Does morality exist?

[Betterave]

You’re dithering. Either you can explain why murder is immoral or you can’t and if you can’t - or won’t even try - then you ought to acknowledge the probability that your position is unsustainable.
Yes, that was the point of asking you to show that murder is immoral. If you can do it then you will have shown that objective morality exists … but if neither you nor anyone else can do it then it is a good indication that objective morality does not exist. That was the whole point of opening this thread.

Ender

WOW! You’re really not getting this!!!** You have defined murder as not intrinsically immoral**. (Do you understand that???) It trivially follows, therefore, that murder is NOT intrinsically immoral!!! But you’re still challenging me to explain why murder (as such) IS immoral??? WOW! Apparently you have no idea how concepts work. There is no way to prove that a bachelor is not an unmarried man - do you get that? This has nothing to do with whether or not bachelors exist or the state of being married is objective - do you get that? If someone gives you the definition of bachelor and then asks you to prove that bachelors need not be unmarried, they don’t know the first thing about how definitions work - do you get that?

(I have to be honest with you: If you don’t understand something this basic, and you don’t even understand that you don’t understand, I don’t know if there’s any point in trying to explain anything to you. I recommend you pick up a textbook on basic critical thinking skills and read it carefully and do all the exercises until you’re confident in getting them right.)

 

[Syntax]

I’ve spent a lot of time in math classrooms, and “4 is divisible by 2” is always taken to be equivalent to “4 divided by 2 -]has/-] [is] a quotient that is an integer.”

Colloquially, this is how people speak. But they are different sentences that mean different things. Again, the first is a predicative statement, the second is an identity statement using an operative desciption

If that is not what you mean, then the only other possibility is that you are taking “4 is divisible by 2” to mean “4 can be divided by 2” and asserting this as an intrinsic property of 4. f this is what you mean, this is what you you should say, because divisibility has a more specific meaning. Anyway, is that what you mean??

Yes.

this is a particularly lousy candidate for an intrinsic property of 4 since literally any number can be divided by 2.

Why is it lousy? Any object can share an intrinsic property with another. For example, we are both human. But that doesn’t mean “being human” is a lousy candidate for being an intrinsic property for both of us. And being human is certainly not a relation.

No, I am not saying that for 4 to have an essence it must stand in relation to other numbers. Not at all. I am saying that 4 has no essence to speak of–that all there is to know about 4 is how it relates to other things.

Now you are using an epistemological thesis for support of a metaphysical claim. Moreoever, the epistemological claim is false. I wouldn’t know the relations 5>4 is true and 4<5 is false without knowing what 4 and 5 means. Therefore, knowing what 4 and 5 means is epistemically prior to knowing the relations they stand in.

Yes, and I’ve addressed this before as well. The “why?” you are looking for is simply that 5>4 and 4>5 both have inferential relationships with other relations. We could only say 4>5 if we were willing to give up our beliefs about these other relations such as 4=2+2 and 4=3+2 and 3>2, but neither of us are willing to do so./

A relational statement is certainly derivable from other relations, but if the truth-conditions for all relations are in principle only dependent on other relations, you are left with certain assumptions within that system of inferences that cannot be accounted for by other relations. Spending enough time in mathematics, you should know this is precisely one of the consequences Godel demonstrated with his Incompleteness Theorem. Wikipedia, for instance, says

“the first incompleteness theorem states that no consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an “effective procedure” is capable of proving all facts about the natural numbers. For any such system, there will always be statements about the natural numbers that are true, but that are **unprovable **within the system.”

Notice the bold-faced I highlighted. I take that as direct evidence that there are brute facts about natural numbers the whole set of relations within that system cannot demonstrate. So your statement above is demonstrably false.

 

[Leela]

Leela,

Perhaps we could boil down your conversation with Syntax into the following question: If number is merely expressive of relations, then what are these relations between?

Such are relations between relations that form a web of inferential connections. In pragmatism, essentialism is replaced by panrelationalism. The content of language is not the essence of a thought in this view. An assertion has content because of its inferential relations to other assertions and the habits of action that result in believing the assertion to be true.

How can there be a relation without some *things *which are being related?

If there is something that I ought to know about a number such as 4 that is an intrinsic property of 4-ness–something that is not a statement of relation between 4 and something else–then please share it.

Best,
Leela

 

[Syntax]

That is certainly up to, but in mathematics a function is a special kind of relation. A relation is just any mapping of a set of numbers to another set of numbers while a function is a relation where there is only one y-value in the range for every x-value in the domain.

Here’s a quiz. See if you can tell which of these relations is a function…

a. y equals the square root of x
b. x equals y squared
c. y equals x cubed

Fun fact! if the function also has the property that there is only one x-value for each y-value we can say that the function is one-to-one.

(a. is a function, b. is not, and c. is one-to-one)

So what’s the problem? You are just re-stating the exact same thing I said in post #308. Please go back and read that. Relations are instances of functions. But relations are not functions, and functions are not relations. There are big differences I show between them.

As mentioned earlier, in the way you seem to be using the term “divisible,” all you are saying is that 4 can be divided by 2 just as any number can be, so this so-called property doesn’t distinguish 4 from any other number, so it makes no sense to call it a property.

huh?..Having a *distinguishable property *is not a necessary condition for having an intrinsic property. Both of us are human, we share that property, and it is both intrinsic to us. Just as “being-prime” is.

How is “being an integer” an intrinsic property? Isn’t saying that a given number is an integer a way of relating that number to a larger set of numbers. When you say “4 is an integer” you are saying that** 4 is like others numbers in some way**. Is there anything you can tell me about 4 without relating it to other numbers?

In the bold-faced, you just accidentally admitted that 4 is an integer just like other numbers. What do you think that is? That means “being an integer” is an intrinsic property numbers share…lol

Saying that 3 is a prime number means that 3 is only divisible by 1 and itself. Saying so it to say how 3 stands in relation to 1 and itself

Ok, so the relation 3=3/1 is true. But the mention of “prime” in “3 prime 1 and 3” doesn’t make any sense. So “being prime” is not a relation. If being prime were just reducible to its relations, then 3=3/1 would be an instance of “5 is prime.” But 5 is prime because “5=5/1” is true. So “being prime” is not reducible to instances of relations. It is something different relations share, both of which “3=3/1” and “5=5/1” are instances.

So, 3=3/1 is only one instance of “being prime.” “Only divisible by itself and 1” is a characteristic 3 shares with 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 27,…A shareable property? I think so. 4, 6, 8…don’t have this characteristic. I wonder why. It’s because they are divisible not only by themselves and 1…hmmm…

 

[Ender]

I think it depends on what is meant by ‘objective’ and ‘subjective.’ Does objective morality mean moral norms and laws are objective only if a God promulgates them?

No, we are searching for another source of objective moral laws.

I also think the notion moral absolutes or laws cannot exist without God’s existence can be refuted. Many philosophers…

If you think it can be refuted then step up to the plate and swing away. Take a position and defend it.

I think the task for theist and secular moralists is to give a rational ethical framework which is not absolutist and inflexible to the extreme and allows some grounds for mutual acceptance and recognition.

The issue is not whether there is a rational ethical framework that can be developed but whether morality is based on objective truths or not. There is no sense in debating whether specific actions are moral if we can’t agree on whether morality exists.

I think then that moral absolutes can be defined…

Good, then tell us what you think constitutes a moral absolute. The focus of your post was over broad; narrow it down to the specific question of whether morality is objective or subjective.

Ender

 

[Ender]

WOW! You’re really not getting this!!!** You have defined murder as not** intrinsically immoral. (Do you understand that???) It trivially follows, therefore, that murder is NOT intrinsically immoral!!! But you’re still challenging me to explain why murder (as such) IS immoral??? WOW! Apparently you have no idea how concepts work.

The definition I gave for murder said nothing at all about whether it was moral or immoral; as I said before, it is a legal definition, not a moral one. I not only understand the concept of concepts but I also understand that “legal” and “moral” are two different concepts. As defined, murder is the crime of unlawfully killing a person. That’s different than calling it a sin for the immoral killing of a person.

A statement made solely about the legality of an act does not allow any logical assumption to be made about the morality of that act. I gave the legal definition; I am challenging you to give the moral definition.

Ender

 

[Ender]

Such are relations between relations that form a web of inferential connections. In pragmatism, essentialism is replaced by panrelationalism.

I have no idea what you said here and I’m pretty weak on the property of 4-ness so I’m hoping that you and Syntax, even if you don’t abandon your arcane debate with one another, will occasionally comment on the topic of the thread.

I’m not making much progress in getting Betterave to explain whether murder is immoral and I am really hoping that you two will give it a shot. After all, if one can’t explain why murder is immoral, it should be clear that any defense of the concept of morality is problematic.

Ender

 

[Syntax]

Such are relations between relations that form a web of inferential connections. In pragmatism, essentialism is replaced by panrelationalism. The content of language is not the essence of a thought in this view. An assertion has content because of its inferential relations to other assertions and the habits of action that result in believing the assertion to be true.

Prodigal Son, Leela is saying something false in the bold-faced above. This has been demonstrated time and again by respectable mathematicians, linguists, and philosophers of language. For example, take Godel’s incompleteness theorem:

“No consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an “effective procedure” is capable of proving all facts about the natural numbers. For any such system,** there will always be statements about the natural numbers that are true, but that are unprovable within the system**.”

Leela confuses derivability with the truth-conditions for a statement. A relational statement is certainly derivable from other relations, but if the truth-conditions for all relations are in principle only dependent on other relations, you are left with certain assumptions within that system of inferences that cannot be accounted for by other relations. So there are brute facts about natural numbers the whole set of relations within that system cannot demonstrate. So the meanings of numbers cannot be reduced to the meanings of the relations they stand in. In fact, it is the other way around.

 

[Betterave]

The definition I gave for murder said nothing at all about whether it was moral or immoral; as I said before, it is a legal definition, not a moral one. I not only understand the concept of concepts but I also understand that “legal” and “moral” are two different concepts. As defined, murder is the crime of unlawfully killing a person. That’s different than calling it a sin for the immoral killing of a person.

A statement made solely about the legality of an act does not allow any logical assumption to be made about the morality of that act. I gave the legal definition; I am challenging you to give the moral definition.

Ender

I already gave you the moral definition of murder:

Originally Posted by Betterave
Murder is, by definition, unjustified (immoral) killing. That’s it!

Your reply:
No. Murder is defined as: “the crime of unlawfully killing a person.” The definition pertains to the law, not to morality. Look it up in your Funk and Wagnalls.

Your reply implies that you reject my definition, not that you had given the legal definition and were waiting for the moral definition. Do you understand that? (I’ve already pointed this out.) If you reject my (moral) definition of murder and insist that the real definition is the legal one (as you certainly seemed to do!), then the relevant moral question becomes: “what makes certain acts of killing immoral?” There is no longer any point in me giving you a moral definition of ‘murder’ if you are going to choose to simply reject that definition when I give it to you! Understand?

Is what you mean to ask: how do we know when a given killing constitutes an unjustified killing (i.e., constitutes a ‘murder’ in the moral sense)? If not, what do you mean to ask? I’ve already answered the question you ask here.

 

[Syntax]

I’m not making much progress in getting Betterave to explain whether murder is immoral and I am really hoping that you two will give it a shot. After all, if one can’t explain why murder is immoral, it should be clear that any defense of the concept of morality is problematic.

It is certainly a difficult task explaining why “Murder is immoral” or “that one ought to keep one’s promises” are true, and there is probably not much more one could say about them than something like a Divine Command theory would say,“murder is immoral because God decreed that it is,” or something like utilitarianism would say, “murder is immoral because it creates more suffering than happiness.” And there are certainly debates about which moral principle is true–so that’s two answers. But Ender, all moral realists are aware of this problem. But you seem to think this feature makes basic moral claims themselves problematic or inherently dubious from the start.

But why? There are plenty of truths we all accept that can’t be proven. I think it is poor reasoning on your behalf to think that because a fundamental principle like the Law of Non-contradiction can’t be given an explanation of why it is true, that it is a therefore a dubious principle. If you work from this assumption, then you are going to find your whole world turned upside down since you operate on very basic, unprovable, but true axioms all day long. How far do you want to go?

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Such are relations between relations that form a web of inferential connections. In pragmatism, essentialism is replaced by panrelationalism. The content of language is not the essence of a thought in this view. An assertion has content because of its inferential relations to other assertions and the habits of action that result in believing the assertion to be true.

To me, this sounds a little like saying that we can play poker without cards, because relations between – not cards themselves – determine the winner. True enough, but if you ain’t got no cards, you certainly ain’t got no relations.

Consider the statement: “The unicorn is beside the square root of -3”. What makes this statement meaningless is not its lack of sense, but its lack of reference. I know exactly what things the words “unicorn” and “square root of -3” are intended to pick out, but the words fail to do so. By adopting your brand of pragmatism, how am I to discern what assertions carry content? There’s a reason we make the distinction between “real” and “imaginary” numbers.

If there is something that I ought to know about a number such as 4 that is an intrinsic property of 4-ness–something that is not a statement of relation between 4 and something else–then please share it.

You have the same puzzle, of course, with the physical world. Once you strip away all the qualities of an object, what have you got? You would say, I imagine, nothing. But then you cannot hold any common sense view of what a quality is. The meaning of quality entails that “all qualities are qualities of some thing.” Just so, all relations are relations between two things. Otherwise, how would you define “relation”?

 

[Betterave]

The issue is not whether there is a rational ethical framework that can be developed but whether morality is based on objective truths or not.

Ender,

You need to think about what you are saying - does it make sense?

If there is a rational ethical framework that can be developed, then ipso facto we would have an objective account of morality, would we not? What more are you looking for with your demand for “objective truths”? If by “objective truths” you just mean “divine commands,” then you’ve been rigging the whole argument in your favor and you’ve been proposing a silly debate with an obvious answer - yours. But hopefully you don’t mean that - so what do you mean?

There is no sense in debating whether specific actions are moral if we can’t agree on whether morality exists.

But that’s not right. If we debate whether specific actions are moral and come to understand the objective reasons why they are, that understanding can function as the grounds for our agreement that morality does exist. It’s simple: “specific action X is moral (and exists)” entails “morality exists.” In other words: If specific action X is moral (and exists), then morality exists.

 

[Syntax]

To me, this sounds a little like saying that we can play poker without cards, because relations between – not cards themselves – determine the winner. True enough, but if you ain’t got no cards, you certainly ain’t got no relations.

Quite right. But you’ll just get a groundless flat-out denial from Leela, for instance, that 4 kings winning over 4 queens has anything to do with the 4 cards being kings. Just watch. Leela’s answer will be that the “rules of the game” determine who wins, and not the fact that the 4 cards are kings…lol. What Leela fails to understand is that the four cards being Kings also partly determines who wins, not just the rules of the game.

You have the same puzzle, of course, with the physical world. Once you strip away all the qualities of an object, what have you got? You would say, I imagine, nothing. But then you cannot hold any common sense view of what a quality is. The meaning of quality entails that “all qualities are qualities of some thing.” Just so, all relations are relations between two things. Otherwise, how would you define “relation”?

Leela simply denies that there are any qualities of objects. Every quality is a relation. I ask Leela to write out the “real” relation Leela claims is indicated by 1-place predications as in,

Jeff is a bachelor,

but Leela won’t show it. If “Jeff is a bachelor” is really a relation between two things and not a predication of one thing, we should be asking for a demonstration, should we not? But Leela won’t give one. Instead, we just get a groundless, post-modern, and nonsensical stipualtion that it is. Good luck in trying to get any sensible answer, Prodigal Son…

 

[Leela]

To me, this sounds a little like saying that we can play poker without cards, because relations between – not cards themselves – determine the winner. True enough, but if you ain’t got no cards, you certainly ain’t got no relations.

It is the rules of the game as applied to the cards that determines the winner. they tell you what sort of relations between the cards are winners and losers.

Consider the statement: “The unicorn is beside the square root of -3”. What makes this statement meaningless is not its lack of sense, but its lack of reference. I know exactly what things the words “unicorn” and “square root of -3” are intended to pick out, but the words fail to do so. By adopting your brand of pragmatism, how am I to discern what assertions carry content? There’s a reason we make the distinction between “real” and “imaginary” numbers.

Pragmatism makes it very easy to discern what assertions carry content. In fact that is why pragmatism was invented. James insisted that a difference must make a difference. He called pragmatism a new name for an old way of thinking as a cheeky reference to Jesus saying that a tree is recognized by its fruits. In you example, all you need to do is ask what possible difference it could make in practice to affirm or deny that assertion. Since affirming or denying it could make no difference, the assertion is meaningless.

You have the same puzzle, of course, with the physical world. Once you strip away all the qualities of an object, what have you got? You would say, I imagine, nothing. But then you cannot hold any common sense view of what a quality is. The meaning of quality entails that “all qualities are qualities of some thing.” Just so, all relations are relations between two things. Otherwise, how would you define “relation”?

It is a relation between other relations.

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

Quite right. But you’ll just get a groundless flat-out denial from Leela, for instance, that 4 kings winning over 4 queens has anything to do with the 4 cards being kings. Just watch. Leela’s answer will be that the “rules of the game” determine who wins, and not the fact that the 4 cards are kings…lol. What Leela fails to understand is that the four cards being Kings also partly determines who wins, not just the rules of the game.

Oh, good. You are catching on. And I agree that we have to see how the rules relate to the cards before we could determine who wins.

Leela simply denies that there are any qualities of objects. Every quality is a relation. I ask Leela to write out the “real” relation Leela claims is indicated by 1-place predications as in,

Jeff is a bachelor,

but Leela won’t show it. If “Jeff is a bachelor” is really a relation between two things and not a predication of one thing, we should be asking for a demonstration, should we not? But Leela won’t give one. Instead, we just get a groundless, post-modern, and nonsensical stipualtion that it is. Good luck in trying to get any sensible answer, Prodigal Son…

Saying that Jeff is a bachelor is to relate Jeff to other men who are also unmarried. It is saying that Jeff is like this group in some way and unlike that group.

Is noticing that Jeff is unmarried supposed to get us in touch with the essence of Jeff? If Jeff gets married does the essence of Jeff change? Isn’t essence supposed to be whatever it is about Jeff that is immutable?

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

Syntax:
Prodigal Son, Leela is saying something false in the bold-faced above. This has been demonstrated time and again by respectable mathematicians, linguists, and philosophers of language. For example, take Godel’s incompleteness theorem:

“No consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an “effective procedure” is capable of proving all facts about the natural numbers. For any such system,** there will always be statements about the natural numbers that are true, but that are unprovable within the system**.”

Leela confuses derivability with the truth-conditions for a statement. A relational statement is certainly derivable from other relations, but if the truth-conditions for all relations are in principle only dependent on other relations, you are left with certain assumptions within that system of inferences that cannot be accounted for by other relations. So there are brute facts about natural numbers the whole set of relations within that system cannot demonstrate. So the meanings of numbers cannot be reduced to the meanings of the relations they stand in. In fact, it is the other way around.

I would think that Godel’s theorem would make it clear that 4 has no essence–that the inferential relationships between 4 and other numbers do not depend on the essence of 4-ness but rather on whatever set of postulates we choose to reason from.

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

I have no idea what you said here and I’m pretty weak on the property of 4-ness so I’m hoping that you and Syntax, even if you don’t abandon your arcane debate with one another, will occasionally comment on the topic of the thread.

I’m not making much progress in getting Betterave to explain whether murder is immoral and I am really hoping that you two will give it a shot. After all, if one can’t explain why murder is immoral, it should be clear that any defense of the concept of morality is problematic.

Ender

Hi Ender,

I feel bad that this 4-ness business has gone on so long. It is really a topic for another thread.

As for murder, it is immoral pretty much by definition, isn’t it? When we call a killing murder we are saying that it is a wrongful killing.

Also, it is one thing to say that the concept of morality is problematic, and quite another to say that this concept does not exist as you have done previously in this thread. Why would you say that any concept that we already have in our minds does not exist?

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

So what’s the problem? You are just re-stating the exact same thing I said in post #308. Please go back and read that. Relations are instances of functions. But relations are not functions, and functions are not relations. There are big differences I show between them.

huh?..Having a *distinguishable property *is not a necessary condition for having an intrinsic property. Both of us are human, we share that property, and it is both intrinsic to us. Just as “being-prime” is.

In the bold-faced, you just accidentally admitted that 4 is an integer just like other numbers. What do you think that is? That means “being an integer” is an intrinsic property numbers share…lol

Ok, so the relation 3=3/1 is true. But the mention of “prime” in “3 prime 1 and 3” doesn’t make any sense. So “being prime” is not a relation. If being prime were just reducible to its relations, then 3=3/1 would be an instance of “5 is prime.” But 5 is prime because “5=5/1” is true. So “being prime” is not reducible to instances of relations. It is something different relations share, both of which “3=3/1” and “5=5/1” are instances.

So, 3=3/1 is only one instance of “being prime.” “Only divisible by itself and 1” is a characteristic 3 shares with 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 27,…A shareable property? I think so. 4, 6, 8…don’t have this characteristic. I wonder why. It’s because they are divisible not only by themselves and 1…hmmm…

You are disallowing that a number can be related to a group of numbers and only allowing that a true relation is between a number and other specific numbers. Why is that?

 

[Betterave]

It is the rules of the game as applied to the cards that determines the winner. they tell you what sort of relations between the cards are winners and losers.

But Leela, isn’t the point that if the rules stipulate that 4 Kings beat 4 Queens, etc., you still can’t win with 4 Kings unless you have 4 cards in your hand and each is itself a King, all on its own, regardless of what the other cards are? We must first look at each card individually to see that it is a King before putting them together as a set of four and then relating that set of four to the opposing set to determine the winner using the rules of the game.

Pragmatism makes it very easy to discern what assertions carry content. In fact that is why pragmatism was invented. James insisted that a difference must make a difference. He called pragmatism a new name for an old way of thinking as a cheeky reference to Jesus saying that a tree is recognized by its fruits. In you example, all you need to do is ask what possible difference it could make in practice to affirm or deny that assertion. Since affirming or denying it could make no difference, the assertion is meaningless.

What assertion do you mean?

That it is “very easy” to discern which differences “make a difference” is a very abstract assertion that is highly questionable, don’t you think?

 

[AntiTheist]

It is certainly a difficult task explaining why “Murder is immoral” or “that one ought to keep one’s promises” are true, and there is probably not much more one could say about them than something like a Divine Command theory would say,“murder is immoral because God decreed that it is,” or something like utilitarianism would say, “murder is immoral because it creates more suffering than happiness.”

Precisely. And the shortcomings of those two answers should be obvious – in the first case, there is no evidence that there is a god of any kind who has decreed anything at all, and in the second case, there is no reason outside of individual values that people should value the greatest happiness for the greatest number (and furthermore, there are plenty of cases in which killing might very well lead to less suffering, as in the case of euthanasia or as in the case of killing dictators, cases that at least some people would consider “immoral”).

To the others on the thread: you can’t simply say, “Well, murder is defined as wrongful killing,” because then you also have to define “wrongful” and explain how you decide that something is “wrongful” in the first place.