Another discussion of objective morality has broken out, so I thought I would provide a home for it.
579 thoughts on “objective morality, for the umpteenth time”
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The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
I would expect the thread to continue to be about thermodynamics. if the principles did not see the connection I was making they could just ignore it.
If a thread is about thermodynamics and your opening remark is about your cat or the New England patriots do you expect all other discussion to stop and to have to discuss feline biology or NFL officiating for the next week?
peace
fifth,
If you don’t have the discipline to shut up about God, don’t be surprised when skeptics pick your claims and arguments apart. (And yes, you make both claims and arguments continually.)
I actually feel kind of sorry for you. You supposedly have God on your side, revealing things to you, but you fail again and again in your defense of Christianity. You claim the power of Jesus, but even with that supposed power behind you, you are too weak to counter the arguments of an opponent of yours, so you put him on Ignore (or pretend to.)
Your faith is weak. You don’t trust Jesus to help you, and for good reason: he doesn’t. (Not surprising, when you consider that he’s been dead for almost 2000 years.)
I don’t worry about the Humean is/ought “problem”.
For one thing, there are actually two different problems. But I don’t worry too much about either of them.
The first problem is Hume’s problem. Hume says that one cannot “demonstrate” any statement of ought from any matter of fact. But what does “demonstrate” mean in Hume’s 17th-century context? It meant to prove in deductively valid logic. A geometric proof was a ‘demonstration’. All that Hume is saying here is that there is no deductive, valid argument that has only factual claims in the premises and a statement of ought in the conclusion. And that’s perfectly true. But since I’m not talking about deductively valid arguments, Hume’s point is not germane.
The second problem is Moore’s problem. G. E. Moore poses the question, for any claim “_____ is good”, for any naturalistic property “_______”, we can always pose the follow-up question, “what makes ____ good?” This has become known as the open-question argument. But this too is no real threat to naturalizing morality, because it turns on much deeper problems about what it is to give an analysis of a concept. Insofar as no concepts with any empirical application have necessary and sufficient conditions (which is a lesson we can learn from Wittgenstein and Austin), the open-question argument also dissolves.
In short, both versions of “the naturalistic fallacy” — Hume’s and Moore’s — simply fail.
And that means that the way is perfectly clear for something like a heavily revised, post-Darwinian neo-Aristotelianism, on which we can attach predicates of good and bad to conditions that promote or inhibit our flourishing as the kind of weird little primates that evolution has made of us.
KN,
You should, because it very much applies to your claims regarding objective morality. You need to get from “facts about human nature” — an “is” — to what is objectively right and wrong — an “ought”.
I’ve seen you try it often enough to know that you can’t. You’re welcome to prove me wrong, of course, by supplying an argument that succeeds where your previous attempts have failed. Those earlier attempts, as I mentioned above, foundered on a couple of issues: 1) the human-centeredness of your criterion, which neglects the moral importance of non-human animals; and more importantly, 2) the fact that your choice of human flourishing as a moral criterion is itself hopelessly subjective.
You simply have no way of showing that your claim is objectively correct, while (say) fifth’s is not.
Like Melania’s claim about plaids and stripes, your claim purports to be objective, but it isn’t.
To put it differently:
Any attempt at establishing an objective morality will at some point have to bridge the is/ought gap, and the only way to do so is by assuming an ultimate criterion by which one objective state of affairs can be regarded as morally superior to another.
Such an ultimate criterion will inevitably be subjective.
For fifth, that criterion is “whatever God regards as moral is objectively moral, and whatever he regards as immoral is objectively immoral.”
For walto (in his earlier argument), it was “objective morality is determined by whatever best satisfies the aggregating function over the desires of all sentient beings”.
For you it is “objective morality is determined by whatever best promotes human flourishing as I have defined it”.
All three are hopelessly subjective, and none can be defended over the others without either simply asserting it or supporting it via equally subjective assumptions.
KN,
Even if that were true — and it’s highly questionable — it wouldn’t get you off the hook.
You still need to supply a positive argument for how you can bridge the is/ought gap, arriving at your desired system of objective morality without relying on a subjectively chosen ultimate criterion.
What would an objectively chosen ultimate criterion be?
walto,
I can’t think of any, and I’ve never seen anyone come up with one. That’s precisely why I think that objective morality doesn’t exist.
keiths,
What’s an objectively chosen ultimate criterion for determining length?
walto,
The standard methods are objectively chosen, having been shown to work. They accurately measure length, which is a genuine feature of objects in the world. Other methods — for example, assuming that green objects are longer than red objects — don’t work.
Why isn’t “having been shown to work” a subjective measure? Isn’t “having been shown to reduce aggregate violence and pain” a kind of “working” that you consider subjective?
ETA: changed an “or” to an “and”
I feel that I observed you describing the experience as such. Would you describe divine revelation as an observation as well? Then I guess the question becomes “Can an omnipotent God cause you to observe He can reveal stuff so you can observe it so you can know it?”
To me saying I observe you exist it is based on my observation, my observation preceeds my knowledge. For you the knowledge of God’s existence preceeds the observation.Else you are making an argument about how you know God exists.
Yes, because of the observation, for you knowledge of the existence of God is not based on observation.
Sorry Fifth ,I am asserting you exist or I am mistaken based on the observation .
You know God exists without observation, observation could confirm your knowledge but that also treads closely to argument for His existence.
Exactly
peace
I’m going to take that as “No, I cannot identify an objectively chosen ultimate criterion for determining length.”
I am going to say it is objectively ,ultimately true keiths will disagree.
newton,
I don’t think there is anything “ultimate” about keiths. But, apart from that, I agree with your assessment.
I wonder if, when Lizzie created this place, she had any idea just how unpleasant it would be to converse with many of the participants. For some people being “skeptical” apparently means being as prickish as they can figure out how to be.
walto,
Perhaps that’s why Lizzie seems reluctant to visit us.
A suggestion from a now lurker:
I accept that you have (or at least think you have ) observed God. Fine…whatever. However, it’s quite clear that few, if any other, participants on this board have observed God as you have. I would argue that there’s no reason to doubt that most of the folks here have not observed God at all, but that’s just being reasonable. So, I would suggest you stop treating each and every discussion point as though it comes from the same perspective on this God as you have, since clearly…logically… that’s not possible. It simply comes across as insulting, and that of course leads to these long, drawn-out discussions on your inability to actually support your position on God (which you claim not to be doing, while doing it for days, which is really amusing to me after lurking here again for the last few weeks now.)
As it stands, it seems to me that if you really want what you claim – to have a discussion that does not involve the question of the existence of God – you are going about it backwards. You are baiting people with insults about their understanding (or lack there of) of this God of yours. That strikes me as the definition of insanity. I can’t quite imagine why you do it, unless you are not being honest with yourself about what you really want to discuss.
My guess would be, one independent of observation or feeling.
Here’s the problem I have with the concept of objective morality: there’s no consistent, repeatable, and predictable consequence or entailment of any behavior. Period. Objectivity is not derived by agreement, regression to a mean, or even mechanical explanation, but by an absolute and unquestionable consistent consequence. That’s at least how I define “objective”. As such, morality, by definition, cannot be considered objective.
walto:
…says the guy who, in this very thread, resorted to fulminations and false accusations (of quote mining and equivocation) when his errors were pointed out to him.
Robin,
So when someone says ‘plaid is evil”–is that a false objective claim? A true subjective claim? Neither? Both?
keiths:
Neil:
Silly Neil. As if there weren’t standard methods for determining length.
As Andy Tanenbaum once said: “The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from.”
Which one of those many standards is it that you are claiming to be “the objectively chosen ultimate criterion for determining length.”
Did Neil say there were no standard measures for determining length? I don’t remember that.
Oopsy.
Nijna’d
No, it’s merely a subjective claim. My opinion is that it also happens to be false, but I doubt there’s anyway to establish that one way or the other.
The issue, at least to me, is not about the plaid, but about the assessment of its evilness. The assessment cannot be objective simply because there is no repeatable, predictable, and consistent evil entailment of doing anything with plaid. How is this “evilness”, then, being assessed? Clearly my experience with plaid is not the same as someone who is claiming it’s evil.
Unless the entailments of the plaid’s evilness is exactly the same for everyone, I don’t see how anyone can argue it must be objective.
Sure it depends on which subjective units one chooses to base the standard on.
ETA double ninja
To me, the source of a standard is irrelevant to it’s objectivity. Objectivity (again, to me) is only about consistency, repeatability, and predictability. If someone comes up with some arbitrary unit of length called a quanlor and other people start using it, then the quanlor is an objective standard so long as – and here’s the kicker – the quanlor itself does not vary. The key to objectivity is merely that everyone’s experience and expectation given whatever the objective condition is, is the same. It’s repeatable, predictable, and consistent. So, all houses built on the quanlor standard will all have consistent lengths based on that standard. Everyone and anyone who measures a given side of a quanlor house will all come up with the same exact number of quanlor units each and every time. If I give some manufacturer the plans for my quanlor house and ask him to make drywall or windows or tile using quanlor specifications, guess what? It will all fit perfectly no matter who installs it because…wait for it…it is an objective standard that has consistent, repeatable, and predictable entailments for everyone, everywhere, at all times.
walto,
Because the methods successfully determine length — an objective feature of objects in the world.
No, not if those terms are defined in an objectively measurable way.
This just gets us back to the point I was making in the discussion of “human flourishing” as a potential basis for objective morality. Once you’ve defined “human flourishing” sufficiently precisely, you can make objective judgments about which actions do, and don’t, promote human flourishing. That doesn’t magically make the morality objective, however, because the choice of the criterion is itself subjective.
In order to bridge the is/ought gap, KN deployed the assumption “Whatever promotes human flourishing is objectively moral”. With the new criterion you suggested above, it becomes “Whatever reduces aggregate violence and pain, defined thus, is objectively moral.” Those are hopelessly subjective. In fact, you could just as easily make the opposite assumptions: That whatever promotes human flourishing is objectively evil, or that whatever increases “aggregate violence and pain” is objectively moral.
They’re all subjective, so any morality based on them is also subjective.
Having chosen a subjective criterion, you can then apply it objectively, given sufficiently precise definitions, but that doesn’t change the fact that the morality as a whole is subjective.
Hmmm…to me a “unit” of measure can never be subjective – by definition. It can be “arbitrary”, but that’s different.
newton:
The units are interchangeable, newton. No one thinks that the actual size of an object changes when you convert its dimensions from inches to centimeters.
Clearly coming into this discussion late, so forgive me if this has been trodden already, but how is anyone – KN in the example above – determining that a given condition is a moral issue or example as opposed to some other category?
Shaking hands correlates strongly with increased viral infection rates. Is shaking hands therefore a moral issue? Or a health or societal or social issue? What factor(s) makes something a moral condition?
If I steal a loaf of bread, am I being immoral? If I use it to feed a starving person, has the morality evaluation changed? If so, where can I examine the universal standard that was used to make the evaluation?
ETA: Just to avoid confusion, the following is a general statement, not a reply to Robin’s comment above.
Again, it all comes down to the is/ought gap. Anyone who wants to establish the existence of objective morality needs to a) come up with a criterion for bridging the gap, which is the easy part, and b) defend that criterion as the objective criterion, which is the hard (and I would say impossible) part.
Question-beg 102. (I wonder how high a number we can get to in this thread!)
That’s what NASA thought on one of the Mars landers. It depends on who does the conversion.
Robin,
It depends on the moral criterion. In KN’s case, the number of things that can affect “human flourishing” is huge, so his morality cuts a wide swath. For someone whose morality is dictated by stated rules, the swath might be narrower.
For KN, yes. Human flourishing is intimately tied up with public health. It’s also tied up with social cohesion, however, so it’s unclear whether he would come down pro or con on the issue of shaking hands. That’s why I keep stressing that a sufficienctly precise definition of “human flourishing” would be required.
Again, it depends on the criterion.
It’s in KN’s head, and it isn’t universal. That’s the problem — it isn’t objective.
You see, I’d say it’s subjective only if it’s correctly translatable into something like ‘I hate plaid’. And then it might well be true. OTOH, if I ask, ‘Do you just mean you hate it?’ And the response is ‘no–i really mean it’s evil, and that it’s immoral for anyone to wear it,’ then I’d say it’s an objective claim, but pretty clearly a false one. You see?
Your views about what it would take to show that it’s true are a separate matter. If it’s a subjective claim, the asserter could know right away and pretty easily whether or not it’s true.
Isn’t there a famous question, “What is the length of the coastline of Scotland?”
Found it, more or less:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Long_Is_the_Coast_of_Britain%3F_Statistical_Self-Similarity_and_Fractional_Dimension
I have no idea what that means. Something has to be ‘universal’ to be objective?
walto,
See if you can come up with a criterion that meets the requirements:
And if you can’t come up with one yourself, what makes you think that such a criterion exists?
walto:
How did you determine that it’s false?
I’m okay with that. Sometimes keiths seems to be requiring more.
If that is what we mean by “objectivity”, then where does “ultimate” come in?
Overall, I agree with you on this Keith.
My questions go out to anyone else on the thread. Does anyone disagree that “it depends on the criterion” is valid? If so, what is the basis of the criterion standard.
keiths:
walto:
It’s pretty easy. Just look at the comment I was responding to:
Robin:
walto:
Yes, in the sense that truth is truth. It doesn’t vary from person to person.
That doesn’t mean that in an objective moral system, the rules that apply to one person must necessarily apply to another. Morality needn’t be universal in that sense. Take the caste system, for instance.
As indicated, I’d prefer not to get into the epistemological aspects again here. Anyhow, maybe I’m wrong! If so, that again suggests it’s something that’s not a subjective take on my part–or I’m not sure how I could be wrong.
I don’t know why it’s so important to you to insist such claims are not objective, when you’re told repeatedly that even if someone prefers to call them that (as I do) it doesn’t mean that a single person in the world has an iota of evidence for a single one of them. Just take it as a linguistic preference of mine and go with it. People should be able to use terms as they please so long as they are clear, don’t cheat etc. What are you worried about exactly?
keiths:
petrushka:
That actually makes my point for me. The distances didn’t change in reality, which is why we can say that the conversion was done incorrectly.
Truth is truth, but many of them are not universally agreed to. Insisting that no moral claim can be objective because none is universally agreed to (supposing that’s true) is
therefore question-begging.
So what? I can convert items in the Mass legal code tostuff in the French code. Who cares?
walto:
keiths:
walto:
Why not? You said it was “pretty clearly a false one.” If it’s clear, then share with us how you made the determination.
walto,
I didn’t make that claim.