists - and, by implication, moral realists. A burden unmet so far, to my knowledge.
6 PSs.
6.1 To deny the existence of what we call facts, and therefore what we call objectivity, is to deny the existence of moral facts, and therefore moral objectivity. When you eat your cake, it's gone.
6.2 We can use the words right, wrong, good, bad, should and ought to morally and non-morally. For example 'the right direction', 'the wrong decision' and 'you ought not to pour petrol on a fire if you want extinguish it' need have no moral meaning whatsoever. And if the word ought is used non-morally in an assertion, it isn't a moral assertion, and it can't assert a so-called moral fact.
6.3 Non-moral premises can't entail moral conclusions, because a deductive conclusion can't contain information not present in the premise or premises of an argument. So a moral conclusion stands alone, unless it follows from a moral premise, which also stands alone, and so on.