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On July 28 2013 23:22 Poffel wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 22:43 xM(Z wrote:
your argument is based on an arrow of time narrative, a one-way direction under which things progress. i do not agree with that. Neither do I. Now I understand your complaint, and I'm sorry for the confusion caused by the poor wording of the page I linked. However, since I don't think that my post was similarly ambiguous, we don't really seem to have a disagreement here: Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 17:41 Poffel wrote:
In short, it does not make sense to evaluate the truth value of a proposition under specific timely conditions because logical evaluation does not depend on time.
i think that our views are exactly opposite since you can't keep your definition of human dignity intact under two opposite but equally right (by definition of genetic fallacy) ethics: one in which slavery is wrong and the other in which slavery is right.
Conversely, if there are good ethical reasons to reject slavery because it violates human dignity, then slavery is ethically wrong - and always has been, even if the realization of this truth may not have occured before the new-age.
i think you are trying mixing expressivism with realism (at least).
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On July 28 2013 15:33 harlock78 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 12:42 frogrubdown wrote:
I'm inclined to disagree on the burden issue. Sure, theists for instance have the burden of proof in theological debates because they are advancing a view which posits the existence of a unique unobserved object. But, at least for the naturalistic realists, this is not the case. They do not posit any new objects or properties, just the same old ones you already believe in but organized in a complicated way at a higher level (much like countries are just complicated organizations of natural objects you already believe in). So, to get the burden onto the anti-realists, I don't think they need very much more than the fact that people talk as though realism were true.
In the bold part, are you alluding to shenanigans involving the transposition of set theory to morals and ethics? If so any reference for that?
No, well at least not actively.
The idea basically comes from taking something like particle physics to be your starting guide to what objects are natural. Particle physics is not going to mention things like countries, mountains, or good deeds in its descriptions, but these objects could still be natural if they just amounted to complex organizations of the stuff at the bottom. That's what I mean by the properties and objects of ethics being higher level organizations of the properties and objects that people already accept.
As a layman thanks for the op. Made me want to watch Babylon 5 again  Aren't you leaving out constructivism out of your list though? Relativism seems to fit better with constructivism, since contrary to error theory, it does not believe there is an universal, atemporal, objective, self consistent, albeit unknowable frame of reference. The way the frame is constructed is subjective and depends on circumstances, but is not purely expressivist either.
'Constructivism' isn't used all that often in analytic philosophy, so it doesn't have a very standardized interpretation. In metaethics, it most often comes up among people calling themselves "Kantian constructivists", like Korsgaard and Rawls. But I'm not an expert on this doctrine, and get the impression that a lot of dissimilar positions end up getting lumped together under the label, much like with "pragmatism".
When I personally think of constructivism, I typically think along the lines of Ian Hacking that something's being socially constructed is primarily a matter of whether we could have easily used a different set of concepts to describe an area and whether the objects so described can be easily changed. These questions are both tangential to the rubric I put in the OP, and so don't directly place you in one area or another.
That said, it would probably be hard for a realist to claim that we could do just as well with completely different concepts in place of our ethical ones. But this introduces tough questions about what the relevant norms are for doing "just as well".
Another layman observation. For moral realists, what would be the truth value of "killing is wrong"? Would it be false, because it is not always true? Or would it be a nonsensical proposition?
With "murder is wrong", the term is value-laden so saying that it is true is trivial.
If it is nonsensical, is there any relevant question of interest to society that can be treated in a formal general way, without endless circumstantial clarifications?
Absentia largely covered this. The main thing to say is just that what you're talking about is more like applied or normative ethics than metaethics. Metaethics won't tell you what specific actions are right or wrong.
I wrote 'murder is wrong' to make a point about the compositional semantics of moral predicates, not to state a principle that realists must accept. You can think of the sentence as like a dummy variable if you want.
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On July 29 2013 00:09 FallDownMarigold wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 16:17 Absentia wrote:On July 28 2013 15:33 harlock78 wrote:
Another layman observation. For moral realists, what would be the truth value of "killing is wrong"? Would it be false, because it is not always true? Or would it be a nonsensical proposition?
With "murder is wrong", the term is value-laden so saying that it is true is trivial.
If it is nonsensical, is there any relevant question of interest to society that can be treated in a formal general way, without endless circumstantial clarifications? The OP doesn't cover moral realism in any great detail because it is a gigantic area of enquiry. There are forms of moral realism which differ radically in terms of what makes a particular moral proposition true or false. For example, certain moral realists, called 'deontologists', would argue that 'murder is wrong' is true on any interpretation in virtue of some categorical imperative (in other words a moral law that must always be adhered to). Other moral realists argue that 'murder is wrong' is true only on particular interpretations. For instance, they might claim that the assassination of a totalitarian dictator demonstrates the falsity of the proposition 'murder is wrong'. This might be because the assassination of the totalitarian dictator brings about greater well-being for the population that is being dictated. Yep. The good ol' deontonology vs. consequentialism stuff
Deontology hwaiting!!!
I consider myself sympathetic to Kantianism, in that I'ma transcendental egoist who don't need no consequences, but I'm not sure what category that is. Obviously, it's moral realism, but I think the naturalism/non-naturalism component kinda depends?
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On July 28 2013 18:10 BlindSC2 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
I have a general question about moral realism, though I know it's too general, covering too wide an area, to get a full answer, but I've wanted to ask it for a while.
Upon re-reading I'm finding I'm asking many different questions but I think it can be summarised under "What definition of 'fact' (or 'truth') are moral realists using, and what are the implications of it?", and due to my choice of example, what I'm asking here affect naturalistic realism in particular. And of course, at the end of the day, these question may simply serve to be a critique of said theories and these questions are debatable as to their ability to be answered
Suppose we took Utilitarianism to be true. We now know that happiness is the ultimate intrinsic good, and should be maximised while pain is minimised. What does it mean to call this a 'fact' though? What does it mean to say this is the truth? Was it true before (and will it continue to be true after) there were things capable of being happy (and does it matter if these beings are intelligent enough formulate the concept of morality?). Or did it become a moral truth as beings with the capacity for happiness began concerning themselves with morality?
If it were always a moral truth of the world that happiness should be maximised, I don't see a way of getting out of the idea that some kind of God made it be so. I mean, perhaps if we were to take the multi-verse theory, the version where each universe has it's own 'laws of physics' etc, perhaps we could say that each universe has it's own moral facts that are arbitrarily and seemingly randomly formed. But what reason do we have for following or adhering to this moral fact? The laws of physics are always ruling over me and I cannot escape them, I can't 'ignore' gravity and just float off into space under normal conditions, but I can quite easily defy this moral fact of happiness maximisation, and so, basically, what's the point of it? If there were a God to 'enforce' it, the 'point' of it may be known, thus my earlier point.
On the other hand, if it only became a moral truth once beings capable of happiness became concerned with morality, I don't see how we can get out of something akin to relativism but on a species, or worldly scale. e.g what is moral truth on this world is 'true' because and only because beings capable of happiness that are concerned with morality exist here. However, in this other galaxy on this other world, where beings capable of 'zooplar' that are concerned with 'gammafornia' exist, the moral truth is to 'devartinate' the 'kinkinque'. This scenario basically falls under Mill's 'proof' of utilitarianism (only evidence x is visible is that x is seen, desired, desirable, etc) which I just don't agree with. We like to be happy and so we try to maximise happiness, sure, cool, but whether that is moral or a moral fact can be derived from it is another issue.
I'll cut it short there because that's probably already too many individual questions in one post.
Maybe I have completely the wrong concept of what truth is, and I hope to be enlightened, but I actually just don't understand what it would mean for there to be a moral truth, let alone how that truth would be found. I understand, of course, that truth can be contingent, it didn't have to be true that I made this post, much in that way that it wouldn't have had to be true that Utilitarianism were true in my hypothetical world, but I seem to have this unshakable thought in my head that if we claim something to be 'moral fact' it is something apart, above, other facts, in a different realm to the fact 'I am sitting in a chair', which is simply unobtainable to us.
There's a lot going on here, and I endorse parts of Miramax's response.
There is no special definition of 'truth' or 'fact' operative in the questions and the different positions' answers to them. These terms are intended to be used as they are in other areas, and they are probably both too fundamental to be given an informative definition in terms of anything clearer or more basic. But we can say some things to illuminate how notions like "truth" work.
There's a sense in which truth is timeless. A true proposition always was true and always will be true. But this says as much about propositions as it does about truth. Propositions already take into account all the context sensitive parts of an utterance. I can utter, 'I am in America' and speak truly and you can utter the same sentence now and speak falsely. But the proposition each of us expresses by that utterance doesn't change truth values depending on where or when you are. The proposition I now express by uttering 'I am in America' was true in Andromeda a billion years ago.
So a utilitarian will say that it has always been true that pleasure is good.
As for being able to ignore supposed moral facts, I don't see that that's a very strong argument against a realist view of them. Most facts aren't like the one's about gravity. You can disbelieve them or just never think about them and suffer no ill consequences. There are plenty of full blooded facts about me that you will never know or might even believe the negation of. But these, like most facts, won't punch you in the face.
When you say, "I can quite easily defy this moral fact of happiness maximisation, and so, basically, what's the point of it", you are talking not about the ability to defy the fact (if it is one) that happiness maximization is good. It doesn't make sense to defy facts at all, unless by "defy" you just mean "disbelieve".
What you actually mean is that you can act in a way that doesn't maximize pleasure without getting punched in the face. But that doesn't at all contradict utilitarianism, because utilitarianism is not the claim that everyone acts to maximize pleasure. It is the claim that it is good to do so.
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On July 28 2013 19:49 Rassy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 08:23 nadafanboy42 wrote:On July 28 2013 07:04 EatThePath wrote:On July 28 2013 06:47 Rassy wrote:
nadafanboy42 Netherlands. July 28 2013 06:24. Posts 188
Nice post, specially the part where you describe ethics as making choises and i think i have a somewhat similar opinnion.
Voted for expressivism in the poll though the later mentioned moral nihilism would probably fit me better.
I dont think there are objectivly "good" and "bad" things you can do. We not only can not know them, objectivly good and bad things dont exist at all and for me it is all subjective.
The only universal moral i can think of is to do that what raises the entropy the least.
High entropy is bad, low entropy is a little bit less bad. (by my personal choise)
Dont have much more to add,though i would like one of the moral realists to provide at least one ethical truth.
They claim that they exist and that it is possible for humans to know at least some of them, and i am realy curious wich ones they have found so far. (bold) This is my starting point for any conceivable moral code I might endorse, but it has so many problems itself. How can know the effects of one's actions specifically for this rubric. What calculus do you use to know whether you should kill X stars to stop the fires but keep N-X alive to fuel humanity to continue the work of managing and forestalling the universe's heat death. Is this even really a good or fulfilling plan anyway? In the event of inescapable heat death, wouldn't a better aim be to produce as much variety as possible in an envelope of thermodynamic possibilities? Not to mention, how much certainty is required to enact this sort of plan? What if heat death is not the ultimate fate, due to net energy flux? (What is dark energy?) Nevertheless this line of thought it still the most (the only?) ascertainable moral pursuit for me that escapes petty subjectivity. I suppose this standpoint is a sort of declaration that emotional needs should not be confused with moral issues. Which is an amusing crabwise denial of expressivism. I'm not going to say you two are wrong to have your position, but I just want to say that as far as my position, the crux is that I completely reject the description of "petty subjectivity". The key problem with that in my opinion is that it's people starting from a position of believing in objectivity, then after studying the concept deciding that it does not exist, and then keeping their exact same world view based upon objectivity existing, but just adding the lack of objectivity and thus conclude that existence is meaningless. When the proper response in my opinion is to go back to the first assumption, correct it, and then rebuild a new world view from the ground up accounting for the lack of objectivity. Subjectivity is the centre of our existence, it is the beginning and end point of all knowledge. When I say morality is a choice, that does not mean it is a meaningless choice, in fact when I say so morality becomes even more important and meaningful than if it was objective. To say "Murder is wrong" and "Murder isn't wrong" is not a choice between two equal positions of equal worth. It is a choice between two radically different positions with radically different consequences. It is a choice that is incredibly important to the person making it, and the people around them. My point was that if someone says "I think murder isn't wrong" I don't think you can say "no that is objectively false and I can prove it", but if you continue that understanding you realise that the only response is: "fine, if that is your choice I can't stop you from choosing. But I've decided that murder is wrong and if you try to commit one I will stop you". Whats phylosophys take on doing something with bad intentions but having a good result, or the other way around? (i realy dont know this and am curious)
This is also more along the lines of normative ethics than metaethics, but there is a wide range of disagreements. Deontologists will generally find intentions important (for Kant, they're just about the only thing that's important).
Consequentialists are more likely to just look at outcomes, but this might just be because the two types of theory are in part discussing different aspects of morality. Even consequentialists can recognize that the action that doesn't bring about the best outcome is not always a blameworthy one or one that you could have rationally expected to bring about the good ahead of time.
edit 1: @Whitedog, you've written a lot since I last replied, and we come at things from such different angles that I think I'll take the lazy way out and let Poffel handle that part of the discussion for now. I endorse most of his claims.
edit 2:
On July 28 2013 23:44 zf wrote:
Nitpick: Blackburn is a noncognitivist, but he's not an expressivist.
If you're looking to pick nits, I can point you to a dozen or so of at least that size elsewhere in the OP . In any case, if you know enough about the subject matter to say what you just said, then you surely also know that philosophers frequently use both 'expressivism' and 'quasi-realism' as if they applied in whole to both views (even in journal articles). At a deeper level of specificity, it's useful to draw some distinctions, like the ones Joyce draws here, but even he points out that drawing these distinctions is not common place when using the terms.
edit 3:
On July 28 2013 22:41 gneGne wrote:
Nice, another philosophical thread :D (not sarcastic btw!), it's always nice to see people having the courage to come to the fore with their arguments on such complex topics and have the willingness to discuss them.
It seems so far, like nadafans pointed out in his assumptions, that few here doubt the possibility of ethics or free will (I think only one mentioned man as determined by chaos theory?), which surprised me in a secular age dominated by science and perhaps not so much by the tradition of philosophy. To me the question of the possibility of morality itself is already a big one which the answer also has further consequences to the possibility of certain views on morality.
Nadafanboy said something about the free will debate maybe just being semantics, which to me seemed like a dead giveaway he was at least open to compatibilism. Since compatibilism, is, err, compatible with our "secular age dominated by science", he doesn't have to worry about free will being threatened. You'd have to ask him for something authoritative of course.
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On July 29 2013 00:25 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2013 00:09 FallDownMarigold wrote:On July 28 2013 16:17 Absentia wrote:On July 28 2013 15:33 harlock78 wrote:
Another layman observation. For moral realists, what would be the truth value of "killing is wrong"? Would it be false, because it is not always true? Or would it be a nonsensical proposition?
With "murder is wrong", the term is value-laden so saying that it is true is trivial.
If it is nonsensical, is there any relevant question of interest to society that can be treated in a formal general way, without endless circumstantial clarifications? The OP doesn't cover moral realism in any great detail because it is a gigantic area of enquiry. There are forms of moral realism which differ radically in terms of what makes a particular moral proposition true or false. For example, certain moral realists, called 'deontologists', would argue that 'murder is wrong' is true on any interpretation in virtue of some categorical imperative (in other words a moral law that must always be adhered to). Other moral realists argue that 'murder is wrong' is true only on particular interpretations. For instance, they might claim that the assassination of a totalitarian dictator demonstrates the falsity of the proposition 'murder is wrong'. This might be because the assassination of the totalitarian dictator brings about greater well-being for the population that is being dictated. Yep. The good ol' deontonology vs. consequentialism stuff Deontology hwaiting!!! I consider myself sympathetic to Kantianism, in that I'ma transcendental egoist who don't need no consequences, but I'm not sure what category that is. Obviously, it's moral realism, but I think the naturalism/non-naturalism component kinda depends?
Sitting here on the toilet with Google leads me to a term called "ethical intuitionism", which may be a good category for you, based purely on the fact that I have a degree in Googling stuff. Or I could be way off since I'm just a noob here in this sort of thread :o
Ethical Intuitionism is a variant of Ethical Non-Naturalism which was developed in an attempt to address the epistemological problem, inherent in Ethical Non-Naturalism, of how we can ever know that anything is good, how we can distinguish good from bad, and how we can justify our moral beliefs.
The doctrine claims that we sometimes have intuitive awareness of moral properties or of moral truths. It is suggested that humans have a special faculty, a faculty of moral intuition, which tells us what is good and bad, right and wrong. Moral intuition is supposed to be a mental process (although different from other, more familiar faculties like sense-perception), and that moral judgments are its outputs. The ordinary notion that approximates moral intuition is what we refer to as conscience.
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On July 28 2013 23:33 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 23:22 Poffel wrote:On July 28 2013 22:25 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 21:44 Poffel wrote:On July 28 2013 18:36 WhiteDog wrote:
"Science" is not the same here and there. Social science aren't refutable, what some sociologues call a non-popperian space. It is true that it is a genetic fallacy to consider that the historical and sociological frame that has seen the birth of some laws in physics or mathematics is completly relevant to consider the "truth value" or the said law.
It is completly different for anything that is socially determined, because if it always linked to its context (social and historical) it is always "true" in the said context, and not elsewhere.
Slavery is ethically true because you use concept of "human dignity" that is considered as true today, but that might not be in the future, and that was completly false in our long history. You don't have to go that far, go back to Nazi's Germany and tell them that you should give some dignity to those men working in concentration camp and that killing them is a bad thing. Assuming that you're talking about the concepts put forward by Bourdieu and Passeron, these are about the difference between realism and constructivism, which is an important discussion for the consideration of relations (and contradictions) between different theoretical approaches in sociology, but they do not alleviate the burden of proof in regard to the empirical adequacy of sociological models (unless you think that sociological knowledge corresponds to social reality purely by coincidence). It doesn't make sociology irrefutable, it just means that constructivist models have to assess their theoretical laden differently than realist models. On your illustration: Let's say I don't go back as far but only to the Nuremberg trials where Nazis were convicted for their crimes during the Third Reich... In your opinion, this must mean that our society has come to the agreement that our ethical values apply to the Third Reich as well. Are you not part of our society? I mean, apparently you doubt the legitimacy of the claim that the imperative "don't commit genocide" can be applied retroactively as a rule for Nazi Germany, even though society in general seems to think that that's ok ? Passeron especially consider that sociology is not refutable as Popper means it. The famous exemple is the exemple of the black swan. If I state that all swans are white, and that I see a black swan, then my first assertion is wrong. For Passeron, in social science, the idea that all swans are white is wrong by itself : swans are white in this very lake the first of July. If I see a black swan in another lake or in the same lake at a different time, that doesn't make my first statement wrong. It does not indeed alleviate the burden of proof - it just states limit to what we can prove or disprove. To be more precise I'll quote a translated quote of Passeron's book (p. 134 of the french edition, translated more or less by me, so might be badly worded): None of the logical conditions of the "falsification" of a theory or a general proposition is fulfilled strictly speaking in the case of the logical structure of sociological theories (or "historical synthesis") as soon as one takes seriously the constraints of historical observation. Since no historical statement can completely dispose co-occurences, that the statement consider as related in the explanation or interpretation, from its space-time coordinates (context more or less expanded by typology), the universality of general propositions in sociology or history is about "digital universality" and never about the universality in the strict sense. In other words, the general sociological propositions can always be generated by the logical "conjunction" of singular statements that it resume. I don't doubt "the legitimacy of the claim that the imperative "don't commit genocide" can be applied retroactively as a rule for Nazi Germany" (I'm quoting you because my weak english makes it hard for me to state it as good as you did), I doubt that us considering that genocide is wrong and judging them according to that moral instantly makes it wrong for the nazi society in their time. I don't consider that something exist that can definitly says that "genocide is wrong always and everywhere". I consider that "genocide is wrong" is the produce of a struggle over what is right or wrong in our societies. What you've quoted from Passeron certainly makes sense as a safeguard against the temptation of a 'grand unified theory of mankind', and that's why I deem it especially important in regard to theory comparison (where 'middle range theories' (Merton) indeed seem to be the success model in sociology). I still think that it's peripheral for the discussion at hand because it regards universalistic certainty rather than universalistic truth: It is one thing to deem sociological methodology (or even generally scientific reasoning) unfit to bridge the gap between case study and the principles guiding the interactions of the observed phenomena (with sufficient certainty); it is a different thing to argue that such guiding principles do not exist (which is a matter of truth, not certainty - even a blind guess can be true, albeit neither certain nor scientific). The important part is that you're not committing the fallacy I was talking about: I don't consider that something exist that can definitly says that "genocide is wrong always and everywhere". I consider that "genocide is wrong" is the produce of a struggle over what is right or wrong in our societies. That's basically all that my initial complaint was about - there is a tendency to mix up these two perspectives (which you correctly keep separated). The fact that our precept "genocide is wrong" is the product of struggles over right and wrong doesn't devalue the ethical correctness of the precept. We might disagree, because when I state that "genocide is wrong" is the product of struggles over right and wrong, I mean that it could have been "genocide is right" if the winner was someone else. Since there are no universal way to define what is right or wrong (from my point of view) I can't judge what is right or wrong outside of the context in which I am making the said judgement. From my point of view, in my society, in my culture, in this day and age, etc., genocide is wrong. And I will never be able to completly get rid of the context (my society, my culture, this day and age) to judge or assure the "co-occurence" I've made between "genocide" and "wrong". The "=" in "genocide = wrong" is always historical or sociological and thus always imply more than a simple "=". In the link you posted about the genetic fallacy, I see that "the value of many scientific ideas can be objectively evaluated by established techniques, so that the origin or history of the idea is irrelevant to its value". Since there are no "established techniques" to "objectively" evaluate what is right or wrong (there is no "something"), I can't separate my moral statement from its origin or history.
I understand your point, but the real issue that stands out here is that you argue that "there are no established techniques to objectively evaluate what is right or wrong". That's what the differentiation in the OP is about. However, there seems to be a misunderstanding in regard to the concept of truth put forward here. The OP's first statement claims that "ethical assertions make claims about the world", i.e. that there is a correspondence between reality and concept, and that it can be evaluated in a logical manner. What you're speaking about, a "truth" that cannot be objectively assessed and is instead a matter of social convention (convention theory), is fundamentally different from the concept of "truth" in the OP (correspondence theory) and thus a rejection of (1).
That said, we most definitely disagree, though I don't think that there's much we can (or should or wanted to) do about that. I'm a very pig-headed moral realist, at least in regard to ethical truths as a 'negative touch-stone' (Kant) for moral conduct. On a somewhat lighter note, I can still recommend trying moral realism, for it offers so much opportunities for intense indignation. 
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On July 29 2013 00:25 Shiori wrote:
I consider myself sympathetic to Kantianism, in that I'ma transcendental egoist who don't need no consequences, but I'm not sure what category that is. Obviously, it's moral realism, but I think the naturalism/non-naturalism component kinda depends?
I guess another advantage with Kant is that his transcendental philosophy is systematic and thus at the least is consistent with his theory of knowledge and theory of judgment. I guess you could say with Kant that which is real has to be apodictic/necessary.
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On July 29 2013 00:16 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 23:22 Poffel wrote:On July 28 2013 22:43 xM(Z wrote:
your argument is based on an arrow of time narrative, a one-way direction under which things progress. i do not agree with that. Neither do I. Now I understand your complaint, and I'm sorry for the confusion caused by the poor wording of the page I linked. However, since I don't think that my post was similarly ambiguous, we don't really seem to have a disagreement here: On July 28 2013 17:41 Poffel wrote:
In short, it does not make sense to evaluate the truth value of a proposition under specific timely conditions because logical evaluation does not depend on time. i think that our views are exactly opposite since you can't keep your definition of human dignity intact under two opposite but equally right (by definition of genetic fallacy) ethics: one in which slavery is wrong and the other in which slavery is right. Show nested quote +Conversely, if there are good ethical reasons to reject slavery because it violates human dignity, then slavery is ethically wrong - and always has been, even if the realization of this truth may not have occured before the new-age. i think you are trying mixing expressivism with realism (at least).
You have it backwards. I don't "keep my definition of human dignity intact under two opposite but equally right ethics". I say that slavery is immoral because it violates human dignity.
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You mean 'immoral' instead of 'amoral' right Poffel?
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On July 29 2013 01:09 gneGne wrote:
You mean 'immoral' instead of 'amoral' right Poffel?
Yes, thanks. Changing it above.
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On July 29 2013 01:03 Poffel wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2013 00:16 xM(Z wrote:On July 28 2013 23:22 Poffel wrote:On July 28 2013 22:43 xM(Z wrote:
your argument is based on an arrow of time narrative, a one-way direction under which things progress. i do not agree with that. Neither do I. Now I understand your complaint, and I'm sorry for the confusion caused by the poor wording of the page I linked. However, since I don't think that my post was similarly ambiguous, we don't really seem to have a disagreement here: On July 28 2013 17:41 Poffel wrote:
In short, it does not make sense to evaluate the truth value of a proposition under specific timely conditions because logical evaluation does not depend on time. i think that our views are exactly opposite since you can't keep your definition of human dignity intact under two opposite but equally right (by definition of genetic fallacy) ethics: one in which slavery is wrong and the other in which slavery is right. Conversely, if there are good ethical reasons to reject slavery because it violates human dignity, then slavery is ethically wrong - and always has been, even if the realization of this truth may not have occured before the new-age. i think you are trying mixing expressivism with realism (at least). You have it backwards. I don't "keep my definition of human dignity intact under two opposite but equally right ethics". I say that slavery is immoral because it violates human dignity.
i'm missing something then.
what is wrong with the phrasing - "slavery is moral because it doesn't violate human dignity" (i see it as true, under the 'slavery is moral' ethics).
for you, the expression human dignity falls under realism, for me it doesn't. (we just have different definitions for human/humanity and/or dignity).
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Deontologists will generally find intentions important (for Kant, they're just about the only thing that's important).
Fuck, yeah. I can't be the only one who thinks this is awesome!
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On July 29 2013 02:06 xM(Z wrote:
i'm missing something then.
what is wrong with the phrasing - "slavery is moral because it doesn't violate human dignity" (i see it as true, under the 'slavery is moral' ethics).
for you, the expression human dignity falls under realism, for me it doesn't. (we just have different definitions for human/humanity and/or dignity).
Well, if I may answer too, slavery is contradictory to human dignity, because it treats a person only as a means to a certain end. That is the difference between work and slavery, where work is with consent and slavery without.
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I'm not sure if xM(z is arguing that morality is really just a matter of opinion here, but I've seen him argue something along those lines in other threads. Not sure if that helps.
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On July 29 2013 00:57 Poffel wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2013 23:33 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 23:22 Poffel wrote:On July 28 2013 22:25 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 21:44 Poffel wrote:On July 28 2013 18:36 WhiteDog wrote:
"Science" is not the same here and there. Social science aren't refutable, what some sociologues call a non-popperian space. It is true that it is a genetic fallacy to consider that the historical and sociological frame that has seen the birth of some laws in physics or mathematics is completly relevant to consider the "truth value" or the said law.
It is completly different for anything that is socially determined, because if it always linked to its context (social and historical) it is always "true" in the said context, and not elsewhere.
Slavery is ethically true because you use concept of "human dignity" that is considered as true today, but that might not be in the future, and that was completly false in our long history. You don't have to go that far, go back to Nazi's Germany and tell them that you should give some dignity to those men working in concentration camp and that killing them is a bad thing. Assuming that you're talking about the concepts put forward by Bourdieu and Passeron, these are about the difference between realism and constructivism, which is an important discussion for the consideration of relations (and contradictions) between different theoretical approaches in sociology, but they do not alleviate the burden of proof in regard to the empirical adequacy of sociological models (unless you think that sociological knowledge corresponds to social reality purely by coincidence). It doesn't make sociology irrefutable, it just means that constructivist models have to assess their theoretical laden differently than realist models. On your illustration: Let's say I don't go back as far but only to the Nuremberg trials where Nazis were convicted for their crimes during the Third Reich... In your opinion, this must mean that our society has come to the agreement that our ethical values apply to the Third Reich as well. Are you not part of our society? I mean, apparently you doubt the legitimacy of the claim that the imperative "don't commit genocide" can be applied retroactively as a rule for Nazi Germany, even though society in general seems to think that that's ok ? Passeron especially consider that sociology is not refutable as Popper means it. The famous exemple is the exemple of the black swan. If I state that all swans are white, and that I see a black swan, then my first assertion is wrong. For Passeron, in social science, the idea that all swans are white is wrong by itself : swans are white in this very lake the first of July. If I see a black swan in another lake or in the same lake at a different time, that doesn't make my first statement wrong. It does not indeed alleviate the burden of proof - it just states limit to what we can prove or disprove. To be more precise I'll quote a translated quote of Passeron's book (p. 134 of the french edition, translated more or less by me, so might be badly worded): None of the logical conditions of the "falsification" of a theory or a general proposition is fulfilled strictly speaking in the case of the logical structure of sociological theories (or "historical synthesis") as soon as one takes seriously the constraints of historical observation. Since no historical statement can completely dispose co-occurences, that the statement consider as related in the explanation or interpretation, from its space-time coordinates (context more or less expanded by typology), the universality of general propositions in sociology or history is about "digital universality" and never about the universality in the strict sense. In other words, the general sociological propositions can always be generated by the logical "conjunction" of singular statements that it resume. I don't doubt "the legitimacy of the claim that the imperative "don't commit genocide" can be applied retroactively as a rule for Nazi Germany" (I'm quoting you because my weak english makes it hard for me to state it as good as you did), I doubt that us considering that genocide is wrong and judging them according to that moral instantly makes it wrong for the nazi society in their time. I don't consider that something exist that can definitly says that "genocide is wrong always and everywhere". I consider that "genocide is wrong" is the produce of a struggle over what is right or wrong in our societies. What you've quoted from Passeron certainly makes sense as a safeguard against the temptation of a 'grand unified theory of mankind', and that's why I deem it especially important in regard to theory comparison (where 'middle range theories' (Merton) indeed seem to be the success model in sociology). I still think that it's peripheral for the discussion at hand because it regards universalistic certainty rather than universalistic truth: It is one thing to deem sociological methodology (or even generally scientific reasoning) unfit to bridge the gap between case study and the principles guiding the interactions of the observed phenomena (with sufficient certainty); it is a different thing to argue that such guiding principles do not exist (which is a matter of truth, not certainty - even a blind guess can be true, albeit neither certain nor scientific). The important part is that you're not committing the fallacy I was talking about: I don't consider that something exist that can definitly says that "genocide is wrong always and everywhere". I consider that "genocide is wrong" is the produce of a struggle over what is right or wrong in our societies. That's basically all that my initial complaint was about - there is a tendency to mix up these two perspectives (which you correctly keep separated). The fact that our precept "genocide is wrong" is the product of struggles over right and wrong doesn't devalue the ethical correctness of the precept. We might disagree, because when I state that "genocide is wrong" is the product of struggles over right and wrong, I mean that it could have been "genocide is right" if the winner was someone else. Since there are no universal way to define what is right or wrong (from my point of view) I can't judge what is right or wrong outside of the context in which I am making the said judgement. From my point of view, in my society, in my culture, in this day and age, etc., genocide is wrong. And I will never be able to completly get rid of the context (my society, my culture, this day and age) to judge or assure the "co-occurence" I've made between "genocide" and "wrong". The "=" in "genocide = wrong" is always historical or sociological and thus always imply more than a simple "=". In the link you posted about the genetic fallacy, I see that "the value of many scientific ideas can be objectively evaluated by established techniques, so that the origin or history of the idea is irrelevant to its value". Since there are no "established techniques" to "objectively" evaluate what is right or wrong (there is no "something"), I can't separate my moral statement from its origin or history. I understand your point, but the real issue that stands out here is that you argue that "there are no established techniques to objectively evaluate what is right or wrong". That's what the differentiation in the OP is about. However, there seems to be a misunderstanding in regard to the concept of truth put forward here. The OP's first statement claims that "ethical assertions make claims about the world", i.e. that there is a correspondence between reality and concept, and that it can be evaluated in a logical manner. What you're speaking about, a "truth" that cannot be objectively assessed and is instead a matter of social convention (convention theory), is fundamentally different from the concept of "truth" in the OP (correspondence theory) and thus a rejection of (1). That said, we most definitely disagree, though I don't think that there's much we can (or should or wanted to) do about that. I'm a very pig-headed moral realist, at least in regard to ethical truths as a 'negative touch-stone' (Kant) for moral conduct. On a somewhat lighter note, I can still recommend trying moral realism, for it offers so much opportunities for intense indignation.
There is no misunderstanding, it is the basis of my opposition. As I stated by quoting Passeron, there are no ground on which you can really define that a moral statement is true always and everywhere because you cannot separate it from its context - "meta-ethic" is not falsifiable "science". In the inexistence of that meta-"something" ("intuitions", "god", "emotions", "human nature", etc., all concepts that have no "existence" outside of our own subjectivity) that can define what is right or wrong outside of the context in which the right and wrong are defined, the "truth" stated by morals statements is always true in its context.
Well disagreeing is not a bad thing at all, and I completly understand the idea that moral realism offer "opportunities for intense indignation" but from my point of view it is also a defense of the status quo and the people who defined "morals" (the dominant).
I prefer the idea that every moral statement are your own, and that politic is the ground on which one battle with others to change our society to (hopefully) something better - the idea of the war of gods, where politic is about chosing your god and fighting for it, with no way to say objectively wheither that god is better than the other (referring to Weber here).
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As I stated by quoting Passeron, there are no ground on which you can really define that a moral statement is true always and everywhere because you cannot separate it from its context - "meta-ethic" is not falsifiable "science".
Yes, but this is true of every belief. Hell, it even applies to the laws of logic. Most moral realists start from the notion that one or two axioms are basically self-evident, and then move on from there. Your issue with moral realism seems to be rather like objecting to the scientific method on the grounds that Hume totally deconstructed our ability to prove causality rationally. It's just one of those things we kinda take for granted as being true, because it seems like it has to be for anything to ever get done.
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On July 29 2013 02:06 xM(Z wrote:
i'm missing something then.
what is wrong with the phrasing - "slavery is moral because it doesn't violate human dignity" (i see it as true, under the 'slavery is moral' ethics).
for you, the expression human dignity falls under realism, for me it doesn't. (we just have different definitions for human/humanity and/or dignity).
In your "for me" world, how do you reconcile slavery being moral with the fact that it violates the moral autonomy of the slaves?
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On July 29 2013 02:39 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +As I stated by quoting Passeron, there are no ground on which you can really define that a moral statement is true always and everywhere because you cannot separate it from its context - "meta-ethic" is not falsifiable "science". Yes, but this is true of every belief. Hell, it even applies to the laws of logic. Most moral realists start from the notion that one or two axioms are basically self-evident, and then move on from there. Your issue with moral realism seems to be rather like objecting to the scientific method on the grounds that Hume totally deconstructed our ability to prove causality rationally. It's just one of those things we kinda take for granted as being true, because it seems like it has to be for anything to ever get done.
Your issue with moral realism seems to be rather like objecting to the scientific method on the grounds that Hume totally deconstructed our ability to prove causality rationally.
No, the point is that moral realism or anny other way to deduct morals do not and can not follow the scientific method at all.
But i guess thats why its called "meta" ethics.
Lets look at it from a practical point of vieuw.
Then it is clear that the human without anny moral limitations for their actions, has an advantage over humans who have some moral limitations for their actions.
Having morals and considering them to be "true" is a sort of phylosophic slavery.
Maybe thats why countrys when i war , or business leaders involved in heavy competition dont care much about moralty,when fighting for survival there are no limits.
All this moral thinking and phylosophy is just a way to make average people feel good about themselves and their situation,it is much like if not exactly the same as religion.
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On July 29 2013 02:36 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2013 00:57 Poffel wrote:On July 28 2013 23:33 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 23:22 Poffel wrote:On July 28 2013 22:25 WhiteDog wrote:On July 28 2013 21:44 Poffel wrote:On July 28 2013 18:36 WhiteDog wrote:
"Science" is not the same here and there. Social science aren't refutable, what some sociologues call a non-popperian space. It is true that it is a genetic fallacy to consider that the historical and sociological frame that has seen the birth of some laws in physics or mathematics is completly relevant to consider the "truth value" or the said law.
It is completly different for anything that is socially determined, because if it always linked to its context (social and historical) it is always "true" in the said context, and not elsewhere.
Slavery is ethically true because you use concept of "human dignity" that is considered as true today, but that might not be in the future, and that was completly false in our long history. You don't have to go that far, go back to Nazi's Germany and tell them that you should give some dignity to those men working in concentration camp and that killing them is a bad thing. Assuming that you're talking about the concepts put forward by Bourdieu and Passeron, these are about the difference between realism and constructivism, which is an important discussion for the consideration of relations (and contradictions) between different theoretical approaches in sociology, but they do not alleviate the burden of proof in regard to the empirical adequacy of sociological models (unless you think that sociological knowledge corresponds to social reality purely by coincidence). It doesn't make sociology irrefutable, it just means that constructivist models have to assess their theoretical laden differently than realist models. On your illustration: Let's say I don't go back as far but only to the Nuremberg trials where Nazis were convicted for their crimes during the Third Reich... In your opinion, this must mean that our society has come to the agreement that our ethical values apply to the Third Reich as well. Are you not part of our society? I mean, apparently you doubt the legitimacy of the claim that the imperative "don't commit genocide" can be applied retroactively as a rule for Nazi Germany, even though society in general seems to think that that's ok ? Passeron especially consider that sociology is not refutable as Popper means it. The famous exemple is the exemple of the black swan. If I state that all swans are white, and that I see a black swan, then my first assertion is wrong. For Passeron, in social science, the idea that all swans are white is wrong by itself : swans are white in this very lake the first of July. If I see a black swan in another lake or in the same lake at a different time, that doesn't make my first statement wrong. It does not indeed alleviate the burden of proof - it just states limit to what we can prove or disprove. To be more precise I'll quote a translated quote of Passeron's book (p. 134 of the french edition, translated more or less by me, so might be badly worded): None of the logical conditions of the "falsification" of a theory or a general proposition is fulfilled strictly speaking in the case of the logical structure of sociological theories (or "historical synthesis") as soon as one takes seriously the constraints of historical observation. Since no historical statement can completely dispose co-occurences, that the statement consider as related in the explanation or interpretation, from its space-time coordinates (context more or less expanded by typology), the universality of general propositions in sociology or history is about "digital universality" and never about the universality in the strict sense. In other words, the general sociological propositions can always be generated by the logical "conjunction" of singular statements that it resume. I don't doubt "the legitimacy of the claim that the imperative "don't commit genocide" can be applied retroactively as a rule for Nazi Germany" (I'm quoting you because my weak english makes it hard for me to state it as good as you did), I doubt that us considering that genocide is wrong and judging them according to that moral instantly makes it wrong for the nazi society in their time. I don't consider that something exist that can definitly says that "genocide is wrong always and everywhere". I consider that "genocide is wrong" is the produce of a struggle over what is right or wrong in our societies. What you've quoted from Passeron certainly makes sense as a safeguard against the temptation of a 'grand unified theory of mankind', and that's why I deem it especially important in regard to theory comparison (where 'middle range theories' (Merton) indeed seem to be the success model in sociology). I still think that it's peripheral for the discussion at hand because it regards universalistic certainty rather than universalistic truth: It is one thing to deem sociological methodology (or even generally scientific reasoning) unfit to bridge the gap between case study and the principles guiding the interactions of the observed phenomena (with sufficient certainty); it is a different thing to argue that such guiding principles do not exist (which is a matter of truth, not certainty - even a blind guess can be true, albeit neither certain nor scientific). The important part is that you're not committing the fallacy I was talking about: I don't consider that something exist that can definitly says that "genocide is wrong always and everywhere". I consider that "genocide is wrong" is the produce of a struggle over what is right or wrong in our societies. That's basically all that my initial complaint was about - there is a tendency to mix up these two perspectives (which you correctly keep separated). The fact that our precept "genocide is wrong" is the product of struggles over right and wrong doesn't devalue the ethical correctness of the precept. We might disagree, because when I state that "genocide is wrong" is the product of struggles over right and wrong, I mean that it could have been "genocide is right" if the winner was someone else. Since there are no universal way to define what is right or wrong (from my point of view) I can't judge what is right or wrong outside of the context in which I am making the said judgement. From my point of view, in my society, in my culture, in this day and age, etc., genocide is wrong. And I will never be able to completly get rid of the context (my society, my culture, this day and age) to judge or assure the "co-occurence" I've made between "genocide" and "wrong". The "=" in "genocide = wrong" is always historical or sociological and thus always imply more than a simple "=". In the link you posted about the genetic fallacy, I see that "the value of many scientific ideas can be objectively evaluated by established techniques, so that the origin or history of the idea is irrelevant to its value". Since there are no "established techniques" to "objectively" evaluate what is right or wrong (there is no "something"), I can't separate my moral statement from its origin or history. I understand your point, but the real issue that stands out here is that you argue that "there are no established techniques to objectively evaluate what is right or wrong". That's what the differentiation in the OP is about. However, there seems to be a misunderstanding in regard to the concept of truth put forward here. The OP's first statement claims that "ethical assertions make claims about the world", i.e. that there is a correspondence between reality and concept, and that it can be evaluated in a logical manner. What you're speaking about, a "truth" that cannot be objectively assessed and is instead a matter of social convention (convention theory), is fundamentally different from the concept of "truth" in the OP (correspondence theory) and thus a rejection of (1). That said, we most definitely disagree, though I don't think that there's much we can (or should or wanted to) do about that. I'm a very pig-headed moral realist, at least in regard to ethical truths as a 'negative touch-stone' (Kant) for moral conduct. On a somewhat lighter note, I can still recommend trying moral realism, for it offers so much opportunities for intense indignation. There is no misunderstanding, it is the basis of my opposition. As I stated by quoting Passeron, there are no ground on which you can really define that a moral statement is true always and everywhere because you cannot separate it from its context - "meta-ethic" is not falsifiable "science". In the inexistence of that meta-"something" ("intuitions", "god", "emotions", "human nature", etc., all concepts that have no "existence" outside of our own subjectivity) that can define what is right or wrong outside of the context in which the right and wrong are defined, the "truth" stated by morals statements is always true in its context. Well disagreeing is not a bad thing at all, and I completly understand the idea that moral realism offer "opportunities for intense indignation" but from my point of view it is also a defense of the status quo and the people who defined "morals" (the dominant). I prefer the idea that every moral statement are your own, and that politic is the ground on which one battle with others to change our society to (hopefully) something better - the idea of the war of gods, where politic is about chosing your god and fighting for it, with no way to say objectively wheither that god is better than the other (referring to Weber here).
I think you are confusing moral realism here with the oppression of your freedom. Because there are also forms of moral realism that are all about limiting certain action in order to enable the freedom of the people (hence the necessity of a legal order and legal personhood). This ofcourse is only possible is if the limiting of actions/freedom is itself something that can necessarily be agreed on. A volonté général.
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EPT
