Since objective morality is The Topic That Won’t Die here at TSZ, I think we need Yet Another Thread to Discuss It.
A Sam Harris quote to get things rolling (h/t walto):
There are two mistakes I see moral subjectivists making. The first mistake is believing in the fact-value dichotomy. The second mistake is conflating moral philosophy and psychology, suggesting that our psychology ought to be the sole determinant of our beliefs.
I’ll only address the fact-value dichotomy mistake here. Subjectivists typically exaggerate the gap between facts and values. While there is a useful distinction to be made between facts and values, it’s usually taken too far.
Let me explain. Facts in science are held in high epistemic regard by non-religious people, including me. But scientific facts are theory-laden. And theory choice in science is value-laden. What values inform choices of scientific theory? Verifiability, falsifiability, explanatory value, predictive value, consistency (logical, observational, mathematical), parsimony, and elegance. Do these values, each taken alone, necessarily make or prove a scientific theory choice correct? No. But collectively, they increase the probability that a theory is the most correct or useful. So, as the philosopher Hilary Putnam has put it, facts and values are “entangled.” Scientific facts obtain their veracity through the epistemic values listed above. If I reject those epistemic values (as many religious people do), and claim instead that a holy book holds more epistemic value for me, does that mean science is subjective?
I maintain the same is true of morality. Moral facts, such as “X is right or good,” are at least value-laden, and sometimes also theory-laden, just like scientific facts. What values inform choices of moral belief and action? Justice, fairness, empathy, flourishing of conscious creatures, and integrity (i.e. consistency of attitudes, beliefs, and behavior between each other and over time). Do these values, each taken alone, necessarily make or prove a moral choice correct? No. But collectively, they increase the probability that a moral choice is the most correct or useful. So again, as the philosopher Hilary Putnam has put it, facts and values are “entangled.” Moral facts obtain their veracity through the values listed above (and maybe through other values as well; the list above is not necessarily complete).
Now, the subjectivist can claim that the moral values are subjective themselves, but that is no different than the religious person claiming scientific values are subjective. The truth is that we have no foundation for any knowledge whatsoever, scientific or moral. All we have to support scientific or moral knowledge is a web of entangled facts and values, with values in science and morality being at the core of our web. Our values are also the least changeable, for if we modify them, we cause the most disruption to our entire web. It’s much easier to modify the factual periphery of our web.
If we reject objectivity in morality, we must give up objectivity in science as well, and claim that all knowledge is subjective, since all knowledge is ultimately based in values. I reject this view, and claim that the scientific and moral values listed above provide veracity to the scientific and moral claims I make. Religious people disagree with me on the scientific values providing veracity, and moral subjectivists disagree with me on the moral values providing veracity. But disagreement doesn’t mean there is no truth to the matter.
Interesting. But why couldn’t a subjectivist live consistently by refraining from pushing their view on others?
I won’t repeat the explanation, because there’s obviously no point, but the above remarks are completely confused.
Because deep down there are no subjectivists. Their stated beliefs conflict with their innate sense of objective morality.
Again The Apostle Paul would call this Sisyphean enterprise “suppressing the truth” It takes effort and it requires a lack of self reflection.
Keith’s might loudly claim that there is no objective evil but he will spend hours on the internet trying to convince others that they “ought” to agree with him.
he can’t help it.
peace
keiths:
walto:
Of course not. I don’t think objective morality exists, remember?
However, you think it exists, and you did argue that it is derivable from actual states of affairs.
Have you forgotten?
It’s that sort of totally un-grounded and unsupported knowledge claim that I’m talking about.
😉
peace
Because he and people like him perpetuate their indoctrination and vote based on it.
This is yet another of those times where it would be much more polite and far less arrogant to preface what you wrote with “I believe . . . “. As it stands you’re making a claim that you have no hope of supporting.
They’re grounded, and I’ve indicated the support for them to you perhaps 50 times on this board. That you can’t understand is not really my problem.
Yeah, if I’ve ever claimed that moral statements are “derivable from actual states of affairs,” I’ve forgotten. That’s certainly not what I mean by “objective.” Probably nobody but you means anything like that.
So, if morality is subjective why should you care what people like me do?
There is certainly nothing objectively wrong with us perpetuating our indoctrination and voting based on it.
Correct?
peace
“Yet another” deja vu all over again.
fifth,
First, I don’t claim that people are evil merely for disagreeing with me.
Second, when I do argue that someone has made a mistake and ought to correct it, I am relying on the presumption that they want to be rational.
If you tell me instead that your ultimate goal is to be irrational, then all I can say is “You’re doing great, fifth. Keep it up!”
In other words, there’s an implicit “if” involved. If you want to be rational, then you shouldn’t use bogus reasoning. If you want to be irrational, then help yourself.
fifth, to Patrick:
That’s as goofy as saying “If beauty is subjective, why should you care if the neighbors build a cinder-block tower that blocks your view of the valley?”
Interesting
I would vehemently disagree.
So we have two folks with different ideas as to basic facts of the situation.
What do we do now? We have to find a way to coexist that does not involve either of us simply acquiescing to a narrative that we feel is false.
I would say that you and I have more in common philosophically than any other two participants on this forum it would be a shame to constantly knock heads over this one issue.
Besides that you are just a genuinely nice guy and I can be pleasant as well
The only way forward that I can see is that from time to time I ask you how you know stuff and you can continue to dodge and ignore the question when it comes up.
no harm no foul
peace
Because it affects me and those I care about.
There’s nothing objectively right about it either. Government policies based on religious beliefs are an objective threat, though. Unlike objective morality or gods, there is good evidence they exist and harm people.
fifth, to walto:
That’s a low blow, fifth.
If you care about my cinder-block tower you should have bought my property so you could do with it as you please.
If you are saying that your own subjective aesthetic opinions should trump everyone else. Then we have a very different problem
peace
1) Why should I care what you care about?
2) If are you saying that everyone’s beliefs and actions are interrelated and therefore no man in an island. I would say I agree and welcome to the world of objective morality
peace
Just try and get your head around that little bit of cognitive dissonance.
😉
peace
Way to miss the point, fifth. Simple though this concept is, I don’t think you’ll ever get it.
Why not?
It might be wrong in your own personal subjective opinion but that should not have any bearing on the way others choose to do things. Right?
That is unless you are claiming that your opinion has more intrinsic worth than everyone else.
peace
This topic seems to be beyond your capabilities, fifth.
yeah,
it’s sometimes an effective truth suppression strategy to pretend that the reason you are having difficulty is because your opponent just doesn’t understand you.
peace
fifth,
Another effective truth suppression strategy is to pretend that your opponent is afraid of your knock-down arguments, when in fact he’s just bored and weary of your inability to grasp the simplest of concepts.
I’m ok with that except for the term “dodge.” It’s not like we haven’t discussed this stuff.
BTW, you’re doing a nice job on the “moral subjectivists” here–whatever they happen to mean by that today. If they’d just stop a minute and settle on sensible definitions of their terms, I believe you’d have a stalemate, because, IMHO, it’s really not possible to definitively “win” issues of this kind. But instead, they just rush around like ninnies not knowing or particularly caring what they are talking about, as long as they believe they have a basis for ridiculing somebody. They remind me of the Hemingway character in the Woody Allen movie, Midnight in Paris: “Who wants to fight me?!”
And that’s bad because…..?
walto,
It was in this thread.
You proposed an “aggregating function” across the desires of all sentient beings, with objective morality being determined by how well those aggregated desires were satisfied. You also acknowledged the causal closure of the physical.
Further, you stated that a “sea change” in the desires of sentient beings would result in a corresponding change in what was objectively moral.
In other words, your position was that objective morality was derivable from a state of affairs, and that when that state of affairs changed, so would objective morality.
Some questions:
1. How did you manage to stumble into a position that you now regard as weird, ridiculous, and on the fringe?
2. How did you manage to forget that you had taken that position?
3. What happened that caused you to completely reverse yourself?
Unlike libertarians.
FWIW, I do think that that some values are a function of mental states–those involving well-being in particular. I don’t have that position with respect to moral values. I think they are in some sense created by sentient beings, but I don’t think they can be derivable in the same manner as prudential values. For one thing, moral values seem to me to have to be a matter of what it would be (morally) good to occur. So it’s a contradiction in terms to call them “actual states of affairs”: they’re certainly not that.
The answer to your three questions is that you’re playing the keithsian game of misrepresentation here. Because, well, that’s what you like to do. I doubt you’re fooling anybody, BWTHDIK? As I said, Moore (Ross too) took the position that moral propositions are just a weird form of “IS” propositions containing terms for “non-natural” properties. That’s never been my view, though. If you think anybody who doesn’t have the Moorean picture is a subjectivist, you’re either completely wrong or you are using “subjective” in a very weird way. (I don’t believe you’ve answered my question about Kant, incidentally.)
In any case, Erik and I have both said we aren’t objectivists as you use the term. Dunno about Fifth, but he probably isn’t either. That’s good, no?
For the moral subjectivist It’s like this.
I’m definitely not an objectivist in the way they seem to be describing. I know of no one who is
peace
I don’t think I do either. But I seem to have already gotten Murray’s view wrong, so I probably shouldn’t speculate.
I never said you should. I do, though (by definition).
That’s almost perfectly nonsensical.
I remember you saying that objective morality comes from a god. Are you now saying it comes from a group of people? What’s your operational definition?
Another term you evidently don’t understand. You at least spelled it correctly.
You cut out the context that showed why the harm is objective. I am not impressed with the ethics your religion causes you to express.
lol
Do you not know that “harm” is a moral term?
peace
Grab a hammer, smash your thumb, and tell me about the morality of it.
Moved a post to guano.
(added in edit): Also moved a response.
Better take the response(s) too, no?
Oh, and link to it–i’m sure keiths will want others to see the heights of his scholarly contributions here!
Yes, I should have done that. Fixed.
I have not been following this thread very closely.
walto:
Well, you could answer the questions:
And if you still want to claim, against the evidence I’ve presented, that you haven’t reversed yourself, we can talk about the model of objective morality you put forward in that thread, and why it fails.
We can talk about the pain I feel or damage my thumb sustains with out getting into the moral realm.
But as soon as we talk about “harm” we are making moral judgements.
Calling “harm” objective is not something a subjectivist can do with out wicked cognitive dissonance.
peace
Not at all.
harm
härm
noun
1.
physical injury, especially that which is deliberately inflicted.
Also mischief or hurt.
Preventing same sex partners from being able to marry, to benefit from the same tax benefits as heterosexual couples, and to have the same legal rights to be with each other in the hospital objectively harms those people. The only reason for this harm is the religious beliefs of people like you.
I can provide examples from reproductive rights or education if you prefer.
1) not according to the very definition you provided because no physical injury is inflicted
2) If we use your definition then a teenager is harmed by an ear piercing and an old man is harmed when he gets a tooth pulled for a set of dentures.
3) when we talk about injuries that are “deliberately inflicted” we are definitely in the realm of morality or else deaths from traffic accidents would be treated like homicide.
You really do make me smile sometimes Patrick 😉
It’s like you don’t even pause a moment to think before you post.
peace
I hope you do and please be specific as to how the things you mention are not moral questions but one side of the argument is still objectively wrong because it harms others.
😉 again LOL
peace
Fifth, I understand “First, do no harm” is not a moral imperative. It was somebody saying that a particular horse won a race. We know this because we have contemporary evidence from an eyewitness. Otherwise we would know only that it’s not a moral imperative–but not what it is.
Thought you’d like to know.
In case, with all the blither-blather, anybody missed my answers to keiths’ questions:
Of course, since then, Fifth has indicated that he also agrees with Erik, keiths and me that if the objectivity of moral judgments is a function of whether they are or are derivable from actual states of affairs that keiths may be sure of (those are keiths’ oft-repeated tests of objectivity), then morality is not objective.
For a change, It’s a win-win for everyone. And we have keiths to thank. So….thanks, keiths!
Some are
Praise the Lord
Can I just define objective morals to mean “whatever I say is right” and subjective morals to “whatever you say is wrong”? It would make life so much easier
yep and If you want to understand what “moral” means pondering the difference between those that are and those that are not would be a good place to start.
peace