Philosophy Now Forum

• An "error theory of ethics" is the view that the ordinary user of moral language is typically making claims that involve a mistake. The concepts of ethics introduce a mistaken, erroneous, way of thinking of the world or of conducting practical reasoning. The theory was most influentially proposed by John L. Mackie in his book Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977). Mackie believed that ordinary moral claims presuppose that there are objective moral values, but there are no such things. Hence, the practice of morality is founded upon a metaphysical error.
  https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities ... ory-ethics

Chapter 1.5 Standards of Evaluation
One way of stating the thesis that there are no Objective values is to say that value statements cannot be either true or false.
But this formulation, too lends itself to misinterpretation.
For there are certain kinds of value statements which undoubtedly can be true or false, even if, in the sense I intend, there are no Objective values.
Evaluations of many sorts are commonly made in relation to agreed and assumed standards.

The classing of wool, the grading of apples, the awarding of prizes at sheepdog trials, flower shows, skating and diving championships, and even the marking of examination papers
are carried out in relation to standards of quality or merit which are peculiar to each particular subject-matter of type of contest,
which may be explicitly laid down but which,
even if they are nowhere explicitly stated,
are fairly well understood and agreed by those who are recognized as judges or experts in each particular field.

Given any sufficiently determinate standards, it will be an Objective issue, a matter of truth and falsehood, how well any particular specimen measures up to those standards.

Comparative judgements in particular will be capable of truth and falsehood: it will be a factual question whether this sheepdog has performed better than that one.

The Subjectivist about values, then, is not denying that there can be Objective evaluations relative to standards, and these are as possible in the aesthetic and Moral fields as in any of those just mentioned.

More than this, there is an Objective distinction which applies in many such fields, and yet would itself be regarded as a peculiarly Moral one: the distinction between justice and injustice.
In one important sense of the word it is a paradigm case of injustice if a court declares someone to be guilty of an offence of which it knows him to be innocent.
More generally, a finding is unjust if it is at variance with what the relevant law and the facts together require, and particularly if ’d is known by the court to be so.

More generally still, any award of marks, prizes, or the like is unjust if it is at variance with the agreed standards for the contest in question: if one diver's performance in fact measures up better to the accepted standards for diving than another's, it will be unjust if the latter is awarded higher marks or the prize.

In this way the justice or injustice of decisions relative to standards can be a thoroughly Objective matter, though there may still be a subjective element in the interpretation or application of standards.

But the statement that a certain decision is thus just or unjust will not be Objectively prescriptive: in so far as it can be simply true it leaves open the question whether there is any Objective requirement to do what is just and to refrain from what is unjust, and equally leaves open the practical decision to act in either way.
Recognizing the Objectivity of justice in relation to standards, and of evaluative judgements relative to standards, then, merely shift the question of the Objectivity of values back to the standards themselves.

The Subjectivist may try to make his point by insisting that there is no objective validity about the choice of standards.
Yet he [subjectivist] would clearly be wrong if he said that the choice of even the most basic standards in any field was completely arbitrary.
The standards used in sheepdog trials clearly bear some relation to the work that sheepdogs are kept to do, the standards for grading apples bear some relation to what people generally want in or like about apples, and so on.
On the other hand, standards are not as a rule strictly validated by such purposes.
The appropriateness of standards is neither fully determinate nor totally indeterminate in relation to independently specifiable aims or desires.

But however determinate it is, the Objective appropriateness of standards in relation to aims or desires is no more of a threat to the denial of Objective values than is the Objectivity of evaluation relative to standards.
In fact it is logically no different from the Objectivity of goodness relative to desires.
Something may be called good simply in so far as it satisfies or is such as to satisfy a certain desire:
but the Objectivity of such relations of satisfaction does not constitute in our sense an Objective value.

Of course if there were Objective values they would presumably belong to kinds of things or actions or states of affairs, so that the judgements that reported them would be universalizable; but the converse does not hold. 1.4

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:16 amThis is typical of the claim of what is mind-independent fact and objective reality by PH and his analytic gang.
To PH & gang, what is an objective fact is that feature of reality, that is just is, being so, that is the case, states of affairs, existing as absolutely mind-independent; that is to the extent, the moon pre-existed humans and will continue to exists after humans are extinct.
As such Mackie is a philosophical realist.

Despite the above, Mackie do acknowledge there are aesthetic and moral facts which are relative to certain standards; however he had set them aside for the purpose of his book.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 11:55 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:16 amThis is typical of the claim of what is mind-independent fact and objective reality by PH and his analytic gang.
To PH & gang, what is an objective fact is that feature of reality, that is just is, being so, that is the case, states of affairs, existing as absolutely mind-independent; that is to the extent, the moon pre-existed humans and will continue to exists after humans are extinct.
As such Mackie is a philosophical realist.

Despite the above, Mackie do acknowledge there are aesthetic and moral facts which are relative to certain standards; however he had set them aside for the purpose of his book.

1) those instances, like dog shows, have accepted apriori criteria. You could have a dog show where the criteria are based on which dogs are the most individualistic and do not listen to their owners. Or which dogs avoid the most hurdles. Or which dogs are the most ugly-seeming to humans.
Of course one can do objective deduction, for example, if one grants, in the realm of morals, certain moral propositions to be agree on. That doesn't make the process objective. It just means that you can potentially draw conclusions once everyone agrees to accept certain moral or aesthetic premises.

• The classing of wool, the grading of apples, the awarding of prizes at sheepdog trials, flower shows, skating and diving championships, and even the marking of examination papers .....

• Chen Yuxi and Quan Hongchan capped a Chinese one-two in the women's 10m platform at the World Aquatics Championships 2023
  https://olympics.com/en/news/world-aqua ... rm-results

But humans don't do this. They have all sorts of disagreements about moral premises and moral priorities and consequential priorities. They even have disagreements about what morality should be doing. Should it be ruling out some acts (deontology)? Should it focus on the greatest good for all (utilitarianism/consequentialism)? Should it focus on character/attitude (virtue ethics and even you sometimes)?

Humans don't agree on moral premises. Humans don't agree on priorities. Humans don't agree at the meta-ethical level.

You enter you dog in a dog show, well, you've agreed to the aesthetic premises of that show. Then we can have consistancy, with variation, in judgments. That's not the way the world is.

Some dog contest with different base axioms....
https://www.thestranger.com/columns/202 ... et-contest
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s ... og_Contest
https://www.bringfido.com/event/11915
https://www.bringfido.com/event/34712

2) the 'PH and gang' label make you look like a bitter teenager. And it's a convenient for you to couch the people who disagree with you as a gang. Rather than people with a variety of opinions who all notice serious problems in your reasoning. Just imagine for a second that we are not a gang, metaphorically or otherwise, but people who despite having a variety of positions see similar problems in your posts.

Or keep framing it this way and learn less or nothing. Up to you, obviouslyl

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:16 am ...

In common usage, evaluation is a systematic determination and assessment of a subject's merit, worth and significance, using criteria governed by a set of standards.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 5:38 am Don't be childish and condescending which expose your ignorance. There are always various meanings to a word, in this case,

gang = (of a number of people) form a group or gang [google dictionary].

noun
1.
an organized group of criminals.
"a gang of bank robbers"
2.
a set of switches, sockets, or other electrical or mechanical devices grouped together.
"the machine had a gang of cutter chains on a swivelling head"
verb
1.
(of a number of people) form a group or gang.
"three banks ganged together to form a ‘virtual bank’"
2.
arrange (electrical devices or machines) together to work in coordination.
"adjacent faders can be ganged for common manipulation"

'Gang' is very appropriate in this where a group of philosophical gnats ganged-up to spew condemnations, counters based on ignorance, nonsense, etc. to my Kantian-based views.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 7:08 am I'll ignore you for a while. Unfortunately I see your responses to others and I found it hard to resist responding. I'll try to do better. You're delightfully impervious in any case.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 9:12 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 8:59 am The usual handwaving "I and others" ad populum fallacy, which display cowardice.
Surely when you have 100 Flat Earthers agreeing that the Earth is flat against 1 non-Flat-Earther, it does not mean the majority claim is true?

Refuted countless times??
Show where have you refuted the above links?

and the following;
PH: The Fact of the Matter; or Delusion
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39577
PH's What is Fact is Illusory
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39577

If you are so confident you have refuted my main arguments, show them.

So you are aware with Mackie's acknowledgement of aesthetic facts as conditioned within certain agreed standards albeit not agreeing with them?
If so, you are lying because you claimed to be very blur when I mentioned such and similar concepts.

Demonstrable consistency with criteria doesn't confer objectivity on value-judgements. So Mackie was wrong on this issue - in my opinion.

Now, I don't think you understand my first sentence above. But if you do, by all means present your rebuttal.

PS. Anticipating your failure to do that, I expect you won't understand the implication of what I'm saying for your 'theory' of moral objectivism. But here it is anyway.

1. The premises of your invented 'morality fsk' are criteria.
2. If those criteria are factual, then they have no moral entailment.
3. But if they're moral, then consistency with those criteria doesn't mean the conclusions are factual.
4. All you've done is argue from moral premises to moral conclusions.

So your 'theory' or 'model' is incoherent.

PPS. And perhaps needless to say, the same argument applies with aesthetic judgements, which is why the claim that there are aesthetic facts is false. There are only aesthetic judgements which are more or less consistent with aesthetic criteria.

• The classing of wool, the grading of apples, the awarding of prizes at sheepdog trials, flower shows, skating and diving championships, and even the marking of examination papers .....

• Chen Yuxi and Quan Hongchan capped a Chinese one-two in the women's 10m platform at the World Aquatics Championships 2023
  https://olympics.com/en/news/world-aqua ... rm-results

His most widely known work, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, bluntly begins with the sentence "There are no objective values".[7]

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 5:38 am Where did Mackie mentioned 'dog shows'?

The classing of wool, the grading of apples, the awarding of prizes at sheepdog trials,

He stated,

• The classing of wool, the grading of apples, the awarding of prizes at sheepdog trials, flower shows, skating and diving championships, and even the marking of examination papers .....

Mackie point is one can have aesthetic facts as long as there is a STANDARD to be conditioned upon.
From his examples one can infer he is referring to "STANDARD" within a FSR-FSK to can be applied to anything.

I have always asserted,
What is real, fact, truth, knowledge, objectivity, is conditioned upon a human-based FSR-FSK of which the scientific FSK is the most credible, reliable and objective.

But humans don't do this. They have all sorts of disagreements about moral premises and moral priorities and consequential priorities. They even have disagreements about what morality should be doing. Should it be ruling out some acts (deontology)? Should it focus on the greatest good for all (utilitarianism/consequentialism)? Should it focus on character/attitude (virtue ethics and even you sometimes)?

Humans don't agree on moral premises. Humans don't agree on priorities. Humans don't agree at the meta-ethical level.

Regardless of whatever moral disagreement;
The universal principle is;
What is real, fact, truth, knowledge, objectivity, is conditioned upon a human-based FSR-FSK of which the scientific FSK is the most credible, reliable and objective.

Regardless of whether is it a dog show, diving competition, beauty contest, various field of knowledge, or sciences,
The universal principle is;
What is real, fact, truth, knowledge, objectivity, is conditioned upon a human-based FSR-FSK of which the scientific FSK is the most credible, reliable and objective.

Don't be childish and condescending which expose your ignorance. There are always various meanings to a word, in this case,

gang = (of a number of people) form a group or gang [google dictionary].

'Gang' is very appropriate in this where a group of philosophical gnats ganged-up to spew condemnations, counters based on ignorance, nonsense, etc. to my Kantian-based views.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 6:07 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 5:38 am Where did Mackie mentioned 'dog shows'?

One of your problems is that you don't actually read the things you link and quote.

The classing of wool, the grading of apples, the awarding of prizes at sheepdog trials,

and that's even when you requote them...

He stated,

• The classing of wool, the grading of apples, the awarding of prizes at sheepdog trials, flower shows, skating and diving championships, and even the marking of examination papers .....

Mackie point is one can have aesthetic facts as long as there is a STANDARD to be conditioned upon.
From his examples one can infer he is referring to "STANDARD" within a FSR-FSK to can be applied to anything.

Exactly. When there is a standard or axiom. You're following my argument without seeming to notice it. In sheepdog trails humans value certain types of behaviors. These are not objectively moral behaviors, they are just behaviors that humans decide they will judge the dogs on. Once there are axioms in place, yes, judgments can be made. How many sheep did the sheepdog manage to corrall in the given time or whatever?

I have always asserted,
What is real, fact, truth, knowledge, objectivity, is conditioned upon a human-based FSR-FSK of which the scientific FSK is the most credible, reliable and objective.

And has been pointed out again and again. No scientific FSK provides a moral standard. As you know on the mirror neuron issue which could just as well focused on neurons responsible for aggression. The moral judgment was brought in by you when choosing which neural patterns you preferred. The science provides NO GUIDE. And in fact if we take the science as objective it would support only that we keep empathy and aggression in their current ratios.

Again and again in your arguments you talk about THE moral FSK. That is lying. Especially now that it has been pointed out a number of times. There are many moral FSKs.

The science does not tell us which one is right.
The moral FSKs do not tell us which one is right since they disagree with eachtother.

And in fact if we take the science as objective it would support only that we keep empathy and aggression in their current ratios.

REmember: from now on whenever you write 'the moral FSK' you are being disingenous.

But humans don't do this. They have all sorts of disagreements about moral premises and moral priorities and consequential priorities. They even have disagreements about what morality should be doing. Should it be ruling out some acts (deontology)? Should it focus on the greatest good for all (utilitarianism/consequentialism)? Should it focus on character/attitude (virtue ethics and even you sometimes)?

Humans don't agree on moral premises. Humans don't agree on priorities. Humans don't agree at the meta-ethical level.

Regardless of whatever moral disagreement;
The universal principle is;
What is real, fact, truth, knowledge, objectivity, is conditioned upon a human-based FSR-FSK of which the scientific FSK is the most credible, reliable and objective.

I was obviously talking about moral FSKs (note:plural) and you jump to the scientific.
Disingenuous

Regardless of whether is it a dog show, diving competition, beauty contest, various field of knowledge, or sciences,
The universal principle is;
What is real, fact, truth, knowledge, objectivity, is conditioned upon a human-based FSR-FSK of which the scientific FSK is the most credible, reliable and objective.

Nope, it depends on what that particular group values, even if it is the opposite of another group. Different dog show criteria is analagous to different moral FSKs.

Don't be childish and condescending which expose your ignorance. There are always various meanings to a word, in this case,

gang = (of a number of people) form a group or gang [google dictionary].

'Gang' is very appropriate in this where a group of philosophical gnats ganged-up to spew condemnations, counters based on ignorance, nonsense, etc. to my Kantian-based views.

I suppose we could all have privately PMed you so it didn't FEEL like gangning up on you. What you have is a conspiracy theory. They are all a gang. So I don't have to take their criticisms seriously. We don't even hold the same worldviews.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 9:43 am It is so often that these philosophy-gnats will insist, "I and others" "everyone here" and the like [this is obviously gang-like] in relying on an ad populum fallacy and reinforcing their ignorance. I don't give a damn as I am very confident of my philosophical views.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 1:47 pm JL Mackie

His most widely known work, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, bluntly begins with the sentence "There are no objective values".[7]