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On July 31 2013 16:12 MiraMax wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2013 03:17 Spekulatius wrote:
@ Miramax
As you expect, I don't agree.
A statement about nature has the capacity to correspond to its factual state, thus has the capability to be true.
A moral statement can never correspond to a factual state of anything because there is no thing which it can correspond to.
Science has its hypotheses and tries to match them to reality. Morals don't, as there is nothing factual that they can be matched with.
If you disagree, tell me why there should be a universally correct moral statement. Why do you believe there is, and do you have any proof? You could just read my other posts in this thread where I have tried to do all of what you ask. But for your convenience I will give you a short rundown. I think that moral statements relate to the (potential) consequences of actions of rational agents on sentient beings. Especially insofar as they can lead to suffering or well-being. That's what I understand moral talk to mean. Because I think that it can in some cases reasonably be ascertained whether an action leads to suffering or is conducive to well-being, I conclude that some moral statements are truth-apt and that some of these are actually true. I further think that some of these statements are universally true because of some necessary truths about sentience and rational agent behavior. For instance I hold that the statement: "A moral action that harms a sentient being needs to have some potential redeeming consequence that benefits a sentient being" is universally true, given what I understand morality to mean. Would you agree with the statement? Why or why not?And if not, would you agree with the statement given my understanding of moral semantics? By the way, you still did not answer in what sense geological statements about earth could be considered 'true' given that earth did not exist. It can't be correspondence to reality in this case, can it?
Thank you for the rundown.
To your first paragraph:
Moral talk to me is the question of putting a seal of approval or disapproval on any event. I'm not sure if this event needs to have sentient beings as actors or victims to apply for moral dispute. Either way, I don't think our definitions vary too much anyway so discussing this detail can be put aside.
Now, to your point: your phrase "A moral action that harms a sentient being needs to have some potential redeeming consequence that benefits a sentient being" is not true in the way I use it, nor is it universally true.
What you mean to say when saying it is true is that it logically follows from an earlier assumption which is, in short, "well-being of sentient beings is the gauge of moral value" or "more well-being as a consequence makes an event more moral". The one statement logically follows the other one, and this is probably how you come to call it "true". But I argue that your basic definition of moral value "higher overall well-being -> higher moral quality" actually differs. It differs in cultural context, over the course of history, and I would argue, from every person to another. And as such, it cannot be true in the way I use the word "true". It is just an assumption, a moral principle that is in itself nothing more than a moral judgment. Where is the reason for that first statement "higher well-being -> higher moral value"? Where does it come from? How is that statement not itself just a matter of opinion?
To your second paragraph:
The question is what you mean with geology. Geology can mean a) a historical documentation about how our blue planet evolved over time or b) the quest to find laws of nature that apply to a planet which has structural similarity to our own planet Earth, i.e. is comprised of rocks, sand, mud, lava and water.
Neither of those answers lose meaning once the Earth ceases to exist. a) is a retrospective and doesn't lose meaning just as historical doesn't lose meaning when time passes. b) is universal in that it holds true for every planet that is so similar to ours that the rules that geology found can apply. It is timeless, so to say.
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On July 31 2013 10:36 Lixler wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2013 02:46 Spekulatius wrote:On July 30 2013 23:42 Lixler wrote:On July 30 2013 18:42 Spekulatius wrote:
@ Lixler:
I think I expressed myself badly in my last post. Of course I do agree with you that dying does not remove a moral system. But this does not in any way mean a moral system is like a law of physics.
You say, moral systems survive their "thinker" just as laws of physics do - I disagree.
You say, a physical system of person X needs to be included in the equation the same way the moral system of person X needs to be included in its respective equation - I disagree.
I tried to compare morals to beauty as I believe they are comparable. And I very strongly believe that if you remove a critical beholder from the equation, the notion of beauty stops to make sense. What is beauty if there is nobody who is appreciating it, rating it or feeling it? Nothing. A notion without content.
I very strongly believe the exact same statement holds true for moral systems. Morals are a human invention. Without humans, nobody would ever think about calling something right or wrong. It is completely implausible to me how there should be any universal statement that is not contingent on a beholder.
ObviousOne phrased it much more bluntly: The universe does not care if something is right or wrong. This means a) that only caring about morality produces moral systems which means it's contingent on the human mind. And b) laws of physics are not relative to the beholder, they do not change depending on who's watching/rating/analyzing.
I don't know how to take these two statements together. Of course I do agree with you that dying does not remove a moral system. You say, moral systems survive their "thinker" just as laws of physics do - I disagree. Are you trying to take "thinker" broadly here and say that they can't be unhinged totally from all thinkers? I guess that would make sense. yes. Let me provide some simple arguments for my views, as you've presented them. I say that a moral system survives its thinker just as laws of physics do. What I mean by this is that any given moral system has no intrinsic connection to the person who is applying it (although that person might feel really good about it, or whatever). Other people can adopt a moral system, both before and after this person's life, people can consider the moral system without believing it themselves, and so on. Surely nobody would make moral judgments if there were no rational agents around, but nobody would make physical judgments, either. Yes. A moral system is like a pen. It can be used by your heirs and everyone else after you die. I dunno why you invoke physical judgments though. Trying to interpret the outside world is nothing like saying A is better than B. This is actually my main problem with what you're saying and I get critisized for disagreeing with you on it. You do the same as me though, simply stating the contrary as fact without proof that they are indeed comparable. I also said that a physical system needs to be included in any physical statement, which system can be linked to a thinker to the same extent that a moral system is. This is trivially true. When I say, for instance, "the chair is under the table," I am invoking a specific set of more or less physical concepts that are accessible to all people who speak English. Another physical system might use these signs to mean something else, or might use different signs to mean the same thing. And with more precise physical statements, like f=ma or e=1/2mv^2, it is obvious that we are taking on a lot of conceptual baggage in order to make our statement. Every statement comes out of a system of concepts that define its precise meaning; this system of concepts surely needs to be applied by a human if it's going to be applied at all, but that doesn't make it a total fiction (or whatever pejoratives you want to call it). So? You said that beauty loses its sense if there is no one around to behold it. How about our other classifications, like "green" and "chair" and "born on January 17th?" Does the concept "green" cease to mean anything at all if there is nobody around to see green things? It doesn't seem to me to be so; using the example I used earlier, I can imagine a possible world where everything is green but everyone is red-green colorblind, and green still makes plenty of sense here. Green is different. "Green" is the word we use for a certain wave length of light that is emitted from a certain object and processed by a functioning human brain and eye. There's no judgment in the word green.
Chair is different, too. Chair is a level plane on pillars made for sitting. No personal value, no judgment.
Born of January 17th means, someone came out of a womb on the day that is marked on january 17th on our gregorian calendar.
All those words do not lose meaning when there's no human around. (Except you mean meaning in a "purpose" kind of way which I don't.)I am maintaining that the universe does not care about our formulations of the laws of physics, either. The universe moves on as it does, and we can describe events that take place in it with different levels of accuracy and precision, but the universe doesn't care about our formulations. You might be surprised to find out that physical events are always underdetermine physical theory: that is to say, given any amount of physical data, we can always construct more than one physical theory that explains it. This means, badly put, that there is no one objectively right and complete set of physical laws that totally describe the universe. There can be multiple systems that perfectly describe and predict all physical data. I am surprised to hear you say that with perfect knowledge of the outside world, there could still be two different interpretations that are equally true. I find that hard to believe. Source on that theory? I want this to show that our formulations of physical laws are unhinged from the universe just like moral laws are: the universe doesn't care at all that Newton was born or that we haven't found a theory of quantum gravity or whatever. We can come up with certain ways of describing physical events, but these certain ways don't matter at all to the universe. Things stand the same, in this respect, with description of moral events. The universe goes on as it does and we lay our moral interpretations over it. The difference between physical laws and moral laws does not lie in mind-dependence. I agree with your first part. If our interpretations of nature are right or wrong does not change nature. I said a similar thing before in this thread. You're not disproving me or anything. And I'm still weary about what your opinion actually is. For underdetermination - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-underdetermination/ although I was being a little disingenuous in trying to present it as obviously true. Anyway, what I'd like to focus on is what I've bolded. It looks like you're under the impression that if we can provide a definition for what one of our terms means, those terms don't lose meaning when there are no humans around. Besides the obvious simplicity of your definitions, this idea is very strange to hold along with the opinion that moral judgments lose meaning when there are no humans around. What if we could provide a similar definition for our moral terms? Would they then retain meaning without humans? Do you think the ability to create a set of formal criteria is what makes certain words able to retain their meaning without any humans around to use them?
Definitions are by their nature universal. They are true no matter who is looking at them, who is applying them or who is rating them. So yes, if you can find a definition for what is good and bad that does not require an entity passing judgment, then you would have me convinced.
Definitions that are not universal are called opinions. And that's what I think of morals to be, just opinions.
Thank you for the indetermination article. I'm not sure I agree but I find it interesting.
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On July 31 2013 07:20 Poffel wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2013 04:23 xM(Z wrote:On July 31 2013 00:33 Poffel wrote:On July 31 2013 00:03 xM(Z wrote:On July 30 2013 23:29 Poffel wrote:On July 30 2013 20:42 xM(Z wrote:For example, in the post above, xM(Z argues that "an alien will be able to understand the cause and effect of newtonian laws/mechanics but it might never understand human morals". I find that hard to believe (and impossible to prove, given that the premise is counterfactual). Newtonian mechanics cannot comprehend the perihelion movement of Merkur. Without theory of relativity (light being subject to gravity), we have no explanation for why it gets dark at night. Newton provides no means to explain photoelectric effects. So why would an alien be able to comprehend our erroneous physics but not our erroneous morals? Wouldn't it need intricate knowledge of the functioning and misfunctioning of the human mind for both? . that was a little out of context i fear. the newtonian perspective was the assertion i had to work with given that it was previously posted. i made no claims about the objective truth of newtonian physics. to generalize, physicalism is self explanatory, moralism needs to be explained then taken at face value. If you make no claims about the objective truth of physics (which particular physical theory we're talking about is irrelevant... name your favorite, I'll google its problems if needed), why do you hold the truth claims of physics in higher esteem than the truth claims of ethics? Also, you might want to clarify your use of the term "physicalism". How can physicalism be "self explanatory" if what physics describes is false? basically this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism i'm saying physicalism includes ethics based on above definition. This view responds to the challenge of the mind-body problem by claiming that mental states are ultimately physical states, now, it's not fair to say that i believe in it since i see almost everything in contexts that include other contexts. physicalism could be true if you see it as per its definition and both humans and aliens would live in such an universe. for you to be able to flip + Show Spoiler +why do you hold the truth claims of physics in higher esteem than the truth claims of ethics arround, you'd need to define something like the graviton particle (which is hypothetical) that would work for morals/a moral universe (from which we would later extract our ethics). (and i could totally do that too. i could define and prove that faith exists, hypothetically). if, in any argument i look like i'm supporting/encouraging a view, it's only because i want it clearly defined before i switch it 180degrees. Don't take this the wrong way - I don't mean it aggressive or offensive -, but if you have nothing constructive to contribute and contradict yourself on purpose (180 degree switch), consider "if aliens..." a valid objection and disregard the possibility of objective knowledge right from the outset, I don't see that fostering the purpose of clear definitions at all. To the contrary, the language games you're playing seem to be rather about terminological confusion. Also, the bolded sentence sounds like the lexical definition of trolling.  i agree with you but you're wrong. it goes like this: dualism -> binary opposition -> critical (social mainly) theory. i do not own concepts so i can't contradict myself. i contradict other concepts but, with a purpose (and that, i hope, is not trolling  ). this whole topic is about flipping contexts around then arguing about the disappearance of morals/ethics/truths or flipping contexts, arguing about how the initial assertion doesn't hold water in the second/new context then concluding that the first context must be wrong. + Show Spoiler +ex: slavery = ethics, humanity = context. if you define humanity as a white thing, then slavery exists; if you define humanity as a black and white thing, then slavery disappears (don't take that example ad-literam); what is green green, in a colorblind vs non-colorblind context; evaluable truths in an non-evaluative context (=infinity) and so on. i just do them at the same time and it looks confusing. in a black vs white argument i'll just come in and say: hey look, this is gray. ;if neither of them can conceive gray, then you can just walk away knowing that those 2 will never see eye to eye. In all honesty, you're making it not easy to understand what you're going for... sentences like "I agree with you but you're wrong" are hardly illuminating and rather make me go "Oh dear, who gave that guy I'm discussing with a lobotomy after his next-to-last reply?" Nevertheless, I think I got an idea of what you're aiming for, so please take it with a grain of salt when I dare to recommend a stylistic improvement: I figure that your "dualism -> binary opposition -> critical (social mainly) theory" implies that you're trying to go beyond mere 'standpoint philosophy' insofar as you're hoping to see both (or all) sides of the rivaling theoretizations at once. That would be a laudable effort, but so far all I have taken from your posts was more or less overt skepticism that has little in common with 'critical examination' in the sense of critical theory. Alas, I see no attempts at a reconciliation of discrepancies or a sublation of antinomies, and mostly don't even see a serious attempt to evaluate an argument for what it's worth. Now, I don't mean to say that a decent dosage of skepticism isn't a good thing. However, in your scheme, I would put my expression as "systemic doubt -> factual doubt -> critical examination". Systemic doubt is barely high school-level philosophy. "It could all be a dream." or "What if a miracle happened?" aren't relevant counterarguments. My five year old niece can shoot down all scientific explanations by asking "Why... why... why... " ad nauseam until we arrive at an unproven premise. Frankly, I don't see how this kind of doubt can serve any purpose. For example, I would consider "But aliens?" a counterfactual and irrelevant objection. What if aliens came to earth? Then the connotation of 'knowledge' might change from 'intersubjectively comprehensible' to 'intersubjectively comprehensible by human intelligence'... so what? Likewise, if you argue that physical theories hold no 'objective truth', what does this contribute to the discussion? Ok, then there is no objective truth whatsoever. I can assure you that most moral realists will be rather happy with the allegation that ethics are just as capable of truth as physics, so your objection doesn't strike me as particularly bothersome to any theory discussed in this thread (well, some physicists would probably cringe at it, but that's off topic). Long story short, I would recommend you to stick to relevant counterarguments (i.e those based on factual doubt) and maybe even start to consider both the cons and pros of a theory. Not only is this the hallmark that makes critical theory a productive approach to (the conditions of) knowledge that is superior to mere skepticism, it probably also would help to avoid the 'eristic' vibe that at least I'm getting when I read your posts.
"I agree with you but you're wrong" was suppose to be just a trademark remark; it was not my intention to illuminate anything.
i don't see the argument between realists and non-realists as a who's right and who's wrong kind of thing. i put both in a thermodynamic system, then watch the energy flow and in this case, it flows from non-realists to realists.
hot = non-realists, cold = realists. in doesn't matter to me how you define your coldness or how they define their hotness, the only truth here is that heat exchange happens and the arrow of time of the system exists.
the imposition of order, dictates that in this case/system, realists will always change their truths/facts, while non-realists will always change their assertions until maximum entropy is reached. (i defined here assertion as an innate proprietary-nonrealist-value and truth/fact as innate proprietary-realist-value).
moral realists will become more inclusive in the assertions they work with, they give truth to, while non-realists will become more inclusive of truths-evaluable/fact-stating modes of discourse, in time.
so for me, the only question remaining is: you want to do it the hard way, or the easy way?. (looking back in human history, they always chose the hard way as if the right of passage was a real thing, as if the pain is/needs to be, unavoidable/imperative).
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On July 31 2013 19:53 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2013 07:20 Poffel wrote:On July 31 2013 04:23 xM(Z wrote:On July 31 2013 00:33 Poffel wrote:On July 31 2013 00:03 xM(Z wrote:On July 30 2013 23:29 Poffel wrote:On July 30 2013 20:42 xM(Z wrote:For example, in the post above, xM(Z argues that "an alien will be able to understand the cause and effect of newtonian laws/mechanics but it might never understand human morals". I find that hard to believe (and impossible to prove, given that the premise is counterfactual). Newtonian mechanics cannot comprehend the perihelion movement of Merkur. Without theory of relativity (light being subject to gravity), we have no explanation for why it gets dark at night. Newton provides no means to explain photoelectric effects. So why would an alien be able to comprehend our erroneous physics but not our erroneous morals? Wouldn't it need intricate knowledge of the functioning and misfunctioning of the human mind for both? . that was a little out of context i fear. the newtonian perspective was the assertion i had to work with given that it was previously posted. i made no claims about the objective truth of newtonian physics. to generalize, physicalism is self explanatory, moralism needs to be explained then taken at face value. If you make no claims about the objective truth of physics (which particular physical theory we're talking about is irrelevant... name your favorite, I'll google its problems if needed), why do you hold the truth claims of physics in higher esteem than the truth claims of ethics? Also, you might want to clarify your use of the term "physicalism". How can physicalism be "self explanatory" if what physics describes is false? basically this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism i'm saying physicalism includes ethics based on above definition. This view responds to the challenge of the mind-body problem by claiming that mental states are ultimately physical states, now, it's not fair to say that i believe in it since i see almost everything in contexts that include other contexts. physicalism could be true if you see it as per its definition and both humans and aliens would live in such an universe. for you to be able to flip + Show Spoiler +why do you hold the truth claims of physics in higher esteem than the truth claims of ethics arround, you'd need to define something like the graviton particle (which is hypothetical) that would work for morals/a moral universe (from which we would later extract our ethics). (and i could totally do that too. i could define and prove that faith exists, hypothetically). if, in any argument i look like i'm supporting/encouraging a view, it's only because i want it clearly defined before i switch it 180degrees. Don't take this the wrong way - I don't mean it aggressive or offensive -, but if you have nothing constructive to contribute and contradict yourself on purpose (180 degree switch), consider "if aliens..." a valid objection and disregard the possibility of objective knowledge right from the outset, I don't see that fostering the purpose of clear definitions at all. To the contrary, the language games you're playing seem to be rather about terminological confusion. Also, the bolded sentence sounds like the lexical definition of trolling. i agree with you but you're wrong. it goes like this: dualism -> binary opposition -> critical (social mainly) theory. i do not own concepts so i can't contradict myself. i contradict other concepts but, with a purpose (and that, i hope, is not trolling ). this whole topic is about flipping contexts around then arguing about the disappearance of morals/ethics/truths or flipping contexts, arguing about how the initial assertion doesn't hold water in the second/new context then concluding that the first context must be wrong. + Show Spoiler +ex: slavery = ethics, humanity = context. if you define humanity as a white thing, then slavery exists; if you define humanity as a black and white thing, then slavery disappears (don't take that example ad-literam); what is green green, in a colorblind vs non-colorblind context; evaluable truths in an non-evaluative context (=infinity) and so on. i just do them at the same time and it looks confusing. in a black vs white argument i'll just come in and say: hey look, this is gray. ;if neither of them can conceive gray, then you can just walk away knowing that those 2 will never see eye to eye. In all honesty, you're making it not easy to understand what you're going for... sentences like "I agree with you but you're wrong" are hardly illuminating and rather make me go "Oh dear, who gave that guy I'm discussing with a lobotomy after his next-to-last reply?" Nevertheless, I think I got an idea of what you're aiming for, so please take it with a grain of salt when I dare to recommend a stylistic improvement: I figure that your "dualism -> binary opposition -> critical (social mainly) theory" implies that you're trying to go beyond mere 'standpoint philosophy' insofar as you're hoping to see both (or all) sides of the rivaling theoretizations at once. That would be a laudable effort, but so far all I have taken from your posts was more or less overt skepticism that has little in common with 'critical examination' in the sense of critical theory. Alas, I see no attempts at a reconciliation of discrepancies or a sublation of antinomies, and mostly don't even see a serious attempt to evaluate an argument for what it's worth. Now, I don't mean to say that a decent dosage of skepticism isn't a good thing. However, in your scheme, I would put my expression as "systemic doubt -> factual doubt -> critical examination". Systemic doubt is barely high school-level philosophy. "It could all be a dream." or "What if a miracle happened?" aren't relevant counterarguments. My five year old niece can shoot down all scientific explanations by asking "Why... why... why... " ad nauseam until we arrive at an unproven premise. Frankly, I don't see how this kind of doubt can serve any purpose. For example, I would consider "But aliens?" a counterfactual and irrelevant objection. What if aliens came to earth? Then the connotation of 'knowledge' might change from 'intersubjectively comprehensible' to 'intersubjectively comprehensible by human intelligence'... so what? Likewise, if you argue that physical theories hold no 'objective truth', what does this contribute to the discussion? Ok, then there is no objective truth whatsoever. I can assure you that most moral realists will be rather happy with the allegation that ethics are just as capable of truth as physics, so your objection doesn't strike me as particularly bothersome to any theory discussed in this thread (well, some physicists would probably cringe at it, but that's off topic). Long story short, I would recommend you to stick to relevant counterarguments (i.e those based on factual doubt) and maybe even start to consider both the cons and pros of a theory. Not only is this the hallmark that makes critical theory a productive approach to (the conditions of) knowledge that is superior to mere skepticism, it probably also would help to avoid the 'eristic' vibe that at least I'm getting when I read your posts. "I agree with you but you're wrong" was suppose to be just a trademark remark; it was not my intention to illuminate anything. i don't see the argument between realists and non-realists as a who's right and who's wrong kind of thing. i put both in a thermodynamic system, then watch the energy flow and in this case, it flows from non-realists to realists. hot = non-realists, cold = realists. in doesn't matter to me how you define your coldness or how they define their hotness, the only truth here is that heat exchange happens and the arrow of time of the system exists. the imposition of order, dictates that in this case/system, realists will always change their truths/facts, while non-realists will always change their assertions until maximum entropy is reached. (i defined here assertion as an innate proprietary-nonrealist-value and truth/fact as innate proprietary-realist-value). moral realists will become more inclusive in the assertions they work with, they give truth to, while non-realists will become more inclusive of truths-evaluable/fact-stating modes of discourse, in time. so for me, the only question remaining is: you want to do it the hard way, or the easy way?. (looking back in human history, they always chose the hard way as if the right of passage was a real thing, as if the pain is/needs to be, unavoidable/imperative).
Frankly, all I get from your post is static noise. Maybe it's because it doesn't relate to what I wrote in any way. Maybe it's because what I wrote doesn't even necessitate a reply. In either case, I think I'll act upon Acrofales' recommendation from now on. Have fun with your aliens, thermodynamics, and whatever you think critical theory is about... I wish you a soft landing.
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On July 31 2013 18:53 Spekulatius wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2013 16:12 MiraMax wrote:On July 31 2013 03:17 Spekulatius wrote:
@ Miramax
As you expect, I don't agree.
A statement about nature has the capacity to correspond to its factual state, thus has the capability to be true.
A moral statement can never correspond to a factual state of anything because there is no thing which it can correspond to.
Science has its hypotheses and tries to match them to reality. Morals don't, as there is nothing factual that they can be matched with.
If you disagree, tell me why there should be a universally correct moral statement. Why do you believe there is, and do you have any proof? You could just read my other posts in this thread where I have tried to do all of what you ask. But for your convenience I will give you a short rundown. I think that moral statements relate to the (potential) consequences of actions of rational agents on sentient beings. Especially insofar as they can lead to suffering or well-being. That's what I understand moral talk to mean. Because I think that it can in some cases reasonably be ascertained whether an action leads to suffering or is conducive to well-being, I conclude that some moral statements are truth-apt and that some of these are actually true. I further think that some of these statements are universally true because of some necessary truths about sentience and rational agent behavior. For instance I hold that the statement: "A moral action that harms a sentient being needs to have some potential redeeming consequence that benefits a sentient being" is universally true, given what I understand morality to mean. Would you agree with the statement? Why or why not?And if not, would you agree with the statement given my understanding of moral semantics? By the way, you still did not answer in what sense geological statements about earth could be considered 'true' given that earth did not exist. It can't be correspondence to reality in this case, can it? Thank you for the rundown. To your first paragraph: Moral talk to me is the question of putting a seal of approval or disapproval on any event. I'm not sure if this event needs to have sentient beings as actors or victims to apply for moral dispute. Either way, I don't think our definitions vary too much anyway so discussing this detail can be put aside. Now, to your point: your phrase "A moral action that harms a sentient being needs to have some potential redeeming consequence that benefits a sentient being" is not true in the way I use it, nor is it universally true. What you mean to say when saying it is true is that it logically follows from an earlier assumption which is, in short, "well-being of sentient beings is the gauge of moral value" or "more well-being as a consequence makes an event more moral". The one statement logically follows the other one, and this is probably how you come to call it "true". But I argue that your basic definition of moral value "higher overall well-being -> higher moral quality" actually differs. It differs in cultural context, over the course of history, and I would argue, from every person to another. And as such, it cannot be true in the way I use the word "true". It is just an assumption, a moral principle that is in itself nothing more than a moral judgment. Where is the reason for that first statement "higher well-being -> higher moral value"? Where does it come from? How is that statement not itself just a matter of opinion? To your second paragraph: The question is what you mean with geology. Geology can mean a) a historical documentation about how our blue planet evolved over time or b) the quest to find laws of nature that apply to a planet which has structural similarity to our own planet Earth, i.e. is comprised of rocks, sand, mud, lava and water. Neither of those answers lose meaning once the Earth ceases to exist. a) is a retrospective and doesn't lose meaning just as historical doesn't lose meaning when time passes. b) is universal in that it holds true for every planet that is so similar to ours that the rules that geology found can apply. It is timeless, so to say.
I am not at all sure that I understand your objection well, but could you give me an example of an action that actually is considered morally right, harms a sentient being but does not even potentially benefit another or the same being?
What your objection boils down to otherwise seems to be 'disagreement'. In that people can and have disagreed about the meaning of "morally right" or that it used to mean something different. But people can disagree about what an atom is as well and the word atom actually used to mean something different in the past, but that alone would not lead me to conclude that atoms are not real.
Earth example: Fair enough, so you claim that be statement "geology is universally applicable" to be truth-apt and true. To what real, existing, objective fact does this true statement correspond?
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On July 31 2013 21:13 MiraMax wrote:
I am not at all sure that I understand your objection well, but could you give me an example of an action that actually is considered morally right, harms a sentient being but does not even potentially benefit another or the same being?
Considered morally right by who? On what authority?
What your objection boils down to otherwise seems to be 'disagreement'. In that people can and have disagreed about the meaning of "morally right" or that it used to mean something different. But people can disagree about what an atom is as well and the word atom actually used to mean something different in the past, but that alone would not lead me to conclude that atoms are not real.
The problem is not disagreement in itself. The problem is, disagreement happens on a non-logical basis. Science is made of a basis that is universal: the laws of logic. If a=c and b=c then a=b. There's no such thing for morals. Morals work like this: I don't like c and event b is a manifestation of c so I don't like b.
Earth example: Fair enough, so you claim that be statement "geology is universally applicable" to be truth-apt and true. To what real, existing, objective fact does this true statement correspond?
To the evolution, transformation and existence of every potential planet in our universe.
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If a=c and b=c then c=c. There's no such thing for morals. Morals work like this: I don't like c and event b is a manifestation of c so I don't like b.
You mean if a=c and b=c then a=b 
Oh and there is something like a logic of morals, its called the categorical imperative.
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On August 01 2013 04:17 gneGne wrote:Show nested quote +If a=c and b=c then c=c. There's no such thing for morals. Morals work like this: I don't like c and event b is a manifestation of c so I don't like b.
You mean if a=c and b=c then a=b Oh and there is something like a logic of morals, its called the categorical imperative.
Oh yeah right. I missed that. Thanks.
Why is the categorical imperative logical though? In a sense that it is derived from a universal truth?
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On August 01 2013 04:46 Spekulatius wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2013 04:17 gneGne wrote:If a=c and b=c then c=c. There's no such thing for morals. Morals work like this: I don't like c and event b is a manifestation of c so I don't like b.
You mean if a=c and b=c then a=b Oh and there is something like a logic of morals, its called the categorical imperative. Oh yeah right. I missed that. Thanks. Why is the categorical imperative logical though? In a sense that it is derived from a universal truth?
You could deem it logical because its a criterium for actions according to maxims that can function as universal law. The justification is a bit harder to explain, however it has to do with the fact that the categorical imperative is a criterium for a free will.
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On July 31 2013 19:27 Spekulatius wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2013 10:36 Lixler wrote:On July 31 2013 02:46 Spekulatius wrote:On July 30 2013 23:42 Lixler wrote:On July 30 2013 18:42 Spekulatius wrote:
@ Lixler:
I think I expressed myself badly in my last post. Of course I do agree with you that dying does not remove a moral system. But this does not in any way mean a moral system is like a law of physics.
You say, moral systems survive their "thinker" just as laws of physics do - I disagree.
You say, a physical system of person X needs to be included in the equation the same way the moral system of person X needs to be included in its respective equation - I disagree.
I tried to compare morals to beauty as I believe they are comparable. And I very strongly believe that if you remove a critical beholder from the equation, the notion of beauty stops to make sense. What is beauty if there is nobody who is appreciating it, rating it or feeling it? Nothing. A notion without content.
I very strongly believe the exact same statement holds true for moral systems. Morals are a human invention. Without humans, nobody would ever think about calling something right or wrong. It is completely implausible to me how there should be any universal statement that is not contingent on a beholder.
ObviousOne phrased it much more bluntly: The universe does not care if something is right or wrong. This means a) that only caring about morality produces moral systems which means it's contingent on the human mind. And b) laws of physics are not relative to the beholder, they do not change depending on who's watching/rating/analyzing.
I don't know how to take these two statements together. Of course I do agree with you that dying does not remove a moral system. You say, moral systems survive their "thinker" just as laws of physics do - I disagree. Are you trying to take "thinker" broadly here and say that they can't be unhinged totally from all thinkers? I guess that would make sense. yes. Let me provide some simple arguments for my views, as you've presented them. I say that a moral system survives its thinker just as laws of physics do. What I mean by this is that any given moral system has no intrinsic connection to the person who is applying it (although that person might feel really good about it, or whatever). Other people can adopt a moral system, both before and after this person's life, people can consider the moral system without believing it themselves, and so on. Surely nobody would make moral judgments if there were no rational agents around, but nobody would make physical judgments, either. Yes. A moral system is like a pen. It can be used by your heirs and everyone else after you die. I dunno why you invoke physical judgments though. Trying to interpret the outside world is nothing like saying A is better than B. This is actually my main problem with what you're saying and I get critisized for disagreeing with you on it. You do the same as me though, simply stating the contrary as fact without proof that they are indeed comparable. I also said that a physical system needs to be included in any physical statement, which system can be linked to a thinker to the same extent that a moral system is. This is trivially true. When I say, for instance, "the chair is under the table," I am invoking a specific set of more or less physical concepts that are accessible to all people who speak English. Another physical system might use these signs to mean something else, or might use different signs to mean the same thing. And with more precise physical statements, like f=ma or e=1/2mv^2, it is obvious that we are taking on a lot of conceptual baggage in order to make our statement. Every statement comes out of a system of concepts that define its precise meaning; this system of concepts surely needs to be applied by a human if it's going to be applied at all, but that doesn't make it a total fiction (or whatever pejoratives you want to call it). So? You said that beauty loses its sense if there is no one around to behold it. How about our other classifications, like "green" and "chair" and "born on January 17th?" Does the concept "green" cease to mean anything at all if there is nobody around to see green things? It doesn't seem to me to be so; using the example I used earlier, I can imagine a possible world where everything is green but everyone is red-green colorblind, and green still makes plenty of sense here. Green is different. "Green" is the word we use for a certain wave length of light that is emitted from a certain object and processed by a functioning human brain and eye. There's no judgment in the word green.
Chair is different, too. Chair is a level plane on pillars made for sitting. No personal value, no judgment.
Born of January 17th means, someone came out of a womb on the day that is marked on january 17th on our gregorian calendar.
All those words do not lose meaning when there's no human around. (Except you mean meaning in a "purpose" kind of way which I don't.)I am maintaining that the universe does not care about our formulations of the laws of physics, either. The universe moves on as it does, and we can describe events that take place in it with different levels of accuracy and precision, but the universe doesn't care about our formulations. You might be surprised to find out that physical events are always underdetermine physical theory: that is to say, given any amount of physical data, we can always construct more than one physical theory that explains it. This means, badly put, that there is no one objectively right and complete set of physical laws that totally describe the universe. There can be multiple systems that perfectly describe and predict all physical data. I am surprised to hear you say that with perfect knowledge of the outside world, there could still be two different interpretations that are equally true. I find that hard to believe. Source on that theory? I want this to show that our formulations of physical laws are unhinged from the universe just like moral laws are: the universe doesn't care at all that Newton was born or that we haven't found a theory of quantum gravity or whatever. We can come up with certain ways of describing physical events, but these certain ways don't matter at all to the universe. Things stand the same, in this respect, with description of moral events. The universe goes on as it does and we lay our moral interpretations over it. The difference between physical laws and moral laws does not lie in mind-dependence. I agree with your first part. If our interpretations of nature are right or wrong does not change nature. I said a similar thing before in this thread. You're not disproving me or anything. And I'm still weary about what your opinion actually is. For underdetermination - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-underdetermination/ although I was being a little disingenuous in trying to present it as obviously true. Anyway, what I'd like to focus on is what I've bolded. It looks like you're under the impression that if we can provide a definition for what one of our terms means, those terms don't lose meaning when there are no humans around. Besides the obvious simplicity of your definitions, this idea is very strange to hold along with the opinion that moral judgments lose meaning when there are no humans around. What if we could provide a similar definition for our moral terms? Would they then retain meaning without humans? Do you think the ability to create a set of formal criteria is what makes certain words able to retain their meaning without any humans around to use them? Definitions are by their nature universal. They are true no matter who is looking at them, who is applying them or who is rating them. So yes, if you can find a definition for what is good and bad that does not require an entity passing judgment, then you would have me convinced. Definitions that are not universal are called opinions. And that's what I think of morals to be, just opinions. Thank you for the indetermination article. I'm not sure I agree but I find it interesting.
Okay. I don't know why you would think the difference between "definition" and "moral judgment" also makes the former mind-independent and the former -dependent, but that really isn't an issue. Many philosophers have argued (and I am inclined to agree) that things like the simple definitions you provided for words will always fail to accurately describe every bit of usage, or if they do always predict things correctly, it is only an accident. I'll provide you with an argument for this below, but the point of it is just to show that I think you have a mistaken understanding of what goes into a moral judgment as opposed to a "chair judgment" or a color judgment or what-have-you. And I think if the difference you've tried to place between these falls apart, you should think that morality is either real (just like color and chairs and whatever) or that it's as real as real can be (so just as real as colors and chairs, but those too are just a sort of judgment). In either case, I don't see any grounds for continuing to disparage morality, unless you want to do the same for all human judgment.
Here are the definitions you gave
Green is different. "Green" is the word we use for a certain wave length of light that is emitted from a certain object and processed by a functioning human brain and eye. There's no judgment in the word green.
Chair is different, too. Chair is a level plane on pillars made for sitting. No personal value, no judgment.
Born of January 17th means, someone came out of a womb on the day that is marked on january 17th on our gregorian calendar.
You'll see immediately that your definitions fail. I don't mean for this step here to prove much, but anyway I'll go through it. "Green" doesn't refer to a wavelength, much less a processed wavelength; things can be green without an actual human brain processing the photons that came off of them. But moreover, there is no specific set of wavelengths that we'd agree make up "green," and in fact people will judge (correctly!!!) different wavelengths to be green in different contexts. People on drugs, colorblind people, etc., all describe things as green that don't fall into the "typical" span of wavelengths. And we ourselves use green to refer to things that aren't "properly" green: green tea, for example. So your definition needs refinement.
Okay, so you might say "Well my definition was just vague, if I work on it real hard I can make a good one." Well, and what of that? What good does that do you? You can maybe provide a succinct or not-so-succinct description of every correct usage of the word "green," but you haven't necessarily talked about the way we judge things to be green. When I judge something to be green, I don't need to use your perfect definition of the word. And moreover, if you want a really long and specific and loophole-filled definition like "Green is a color typically associated with wavelengths 300-400 nm (or whatever), except when referring to certain things like green tea or a green soldier, or when someone under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs is talking..." then you have to admit the possibility of a similar definition for morality. I don't see how you can make a principled distinction between definitions of color terms, or what-have-you, and morality. People will disagree for both, both will be extremely long if they're accurate, people don't need either to actually judge things, and so on.
When I judge something to be a chair, I do not use a formal set of criteria. But this does not mean that my judgment is wrong or stupid or unfounded or something; that's just how language works. It's just the same with morality. I don't think you've provided any reason to think that morality is a special kind of term, such that our normal definitions and judgment faculties (which connect up with mind-independent properties) somehow don't apply.
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On August 01 2013 05:10 gneGne wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2013 04:46 Spekulatius wrote:On August 01 2013 04:17 gneGne wrote:If a=c and b=c then c=c. There's no such thing for morals. Morals work like this: I don't like c and event b is a manifestation of c so I don't like b.
You mean if a=c and b=c then a=b Oh and there is something like a logic of morals, its called the categorical imperative. Oh yeah right. I missed that. Thanks. Why is the categorical imperative logical though? In a sense that it is derived from a universal truth? You could deem it logical because its a criterium for actions according to maxims that can function as universal law.
I can make criteria too that function as universal law.
Killing people taller than 5 feet is fine.
Everyone must eat nothing but strawberries.
Women need to be stripped down to their underwear in public.
Easiest criteria ever.
The justification is a bit harder to explain, however it has to do with the fact that the categorical imperative is a criterium for a free will.
You must have read that somewhere but I have no idea what that means.
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On August 01 2013 05:35 Lixler wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2013 19:27 Spekulatius wrote:On July 31 2013 10:36 Lixler wrote:On July 31 2013 02:46 Spekulatius wrote:On July 30 2013 23:42 Lixler wrote:On July 30 2013 18:42 Spekulatius wrote:
@ Lixler:
I think I expressed myself badly in my last post. Of course I do agree with you that dying does not remove a moral system. But this does not in any way mean a moral system is like a law of physics.
You say, moral systems survive their "thinker" just as laws of physics do - I disagree.
You say, a physical system of person X needs to be included in the equation the same way the moral system of person X needs to be included in its respective equation - I disagree.
I tried to compare morals to beauty as I believe they are comparable. And I very strongly believe that if you remove a critical beholder from the equation, the notion of beauty stops to make sense. What is beauty if there is nobody who is appreciating it, rating it or feeling it? Nothing. A notion without content.
I very strongly believe the exact same statement holds true for moral systems. Morals are a human invention. Without humans, nobody would ever think about calling something right or wrong. It is completely implausible to me how there should be any universal statement that is not contingent on a beholder.
ObviousOne phrased it much more bluntly: The universe does not care if something is right or wrong. This means a) that only caring about morality produces moral systems which means it's contingent on the human mind. And b) laws of physics are not relative to the beholder, they do not change depending on who's watching/rating/analyzing.
I don't know how to take these two statements together. Of course I do agree with you that dying does not remove a moral system. You say, moral systems survive their "thinker" just as laws of physics do - I disagree. Are you trying to take "thinker" broadly here and say that they can't be unhinged totally from all thinkers? I guess that would make sense. yes. Let me provide some simple arguments for my views, as you've presented them. I say that a moral system survives its thinker just as laws of physics do. What I mean by this is that any given moral system has no intrinsic connection to the person who is applying it (although that person might feel really good about it, or whatever). Other people can adopt a moral system, both before and after this person's life, people can consider the moral system without believing it themselves, and so on. Surely nobody would make moral judgments if there were no rational agents around, but nobody would make physical judgments, either. Yes. A moral system is like a pen. It can be used by your heirs and everyone else after you die. I dunno why you invoke physical judgments though. Trying to interpret the outside world is nothing like saying A is better than B. This is actually my main problem with what you're saying and I get critisized for disagreeing with you on it. You do the same as me though, simply stating the contrary as fact without proof that they are indeed comparable. I also said that a physical system needs to be included in any physical statement, which system can be linked to a thinker to the same extent that a moral system is. This is trivially true. When I say, for instance, "the chair is under the table," I am invoking a specific set of more or less physical concepts that are accessible to all people who speak English. Another physical system might use these signs to mean something else, or might use different signs to mean the same thing. And with more precise physical statements, like f=ma or e=1/2mv^2, it is obvious that we are taking on a lot of conceptual baggage in order to make our statement. Every statement comes out of a system of concepts that define its precise meaning; this system of concepts surely needs to be applied by a human if it's going to be applied at all, but that doesn't make it a total fiction (or whatever pejoratives you want to call it). So? You said that beauty loses its sense if there is no one around to behold it. How about our other classifications, like "green" and "chair" and "born on January 17th?" Does the concept "green" cease to mean anything at all if there is nobody around to see green things? It doesn't seem to me to be so; using the example I used earlier, I can imagine a possible world where everything is green but everyone is red-green colorblind, and green still makes plenty of sense here. Green is different. "Green" is the word we use for a certain wave length of light that is emitted from a certain object and processed by a functioning human brain and eye. There's no judgment in the word green.
Chair is different, too. Chair is a level plane on pillars made for sitting. No personal value, no judgment.
Born of January 17th means, someone came out of a womb on the day that is marked on january 17th on our gregorian calendar.
All those words do not lose meaning when there's no human around. (Except you mean meaning in a "purpose" kind of way which I don't.)I am maintaining that the universe does not care about our formulations of the laws of physics, either. The universe moves on as it does, and we can describe events that take place in it with different levels of accuracy and precision, but the universe doesn't care about our formulations. You might be surprised to find out that physical events are always underdetermine physical theory: that is to say, given any amount of physical data, we can always construct more than one physical theory that explains it. This means, badly put, that there is no one objectively right and complete set of physical laws that totally describe the universe. There can be multiple systems that perfectly describe and predict all physical data. I am surprised to hear you say that with perfect knowledge of the outside world, there could still be two different interpretations that are equally true. I find that hard to believe. Source on that theory? I want this to show that our formulations of physical laws are unhinged from the universe just like moral laws are: the universe doesn't care at all that Newton was born or that we haven't found a theory of quantum gravity or whatever. We can come up with certain ways of describing physical events, but these certain ways don't matter at all to the universe. Things stand the same, in this respect, with description of moral events. The universe goes on as it does and we lay our moral interpretations over it. The difference between physical laws and moral laws does not lie in mind-dependence. I agree with your first part. If our interpretations of nature are right or wrong does not change nature. I said a similar thing before in this thread. You're not disproving me or anything. And I'm still weary about what your opinion actually is. For underdetermination - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-underdetermination/ although I was being a little disingenuous in trying to present it as obviously true. Anyway, what I'd like to focus on is what I've bolded. It looks like you're under the impression that if we can provide a definition for what one of our terms means, those terms don't lose meaning when there are no humans around. Besides the obvious simplicity of your definitions, this idea is very strange to hold along with the opinion that moral judgments lose meaning when there are no humans around. What if we could provide a similar definition for our moral terms? Would they then retain meaning without humans? Do you think the ability to create a set of formal criteria is what makes certain words able to retain their meaning without any humans around to use them? Definitions are by their nature universal. They are true no matter who is looking at them, who is applying them or who is rating them. So yes, if you can find a definition for what is good and bad that does not require an entity passing judgment, then you would have me convinced. Definitions that are not universal are called opinions. And that's what I think of morals to be, just opinions. Thank you for the indetermination article. I'm not sure I agree but I find it interesting. Okay. I don't know why you would think the difference between "definition" and "moral judgment" also makes the former mind-independent and the former -dependent, but that really isn't an issue. Many philosophers have argued (and I am inclined to agree) that things like the simple definitions you provided for words will always fail to accurately describe every bit of usage, or if they do always predict things correctly, it is only an accident. I'll provide you with an argument for this below, but the point of it is just to show that I think you have a mistaken understanding of what goes into a moral judgment as opposed to a "chair judgment" or a color judgment or what-have-you. And I think if the difference you've tried to place between these falls apart, you should think that morality is either real (just like color and chairs and whatever) or that it's as real as real can be (so just as real as colors and chairs, but those too are just a sort of judgment). In either case, I don't see any grounds for continuing to disparage morality, unless you want to do the same for all human judgment. Here are the definitions you gave Show nested quote +Green is different. "Green" is the word we use for a certain wave length of light that is emitted from a certain object and processed by a functioning human brain and eye. There's no judgment in the word green.
Chair is different, too. Chair is a level plane on pillars made for sitting. No personal value, no judgment.
Born of January 17th means, someone came out of a womb on the day that is marked on january 17th on our gregorian calendar. You'll see immediately that your definitions fail. I don't mean for this step here to prove much, but anyway I'll go through it. "Green" doesn't refer to a wavelength, much less a processed wavelength; things can be green without an actual human brain processing the photons that came off of them. But moreover, there is no specific set of wavelengths that we'd agree make up "green," and in fact people will judge (correctly!!!) different wavelengths to be green in different contexts. People on drugs, colorblind people, etc., all describe things as green that don't fall into the "typical" span of wavelengths. And we ourselves use green to refer to things that aren't "properly" green: green tea, for example. So your definition needs refinement. Okay, so you might say "Well my definition was just vague, if I work on it real hard I can make a good one." Well, and what of that? What good does that do you? You can maybe provide a succinct or not-so-succinct description of every correct usage of the word "green," but you haven't necessarily talked about the way we judge things to be green. When I judge something to be green, I don't need to use your perfect definition of the word. And moreover, if you want a really long and specific and loophole-filled definition like "Green is a color typically associated with wavelengths 300-400 nm (or whatever), except when referring to certain things like green tea or a green soldier, or when someone under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs is talking..." then you have to admit the possibility of a similar definition for morality. I don't see how you can make a principled distinction between definitions of color terms, or what-have-you, and morality. People will disagree for both, both will be extremely long if they're accurate, people don't need either to actually judge things, and so on. When I judge something to be a chair, I do not use a formal set of criteria. But this does not mean that my judgment is wrong or stupid or unfounded or something; that's just how language works. It's just the same with morality. I don't think you've provided any reason to think that morality is a special kind of term, such that our normal definitions and judgment faculties (which connect up with mind-independent properties) somehow don't apply.
It seems like whatever I say does not reach you. Either I make no sense or you don't get it.
Either way, how about we turn the question around? You presuppose universality of moral systems. You don't claim to have found it or that anyone has (yet) but you say there is the possibility of at least one universal moral statement.
How is that? Where does it come from? How does that not interfere with the fact that morals are an invention of sentient beings? Where does your conviction come from that there is such a thing?
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On August 01 2013 04:03 Spekulatius wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2013 21:13 MiraMax wrote:
I am not at all sure that I understand your objection well, but could you give me an example of an action that actually is considered morally right, harms a sentient being but does not even potentially benefit another or the same being? Considered morally right by who? On what authority?
Any example would suffice. I am genuinely curious. Go right ahead!
On August 01 2013 04:03 Spekulatius wrote:Show nested quote +
What your objection boils down to otherwise seems to be 'disagreement'. In that people can and have disagreed about the meaning of "morally right" or that it used to mean something different. But people can disagree about what an atom is as well and the word atom actually used to mean something different in the past, but that alone would not lead me to conclude that atoms are not real. The problem is not disagreement in itself. The problem is, disagreement happens on a non-logical basis. Science is made of a basis that is universal: the laws of logic. If a=c and b=c then a=b. There's no such thing for morals. Morals work like this: I don't like c and event b is a manifestation of c so I don't like b.
Science is based on the laws of logic?! Do you care to elaborate because this seems completely confused.
On August 01 2013 04:03 Spekulatius wrote:Show nested quote +
Earth example: Fair enough, so you claim that be statement "geology is universally applicable" to be truth-apt and true. To what real, existing, objective fact does this true statement correspond? To the evolution, transformation and existence of every potential planet in our universe.
Well, potential planets don't really exist however, do they? How can you objectively establish that the principles of geology will apply to all similar planets to come?
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On August 01 2013 05:57 Spekulatius wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2013 05:35 Lixler wrote:On July 31 2013 19:27 Spekulatius wrote:On July 31 2013 10:36 Lixler wrote:On July 31 2013 02:46 Spekulatius wrote:On July 30 2013 23:42 Lixler wrote:On July 30 2013 18:42 Spekulatius wrote:
@ Lixler:
I think I expressed myself badly in my last post. Of course I do agree with you that dying does not remove a moral system. But this does not in any way mean a moral system is like a law of physics.
You say, moral systems survive their "thinker" just as laws of physics do - I disagree.
You say, a physical system of person X needs to be included in the equation the same way the moral system of person X needs to be included in its respective equation - I disagree.
I tried to compare morals to beauty as I believe they are comparable. And I very strongly believe that if you remove a critical beholder from the equation, the notion of beauty stops to make sense. What is beauty if there is nobody who is appreciating it, rating it or feeling it? Nothing. A notion without content.
I very strongly believe the exact same statement holds true for moral systems. Morals are a human invention. Without humans, nobody would ever think about calling something right or wrong. It is completely implausible to me how there should be any universal statement that is not contingent on a beholder.
ObviousOne phrased it much more bluntly: The universe does not care if something is right or wrong. This means a) that only caring about morality produces moral systems which means it's contingent on the human mind. And b) laws of physics are not relative to the beholder, they do not change depending on who's watching/rating/analyzing.
I don't know how to take these two statements together. Of course I do agree with you that dying does not remove a moral system. You say, moral systems survive their "thinker" just as laws of physics do - I disagree. Are you trying to take "thinker" broadly here and say that they can't be unhinged totally from all thinkers? I guess that would make sense. yes. Let me provide some simple arguments for my views, as you've presented them. I say that a moral system survives its thinker just as laws of physics do. What I mean by this is that any given moral system has no intrinsic connection to the person who is applying it (although that person might feel really good about it, or whatever). Other people can adopt a moral system, both before and after this person's life, people can consider the moral system without believing it themselves, and so on. Surely nobody would make moral judgments if there were no rational agents around, but nobody would make physical judgments, either. Yes. A moral system is like a pen. It can be used by your heirs and everyone else after you die. I dunno why you invoke physical judgments though. Trying to interpret the outside world is nothing like saying A is better than B. This is actually my main problem with what you're saying and I get critisized for disagreeing with you on it. You do the same as me though, simply stating the contrary as fact without proof that they are indeed comparable. I also said that a physical system needs to be included in any physical statement, which system can be linked to a thinker to the same extent that a moral system is. This is trivially true. When I say, for instance, "the chair is under the table," I am invoking a specific set of more or less physical concepts that are accessible to all people who speak English. Another physical system might use these signs to mean something else, or might use different signs to mean the same thing. And with more precise physical statements, like f=ma or e=1/2mv^2, it is obvious that we are taking on a lot of conceptual baggage in order to make our statement. Every statement comes out of a system of concepts that define its precise meaning; this system of concepts surely needs to be applied by a human if it's going to be applied at all, but that doesn't make it a total fiction (or whatever pejoratives you want to call it). So? You said that beauty loses its sense if there is no one around to behold it. How about our other classifications, like "green" and "chair" and "born on January 17th?" Does the concept "green" cease to mean anything at all if there is nobody around to see green things? It doesn't seem to me to be so; using the example I used earlier, I can imagine a possible world where everything is green but everyone is red-green colorblind, and green still makes plenty of sense here. Green is different. "Green" is the word we use for a certain wave length of light that is emitted from a certain object and processed by a functioning human brain and eye. There's no judgment in the word green.
Chair is different, too. Chair is a level plane on pillars made for sitting. No personal value, no judgment.
Born of January 17th means, someone came out of a womb on the day that is marked on january 17th on our gregorian calendar.
All those words do not lose meaning when there's no human around. (Except you mean meaning in a "purpose" kind of way which I don't.)I am maintaining that the universe does not care about our formulations of the laws of physics, either. The universe moves on as it does, and we can describe events that take place in it with different levels of accuracy and precision, but the universe doesn't care about our formulations. You might be surprised to find out that physical events are always underdetermine physical theory: that is to say, given any amount of physical data, we can always construct more than one physical theory that explains it. This means, badly put, that there is no one objectively right and complete set of physical laws that totally describe the universe. There can be multiple systems that perfectly describe and predict all physical data. I am surprised to hear you say that with perfect knowledge of the outside world, there could still be two different interpretations that are equally true. I find that hard to believe. Source on that theory? I want this to show that our formulations of physical laws are unhinged from the universe just like moral laws are: the universe doesn't care at all that Newton was born or that we haven't found a theory of quantum gravity or whatever. We can come up with certain ways of describing physical events, but these certain ways don't matter at all to the universe. Things stand the same, in this respect, with description of moral events. The universe goes on as it does and we lay our moral interpretations over it. The difference between physical laws and moral laws does not lie in mind-dependence. I agree with your first part. If our interpretations of nature are right or wrong does not change nature. I said a similar thing before in this thread. You're not disproving me or anything. And I'm still weary about what your opinion actually is. For underdetermination - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-underdetermination/ although I was being a little disingenuous in trying to present it as obviously true. Anyway, what I'd like to focus on is what I've bolded. It looks like you're under the impression that if we can provide a definition for what one of our terms means, those terms don't lose meaning when there are no humans around. Besides the obvious simplicity of your definitions, this idea is very strange to hold along with the opinion that moral judgments lose meaning when there are no humans around. What if we could provide a similar definition for our moral terms? Would they then retain meaning without humans? Do you think the ability to create a set of formal criteria is what makes certain words able to retain their meaning without any humans around to use them? Definitions are by their nature universal. They are true no matter who is looking at them, who is applying them or who is rating them. So yes, if you can find a definition for what is good and bad that does not require an entity passing judgment, then you would have me convinced. Definitions that are not universal are called opinions. And that's what I think of morals to be, just opinions. Thank you for the indetermination article. I'm not sure I agree but I find it interesting. Okay. I don't know why you would think the difference between "definition" and "moral judgment" also makes the former mind-independent and the former -dependent, but that really isn't an issue. Many philosophers have argued (and I am inclined to agree) that things like the simple definitions you provided for words will always fail to accurately describe every bit of usage, or if they do always predict things correctly, it is only an accident. I'll provide you with an argument for this below, but the point of it is just to show that I think you have a mistaken understanding of what goes into a moral judgment as opposed to a "chair judgment" or a color judgment or what-have-you. And I think if the difference you've tried to place between these falls apart, you should think that morality is either real (just like color and chairs and whatever) or that it's as real as real can be (so just as real as colors and chairs, but those too are just a sort of judgment). In either case, I don't see any grounds for continuing to disparage morality, unless you want to do the same for all human judgment. Here are the definitions you gave Green is different. "Green" is the word we use for a certain wave length of light that is emitted from a certain object and processed by a functioning human brain and eye. There's no judgment in the word green.
Chair is different, too. Chair is a level plane on pillars made for sitting. No personal value, no judgment.
Born of January 17th means, someone came out of a womb on the day that is marked on january 17th on our gregorian calendar. You'll see immediately that your definitions fail. I don't mean for this step here to prove much, but anyway I'll go through it. "Green" doesn't refer to a wavelength, much less a processed wavelength; things can be green without an actual human brain processing the photons that came off of them. But moreover, there is no specific set of wavelengths that we'd agree make up "green," and in fact people will judge (correctly!!!) different wavelengths to be green in different contexts. People on drugs, colorblind people, etc., all describe things as green that don't fall into the "typical" span of wavelengths. And we ourselves use green to refer to things that aren't "properly" green: green tea, for example. So your definition needs refinement. Okay, so you might say "Well my definition was just vague, if I work on it real hard I can make a good one." Well, and what of that? What good does that do you? You can maybe provide a succinct or not-so-succinct description of every correct usage of the word "green," but you haven't necessarily talked about the way we judge things to be green. When I judge something to be green, I don't need to use your perfect definition of the word. And moreover, if you want a really long and specific and loophole-filled definition like "Green is a color typically associated with wavelengths 300-400 nm (or whatever), except when referring to certain things like green tea or a green soldier, or when someone under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs is talking..." then you have to admit the possibility of a similar definition for morality. I don't see how you can make a principled distinction between definitions of color terms, or what-have-you, and morality. People will disagree for both, both will be extremely long if they're accurate, people don't need either to actually judge things, and so on. When I judge something to be a chair, I do not use a formal set of criteria. But this does not mean that my judgment is wrong or stupid or unfounded or something; that's just how language works. It's just the same with morality. I don't think you've provided any reason to think that morality is a special kind of term, such that our normal definitions and judgment faculties (which connect up with mind-independent properties) somehow don't apply. It seems like whatever I say does not reach you. Either I make no sense or you don't get it. Either way, how about we turn the question around? You presuppose universality of moral systems. You don't claim to have found it or that anyone has (yet) but you say there is the possibility of at least one universal moral statement. How is that? Where does it come from? How does that not interfere with the fact that morals are an invention of sentient beings? Where does your conviction come from that there is such a thing?
I said before that I'm a particularist about morals, so I don't think there are any universal moral statements in the sense you mean. But here's one correct moral statement: Hitler was a bad person.
My optimism about morality comes pretty directly from my general attitude about words in general. I see no reason to think that moral propositions are, as a class, more unhinged from reality or more tied to personal opinion or vaguer than typical judgments. I also think most typical judgments, even though they don't have the rigor of science or logic, can accurately be called right or wrong. So I think that morality as a system of concepts is more or less built out of our practices and usage of moral language, just like all of our other systems for judging.
The methods for confirming the truth of a moral statement are not, in my view, scientific, but neither are the methods for confirming a wide variety of truths. For instance, if we are unsure as to whether something I'm sitting on is a chair, there is no experiment I can run or data I can analyze or anything in order to tell whether it's a chair. I just look at it and, given my general knowledge of English, I can tell that it is or is not a chair. Morality is similar. You might object that people will often disagree about moral claims, so just knowing English doesn't mean all my moral judgments are correct, but this is true for other words, and I'm not particularly skeptical about the truth of all my judgments just because some other people speak the same language as me and disagree. Moreover, there are methods for investigating truth specific to morality; while we have almost no higher-level considerations to make w/r/t chairs, there are lots of things we can bring in to consider whether some action or person or situation is morally good or bad. For instance, I can ask whether human rights are being respected, whether anyone is being harmed, and so on. And I think the truth of moral statements can't be meaningfully separated from these truth-investigating practices: it simply doesn't make any sense to say "Well sure, people think that making people happy is usually morally good, but how do you really know that?" just as it doesn't make any sense to say "Well sure, people think that those things you sit on with four legs and a back are chairs, but how do you really know that?"
So to put it succinctly: I think that moral judgments can be true and false in just the same way as many other kinds of judgments we make, and I am confident that most of our everyday judgments are true or false even though they don't have rigorous methods of investigation backing them.
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On August 01 2013 05:51 Spekulatius wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2013 05:10 gneGne wrote:On August 01 2013 04:46 Spekulatius wrote:On August 01 2013 04:17 gneGne wrote:If a=c and b=c then c=c. There's no such thing for morals. Morals work like this: I don't like c and event b is a manifestation of c so I don't like b.
You mean if a=c and b=c then a=b Oh and there is something like a logic of morals, its called the categorical imperative. Oh yeah right. I missed that. Thanks. Why is the categorical imperative logical though? In a sense that it is derived from a universal truth? You could deem it logical because its a criterium for actions according to maxims that can function as universal law. I can make criteria too that function as universal law. Killing people taller than 5 feet is fine. Everyone must eat nothing but strawberries. Women need to be stripped down to their underwear in public. Easiest criteria ever. Show nested quote +The justification is a bit harder to explain, however it has to do with the fact that the categorical imperative is a criterium for a free will. You must have read that somewhere but I have no idea what that means.
Well, obviously the examples of maxims you gave couldn't function as universal law. Killing or more specifically murder (which seems to be implied here), for example, could and should not be applied as universal law (whatever specifications of the person you may add).
And yes, I have read this somewhere, more specifically under the heading of deontology, of which Kant made a reasonable attempt of clarification. Not to say all questions are answered, and just like Kant I think its not in our grasp to know the good, but if you ask me for my standpoint on morality then I think duty is at its core.
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@Lixler
I'm still not sure what to think about particularism. I was sitting in on a seminar in it a year or so ago but ended up not having time (and didn't really like the leader's organization of it).
Coincidentally, I actually read your comment as a break from reading Dancy's Reasons without Principles. Do you like his presentation of particularism? I find myself drawn to many of the general ideas and in particular am attracted to the analogy with semantic competence. But a ton of the specific arguments he makes (at least early on) are at best underdeveloped and at worst just bad.
Edit:
@WhiteDog, if you're still following this thread, I'd probably label you a particularist, rather than a relativist. So maybe whatever discussion about particularism comes of this would be interesting to you. I'd need to know more about your views to be sure though.
Edit 2: Whoops, I mean Ethics Without Principles, though interestingly my mistake would be at least as fitting. A sign I'm thinking too much about this.
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On August 01 2013 06:20 frogrubdown wrote:
@Lixler
I'm still not sure what to think about particularism. I was sitting in on a seminar in it a year or so ago but ended up not having time (and didn't really like the leader's organization of it).
Coincidentally, I actually read your comment as a break from reading Dancy's Reasons without Principles. Do you like his presentation of particularism? I find myself drawn to many of the general ideas and in particular am attracted to the analogy with semantic competence. But a ton of the specific arguments he makes (at least early on) are at best underdeveloped and at worst just bad.
Edit:
@WhiteDog, if you're still following this thread, I'd probably label you a particularist, rather than a relativist. So maybe whatever discussion about particularism comes of this would be interesting to you. I'd need to know more about your views to be sure though.
Edit 2: Whoops, I mean Ethics Without Principles, though interestingly my mistake would be at least as fitting. A sign I'm thinking too much about this.
I really like the analogy with ability to use a word too, but I think I come at it from a direction where that analogy is more central so some of what he has to say is a little off for me. So like when he lists out certain circumstances and categorizes them as "enablers" or "disablers" or "attenuators," I feel like he's still kind of sticking to more-or-less generalist thinking; I feel like the impacts contexts have are more smooth than that. So e.g. his example of an "enabler" for a promise to X being a reason to do X is that the promise wasn't made under duress. I think this can only be a kind of a descriptive tool, especially given how much he doesn't like subjunctive conditionals. He wouldn't say that not being under duress is an enabler because if he had been under duress it wouldn't have counted, so I don't know what sense "enabling" even makes then. There just is no "promise" floating around nebulously prior to its actual usage, so the notion of some core or usual or primary contribution being strengthened or weakened or disabled seems weird to me.
And I feel like particularism ought to be a bigger threat to our typical ideas about moral reasoning than he makes it out to be, but I haven't finished the book (same one as you) so he might deal with that later. He seems to me to be saying "Well, actually most of our everyday reasoning about morals isn't quite right, but we don't need to worry about it because..." and he doesn't fill in the ellipsis with anything solid.
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On August 01 2013 06:12 Lixler wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2013 05:57 Spekulatius wrote:On August 01 2013 05:35 Lixler wrote:On July 31 2013 19:27 Spekulatius wrote:On July 31 2013 10:36 Lixler wrote:On July 31 2013 02:46 Spekulatius wrote:On July 30 2013 23:42 Lixler wrote:On July 30 2013 18:42 Spekulatius wrote:
@ Lixler:
I think I expressed myself badly in my last post. Of course I do agree with you that dying does not remove a moral system. But this does not in any way mean a moral system is like a law of physics.
You say, moral systems survive their "thinker" just as laws of physics do - I disagree.
You say, a physical system of person X needs to be included in the equation the same way the moral system of person X needs to be included in its respective equation - I disagree.
I tried to compare morals to beauty as I believe they are comparable. And I very strongly believe that if you remove a critical beholder from the equation, the notion of beauty stops to make sense. What is beauty if there is nobody who is appreciating it, rating it or feeling it? Nothing. A notion without content.
I very strongly believe the exact same statement holds true for moral systems. Morals are a human invention. Without humans, nobody would ever think about calling something right or wrong. It is completely implausible to me how there should be any universal statement that is not contingent on a beholder.
ObviousOne phrased it much more bluntly: The universe does not care if something is right or wrong. This means a) that only caring about morality produces moral systems which means it's contingent on the human mind. And b) laws of physics are not relative to the beholder, they do not change depending on who's watching/rating/analyzing.
I don't know how to take these two statements together. Of course I do agree with you that dying does not remove a moral system. You say, moral systems survive their "thinker" just as laws of physics do - I disagree. Are you trying to take "thinker" broadly here and say that they can't be unhinged totally from all thinkers? I guess that would make sense. yes. Let me provide some simple arguments for my views, as you've presented them. I say that a moral system survives its thinker just as laws of physics do. What I mean by this is that any given moral system has no intrinsic connection to the person who is applying it (although that person might feel really good about it, or whatever). Other people can adopt a moral system, both before and after this person's life, people can consider the moral system without believing it themselves, and so on. Surely nobody would make moral judgments if there were no rational agents around, but nobody would make physical judgments, either. Yes. A moral system is like a pen. It can be used by your heirs and everyone else after you die. I dunno why you invoke physical judgments though. Trying to interpret the outside world is nothing like saying A is better than B. This is actually my main problem with what you're saying and I get critisized for disagreeing with you on it. You do the same as me though, simply stating the contrary as fact without proof that they are indeed comparable. I also said that a physical system needs to be included in any physical statement, which system can be linked to a thinker to the same extent that a moral system is. This is trivially true. When I say, for instance, "the chair is under the table," I am invoking a specific set of more or less physical concepts that are accessible to all people who speak English. Another physical system might use these signs to mean something else, or might use different signs to mean the same thing. And with more precise physical statements, like f=ma or e=1/2mv^2, it is obvious that we are taking on a lot of conceptual baggage in order to make our statement. Every statement comes out of a system of concepts that define its precise meaning; this system of concepts surely needs to be applied by a human if it's going to be applied at all, but that doesn't make it a total fiction (or whatever pejoratives you want to call it). So? You said that beauty loses its sense if there is no one around to behold it. How about our other classifications, like "green" and "chair" and "born on January 17th?" Does the concept "green" cease to mean anything at all if there is nobody around to see green things? It doesn't seem to me to be so; using the example I used earlier, I can imagine a possible world where everything is green but everyone is red-green colorblind, and green still makes plenty of sense here. Green is different. "Green" is the word we use for a certain wave length of light that is emitted from a certain object and processed by a functioning human brain and eye. There's no judgment in the word green.
Chair is different, too. Chair is a level plane on pillars made for sitting. No personal value, no judgment.
Born of January 17th means, someone came out of a womb on the day that is marked on january 17th on our gregorian calendar.
All those words do not lose meaning when there's no human around. (Except you mean meaning in a "purpose" kind of way which I don't.)I am maintaining that the universe does not care about our formulations of the laws of physics, either. The universe moves on as it does, and we can describe events that take place in it with different levels of accuracy and precision, but the universe doesn't care about our formulations. You might be surprised to find out that physical events are always underdetermine physical theory: that is to say, given any amount of physical data, we can always construct more than one physical theory that explains it. This means, badly put, that there is no one objectively right and complete set of physical laws that totally describe the universe. There can be multiple systems that perfectly describe and predict all physical data. I am surprised to hear you say that with perfect knowledge of the outside world, there could still be two different interpretations that are equally true. I find that hard to believe. Source on that theory? I want this to show that our formulations of physical laws are unhinged from the universe just like moral laws are: the universe doesn't care at all that Newton was born or that we haven't found a theory of quantum gravity or whatever. We can come up with certain ways of describing physical events, but these certain ways don't matter at all to the universe. Things stand the same, in this respect, with description of moral events. The universe goes on as it does and we lay our moral interpretations over it. The difference between physical laws and moral laws does not lie in mind-dependence. I agree with your first part. If our interpretations of nature are right or wrong does not change nature. I said a similar thing before in this thread. You're not disproving me or anything. And I'm still weary about what your opinion actually is. For underdetermination - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-underdetermination/ although I was being a little disingenuous in trying to present it as obviously true. Anyway, what I'd like to focus on is what I've bolded. It looks like you're under the impression that if we can provide a definition for what one of our terms means, those terms don't lose meaning when there are no humans around. Besides the obvious simplicity of your definitions, this idea is very strange to hold along with the opinion that moral judgments lose meaning when there are no humans around. What if we could provide a similar definition for our moral terms? Would they then retain meaning without humans? Do you think the ability to create a set of formal criteria is what makes certain words able to retain their meaning without any humans around to use them? Definitions are by their nature universal. They are true no matter who is looking at them, who is applying them or who is rating them. So yes, if you can find a definition for what is good and bad that does not require an entity passing judgment, then you would have me convinced. Definitions that are not universal are called opinions. And that's what I think of morals to be, just opinions. Thank you for the indetermination article. I'm not sure I agree but I find it interesting. Okay. I don't know why you would think the difference between "definition" and "moral judgment" also makes the former mind-independent and the former -dependent, but that really isn't an issue. Many philosophers have argued (and I am inclined to agree) that things like the simple definitions you provided for words will always fail to accurately describe every bit of usage, or if they do always predict things correctly, it is only an accident. I'll provide you with an argument for this below, but the point of it is just to show that I think you have a mistaken understanding of what goes into a moral judgment as opposed to a "chair judgment" or a color judgment or what-have-you. And I think if the difference you've tried to place between these falls apart, you should think that morality is either real (just like color and chairs and whatever) or that it's as real as real can be (so just as real as colors and chairs, but those too are just a sort of judgment). In either case, I don't see any grounds for continuing to disparage morality, unless you want to do the same for all human judgment. Here are the definitions you gave Green is different. "Green" is the word we use for a certain wave length of light that is emitted from a certain object and processed by a functioning human brain and eye. There's no judgment in the word green.
Chair is different, too. Chair is a level plane on pillars made for sitting. No personal value, no judgment.
Born of January 17th means, someone came out of a womb on the day that is marked on january 17th on our gregorian calendar. You'll see immediately that your definitions fail. I don't mean for this step here to prove much, but anyway I'll go through it. "Green" doesn't refer to a wavelength, much less a processed wavelength; things can be green without an actual human brain processing the photons that came off of them. But moreover, there is no specific set of wavelengths that we'd agree make up "green," and in fact people will judge (correctly!!!) different wavelengths to be green in different contexts. People on drugs, colorblind people, etc., all describe things as green that don't fall into the "typical" span of wavelengths. And we ourselves use green to refer to things that aren't "properly" green: green tea, for example. So your definition needs refinement. Okay, so you might say "Well my definition was just vague, if I work on it real hard I can make a good one." Well, and what of that? What good does that do you? You can maybe provide a succinct or not-so-succinct description of every correct usage of the word "green," but you haven't necessarily talked about the way we judge things to be green. When I judge something to be green, I don't need to use your perfect definition of the word. And moreover, if you want a really long and specific and loophole-filled definition like "Green is a color typically associated with wavelengths 300-400 nm (or whatever), except when referring to certain things like green tea or a green soldier, or when someone under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs is talking..." then you have to admit the possibility of a similar definition for morality. I don't see how you can make a principled distinction between definitions of color terms, or what-have-you, and morality. People will disagree for both, both will be extremely long if they're accurate, people don't need either to actually judge things, and so on. When I judge something to be a chair, I do not use a formal set of criteria. But this does not mean that my judgment is wrong or stupid or unfounded or something; that's just how language works. It's just the same with morality. I don't think you've provided any reason to think that morality is a special kind of term, such that our normal definitions and judgment faculties (which connect up with mind-independent properties) somehow don't apply. It seems like whatever I say does not reach you. Either I make no sense or you don't get it. Either way, how about we turn the question around? You presuppose universality of moral systems. You don't claim to have found it or that anyone has (yet) but you say there is the possibility of at least one universal moral statement. How is that? Where does it come from? How does that not interfere with the fact that morals are an invention of sentient beings? Where does your conviction come from that there is such a thing? I said before that I'm a particularist about morals, so I don't think there are any universal moral statements in the sense you mean. But here's one correct moral statement: Hitler was a bad person. My optimism about morality comes pretty directly from my general attitude about words in general. I see no reason to think that moral propositions are, as a class, more unhinged from reality or more tied to personal opinion or vaguer than typical judgments. I also think most typical judgments, even though they don't have the rigor of science or logic, can accurately be called right or wrong. So I think that morality as a system of concepts is more or less built out of our practices and usage of moral language, just like all of our other systems for judging. The methods for confirming the truth of a moral statement are not, in my view, scientific, but neither are the methods for confirming a wide variety of truths. For instance, if we are unsure as to whether something I'm sitting on is a chair, there is no experiment I can run or data I can analyze or anything in order to tell whether it's a chair. I just look at it and, given my general knowledge of English, I can tell that it is or is not a chair. Morality is similar. You might object that people will often disagree about moral claims, so just knowing English doesn't mean all my moral judgments are correct, but this is true for other words, and I'm not particularly skeptical about the truth of all my judgments just because some other people speak the same language as me and disagree. Moreover, there are methods for investigating truth specific to morality; while we have almost no higher-level considerations to make w/r/t chairs, there are lots of things we can bring in to consider whether some action or person or situation is morally good or bad. For instance, I can ask whether human rights are being respected, whether anyone is being harmed, and so on. And I think the truth of moral statements can't be meaningfully separated from these truth-investigating practices: it simply doesn't make any sense to say "Well sure, people think that making people happy is usually morally good, but how do you really know that?" just as it doesn't make any sense to say "Well sure, people think that those things you sit on with four legs and a back are chairs, but how do you really know that?" So to put it succinctly: I think that moral judgments can be true and false in just the same way as many other kinds of judgments we make, and I am confident that most of our everyday judgments are true or false even though they don't have rigorous methods of investigation backing them.
That's exactly the problem I have with your position. You say there are moral truths, but there is no way to define them or to prove them. There is no way to know about their quality.
That does not bother you, however. You are pleased with being "confident" that something is right and something is wrong and use that as a hint - as there is no rigorous proof, so you say - that it is morally true.
I still don't think your chair analogy makes any sense. A chair is a defined object. People using the word refer to the same object. "Good" and "bad" are not defined. Everyone uses them differently because everyone means them differently. They are not universal.
Why does respect for human rights make anything good? Who says human rights are any good?
But if you really believe what you said up there and I quote "it simply doesn't make any sense to say "Well sure, people think that making people happy is usually morally good, but how do you really know that?"", despite this being the real fundamental question of this thread, then I don't know what I'm doing here.
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On August 01 2013 06:16 gneGne wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2013 05:51 Spekulatius wrote:On August 01 2013 05:10 gneGne wrote:On August 01 2013 04:46 Spekulatius wrote:On August 01 2013 04:17 gneGne wrote:If a=c and b=c then c=c. There's no such thing for morals. Morals work like this: I don't like c and event b is a manifestation of c so I don't like b.
You mean if a=c and b=c then a=b Oh and there is something like a logic of morals, its called the categorical imperative. Oh yeah right. I missed that. Thanks. Why is the categorical imperative logical though? In a sense that it is derived from a universal truth? You could deem it logical because its a criterium for actions according to maxims that can function as universal law. I can make criteria too that function as universal law. Killing people taller than 5 feet is fine. Everyone must eat nothing but strawberries. Women need to be stripped down to their underwear in public. Easiest criteria ever. The justification is a bit harder to explain, however it has to do with the fact that the categorical imperative is a criterium for a free will. You must have read that somewhere but I have no idea what that means. Well, obviously the examples of maxims you gave couldn't function as universal law. Killing or more specifically murder (which seems to be implied here), for example, could and should not be applied as universal law (whatever specifications of the person you may add).
Of course it could. Nazis did it. Communists did it. Mao did it. It happens all the time.
You say it should not be applied. But you have no reason why. Absolute no reason.
And yes, I have read this somewhere, more specifically under the heading of deontology, of which Kant made a reasonable attempt of clarification. Not to say all questions are answered, and just like Kant I think its not in our grasp to know the good, but if you ask me for my standpoint on morality then I think duty is at its core.
You think. You believe. You are of the opinion that. You feel. You would like.
That's just like... your opinion, man.
Why should anyone care what a single person thinks what is good and what is bad? Why should your opinion matter, why mine, why Mahatma Gandhi's, why Pol Pots?
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On August 01 2013 07:08 Spekulatius wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2013 06:12 Lixler wrote:On August 01 2013 05:57 Spekulatius wrote:On August 01 2013 05:35 Lixler wrote:On July 31 2013 19:27 Spekulatius wrote:On July 31 2013 10:36 Lixler wrote:On July 31 2013 02:46 Spekulatius wrote:On July 30 2013 23:42 Lixler wrote:On July 30 2013 18:42 Spekulatius wrote:
@ Lixler:
I think I expressed myself badly in my last post. Of course I do agree with you that dying does not remove a moral system. But this does not in any way mean a moral system is like a law of physics.
You say, moral systems survive their "thinker" just as laws of physics do - I disagree.
You say, a physical system of person X needs to be included in the equation the same way the moral system of person X needs to be included in its respective equation - I disagree.
I tried to compare morals to beauty as I believe they are comparable. And I very strongly believe that if you remove a critical beholder from the equation, the notion of beauty stops to make sense. What is beauty if there is nobody who is appreciating it, rating it or feeling it? Nothing. A notion without content.
I very strongly believe the exact same statement holds true for moral systems. Morals are a human invention. Without humans, nobody would ever think about calling something right or wrong. It is completely implausible to me how there should be any universal statement that is not contingent on a beholder.
ObviousOne phrased it much more bluntly: The universe does not care if something is right or wrong. This means a) that only caring about morality produces moral systems which means it's contingent on the human mind. And b) laws of physics are not relative to the beholder, they do not change depending on who's watching/rating/analyzing.
I don't know how to take these two statements together. Of course I do agree with you that dying does not remove a moral system. You say, moral systems survive their "thinker" just as laws of physics do - I disagree. Are you trying to take "thinker" broadly here and say that they can't be unhinged totally from all thinkers? I guess that would make sense. yes. Let me provide some simple arguments for my views, as you've presented them. I say that a moral system survives its thinker just as laws of physics do. What I mean by this is that any given moral system has no intrinsic connection to the person who is applying it (although that person might feel really good about it, or whatever). Other people can adopt a moral system, both before and after this person's life, people can consider the moral system without believing it themselves, and so on. Surely nobody would make moral judgments if there were no rational agents around, but nobody would make physical judgments, either. Yes. A moral system is like a pen. It can be used by your heirs and everyone else after you die. I dunno why you invoke physical judgments though. Trying to interpret the outside world is nothing like saying A is better than B. This is actually my main problem with what you're saying and I get critisized for disagreeing with you on it. You do the same as me though, simply stating the contrary as fact without proof that they are indeed comparable. I also said that a physical system needs to be included in any physical statement, which system can be linked to a thinker to the same extent that a moral system is. This is trivially true. When I say, for instance, "the chair is under the table," I am invoking a specific set of more or less physical concepts that are accessible to all people who speak English. Another physical system might use these signs to mean something else, or might use different signs to mean the same thing. And with more precise physical statements, like f=ma or e=1/2mv^2, it is obvious that we are taking on a lot of conceptual baggage in order to make our statement. Every statement comes out of a system of concepts that define its precise meaning; this system of concepts surely needs to be applied by a human if it's going to be applied at all, but that doesn't make it a total fiction (or whatever pejoratives you want to call it). So? You said that beauty loses its sense if there is no one around to behold it. How about our other classifications, like "green" and "chair" and "born on January 17th?" Does the concept "green" cease to mean anything at all if there is nobody around to see green things? It doesn't seem to me to be so; using the example I used earlier, I can imagine a possible world where everything is green but everyone is red-green colorblind, and green still makes plenty of sense here. Green is different. "Green" is the word we use for a certain wave length of light that is emitted from a certain object and processed by a functioning human brain and eye. There's no judgment in the word green.
Chair is different, too. Chair is a level plane on pillars made for sitting. No personal value, no judgment.
Born of January 17th means, someone came out of a womb on the day that is marked on january 17th on our gregorian calendar.
All those words do not lose meaning when there's no human around. (Except you mean meaning in a "purpose" kind of way which I don't.)I am maintaining that the universe does not care about our formulations of the laws of physics, either. The universe moves on as it does, and we can describe events that take place in it with different levels of accuracy and precision, but the universe doesn't care about our formulations. You might be surprised to find out that physical events are always underdetermine physical theory: that is to say, given any amount of physical data, we can always construct more than one physical theory that explains it. This means, badly put, that there is no one objectively right and complete set of physical laws that totally describe the universe. There can be multiple systems that perfectly describe and predict all physical data. I am surprised to hear you say that with perfect knowledge of the outside world, there could still be two different interpretations that are equally true. I find that hard to believe. Source on that theory? I want this to show that our formulations of physical laws are unhinged from the universe just like moral laws are: the universe doesn't care at all that Newton was born or that we haven't found a theory of quantum gravity or whatever. We can come up with certain ways of describing physical events, but these certain ways don't matter at all to the universe. Things stand the same, in this respect, with description of moral events. The universe goes on as it does and we lay our moral interpretations over it. The difference between physical laws and moral laws does not lie in mind-dependence. I agree with your first part. If our interpretations of nature are right or wrong does not change nature. I said a similar thing before in this thread. You're not disproving me or anything. And I'm still weary about what your opinion actually is. For underdetermination - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-underdetermination/ although I was being a little disingenuous in trying to present it as obviously true. Anyway, what I'd like to focus on is what I've bolded. It looks like you're under the impression that if we can provide a definition for what one of our terms means, those terms don't lose meaning when there are no humans around. Besides the obvious simplicity of your definitions, this idea is very strange to hold along with the opinion that moral judgments lose meaning when there are no humans around. What if we could provide a similar definition for our moral terms? Would they then retain meaning without humans? Do you think the ability to create a set of formal criteria is what makes certain words able to retain their meaning without any humans around to use them? Definitions are by their nature universal. They are true no matter who is looking at them, who is applying them or who is rating them. So yes, if you can find a definition for what is good and bad that does not require an entity passing judgment, then you would have me convinced. Definitions that are not universal are called opinions. And that's what I think of morals to be, just opinions. Thank you for the indetermination article. I'm not sure I agree but I find it interesting. Okay. I don't know why you would think the difference between "definition" and "moral judgment" also makes the former mind-independent and the former -dependent, but that really isn't an issue. Many philosophers have argued (and I am inclined to agree) that things like the simple definitions you provided for words will always fail to accurately describe every bit of usage, or if they do always predict things correctly, it is only an accident. I'll provide you with an argument for this below, but the point of it is just to show that I think you have a mistaken understanding of what goes into a moral judgment as opposed to a "chair judgment" or a color judgment or what-have-you. And I think if the difference you've tried to place between these falls apart, you should think that morality is either real (just like color and chairs and whatever) or that it's as real as real can be (so just as real as colors and chairs, but those too are just a sort of judgment). In either case, I don't see any grounds for continuing to disparage morality, unless you want to do the same for all human judgment. Here are the definitions you gave Green is different. "Green" is the word we use for a certain wave length of light that is emitted from a certain object and processed by a functioning human brain and eye. There's no judgment in the word green.
Chair is different, too. Chair is a level plane on pillars made for sitting. No personal value, no judgment.
Born of January 17th means, someone came out of a womb on the day that is marked on january 17th on our gregorian calendar. You'll see immediately that your definitions fail. I don't mean for this step here to prove much, but anyway I'll go through it. "Green" doesn't refer to a wavelength, much less a processed wavelength; things can be green without an actual human brain processing the photons that came off of them. But moreover, there is no specific set of wavelengths that we'd agree make up "green," and in fact people will judge (correctly!!!) different wavelengths to be green in different contexts. People on drugs, colorblind people, etc., all describe things as green that don't fall into the "typical" span of wavelengths. And we ourselves use green to refer to things that aren't "properly" green: green tea, for example. So your definition needs refinement. Okay, so you might say "Well my definition was just vague, if I work on it real hard I can make a good one." Well, and what of that? What good does that do you? You can maybe provide a succinct or not-so-succinct description of every correct usage of the word "green," but you haven't necessarily talked about the way we judge things to be green. When I judge something to be green, I don't need to use your perfect definition of the word. And moreover, if you want a really long and specific and loophole-filled definition like "Green is a color typically associated with wavelengths 300-400 nm (or whatever), except when referring to certain things like green tea or a green soldier, or when someone under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs is talking..." then you have to admit the possibility of a similar definition for morality. I don't see how you can make a principled distinction between definitions of color terms, or what-have-you, and morality. People will disagree for both, both will be extremely long if they're accurate, people don't need either to actually judge things, and so on. When I judge something to be a chair, I do not use a formal set of criteria. But this does not mean that my judgment is wrong or stupid or unfounded or something; that's just how language works. It's just the same with morality. I don't think you've provided any reason to think that morality is a special kind of term, such that our normal definitions and judgment faculties (which connect up with mind-independent properties) somehow don't apply. It seems like whatever I say does not reach you. Either I make no sense or you don't get it. Either way, how about we turn the question around? You presuppose universality of moral systems. You don't claim to have found it or that anyone has (yet) but you say there is the possibility of at least one universal moral statement. How is that? Where does it come from? How does that not interfere with the fact that morals are an invention of sentient beings? Where does your conviction come from that there is such a thing? I said before that I'm a particularist about morals, so I don't think there are any universal moral statements in the sense you mean. But here's one correct moral statement: Hitler was a bad person. My optimism about morality comes pretty directly from my general attitude about words in general. I see no reason to think that moral propositions are, as a class, more unhinged from reality or more tied to personal opinion or vaguer than typical judgments. I also think most typical judgments, even though they don't have the rigor of science or logic, can accurately be called right or wrong. So I think that morality as a system of concepts is more or less built out of our practices and usage of moral language, just like all of our other systems for judging. The methods for confirming the truth of a moral statement are not, in my view, scientific, but neither are the methods for confirming a wide variety of truths. For instance, if we are unsure as to whether something I'm sitting on is a chair, there is no experiment I can run or data I can analyze or anything in order to tell whether it's a chair. I just look at it and, given my general knowledge of English, I can tell that it is or is not a chair. Morality is similar. You might object that people will often disagree about moral claims, so just knowing English doesn't mean all my moral judgments are correct, but this is true for other words, and I'm not particularly skeptical about the truth of all my judgments just because some other people speak the same language as me and disagree. Moreover, there are methods for investigating truth specific to morality; while we have almost no higher-level considerations to make w/r/t chairs, there are lots of things we can bring in to consider whether some action or person or situation is morally good or bad. For instance, I can ask whether human rights are being respected, whether anyone is being harmed, and so on. And I think the truth of moral statements can't be meaningfully separated from these truth-investigating practices: it simply doesn't make any sense to say "Well sure, people think that making people happy is usually morally good, but how do you really know that?" just as it doesn't make any sense to say "Well sure, people think that those things you sit on with four legs and a back are chairs, but how do you really know that?" So to put it succinctly: I think that moral judgments can be true and false in just the same way as many other kinds of judgments we make, and I am confident that most of our everyday judgments are true or false even though they don't have rigorous methods of investigation backing them. That's exactly the problem I have with your position. You say there are moral truths, but there is no way to define them or to prove them. There is no way to know about their quality. That does not bother you, however. You are pleased with being "confident" that something is right and something is wrong and use that as a hint - as there is no rigorous proof, so you say - that it is morally true. I still don't think your chair analogy makes any sense. A chair is a defined object. People using the word refer to the same object. "Good" and "bad" are not defined. Everyone uses them differently because everyone means them differently. They are not universal. Why does respect for human rights make anything good? Who says human rights are any good? But if you really believe what you said up there and I quote "it simply doesn't make any sense to say "Well sure, people think that making people happy is usually morally good, but how do you really know that?"", despite this being the real fundamental question of this thread, then I don't know what I'm doing here.
Sure, a chair is a real object out there, but calling it a chair is just as much a description of it as calling it good or bad. What I mean is that, given a vast array of objects, some of them are chairs and others aren't. But the rules that distinguish the two are not simple, conscious, or (maybe even) explicable. Despite this, there is a truth of the matter about whether or not most things are chairs. I don't know why you think a chair being "a defined object [sic]" means that our statements about chairs are somehow secured in their validity. Why would describing something as a "defined object" be different than describing features of it (such as moral features)?
You raise a good, but hard to formulate, point when you say that everyone means moral terms differently. I already hinted at my response to this: everyone also has little idiosyncracies in their usage of the word "chair" (or if not chairs, I could come up with another example where most people are inclined to think there is a truth of the matter), but this doesn't mean that we're all talking about something totally different when we discuss chairs. And this is true of morality as well. I think there is good reason to think we don't mean different things by our distinct usage of moral terms. For instance, when someone else contradicts our moral statements, we argue with them and think they are wrong. This would be a strange thing to do if we weren't even talking about the same thing. Also, our arguments have common ground that (most) people agree to; nobody really holds that killing people for no reason is a courageous thing to do. Finally, most people treat their moral judgments in the same way. So if I judge that something is a chair, it factors into my behavior in a roughly definable way (I'll sit in it, tell other people they can sit in it, but I won't stand in it or use it to eat my food). And if I judge that something is immoral, I'll avoid doing it, tell other people not to do it, think poorly of people who do it, and so on.
The idiosyncracies do still exist, and maybe on some level people have to "agree to disagree," but again this is not a problem particular to moral judgments. Most kinds of judgments go on just fine even though people have slightly different meanings when they use the same words.
I don't think it makes sense to doubt the possible veracity of what we usually take to be good moral reasoning because doubt is a specific practice that implies the existence of reasons to doubt, ways to confirm or deny the thing we're doubting, and the existence of an actual sense of the words. I should limit what I mean by this, but I think the example I provided is just fine. I don't know how doubt here gets any traction. Is there some way I could have been fooled about that? What would it look like for the opposite to be true? What kinds of things would show that it was true or false? The notion of like "really knowing" or fundamentally, way deep down, being totally certain seems to be a void here that we can only point to. There are no actual practices we can use to make our understanding of the truth deeper. (As we could, for instance, if I was trying to say that some particular point of light in the sky was a planet. You could say "How could you really be sure of that?" and there are lots of things I could do.) I think that the kind of absolute knowledge and truth pointed to by the doubt I posited is a fiction, but in the absence of such absolutes we have no good reason to doubt our average, everyday, coarse kinds of judgment.
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