Metaethics - Page 9

On July 30 2013 03:44 grassHAT wrote:
Why don't you guys begin by answering a question like what is the purpose of life? I think when you answer that ethics will become more clear. If you have to theorize the existence of ethics it is because you are lost. You're experience of reality is not a criteria for truth and likewise using it as such instrument will only lead you into threads like these.

On July 30 2013 03:49 Spekulatius wrote:
Despite having browsed the numerous sources provided by the OP, I still do not fully grasp why I cannot call myself a moral relativist anymore. What exactly happenend to the term?

On July 30 2013 03:59 frogrubdown wrote:


Did you read the "long story" spoiler? If you think that moral predicates have a hidden indexical element in them tied to the moral code of a person's society, then you should continue to be happy calling yourself a relativist and select "other" in the poll. But you should keep in mind that this is a linguistic claim and the types of evidence standardly marshaled for such claims seems to count against this. That said, there are a number of complications here that would require more explanation of formal semantics than I feel would be productive right now.

Alternatively, you may basically think along the lines of an error theorist that moral predicates behave as though there were a non-relative morality based on categorical imperatives even though there are in fact no categorical imperatives for them to answer to. This would make such claims systematically false. If you felt that the best response to this is a linguistic reform wherein we interpret our claims with hidden indexicals, then you could call yourself a different time of relativist. But for the purposes of the poll you would be an error theorist.

On July 30 2013 03:59 frogrubdown wrote:


Did you read the "long story" spoiler? If you think that moral predicates have a hidden indexical element in them tied to the moral code of a person's society, then you should continue to be happy calling yourself a relativist and select "other" in the poll. But you should keep in mind that this is a linguistic claim and the types of evidence standardly marshaled for such claims seems to count against this. That said, there are a number of complications here that would require more explanation of formal semantics than I feel would be productive right now.

Alternatively, you may basically think along the lines of an error theorist that moral predicates behave as though there were a non-relative morality based on categorical imperatives even though there are in fact no categorical imperatives for them to answer to. This would make such claims systematically false. If you felt that the best response to this is a linguistic reform wherein we interpret our claims with hidden indexicals, then you could call yourself a different time of relativist. But for the purposes of the poll you would be an error theorist.

On July 30 2013 04:15 Spekulatius wrote:

I find the semantics hard to get as a non-native speaker. Same goes for the word "indexical".

My view - that I always thought to be named "moral relativism" - simply says:

There are no true moral absolutes.

This - to me - means that a statement can only be thought to be absolutely morally true when we presuppose that the assumption that it's founded on is universal. And I'm saying such a universally true statement doesn't exist.

Let's take the statement "killing is wrong". This is morally true if and only if we presuppose the existence of another statement which leads up to the "killing is wrong" statement. This other statement would be "human life must not be infringed".

The latter statement is not universal though. Violating someone's right to life is fine under some circumstances. For some people. In some cultures.

Fundamentalists think it's ok to kill non-believers.
Presidents starting a war on other countries think it's ok to kill (at least) soldiers of either side.
Most people think it's ok to kill in self-defense.
etc...

And in the same way no statement can be logically deduced from a universal statement as the ultimate source of a moral statement - the first step to the chain of argumentation - is always someone saying "I feel that X is right".

Thus relativism.

Now, am I right and old-fashioned in calling this relativism? Or simply wrong and it's really error theory?

On July 30 2013 04:15 Spekulatius wrote:

I find the semantics hard to get as a non-native speaker. Same goes for the word "indexical".

My view - that I always thought to be named "moral relativism" - simply says:

There are no true moral absolutes.

This - to me - means that a statement can only be thought to be absolutely morally true when we presuppose that the assumption that it's founded on is universal. And I'm saying such a universally true statement doesn't exist.

Let's take the statement "killing is wrong". This is morally true if and only if we presuppose the existence of another statement which leads up to the "killing is wrong" statement. This other statement would be "human life must not be infringed".

The latter statement is not universal though. Violating someone's right to life is fine under some circumstances. For some people. In some cultures.

Fundamentalists think it's ok to kill non-believers.
Presidents starting a war on other countries think it's ok to kill (at least) soldiers of either side.
Most people think it's ok to kill in self-defense.
etc...

And in the same way no statement can be logically deduced from a universal statement as the ultimate source of a moral statement - the first step to the chain of argumentation - is always someone saying "I feel that X is right".

Thus relativism.

Now, am I right and old-fashioned in calling this relativism? Or simply wrong and it's really error theory?

On July 30 2013 04:15 Spekulatius wrote:

I find the semantics hard to get as a non-native speaker. Same goes for the word "indexical".

My view - that I always thought to be named "moral relativism" - simply says:

There are no true moral absolutes.

This - to me - means that a statement can only be thought to be absolutely morally true when we presuppose that the assumption that it's founded on is universal. And I'm saying such a universally true statement doesn't exist.

Let's take the statement "killing is wrong". This is morally true if and only if we presuppose the existence of another statement which leads up to the "killing is wrong" statement. This other statement would be "human life must not be infringed".

The latter statement is not universal though. Violating someone's right to life is fine under some circumstances. For some people. In some cultures.

Fundamentalists think it's ok to kill non-believers.
Presidents starting a war on other countries think it's ok to kill (at least) soldiers of either side.
Most people think it's ok to kill in self-defense.
etc...

And in the same way no statement can be logically deduced from a universal statement as the ultimate source of a moral statement - the first step to the chain of argumentation - is always someone saying "I feel that X is right".

Thus relativism.

Now, am I right and old-fashioned in calling this relativism? Or simply wrong and it's really error theory?

On July 30 2013 04:15 Spekulatius wrote:

I find the semantics hard to get as a non-native speaker. Same goes for the word "indexical".

My view - that I always thought to be named "moral relativism" - simply says:

There are no true moral absolutes.

This - to me - means that a statement can only be thought to be absolutely morally true when we presuppose that the assumption that it's founded on is universal. And I'm saying such a universally true statement doesn't exist.

Let's take the statement "killing is wrong". This is morally true if and only if we presuppose the existence of another statement which leads up to the "killing is wrong" statement. This other statement would be "human life must not be infringed".

The latter statement is not universal though. Violating someone's right to life is fine under some circumstances. For some people. In some cultures.

Fundamentalists think it's ok to kill non-believers.
Presidents starting a war on other countries think it's ok to kill (at least) soldiers of either side.
Most people think it's ok to kill in self-defense.
etc...

And in the same way no statement can be logically deduced from a universal statement as the ultimate source of a moral statement - the first step to the chain of argumentation - is always someone saying "I feel that X is right".

Thus relativism.

Now, am I right and old-fashioned in calling this relativism? Or simply wrong and it's really error theory?

On July 30 2013 04:21 grassHAT wrote:


Saying "there are no moral true absolutes" is a moral true absolute... It is self contradictory. That is why relativism has never worked. I think Socrates was the first to prove this...

On July 30 2013 04:23 frogrubdown wrote:


There's a lot of views that what you say could correspond to. For instance, there's a sense in which utilitarians are non-absolutists. They'll agree with you that "killing is wrong" cannot work as general principle because sometimes killing will raise utility. This will hold for the traditional edicts we tell children about what's moral. They'll still have the absolute claim "maximize utility", though.

What's important is whether you think the universality fails because moral considerations found in different contexts or because of the different perspectives that people have about morality within the context. It sounds like you think the latter.

Suppose X lives in a society whose code dictates that killing is always wrong and Y lives in a society that dictates that killing is sometimes right. Consider the following sentences:

X: "Killing is always wrong."

Y: "Sometimes killing is not wrong."

What do you take to be the truth values of these two statements?

edit:



There are easy ways around this. Just do what I suggested for the error theorist in a footnote and define your view over the atomic moral claims. Since a claim quantifying over those claims (e.g., "There are no true logically atomic moral assertions"), is not itself an atomic claim, there is contradiction.

On July 30 2013 04:21 grassHAT wrote:


Saying "there are no moral true absolutes" is a moral true absolute... It is self contradictory. That is why relativism has never worked. I think Socrates was the first to prove this...

On July 30 2013 04:23 frogrubdown wrote:


There's a lot of views that what you say could correspond to. For instance, there's a sense in which utilitarians are non-absolutists. They'll agree with you that "killing is wrong" cannot work as general principle because sometimes killing will raise utility. This will hold for the traditional edicts we tell children about what's moral. They'll still have the absolute claim "maximize utility", though.

What's important is whether you think the universality fails because moral considerations found in different contexts or because of the different perspectives that people have about morality within the context. It sounds like you think the latter.

Suppose X lives in a society whose code dictates that killing is always wrong and Y lives in a society that dictates that killing is sometimes right. Consider the following sentences:

X: "Killing is always wrong."

Y: "Sometimes killing is not wrong."

What do you take to be the truth values of these two statements?

On July 30 2013 04:29 Spekulatius wrote:

I'm not stating it's true though. I'm just saying I believe it.



Yes, I disagree with utilitarians' statement that the greatest good for the greatest number is a universal moral statement.

Explain to me please why there is a difference between context and perspective.

And at last, I think the word "truth" is misguided in an area of thought like morals. Truth implies objectivity. Which there isn't, in my eyes.
I would accept the term "my truth" and "your truth" though, if I must. But that's not really helpful. For X, his statement is true and Y's statement isn't. For Y, X's statement is untrue and his is. Unless they realize that it's all subjective anyway and they refuse to answer like I do.

On July 30 2013 04:43 frogrubdown wrote:


Both the different perspectives and the different moral considerations were part of different contexts. The difference is whether you're are taking the "right" action to change because people's opinions about it are changing or if you take the right action to change because in different contexts it will have different affects.[1] The former thought is a relativist one, but the latter is entirely consistent with forms of realism.

On truth and objectivity, this is a hard thing to tack quickly. Consider the sentence, "I am frogrubdown". Is that sentence (or my use of it) universally true? There are senses in which it is and senses in which it isn't. It isn't because other people can assert it and have it be false. It is because my assertion of it is as true as true can be.

This is how indexicals (like 'I' in this case) work, and typically no one takes the presence of indexicals to threaten the possibility of uttering truths. You just have to factor in the context to determine whether or not the sentence as uttered is true. A relativist, as described in the OP, would think that moral assertions work just like this and so are every bit as capable of having truth values as the sentence above. They would just think that those truth values would vary along with the cultural context of the speaker of the sentence.

[1] If I were being perfectly correct, I'd put quote marks around every word that I'm treating as context sensitive when making claims about its changing extension. Sorry if I don't always do this.

On July 30 2013 04:58 Spekulatius wrote:

1st paragraph:
Not only do I consider something to be "right" to be changing depending on when I ask (your "people's opinions are changing"). I consider it to be changing depending on who I ask. So I guess I'm a sucker for relativism.

2nd paragraph:
I don't think "You are frogrubdown" is universally true. You believe it to be true, I do as well. But that's just an accumulation of opinions. Not necessarily truth.
This might strike you as a very fundamental skepticism towards any truth of any kind. And it is.
We're all slaves to our brain's functioning. We believe to be true what it tells us. What we cannot derive from this is universal truth.

3rd paragraph:
More directly: On a fundamental level, truths vary from person to person. But once we presuppose certain facts of experience to be universal (which they aren't, but we don't function if we constantly question them), then I find it to be only logical that they depend on cultural context, yes. But to me those are two questions.

On July 29 2013 08:12 radscorpion9 wrote:


Wish I had responded to this earlier, but its nice to see the discussion that evolved out of this.

Thank you for the links, its nice to re-read the is-ought problem in clear terms, although I guess I'm already familiar with those arguments. But I would basically echo MCC's comments in that I can't imagine any other saner, more rational option for a moral philosophy than one in which the aim is to decrease suffering as much as possible, and if it can't be done for everyone, then to at least do it for the greatest number (utilitarianism). So if you assume that as your very reasonable starting point, then science can fill in the gaps.

Really what he's saying is quite obvious, because we do it all the time. Whether its deciding on the ideal economic system that serves the majority in the best way, the ideal prison system that will reduce recidivism by the highest degree, to how we should treat each other in relationships...all of these questions are answerable by science assuming that you agree with the initial philosophical claim that we should strive to be "happy" or "fulfilled". Perhaps those words are a bit nebulous, but practically speaking its rigorous enough that we can make enormous strides. Clearly these are not obvious questions either as your article suggests; for example economics can be very complex, and the consequences of choosing a particular system impacts millions.

But anyway, I do think that in the future science really will have something to say about morality. If we are just biological beings, than our moral feelings are really nothing more than a signal in our brains that are provoked by certain stimulus. If we can use neuroscience to analyze this, then we can clearly define what morality is in scientific terms. This will allow us to make at least a few claims concerning metaethics - for instance we can clearly show that expressivism in its simplest form "emotivism" is either true or false based on what we find in our brain. If our moral reactions do not stem directly from the emotional centers of our brain, then it is plainly false without needing to engage in any thought experiments.

So while we do not have a rigorous proof for it yet, I think its overwhelmingly likely, based on empirical evidence, that naturalistic moral realism is correct. After all what else could it be? Where else does our sense of "morality" come from except our brains? It must be based on biology and the laws of physics. So I think that science will help us explain what the "moral impulse" is in the far-flung future.

But as for what morality should be (as in the ideal moral system), assuming we find a way to alter our brains (perhaps through social conditioning or genetic engineering), I think that is entirely up for debate. But I find it seriously hard to believe that it will end up being anything other than maximizing happiness, which of course can be defined more specifically for certain people. Why "ought" we maximize happiness? Because it feels good, THAT'S WHY. lol

On July 30 2013 03:59 frogrubdown wrote:


Did you read the "long story" spoiler? If you think that moral predicates have a hidden indexical element in them tied to the moral code of a person's society, then you should continue to be happy calling yourself a relativist and select "other" in the poll. But you should keep in mind that this is a linguistic claim and the types of evidence standardly marshaled for such claims seems to count against this. That said, there are a number of complications here that would require more explanation of formal semantics than I feel would be productive right now.

Alternatively, you may basically think along the lines of an error theorist that moral predicates behave as though there were a non-relative morality based on categorical imperatives even though there are in fact no categorical imperatives for them to answer to. This would make such claims systematically false. If you felt that the best response to this is a linguistic reform wherein we interpret our claims with hidden indexicals, then you could call yourself a different time of relativist. But for the purposes of the poll you would be an error theorist.

On July 30 2013 04:03 frogrubdown wrote:


To assume without argument that that is simply an historical fact is just question-begging. Why is it?

And if the axioms whereby we refute scientific theories were so self-evident, how come there's so much disagreement about them. An alien reading your claim about the axioms of science would be astounded to come to earth and discover creation scientists. They'd be even more astounded if they took a poll and discovered that only a minority of people accept the overwhelming evidence for evolution. What does "self-evident" even mean if the majority of a population fails to find the self-evident things true, let alone obvious?

On July 30 2013 05:02 frogrubdown wrote:


If your opinions about morality are motivated by a general skepticism (like with Acrofales earlier in the thread), then I'd be inclined to call you a "moral skeptic" rather than a "relativist", but it doesn't much matter what label we use. But I hardly see why skepticism makes "universal truth" impossible unless by "universal" you mean "known" or "certain". Instead, I'd expect a skeptic to say that for all he or she knows there are universal truths, just ones inaccessible to us.