How to argue with subjective moralists

[Prodigal_Son]

I’m rather disappointed with the turn this conversation is taking, AntiTheist. If, as your current post seems to indicate, you do not think we are justified in believing there is an external world, then we can indeed stop having this conversation. If we’re not justified in believing an external world, then we’re certainly not justified in believing objective morality. Your standards for justification are extraordinarily high; I do not see how you could ascribe a “justified true belief” to any non-phenomenal entity whatsoever. Out of curiosity, where does your skepticism end?

I thought you were claiming that morality is something more than just a value judgment (i.e. that “some rocks are better” is more than just a value judgment of individual people).

If all you’re claiming is that I should consider whether other people might be noticing something that I’m not, then we’re done here, because I have seriously considered it and concluded that they are not.

You misunderstood what I was saying there. Moral statements are statements of absolute value, which are true or false. But the “all I’m saying” clause was a manner of speaking, not a summation. My larger argument is that one can justify the statement that, for example, “torturing babies is always wrong”.

The existence of an external world is an assumption we’re forced to make for the purposes of living and communicating.

And this assumption is entirely unjustified?

Your argument seems to boil down to, “Gee, lots of people think there are objectively better rocks – even though no one seems to agree which ones are better and no one can produce criteria for objectively determining which ones are better – but they think it. And they make so much sense when they talk, so hey, why not believe it?”

Not very compelling. Is that seriously the best reason you have for believing that morality is objective?

According to your own admissions, all science is based on nothing more, since it assumes the existence of the world. I suppose you can claim that science is “conditional analysis” (what would be the case if the world existed?). But then, you have absolutely no justification for scientific regularity, which makes science a purely practical (not an epistemic) discipline.

Every physical thing has position and momentum. Those are qualities that things have. I have position and momentum. The existence of position and momentum is not in question.

You criticized my claims because I didn’t explain how I could determine some fact about objective morals. The generalized form of this criticism is “If you don’t have a way of determining some fact about P’s essential character, then you have no grounds for claiming P”. If you would like to retreat from this a priori principle, then you may. But if you consider the principle valid, then you need to defend it. Consider:

1. If you don’t have a way of determining some fact about P’s essential character, then you have no grounds for claiming P.
2. We have no way of determining some fact about an individual electron’s essential character.
3. Therefore, we have no grounds for claiming the existence of the electron.

The nonexistence of electrons is the consequence of your principle, not my assertions. I am not saying that electrons don’t exist, but your principle seems to be.

You need to stop with the irrelevant stuff and focus on what I’m trying to get you to see.

Indeed. :ehh:

 

[Oreoracle]

Objectivity refers to states of events; objective knowledge refers to knowledge that P. All reality is objective; this is an analytic statement about reality, when Reality = Sumtotal of All True States of Events.

All right, so what word would encompass the subjective parts? If subjectivity isn’t part of “reality,” then where is it? I was under the impression that reality was every physical object, every feeling, and every coherent concept. That’s how it’s usually used, anyway. That definition encompasses everything except self-contradictory ideas.

I can have knowledge that “I think vanilla ice cream is good”, but such knowledge does not entail “vanilla ice cream is good”.

Finally, we can agree on something.

For the record, I do not believe that “all things are God’s thoughts”, although I would say that God is a necessary condition for all existent states of events.

Okay, but I still don’t see how everything would be objective from God’s perspective but not from ours. That’s like saying my house is an object from my perspective but not from my neighbor’s perspective. Also, in what way is God’s existence necessary? I think the question is important. (Please don’t rattle off an argument using modal logic, if you would be so kind. I’m immune to that nonsense. )

It’s worth remembering, though, that there are two questions here:

1. Are there objective morals?

1. How are there objective morals?

The first question does not require an answer to the second question. A person who believes in an objective external world does not need to explain HOW the external world exists in order to have a justified belief. Neither does a person (like Leela) who believes in objective morality need to explain how in order to be justified, although we can certainly be curious about her explanation.

So you’re just going to leave me curious then? How rude of you. Tsk Tsk.

Might I ask how you see yourself as justified in your belief? The coherence of the position aside, I think Occam’s Razor destroys moral objectivism/objective aesthetics; a subjectivist can explain morality and aesthetics just as well, if not better, than the moral objectivist while still introducing fewer entities. All we need are consciousness, preferences, and emotions to explain things. Meanwhile, the objectivist has to make several positive claims about the empirical world by reificating mere concepts–concepts that seem to overlap and be vaguely defined.

 

[Leela]

Hi All,

I always hate when people suggest that I read a book or follow some link as an answer to a question I pose, but I’m going to do just that since I haven’t found the time to engage as I’d like to in this interesting thread. The following article is “A Summary Critique of The Fact/Value Dichotomy” which takes on the issue that are being discussed here. I’d encourage you all to read it. It breaks down the notion that facts are what is real and values are “just subjective.” For one thing, facts always presuppose values. Why these facts and not some other facts?

virtualsalt.com/int/factvalue.pdf

Best,
Leela

 

[Betterave]

Maybe I am. One of the disadvantages of disputing between ideologies is that each side gathers preconceptions about the other side over time. You become suspicious of others after hearing the same arguments fifty times or more. I’ll try not to be so hasty in my interpretations.

I certainly hope you mean this and that your efforts bear fruit!

Oh come now. My teacher and I have dramatically different ideas of what constitutes beautiful writing, or even which styles are more flowing and clear. For example, he says that my writing is uneconomical, that I add too many parenthetical remarks, and so on. I tell him that the lengthy phrases and complex sentences allow me to provide emphasis where it is needed and to elaborate my ideas. My vocabulary allows me to describe objects in relatively few words, though he sees me as bombastic.

But what if your teacher is right??? Suppose, for the sake of argument, that bombastic was an objectively fair assessment for much of what you write (because that is how you think - and no, it’s not beautiful). But of course you would naturally always have some bombastic reply to this observation, a reply which you would regard as beautiful… And anyone who attempts to point this out to you is caught in a catch-22.

 

[Betterave]

No. The “context” for better is always a standard that comes from values, which are necessarily individual and subjective. That’s the “context” I’m referring to, not the specific situation.

First, you obviously missed my point. The context for subjective valuing is never individual - it is always derived from one’s immersion in social institutions. This is a quite objective fact which should have substantive consequences for any serious reflection on the nature of morality.
Second, “…values, which are necessarily individual and subjective”: Do you mean to make the dogmatic claim here that values are necessarily individual (not shared) and subjective (not objective)? And you propose this as an obvious truth??

The thing that makes “intellectual honesty” better to me, for example, is my desire to have an intelligent exchange of ideas. Outside of the context of my desires (inside the head), there’s nothing that makes it better than anything else.

So if I desire to have an “unintelligent” exchange of ideas (hem hem), that’s no worse than if I desired to have an intelligent exchange of ideas? That’s a curious idea (though I’m not sure how intelligent it is)… And pray tell what does “intelligent” mean and what is its antonym (and its meaning)?

You seem really confused on the point of “intellectual honesty.” I use that word as a label for certain kinds of thinking, including especially the ability to admit when one is incorrect about an assertion in the face of new evidence.

Certainly I’m “confused” about your use of the phrase “intellectual honesty”. I suppose you’re not explicating it very clearly. Do you think that you’ve really done the concept justice here? I think intellectual honesty requires a good deal more than you imagine it does. I would think that it requires a degree of calmness and circumspection with regard to one’s own position, such that countervailing evidence can make itself heard, for example, even when one’s conceptual scheme (a “philistine” one, perhaps) typically dismisses the kind of evidence that is relevant without ever even imagining that it deserves consideration as evidence (and thus without being able to see its force as evidence). (You seem one of those who believe that evidence is evidence is evidence - and there’s just no denying it! - unless you’re “unintelligent” or “unreasonable” (convenient labels, perhaps, conferred on those whose forms of evidence you are blind to?).)

One does not need to be “intellectually honest” to define something, as the process of defining is just labeling. I could call “intellectual honesty” “willingtobewrong-ism” if I wanted to. How I label things is unrelated to the kind of thought process covered by “intellectual honesty.”

How about ‘unwillingtobewrong-ism’? Isn’t that the real point? You change your mind because, although you care about your ego, you’re unwilling to be wrong, even if refusing to really consider the possibility might protect your ego. But maybe that’s what you meant? If it was, wouldn’t a better label be “humility” for what you mentioned (“willing to be wrong”)?

In any case, what you say here appears to be enormously problematic and probably quite indicative of the root cause of your moral blindness (not an insult, I hope you’ll understand, but a diagnosis). The problem is that you can’t just “label” your thought processes however you wish to and then call yourself intellectually honest. An intellectually honest person necessarily has the basic intellectual maturity to realize that labels are not arbitrary. Rather, they have accepted uses. They are the foundation of intelligent discourse (which is the foundation of intelligence) and are so only on the basis of their having accepted uses, so when you give stipulative definitions for concepts that are not new but have accepted uses, it is dishonest to act as if your stipulative definition is obviously “correct”, rather than stipulative. I hope you’re able to understand this point and that you really try to think for yourself about how it might apply to what you have written.

 

[Betterave]

Are you trying to say that other people might not value intellectual honesty because they have different perspectives? It’s really hard to follow your train of thought here. Please advise.

No, Anti, I’m saying YOU don’t value intellectual honesty from one of your perspectives: you (claim to) accept the perspective of the intellectually dishonest person who values intellectual dishonesty because he is a ranter as being just as valuable as your own (this is your ‘objective’ valuation of all subjective valuing as equally valuable); this is a valuation that contradicts your other perspective where you (claim to) value intellectual honesty more than intellectual dishonesty (this is supposedly your subjective valuation (and estimation) of your own subjective valuing - which you want to simultaneously claim is no more valuable than any other subjective valuation! - you devious thinker, you!).

If that is the objection you are trying to raise, I should point out that values don’t develop in a vacuum. Part of the reason I value intellectual honesty is that I was raised to value it in an intellectual culture that values it; my experiences of intelligent conversation have all relied on it, making it important for me to value it if I ever planned to engage in intelligent conversation.

Hopefully you can realize that you did not need to point out this banality about “vacuums” to me - I had just attempted to point it out to you! Here’s a possibility you might consider: what if you had a conversation that you thought was intelligent with someone who was in fact much more intelligent than you and who was leading by the nose, as the saying goes? Now if you’re honest, wouldn’t you have to admit that you would consider yourself to be having an intelligent conversation, although in fact your conversation partner was simply having fun with you? (I once heard a university professor brag that this was a favorite game of his to play with his students.) So what conclusions might we justly draw from this very real possibility (of which I imagine we could easily come up with endless variations)?

One thing, at least, we could say that perhaps you’re a dupe of your “intellectual culture” - obviously one can have many intelligent conversations without intellectual honesty. Just repeat whatever “intellectual” noise your culture has fed you, be good at it, and voila! - you too are an “intellectual”, just like your culture. And of course part of the “intellectual” noise you’ve been trained to repeat is that “we” are an “intellectually honest” folk (“we” - you know who we mean).

If literally nobody on the face of the earth took me seriously when I thought I was making sense? Then yeah, it would be time for me to take a good, long, hard look at myself and figure out what I’m doing that’s not working.

Oh then! If that’s what you’re waiting for, may I suggest you’ve set the bar awfully high (or is it low?) for yourself! But I suppose I shouldn’t take you so literally (despite your having chosen to use the word).

Of course someone could do that. How would that not “really” be intellectually honest? Your thinking either exhibits traits of being intellectually honest or it doesn’t. Your reasons for thinking in an intellectually honest way have nothing to do with whether the thinking actually is intellectually honest or not.

“traits of being intellectually honest” - and what traits are those? Success in ingratiating oneself with others who are “intelligent”? If you make a concerted effort to be honest with yourself, isn’t it frightfully naive to say that “Your thinking either exhibits traits of being intellectually honest or it doesn’t”?

Whether the thinker is willing to change his or her mind in the face of new evidence. Just yesterday I admitted that something I was claiming was too strong when someone challenged it. I don’t feel like digging up the thread right now, but I could point to evidence if you like.

No need to dig! I’m interested in stable performance. Let’s see how you do today, for instance.

And I wouldn’t say that it’s my “true character” – I’d say that it’s a quality of the thinking that I represent in these discussions.

Strange. Honesty as a quality of “thinking” rather than of a thinker. Are you sure that’s what you want to say?

What? When did I say that we “shouldn’t care about intellectual honesty”? I’m saying that someone who’s not interested in a rational discussion has no reason to care about it. It’s not “objectively better” than raving on a street corner – it’s better from the perspective of wanting to have an intelligent conversation. Those of us who value having an intelligent conversation will tend to value the kind of thinking we label “intellectually honest.”

Yes, it’s about the labels again, isn’t it? But people who are genuinely intellectually honest like to go beyond labels.

 

[Betterave]

Your question alone (the one you seem to be pushing about the the difference between moralizing and taste-testing) shows that you aren’t understanding what I’ve been saying. It’s a bit like somebody who’s been told that a guy is homosexual asking that guy whether he finds other men attractive–the person in question clearly didn’t understand even the preliminary concept of homosexuality. I’ve told you again and again that I see no difference between moralizing and taste-testing. The subjectivity of the matter doesn’t change just because we’re dealing with stronger preferences; preferences are preferences, strong or not.

Oreo, that’s ridiculous. You just repeat the same nonsense as before and completely ignore the point that I asked you for clarification of that nonsense. But you’re not bombastic at all!

I’m sorry, but the subjectivity of morality is one of those things that are easy to understand but hard to explain, especially if the people questioning it aren’t cooperative. I mean, it’s obvious to us that two plus two equals four, but how would you explain this to a child who disagrees? How do you explain to a stubborn child that mathematics is an abstract system devised by men for its utility; that numbers don’t exist, but are instead arbitrary values proposed for the sake of the system; that operations are the relationships between these arbitrary values, and that symbols that denote such operations consistently cause the act they are defined as causing in mathematical equations (because mathematics is simply a body of definitions from the start)? Sadly, simple things such as “two plus two equals four” don’t always have simple explanations, and your lack of cooperation makes a comparatively difficult task impossible.

Easy to understand? Did the possibility ever occur to you that it’s also easy to misunderstand? Probably not. Just introspect, right? But I think I’ll continue being a “stubborn child”, as it were, if that’s how you choose to view me - I much prefer it to your brand of pseudo-sophisticated “simplicity”.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

All right, so what word would encompass the subjective parts? If subjectivity isn’t part of “reality,” then where is it? I was under the impression that reality was every physical object, every feeling, and every coherent concept. That’s how it’s usually used, anyway. That definition encompasses everything except self-contradictory ideas.

Subjectivity is shorthand. I form the belief “vanilla ice cream tastes good”, not the belief that “Prodigal thinks vanilla ice cream tastes good”. In other words, there is an objective form of every subjective proposition. The objective form is either true or false; the subjective proposition can be neither.

Okay, but I still don’t see how everything would be objective from God’s perspective but not from ours. That’s like saying my house is an object from my perspective but not from my neighbor’s perspective.

I think that’s backwards: say “objective from our perspective but not God’s.” Well, our existence is *in relation to *God, not independent. We do not have independent wills, for example, as human beings – we have wills that are our own, insofar as God chooses not to interfere with them. When my entire being is a relationship, then, I cannot free myself from that relationship. (If, counterfactually, I could, I would not longer be me). To act as if the character of God were nonbinding would be to dissociate from that relationship – to stop being what I am. The Christian teaching is that the sinner participates in his own nonbeing, because he denies the Person that is the core of all being.

This is all metaphysics, though; none of it is essential to the justified belief in moral truth.

Also, in what way is God’s existence necessary?

That’s the way we define God. Believing in God is believing in a necessary being – that is, a being without which nothing that is (except Himself) would be. Any further explanation would be trying to “prove God’s existence”, which is not something I care to do.

Might I ask how you see yourself as justified in your belief? The coherence of the position aside, I think Occam’s Razor destroys moral objectivism/objective aesthetics; a subjectivist can explain morality and aesthetics just as well, if not better, than the moral objectivist while still introducing fewer entities. All we need are consciousness, preferences, and emotions to explain things. Meanwhile, the objectivist has to make several positive claims about the empirical world by reificating mere concepts–concepts that seem to overlap and be vaguely defined.

Occam’s Razor (which in itself is questionable as a principle) says, roughly: All else being equal, the simplest explanation is the best. But, in real world explanations, all else is rarely equal. The subjectivist explanation has weaknesses that the objectivist explanation doesn’t have. For example, it is undoubtedly the case that my emotions and my moral judgments sometimes point in different directions: when someone locked their bike to mine (thereby making me walk home), my emotions prompted me to write a nasty note and/or severely damage their bike. If I had done these things, however, I would have nevertheless considered them wrong. How does the subjectivist explain this?

Or consider science: do we not say that the scientist who includes a control group in a sensitive experiment about drug side effects acquires data *better than *the scientist who does not? As you say, “all we need are consciousness, preferences, and emotions” to explain this. Why introduce an unnecessary complex entity like the way the drug actually affects people?

Or aesthetics: If 99.99% of all people ever born find the Grand Canyon beautiful, is the best explanation for this subjective preferences and emotions? It seems that, at very least, the subjectivist has to tell a convincing story about why natural selection would have selected for these intuitions, if they were not reflections of absolute truth. :yup:

Meanwhile, the objectivist can say that natural selection influences people to observe phenomena that truly affect their survival because they describe the real world, and morality/aesthetics/etc are such phenomena.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Hi All,

I always hate when people suggest that I read a book or follow some link as an answer to a question I pose, but I’m going to do just that since I haven’t found the time to engage as I’d like to in this interesting thread. The following article is “A Summary Critique of The Fact/Value Dichotomy” which takes on the issue that are being discussed here. I’d encourage you all to read it. It breaks down the notion that facts are what is real and values are “just subjective.” For one thing, facts always presuppose values. Why these facts and not some other facts?

virtualsalt.com/int/factvalue.pdf

Best,
Leela

Thanks, Leela. Very interesting reading.

 

[AntiTheist]

If, as your current post seems to indicate, you do not think we are justified in believing there is an external world, then we can indeed stop having this conversation.

The existence of an external world is a necessary assumption. Within that external world, we need good justifications for accepting claims to make sure we’re not deceiving ourselves.

The justification for conducting science within the external world is that science yields consistent results – our decision to use the scientific method is evidence based.

Sheesh.

You criticized my claims because I didn’t explain how I could determine some fact about objective morals.

No. I criticized your claim because you have no way of determining that objective morals exist in the first place.

If I’m wrong, then explain how you can determine that objective morals exist (and examples would, of course, be ideal).

You’re going to say “intuitive perceptions,” and I’ve already shown that different people have different “intuitive perceptions.” So to claim that objective morals exist, you need to show that one set of intuitive perceptions is objectively correct – to do that, you need to appeal to something other than intuitive perceptions.

I can’t make it any clearer than that, I’m afraid.

Betterave:

No, Anti, I’m saying YOU don’t value intellectual honesty from one of your perspectives: you (claim to) accept the perspective of the intellectually dishonest person who values intellectual dishonesty because he is a ranter as being just as valuable as your own (this is your ‘objective’ valuation of all subjective valuing as equally valuable); this is a valuation that contradicts your other perspective where you (claim to) value intellectual honesty more than intellectual dishonesty (this is supposedly your subjective valuation (and estimation) of your own subjective valuing - which you want to simultaneously claim is no more valuable than any other subjective valuation! - you devious thinker, you!).

There is nothing contradictory about saying that I personally value X, but that there is also nothing apart from human value judgments that makes X objectively better than Y.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

The existence of an external world is a necessary assumption.

I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean by “necessary”. Certainly, one can very well *not *assume there is an external world – there is no contradiction in the claim that “there is no world outside my mind”. Are you saying that we necessarily *believe *there is an external world? This is possibly true, but this raises the question: is that belief justified?

If it is justified, it is justified on the basis of perception, which reduces to intuition. If it is not justified, then neither scientific nor moral claims are credible. The justification of the larger claim must precede the justification of science. If you don’t have reason to believe that a person is in Wisconsin, then you certainly don’t have reason to believe she is in Green Bay.

The justification for conducting science within the external world is that science yields consistent results – our decision to use the scientific method is evidence based.

Some would say that the fact that science yields consistent results (at least, according to our perceptions) offers some evidence of there being an external world. But, if intuitions are not admitted into our epistemology, then we have no reason to believe that those results are consistent.

No. I criticized your claim because you have no way of determining that objective morals exist in the first place.

You also continually used the principle I have been mentioning. Most recently, you said, “You’re trying to claim that there’s a ‘better,’ but you’re not giving me standards for judging what is better and what is not.” That is asking for some fact about objective morals. But it is not incumbent upon the ontological claim that one can explain the phenomenon, only that one can have a justified belief in it.

But, once again, if one cannot have a justified belief in the external world, one cannot have a justified belief in moral realities.

If I’m wrong, then explain how you can determine that objective morals exist (and examples would, of course, be ideal).

OK, let’s pretend that you were asking how I could determine if my car exists. What can I say? “I see it over there. I’ve driven it often. It can be touched and seen. It acts like something that exists.” I’m referencing feelings, intuitions, senses. If there is no external world, then my car does not exist. The probability of my car’s existence cannot exceed the probability of the external world’s existence, which you say we cannot defend. Then how can I determine that even something as mundane as a car exists?!?

You’re going to say “intuitive perceptions,” and I’ve already shown that different people have different “intuitive perceptions.”

And differences in the perception of an entity are not a sufficient condition for an entity’s nonexistence. The fact that one person sees a moth where another person sees a butterfly does not entail that there was *nothing *in the air at all.

 

[AntiTheist]

Another way of framing this argument is that we agree on one thing: that morality – defined as value judgments – exists. I certainly agree that people make value judgments.

What we are disagreeing over is the question of whether some of those judgments possess the property of being objective – that is, the property of existing outside of the human mind. You are making the claim that some of those judgments possess a specific property.

I could point out that, by definition, you are incorrect, as value judgments necessarily only exist in the human mind and cannot possess the property of objectivity.

I could also point out that there is no evidence that these judgments exist outside of the human mind. At the very least, you would have to have evidence that there is some sort of “objective” criteria for moral judgments.

It’s pointless to try to make analogies to cars or electrons or other objects in the world because value judgments aren’t objects in the world – they are statements about objects in the world, and I simply don’t see how it makes any sense to say that they are objective.

 

[Oreoracle]

Subjectivity is shorthand. I form the belief “vanilla ice cream tastes good”, not the belief that “Prodigal thinks vanilla ice cream tastes good”. In other words, there is an objective form of every subjective proposition. The objective form is either true or false; the subjective proposition can be neither.

Actually, the subjective proposition is neither, because it can’t be verified or falsified.

That’s the way we define God. Believing in God is believing in a necessary being – that is, a being without which nothing that is (except Himself) would be. Any further explanation would be trying to “prove God’s existence”, which is not something I care to do.

If you can’t prove it, it seems rather silly to use it as an assumption in an argument.

For example, it is undoubtedly the case that my emotions and my moral judgments sometimes point in different directions: when someone locked their bike to mine (thereby making me walk home), my emotions prompted me to write a nasty note and/or severely damage their bike. If I had done these things, however, I would have nevertheless considered them wrong. How does the subjectivist explain this?

Easy: You have conflicting preferences and thus conflicting emotions. This seems rather obvious, does it not? I don’t see anything paradoxical or contradictory about you wanting to have your cake and eat it too, as every human does. For example, I don’t want to go to school, but I also want a degree, so I go to school. Doesn’t that suggest that my preference for a degree overrode my preference to stay home?

Or consider science: do we not say that the scientist who includes a control group in a sensitive experiment about drug side effects acquires data *better than *the scientist who does not? As you say, “all we need are consciousness, preferences, and emotions” to explain this. Why introduce an unnecessary complex entity like the way the drug actually affects people?

I don’t see your point.

Or aesthetics: If 99.99% of all people ever born find the Grand Canyon beautiful, is the best explanation for this subjective preferences and emotions? It seems that, at very least, the subjectivist has to tell a convincing story about why natural selection would have selected for these intuitions, if they were not reflections of absolute truth. :yup:

Alright, if you insist that we discuss art, we’ll discuss art…

From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense that humans are impressed with enormity. In fact, most animals take size into consideration before they act against another animal. Those animals survive, and the ones who fail to find a predator’s larger form intimidating die. As a result, we have offspring who have an eye for size.

This is relevant to aesthetics and especially to the Grand Canyon. Think about it: Would we think so highly of the Grand Canyon if it were small? Of course not. In general, larger art is more impressive; more impressive art is more unusual; more unusual art is more of a novelty, and novelty is exciting. I think this can be summed up as an axiom: “The larger it is, the more exciting it is to view.” We’ll call this the enormity principle for fun.

Size isn’t the only factor; we also must consider the many colors and layers to be found in the Grand Canyon. You obviously don’t see something like that every day. The layers show quite a lot of Earth’s history in fact. Speaking of history, that brings me to my last point.

The Grand Canyon was formed by flowing water over an extended period of time. If one imagines how long it must have taken for it to form, it seems that the enormity principle would apply again. The longer it takes to form, the more impressive and exciting it is.

Of course you’ll say that this was a fairly long-winded explanation, but at least it was an explanation. All you’ve contributed is a statement and a statistic. That’s not an explanation, my good sir.

Meanwhile, the objectivist can say that natural selection influences people to observe phenomena that truly affect their survival because they describe the real world, and morality/aesthetics/etc are such phenomena.

That doesn’t make ethics objective, it just means that following them enhances our chance of survival. What tells us that we should survive? You might say “nature.” What would tell us that we should obey nature?

 

[Leela]

Thanks, Leela. Very interesting reading.

I thought it was a nice summary of the issue too. I was hoping that AntiTheist and Oreoracle would real it.

virtualsalt.com/int/factvalue.pdf

 

[Leela]

Alright, if you insist that we discuss art, we’ll discuss art…

From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense that humans are impressed with enormity. In fact, most animals take size into consideration before they act against another animal. Those animals survive, and the ones who fail to find a predator’s larger form intimidating die. As a result, we have offspring who have an eye for size.

This is relevant to aesthetics and especially to the Grand Canyon. Think about it: Would we think so highly of the Grand Canyon if it were small? Of course not. In general, larger art is more impressive; more impressive art is more unusual; more unusual art is more of a novelty, and novelty is exciting. I think this can be summed up as an axiom: “The larger it is, the more exciting it is to view.” We’ll call this the enormity principle for fun.

Size isn’t the only factor; we also must consider the many colors and layers to be found in the Grand Canyon. You obviously don’t see something like that every day. The layers show quite a lot of Earth’s history in fact. Speaking of history, that brings me to my last point.

The Grand Canyon was formed by flowing water over an extended period of time. If one imagines how long it must have taken for it to form, it seems that the enormity principle would apply again. The longer it takes to form, the more impressive and exciting it is.

Of course you’ll say that this was a fairly long-winded explanation, but at least it was an explanation. All you’ve contributed is a statement and a statistic. That’s not an explanation, my good sir.
QUOTE]

The above is a good example of the possibility of reasoning about values to make judgments such as “the grand canyon is beautiful” objective. I’m not sure this argument succeeds in making “the grand canyon is beautiful” a fact, but we could probably agree that certain value judgments are facts, such as “Prince is a better guitarist than I am” (if you heard me play you would agree with me), or that there are good and bad teachers. Now some teachers may be better or worse for some students, but others are just plain bad at teaching, and some are good at it.

Not only can we reason about values, values can themselves be facts, as in the assertion “wood is good for making tables.” This is an objective fact about wood that includes a value judgment.

The choice of criteria for determining what constitutes a fact is a value-laden choice, so knowledge is aways entangled with values. As Hilary Putnam put it in “the Collapse fo the Fact/Value Dichotomy,” “knowledge of facts presupposes knowledge of values” since in justifying facts we must make value judgments about what constitutes a fact, and if we then claim to know a fact, our underlying value judgments about what constitutes a fact must be capable of being right (objectively true).

Even when we simply identify an object and say, “that is a calculator,” we are implying that this object functions well as a machine of this type. This is an evaluative conclusion and a fact.

Best,
Leela

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Another way of framing this argument is that we agree on one thing: that morality – defined as value judgments – exists. I certainly agree that people make value judgments.

What we are disagreeing over is the question of whether some of those judgments possess the property of being objective – that is, the property of existing outside of the human mind. You are making the claim that some of those judgments possess a specific property.

I could point out that, by definition, you are incorrect, as value judgments necessarily only exist in the human mind and cannot possess the property of objectivity.

I could also point out that there is no evidence that these judgments exist outside of the human mind. At the very least, you would have to have evidence that there is some sort of “objective” criteria for moral judgments.

It’s pointless to try to make analogies to cars or electrons or other objects in the world because value judgments aren’t objects in the world – they are statements about objects in the world, and I simply don’t see how it makes any sense to say that they are objective.

But you see, I am claiming that they *are *objects, in a sense. They are objects in the same way that the laws of logic or arithmetic are objects: we have to postulate them in order to make sense of our experience. Once we postulate the existence of moral “objects”, then we have the epistemological equipment to discover truths about them. The fact that people disagree about these is not surprising, since people disagree about math and logic, too. It would be disturbing if there was very little agreement about moral truths, but fortunately there is a great deal of agreement, even across cultures – certainly about principles (the golden rule; maximizing happiness and minimizing pain; not using people as mere means, etc.).

I agree that these are “value judgments”, but they are not only value judgments. What do you make of the many value judgments necessary in science or epistemology or practical life?

What is the objective criteria for a moral principle? Well, in order to know this, I would have to know (and know that I know) all the moral principles – only then could I describe criteria that would entail them. But I will give you some necessary conditions: Something that is a moral principle a) makes a person unjustified in certain types of action, b) makes a person justified in certain other types of action, c) applies only to morally relevant decisions, not decisions of mere taste.

For the record, very few things worth knowing have comprehensive objective criteria. As I said before, your ontological standards are a bit high.

 

[Oreoracle]

The above is a good example of the possibility of reasoning about values to make judgments such as “the grand canyon is beautiful” objective. I’m not sure this argument succeeds in making “the grand canyon is beautiful” a fact, but we could probably agree that certain value judgments are facts, such as “Prince is a better guitarist than I am” (if you heard me play you would agree with me)…

Well, what do you mean by “better guitarist?” Do you mean he can play more chords, or that he can play longer without making errors? Do you mean that he can play faster solos, or with a wider range of guitars? We could possibly make an objective standard of what constitutes a good guitarist based on these things, because they all deal with quantities, and not qualities/values. But surely we couldn’t objectively determine who is better based on the quality of the music, because any claim pertaining to “good” and “bad” music would clearly be subjective, no matter how much we agree. Objectivity is not determined by the statistics of those who value or believe in a certain thing, but by whether that thing would exist without our perception/conception.

…or that there are good and bad teachers. Now some teachers may be better or worse for some students, but others are just plain bad at teaching, and some are good at it.

Again, that depends on what you mean by “bad teaching.” Now, we may be able to objectively determine who teaches one curriculum better than another, but we can’t say that one teacher was better than another based off that alone. We have to specify what goal we have in mind, and the belief that that goal is worth pursuing is clearly subjective. If we don’t specify what goal we have in mind, then one person may disagree with you and say that the teacher who taught pure nonsense was better than the teacher who taught according to the curriculum, and you would have no way to counter without a definition of “good teacher” or “good teaching.”

Not only can we reason about values, values can themselves be facts, as in the assertion “wood is good for making tables.” This is an objective fact about wood that includes a value judgment.

If I’ve read him right, Aristotle championed this usage of “good” in his day, and conflated it with the ethical usage of “good” as though they meant the same thing. In ethics, “good” simply means “that which should exist.” This holds true for every ethical philosophy you’ll ever hear of. But in Aristotle’s usage, “good” has nothing to do with any “shoulds”, as it is identical in meaning to “efficient.” You’ll notice that “wood is an efficient resource for making tables” means the exact same thing as “wood is good for making tables.” Also notice that this phrase doesn’t tell us whether the end of table-making is worth pursuing or existing.

Truly, I think this was one of Aristotle’s most blatant sophistries, yet no one seems to call him on it.

Even when we simply identify an object and say, “that is a calculator,” we are implying that this object functions well as a machine of this type. This is an evaluative conclusion and a fact.

And yet, we say a calculator that fails at calculating is a “malfunctioning calculator.” Now, if a calculator is a machine that is proficient at calculating, how could that phrase possibly make sense? It’s for this reason that I think a machine may be better defined by its parts than by its function.

 

[Betterave]

The justification for conducting science within the external world is that science yields consistent results – our decision to use the scientific method is evidence based.

Sheesh.

Sheesh? That’s harsh. So let’s try to spell out your oh-so-obvious position, Anti:
If conducting a certain form of inquiry/concept formation can lead to “consistent results”, then we are justified in using that form of inquiry? In that case, any “evidence-based” conceptual construction is justified, provided it gives us some set of “consistent results”? Wonderful! Now the question is: how on earth can you deny that a system of morality fits this criterion?

Betterave:
There is nothing contradictory about saying that I personally value X, but that there is also nothing apart from human value judgments that makes X objectively better than Y.

So what? A dumbed-down statement of some vague position or other might have nothing obviously, intrinsically “contradictory” about it, but that’s because it doesn’t say anything - it’s just a string of abstract formulas that in this case have been violently juxtaposed without justification. You’re simply missing the point again here and not saying anything relevant to addressing the objections that have been raised against your position.

Think about the standard you apply to yourself and the one you try to impose on Prodigal, for instance: you appear to be content to say something that is “not contradictory” (not cogent either) and consider your view justified; do you apply the same justificatory liberality to Prodigal? I think the answer is obviously NO; so this is again a form of intellectual dishonesty: “do as I say, not as I do”.

So suppose there were nothing apart from human value judgments that makes X objectively better than Y: so what? Human value judgments have obviously provided ample evidence for the construction of various theories of objective morality (this is an objective fact), just as human judgments about physical reality have provided ample evidence for the construction of theories about objective physics.

Now what about the notion that you personally value X? What does that mean? On your view, as I said before, it is just your assertion of a brute fact about your psychological state. You want to say there is no objective basis for this psychological state, it just is and you simply ascertain that it is. But you have another psychological state alongside this one: this other state is in the business of making ‘objective’ assessments about your brute ‘subjective’ psychological states. One of the ‘objective’ assessments made is that the meaning of “objective” is to exist apart from any human mind (a characteristic which obviously doesn’t apply to any of your brute ‘subjective’ valuations). But that is a queer claim: your mind is able to make ‘objective’ assessments, but such assessments must exist apart from any mind? But that is contradictory (or is it?). How could you claim that your mind has access to that which exists apart from it? But if you want to claim nonetheless that your mind can make objective assessments, then so do we; indeed, our minds are more powerful than yours: we can not only make objective assessments about the ‘brute’ features of our psyches, we can even grasp the fact that the brute features of our psyches are actually not independent from the ‘objective’ (rational) side. Rather the brute features can actually enter into harmony with our rational capacity, such that the mere ‘bruteness’ of our preferences dissolves, i.e., is elevated so as to become truly human, and not merely brute.

 

[Betterave]

p.s.: The above is written partly tongue-in-cheek. A hint, in case you don’t see which part: I think that if you were honest, you would admit to having the same mental-moral capacity that the rest of us do (not necessarily developed to the same degree, but the same in kind).

 

[AntiTheist]

They are objects in the same way that the laws of logic or arithmetic are objects: we have to postulate them in order to make sense of our experience.

Well, I would certainly disagree that morality is necessary to make sense of our experience. It would be more accurate to say that it makes our experience more pleasant, by telling us that the things we like are “objectively good” and that the things we don’t like are “objectively bad” so that we can feel better about our value judgments.

But that quibble aside, I think you’re moving in a better direction here. If you’re looking for an analogy for your supposed “moral principles,” physical objects don’t work as well as intangibles like the logical absolutes.

The problem you have here is that logical absolutes are demonstrable, and absolutely so, such that virtually no one rejects them. Take the law of non-contradiction, for instance. A is A and is not not A. That is demonstrably true (within a specific frame of reference, of course) – there’s tons of evidence that things are themselves – the law even applies to itself (the law of non-contradiction is the law of non-contradiction and is not not the law of non-contradiction), and it would even apply if there were nothing at all in the universe (nothing is nothing and not not nothing).

But let’s take a moral principle instead. How about, “You should not kill someone else”? Or even more basically, “You should work to increase happiness and decrease suffering.” Or, “You should follow the principle of universalizing actions, a la Kant.”

How might one go about demonstrating that any of those statements have any “objective” existence apart from the mind of the person making the judgment? What evidence is there that one objectively “should” not do anything?

It doesn’t even make sense as a proposition. There’s no such thing as a “should” outside of a valuing consciousness. Now, you could say that you believe in god and that he creates the values that constitute the “shoulds.” but that is a faith-based belief, one for which there is no evidence.

Hume argued long ago that one cannot derrive an “ought” statement from an “is” statement, and it would be pretty interesting to see you prove him wrong on that score. But you can’t – no one can.