How to argue with subjective moralists

[Prodigal_Son]

Hi Oreo,

Sorry for the delay; I’m in finals season. But now I’m putting my three 4-page papers and one 10-page paper into a “procrastination rotation”, so I’ll respond to your comments.

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

Actually, that’s what I meant. “Could be neither” is ambiguous; it could mean “must not be either” (my intended meaning) or “could be neither, but could be one or the other.” Words, words, words, sayeth Hamlet.

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

That’s what assumptions usually are: unprovable principles. You may be able to argue for them, but you can’t prove them. How exactly would one prove *ex nihilo nihil fit *or the law of *reductio ad absurdum *or the principle of sufficient reason? Are you saying none of these can be used as premises?

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?

But you’ve brought in another entity there: preference. Are all preferences emotions? If so, are all decisions predicated on emotion? If I decide I prefer a true conclusion to a false conclusion, and so I reason logically, is this simply an expression of my emotion that happens to coincide with methodical best practices? If so, we have emotion bringing us to something objectively better, don’t we?

But if you say there are no best practices, only opinions about best practices, then how are you supposed to criticize another person’s argument? You’re only appealing your emotion against their emotion, saying they should value the truth like you do. But what if they do value the truth, and what you’re following isn’t truth, but falsity? The existence of objectively true facts about the world means that there is at least one arena where values are directed (or misdirected) – the arena of epistemology and science. But how do you know that facts about the world are limited to facts about the *physical *world?

Sorry for rambling.

I don’t see your point.

Consider a controlled experiment versus an “uncontrolled” experiment, with the same subject for experimentation. What is the best explanation for our opinion that “the scientist who used a control group probably obtained better data”? All we need to explain this are “consciousness, preferences, and emotions”. We have been brought up in a way such that we have a bias toward controlled experiments, we think the second experimenter was being irresponsible, etc. This is a tremendously simple explanation. But the *simplest *explanation is not the best, because the simplest explanation does not account for all the data. Neither, in my opinion, does your view on morality account for all the data.

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.

Consider fractals, or double helixes. They are quite small, but a great majority of people find them fascinating. Why does elegance and intricacy transfix us so? I don’t deny that evolution was the vehicle that brought us to our aesthetic values, but that answer just raises more questions than it answers.

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.

This is what I tell my wife about the trash can, but she’s not buying it.

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.

Your explanation is a good effort, although I think it’s an awful lot to explain. As for me, I don’t see what I have to explain. Aesthetic values, in my view, are just like epistemic values. Epistemic reliability relies upon virtues of observation, judgment, analysis, and introspection; if you have these things, and you are not impeded by ulterior motives, you will discover what is true. Aesthetic reliability relies on virtues of observation, judgment, analysis, and introspection; if you have these things, and you are not impeded by ulterior motives, you will discover what is beautiful.

And you may discover, with Keats, that beauty is truth, truth beauty. This insight will not help you much in this life, perhaps, but one ought not believe the lie that the value of truth or beauty is found in its utility. :tsktsk:

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?

I think you missed my point. Natural selection “made it” so that we can see an oncoming train, because that information just might be useful to us. But the utility isn’t what matters here; it’s the observation that natural selection selects for awareness of things that exist.

As to your question: the choice over whether we want to survive is ours; no one’s forcing anyone to obey the moral law. It’s just nice to know that the train’s bearing down on us, so we can make our choice.

 

[Oreoracle]

Hi Oreo,

Sorry for the delay; I’m in finals season. But now I’m putting my three 4-page papers and one 10-page paper into a “procrastination rotation”, so I’ll respond to your comments.

I’m nearing my finals as well. But being only in high school, the task is a bit easier for me.

That’s what assumptions usually are: unprovable principles. You may be able to argue for them, but you can’t prove them. How exactly would one prove *ex nihilo nihil fit *or the law of *reductio ad absurdum *or the principle of sufficient reason? Are you saying none of these can be used as premises?

Well you could go many directions with this, and it seems you have. The principle of sufficient reason seems to be an induction that has as much evidence backing it as any scientific law, and much more than that when all things are considered. I don’t think induced principles are really the sort of assumptions you’re looking for. Perhaps you’d have better luck with more abstract, arbitrary principles, such as the logical laws? But even those aren’t truly assumptions, as laws like the law of identity (x=x) are true by virtue of the definitions of the terms involved. It simply follows from what is given, and no true assumption is made, even though the principle itself is axiomatic. This covers reductio ad absurdum too, as the “correctness” of that form of argument follows from logical laws and their implications.

Ex nihilo nihil fit is probably the trickiest principle you brought up, but that’s only because of the limitations of language. The phrase itself objectifies the concept of nothingness. The phrase becomes less confusing if we make its elements positive: “Every thing comes from things.” Again, this is an induction that results from experience, and is certainly more reliable than daring assertions such as “God exists” that have no experiences backing them.

But you’ve brought in another entity there: preference.

That’s one of the entities I started with, along with consciousness and emotion. Those are the three I claimed I needed.

Are all preferences emotions?

None are, at least not according to the definitions I use. Preferences, along with external stimuli, cause emotions. Here’s an example:

Let’s say you prefer to have X hours of sleep each night to recuperate from daily activities. One night, as you begin to lay down, you hear noises outside. It turns out that the neighbors are partying, and you’ll have to sleep through it. After struggling for an hour, you finally fall asleep despite the noise. The next morning, you wake up after sleeping for X-1 hours instead of your preferred X hours of sleep. Because external stimuli have disrupted the complete satisfaction of your preference, you experience an emotion–in this case, crankiness due to lack of sleep. Simple enough, no?

If so, are all decisions predicated on emotion? If I decide I prefer a true conclusion to a false conclusion, and so I reason logically, is this simply an expression of my emotion that happens to coincide with methodical best practices?

Well now you’re jumping the gun here. What do you mean by “methodically best?” Why is truth superior to falsity in our considerations? I would say that we value truth because doing so increases our knowledge and increasing our knowledge makes our lives easier. There are exceptions of course, but then there will be different emotional reasons.

Regardless, you can only conclude that such practices are logical, not that they are “best” or even “good.” There’s no stipulation attached to deductive systems telling us that they ought to be used. They are valued for their utility, otherwise we wouldn’t bother with them.

If so, we have emotion bringing us to something objectively better, don’t we?

You haven’t demonstrated how truth is better than falsity or how knowing is better than fantasizing. All you’ve done is jumped from “logical” to “best” for some unstated reason. What’s the premise that you’re so cleverly concealing in this line of argument?

But if you say there are no best practices, only opinions about best practices, then how are you supposed to criticize another person’s argument? You’re only appealing your emotion against their emotion, saying they should value the truth like you do.

That’s true. What’s your point? Am I supposed to disregard my feelings and forfeit all opinions I know to be emotional merely because they’re emotional? You must also keep in mind that I see you as portraying your emotions in this argument as well, so why should my emotions yield to your emotions? The argument is self-defeating. If morality is limited to only non-emotional claims, we’re left only with facts and no morals.

But what if they do value the truth, and what you’re following isn’t truth, but falsity? The existence of objectively true facts about the world means that there is at least one arena where values are directed (or misdirected) – the arena of epistemology and science. But how do you know that facts about the world are limited to facts about the *physical *world?

Facts deal with objective information by definition. That is to say that a fact deals with things that exist regardless of subjectivity that can be verified in some way. If consciousness (subjectivity) must exist for morality to exist, then morality is subjective by definition.

More tomorrow morning…

 

[AntiTheist]

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?

Well, first of all, I know of no system of morality that is “evidence-based” – as I pointed out above, you can’t derive an “ought” statement from an “is” statement.

Secondly, when talking about science, when I say “results,” I mean practical benefits that could only be achieved if the underlying premise (i.e. that the universe works on consistent rules) is true. Systems of morality might arguably produce “results” in that they get individuals to behave well, but 1) “well” is always defined by the system of morality in question, making the whole idea of “results” tiresomely circular and 2) even assuming a definition of “well” as “conducive to orderly society,” many different systems of morality – all with different underlying premises – can produce such behavior, including secular systems and individual codes that don’t presume “objective” morality. Having a moral system yield “results” of these kinds does nothing to demonstrate that the underlying premises are necessarily true

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 pointed out that my position is “not contradictory” not as an argument for accepting it, but as an argument against your insinuation that I was somehow contradicting myself by holding that a characteristic was important in one view and not in another view.

So suppose there were nothing apart from human value judgments that makes X objectively better than Y: so what?

So morality is entirely subjective. It all reduces to individual values, not to absolute codes.

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.

Yeah, but our “judgments” about physical reality are testable evaluations – they’re different from value judgments. For example, we’ve come up with the theory that gravity because it fits all of the evidence available to us and it has predictive power – but if someone were to propose the idea that gravity is “better” than lightwaves, it would be both impossible to demonstrate and nonsensical. That kind of idea has no predictive power whatsoever, and it doesn’t make any sense.

It’s the exact same thing with saying something like, “It’s better to give money to a homeless man than it is to spend it on a lavish dinner for yourself.”

Better to whom? Who’s making the valuation there? Outside of your mind, “better” makes no sense at all.

But that is a queer claim: your mind is able to make ‘objective’ assessments, but such assessments must exist apart from any mind?

“Objective” has several definitions. One of them is “not dependent on any mind.” Another is “not contaminated by undue bias or influence.”

My mind can make “objective” assessments in the second sense – or, at least, I can try to be as impartial as I possibly can. Obviously, anything that arises in my mind is not “objective” in the first sense – even if the thought is “objective” in the second.

How could you claim that your mind has access to that which exists apart from it?

Everything that we know is filtered through the mind, but the mind is capable of distinguishing “stuff dependent on a mind” and “stuff not dependent on any mind.”

Try it out for yourself. The roof of your house is not dependent on any mind. There’s a lot of evidence for this: the testimony of others, pictures, your consistent experience of it. No matter what you “believe” about your roof, it continues to exist for everybody, not just you.

Meanwhile, something like your anger at some item on the news is completely dependent on your mind – and so too is the sadness it might cause you and the feeling that “that shouldn’t have happened.” There’s a lot of evidence for this too: if you stop thinking about those feelings, they go away. They depend entirely on you.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

“Objective” has several definitions. One of them is “not dependent on any mind.” Another is “not contaminated by undue bias or influence.”

Quick question: isn’t the second definition, in its application, simply a value judgment? Isn’t *any *person who says they can make an objective assessment about *anything *begging the question?

 

[Oreoracle]

Consider a controlled experiment versus an “uncontrolled” experiment, with the same subject for experimentation. What is the best explanation for our opinion that “the scientist who used a control group probably obtained better data”? All we need to explain this are “consciousness, preferences, and emotions”. We have been brought up in a way such that we have a bias toward controlled experiments, we think the second experimenter was being irresponsible, etc. This is a tremendously simple explanation. But the *simplest *explanation is not the best, because the simplest explanation does not account for all the data.

No, no, no. It’s obvious that the scientist with the control group has more reliable results. That much is objective. It’s our bias toward truth that is emotional. I’m only trying to explain shoulds here, such as “We should value the opinion of the scientist in the control group over the other scientist.” I’m not using emotions to explain what is the case, but why we feel that something should be the case.

Neither, in my opinion, does your view on morality account for all the data.

By all means, show me what data I’m missing. I’m sorry, but “99.9% of people feel that way” is irrelevant data. It doesn’t matter how they feel, it only matters what tangible objects they sense. We don’t say that gravity exists because most people feel that it should, do we?

Consider fractals, or double helixes. They are quite small, but a great majority of people find them fascinating. Why does elegance and intricacy transfix us so? I don’t deny that evolution was the vehicle that brought us to our aesthetic values, but that answer just raises more questions than it answers.

Define “elegant” and “intricate.” What’s complex to you may not be complex to me, and vice-versa. That’s why words such as “intricate” and “complex” shouldn’t be used when describing objects. And please, I do expect definitions this time. I don’t remember you ever defining even one of these supposed objective aesthetic qualities.

This is what I tell my wife about the trash can, but she’s not buying it.

Haha. If you want me to describe the aesthetic tastes of women, then I’m afraid I’m beat.

Your explanation is a good effort, although I think it’s an awful lot to explain. As for me, I don’t see what I have to explain. Aesthetic values, in my view, are just like epistemic values.

But why? You’re making huge assumptions here, and you haven’t even given us a way to test whether you’re right. Yet, you insist that you are justified in this belief. It’s like someone saying that an ethereal unicorn exists. It can’t be detected with the senses, it doesn’t explain anything as a postulated entity, there’s no evidence backing it and there’s no way to verify that it exists. Despite all this, the person insists that they are justified in their belief, even though they’ve essentially assumed that a non-objective (unobservable) object exists. How does one sway such a person or reason with him?

Epistemic reliability relies upon virtues of observation, judgment, analysis, and introspection; if you have these things, and you are not impeded by ulterior motives, you will discover what is true. Aesthetic reliability relies on virtues of observation, judgment, analysis, and introspection; if you have these things, and you are not impeded by ulterior motives, you will discover what is beautiful.

…except for the fact that most definitions of “beautiful” are inherently subjective, while the others rely on other subjective notions. I’m beginning to believe this is why you don’t define any of these aesthetic qualities; once the definition is given, it becomes obvious that they’re subjective.

And you may discover, with Keats, that beauty is truth, truth beauty. This insight will not help you much in this life, perhaps, but one ought not believe the lie that the value of truth or beauty is found in its utility. :tsktsk:

That’s right: utilitarians are always spreading their relativistic lies and whatnot. If only we assumed that unobservable objects exist and that they made sense in an empirical framework, everything would come to light.

I think you missed my point. Natural selection “made it” so that we can see an oncoming train, because that information just might be useful to us. But the utility isn’t what matters here; it’s the observation that natural selection selects for awareness of things that exist.

I don’t know what this point is meant to prove. Through evolution, we eventually end up with creatures that are sentient, sapient, and imaginative…therefore, all of their feelings respond to reality? I’m not buying it.

As to your question: the choice over whether we want to survive is ours; no one’s forcing anyone to obey the moral law. It’s just nice to know that the train’s bearing down on us, so we can make our choice.

And it could be that the moral law requires you to kill yourself, and that you’re disobeying it as we speak. You have no way of knowing.

 

[Leela]

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.

By your definition of objective, mathematics is not objective since mathematics would not “exist without our perception/conception.”

You’ll notice that “wood is an efficient resource for making tables” means the exact same thing as “wood is good for making tables.”

Whether you use the word “good” or “efficient,” there is still a a value-judgement inherent to this statement of objective fact.

Also notice that this phrase doesn’t tell us whether the end of table-making is worth pursuing or existing.

No, but that is a whole other question.

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.

This is a question about whether or not there is an essence of calculatorness. Whether you want to think of a caluculator in terms of function or parts, you are still making a value judgment as to whether or not the object in question properly fits the criteria.

Best,
Leela

 

[AntiTheist]

Quick question: isn’t the second definition, in its application, simply a value judgment? Isn’t *any *person who says they can make an objective assessment about *anything *begging the question?

Notice that I go on to say in that post, “at least, I can try to be as impartial as I possibly can.”

It might very well be impossible to be 100% impartial, but there are degrees of objectivity that we can ascertain. That’s the whole point of using evidence, for instance.

 

[Betterave]

Notice that I go on to say in that post, “at least, I can try to be as impartial as I possibly can.”

It might very well be impossible to be 100% impartial, but there are degrees of objectivity that we can ascertain. That’s the whole point of using evidence, for instance.

I’m quite sure you’re missing the point again here: There’s no ascertaining any degree of something unless you have some of it to start with. I’ll repeat that: you can’t ascertain a ‘degree of objectivity’ if you don’t have any objectivity to begin with. It seems pretty clear to me that Prodigal is just pointing out that you don’t have any objectivity to start with - never mind 100% or 50% or whatever arbitrary figure you’ve chosen to assign to your own ‘degree of objectivity’ - unless you’ve already originarily constituted objectivity as such by means of a value judgment which has given a particular ‘subjective’ content to the otherwise merely formal notion of “not contaminated by undue bias or influence.” You’re so close Anti; what you say is almost true most of the time, you’re just not seeing the implications. The evidence is there, and you’re ignoring it. That something that ‘we’ can ascertain, to use your phrase (is that the royal ‘we’? - it’s not clear). But you seem to be happy with your naive views about the self-evidence of all evidence still, although it is an entirely subjective view that is contradicted by much evidence. Hmmm.

 

[Betterave]

Well, first of all, I know of no system of morality that is “evidence-based” – as I pointed out above, you can’t derive an “ought” statement from an “is” statement.

Yes, you did ‘point this out’ - as did Hume so long ago. Now what is the evidence for this claim? And isn’t the more relevant question here whether you can derive an “is” statement from an “ought” statement?

Secondly, when talking about science, when I say “results,” I mean** practical benefits** that could only be achieved if the underlying premise (i.e. that the universe works on consistent rules) is true. Systems of morality might arguably produce “results” in that they get individuals to behave well, but 1) “well” is always defined by the system of morality in question, making the whole idea of “results” tiresomely circular and 2) even assuming a definition of “well” as “conducive to orderly society,” many different systems of morality – all with different underlying premises – can produce such behavior, including secular systems and individual codes that don’t presume “objective” morality. Having a moral system yield “results” of these kinds does nothing to demonstrate that the underlying premises are necessarily true

And just as with the moral “well”, the “practical benefits” ‘doing-wells’] of science are defined by the system of concepts in question (and this system of concepts isn’t somehow entirely separate from a system of moral concepts, is it?) in an equally “tiresomely circular” fashion. I have to wonder about your bluster about “objective” here - which sense do you mean? Have you thought about whether what you’re saying is relevant and true; or whether it’s just a repetition of the usual abstract formulas that you’ve accustomed yourself to believing? Do you have evidence for which one it is? I notice that you ignore a lot of what I write to you: what is this evidence of?

I pointed out that my position is “not contradictory” not as an argument for accepting it, but as an argument against your insinuation that I was somehow contradicting myself by holding that a characteristic was important in one view and not in another view.

And so saying, you neatly avoid answering my question!

So morality is entirely subjective. It all reduces to individual values, not to absolute codes.

Non sequitur. But maybe you’ve already realized this by now? As you pointed out yourself, “objective” does not always mean “unrelated to subjectivity.” But you seem to forget that when it’s convenient.

Yeah, but our “judgments” about physical reality are testable evaluations – they’re different from value judgments. For example, we’ve come up with the theory that gravity because it fits all of the evidence available to us and it has predictive power – but if someone were to propose the idea that gravity is “better” than lightwaves, it would be both impossible to demonstrate and nonsensical. That kind of idea has no predictive power whatsoever, and it doesn’t make any sense.

It’s the exact same thing with saying something like, “It’s better to give money to a homeless man than it is to spend it on a lavish dinner for yourself.”

Better to whom? Who’s making the valuation there? Outside of your mind, “better” makes no sense at all.

But who would make this kind of abstract, general claim? Of course this claim doesn’t make sense. So you’ve proven that you’re good at coming up with useless irrelevant examples. I would suggest trying to respond to what I’ve written instead of asking me to defend silly straw-man views that you’ve invented.

Everything that we know is filtered through the mind, but the mind is capable of distinguishing “stuff dependent on a mind” and “stuff not dependent on any mind.”

Right. So here’s a question: what about the distinguishing (which the mind is capable of)? Is that “dependent on the mind” or “not dependent on the mind”?..

Try it out for yourself. The roof of your house is not dependent on any mind. There’s a lot of evidence for this: the testimony of others, pictures, your consistent experience of it. No matter what you “believe” about your roof, it continues to exist for everybody, not just you.

Meanwhile, something like your anger at some item on the news is completely dependent on your mind – and so too is the sadness it might cause you and the feeling that “that shouldn’t have happened.” There’s a lot of evidence for this too: if you stop thinking about those feelings, they go away. They depend entirely on you.

Okay, I tried it. (What a trip man!) It was a bit of a downer when I realized that you were talking about raw emotions of the moment instead of morality in your second paragraph. I initially thought you were going to say something relevant to this discussion we’ve been having. But seriously, what’s your point? (BTW - I don’t know what kind of emotional life you have, but I think most people’s feelings don’t fit this neat little picture you paint.)

 

[AntiTheist]

I notice that you ignore a lot of what I write to you: what is this evidence of?

It’s evidence of the fact that I find it difficult to figure out what you’re talking about more than half the time. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be insulting or anything, but I have problems reading you that I don’t have reading others. A good chunk of what you write is confusing, either in meaning or in its relevance to the discussion.

Let me show you an example of what is making this conversation difficult.

You wrote earlier in this thread:

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?

The first half of this statement is false. I do not consider a view justified simply because it doesn’t contradict itself. Yet you use this false statement to argue that I’m a hypocrite.

How did you arrive at this false statement? You apparently derived it from my statement below:

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.

And I said this in response to your accusation that I was contradicting myself (emphasis added below):

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

In response to this passage, I correctly pointed out that there’s no contradiction in my position. In context, I was obviously not saying that a statement’s non-contradiction is reason for accepting the statement. You falsely derived that conclusion from my response.

This is just one small example of things that are slowing us down.

Now, I’m not going to address everything in your post – no, it’s not a sign of me wanting to avoid the issue or anything else your imagination is cooking up right now – I’m going to emphasize this point about “objectivity” because you are still deeply confused on this issue.

There’s no ascertaining any degree of something unless you have some of it to start with.

Agreed.

I’ll repeat that: you can’t ascertain a ‘degree of objectivity’ if you don’t have any objectivity to begin with. It seems pretty clear to me that Prodigal is just pointing out that you don’t have any objectivity to start with - never mind 100% or 50% or whatever arbitrary figure you’ve chosen to assign to your own ‘degree of objectivity’ - unless you’ve already originarily constituted objectivity as such by means of a value judgment which has given a particular ‘subjective’ content to the otherwise merely formal notion of “not contaminated by undue bias or influence.”

In the first place, the kind of “objectivity” relevant to this conversation is the “not dependent on any mind” definition.

In the second place, what you’ve written above is false. The more evidence we have of something, the more likely it is to be objectively true – that is, true outside of our individual minds and value judgments.

There’s a lot of evidence that my coffee cup exists outside of my mind and outside of my beliefs about it; there’s a lot of evidence that the purple unicorn in my imagination depends entirely on my mind and my beliefs. When you say that we can’t determine degrees of objectivity, you’re flat out wrong, as that silly example demonstrates. [Moreover, if you’re right that it’s impossible to determine degrees of objectivity – which seems a weird position for you to be taking – it eliminates the possibility of knowing that there are “objective” morals.]

At any rate, it’s clearly possible to distinguish between things likely to be objective and things likely to be subjective, all using the completely subjective mind. No, it’s not a contradiction.

Value judgments are of the purple unicorn variety. I can perceive them, and I can also correctly judge, based on evidence, or the lack of it, that they are entirely dependent on minds.

[The stuff Leela is trying to bring up is irrelevant to this; the “value” that may or may not inform my statement “my coffee cup objectively exists” is of a completely different type of “value” than the ones under discussion in this thread. Just because two things can share the same label doesn’t mean that they’re identical]

you seem to be happy with your naive views about the self-evidence of all evidence still, although it is an entirely subjective view that is contradicted by much evidence. Hmmm.

Well, here we go. I think the evidence is overwhelming that value judgments arise in the mind and are dependent on minds. What evidence do you think contradicts that? Please be very specific and explain very slowly and carefully. If you’d like, imagine that you’re explaining it to a child – in fact, if I am “morally ignorant,” or whatever phrase you’ve used to describe me, then I would in fact, in your worldview, be something like a child when it comes to this subject.

So please – very slowly and very clearly. What do you think is the best evidence for your position?

 

[rein_me_in_Lord]

AntiTheist,
Have you read any of Christopher Hitchens’ writings? Your writing has that Hitchens ring to it.

 

[Leela]

In the first place, the kind of “objectivity” relevant to this conversation is the “not dependent on any mind” definition.
…[The stuff Leela is trying to bring up is irrelevant to this; the “value” that may or may not inform my statement “my coffee cup objectively exists” is of a completely different type of “value” than the ones under discussion in this thread. Just because two things can share the same label doesn’t mean that they’re identical]

I really think that what I’ve been saying is relevent. For example, your insistence on your definition of objective above rules out mathematics and the laws of physics from objectivity since they can only exist within minds. If we agree that mathematics is objective, then we agree that mental phenomena can be just as objective as physical phenomena.

Best,
Leela

 

[Betterave]

It’s evidence of the fact that I find it difficult to figure out what you’re talking about more than half the time. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be insulting or anything, but I have problems reading you that I don’t have reading others. A good chunk of what you write is confusing, either in meaning or in its relevance to the discussion.

So in your view, is what I write objectively confusing, or is it confusing just to you? What do you mean by this? It seems as though you are one of those people who assumes, any time they can’t understand something, that the reason is because that something doesn’t make sense. So you don’t ask questions, seeking clarification; instead you give your own clarification of what the person you’re talking to should have said, even though you don’t even understand in the first place what he did say. Does this make sense to you? Let me show you some examples of what I’m talking about:

Let me show you an example of what is making this conversation difficult.

You wrote earlier in this thread:
“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?”
The first half of this statement is false. I do not consider a view justified simply because it doesn’t contradict itself. Yet you use this false statement to argue that I’m a hypocrite.

The first half of my statement is debatable; I’m pretty sure you haven’t understood it, however, so you don’t have grounds for asserting that it is false. You summarize my statement as claiming that “you consider a view justified simply because it doesn’t contradict itself” - that is not an accurate paraphrase of what I wrote. You might have noticed this if you looked at and thought about the second half of my statement in conjunction with the first.

How did you arrive at this false statement? You apparently derived it from my statement below:
“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.”

And I said this in response to your accusation that I was contradicting myself (emphasis added below): In response to this passage, I correctly pointed out that there’s no contradiction in my position. In context, I was obviously not saying that a statement’s non-contradiction is reason for accepting the statement. You falsely derived that conclusion from my response.

This is just one small example of things that are slowing us down.

My statement was about your logical procedure, not what you explicitly said. Do you understand the difference? Apparently not, and so you falsely conclude that I falsely derived that conclusion from what you were intending to say, rather than from the actual logical form underlying your argumentative strategy.

Now, I’m not going to address everything in your post – no, it’s not a sign of me wanting to avoid the issue or anything else your imagination is cooking up right now – I’m going to emphasize this point about “objectivity” because you are still deeply confused on this issue.

My imagination? No, the question remains just a question, a yet unanswered question, and my imagination remains idle.

 

[Betterave]

QUOTE:
There’s no ascertaining any degree of something unless you have some of it to start with. I’ll repeat that: you can’t ascertain a ‘degree of objectivity’ if you don’t have any objectivity to begin with. It seems pretty clear to me that Prodigal is just pointing out that you don’t have any objectivity to start with - never mind 100% or 50% or whatever arbitrary figure you’ve chosen to assign to your own ‘degree of objectivity’ - unless you’ve already originarily constituted objectivity as such by means of a value judgment which has given a particular ‘subjective’ content to the otherwise merely formal notion of “not contaminated by undue bias or influence.”

In the first place, the kind of “objectivity” relevant to this conversation is the “not dependent on any mind” definition.

Why is that? Because you don’t want to have to think critically about the grounds for your position? Is this just a stipulation you’re imposing? Isn’t that a little arbitrary? Don’t you owe me an answer to certain questions I’ve asked if you wish to impose this stipulation?

In the second place, what you’ve written above is false. The more evidence we have of something, the more likely it is to be objectively true – that is, true outside of our individual minds and value judgments.

Okay, “individual minds and value judgments” - is this what you meant above? Do you mean particular minds? Or just individuals as such? Or individuals considered in abstraction from their concrete conditions of existence? That could make a big difference you know. Could you please try to think about these distinctions and state them clearly and consistently in what you write? It seems that you slide back and forth as it suits your purposes from one formulation to the other.

There’s a lot of evidence that my coffee cup exists outside of my mind and outside of my beliefs about it; there’s a lot of evidence that the purple unicorn in my imagination depends entirely on my mind and my beliefs. When you say that we can’t determine degrees of objectivity, you’re flat out wrong, as that silly example demonstrates. [Moreover, if you’re right that it’s impossible to determine degrees of objectivity – which seems a weird position for you to be taking – it eliminates the possibility of knowing that there are “objective” morals.]

When I say what? Where did I say that? When you read so carelessly, it “makes this conversation difficult.”

At any rate, it’s clearly possible to distinguish between things likely to be objective and things likely to be subjective, all using the completely subjective mind. No, it’s not a contradiction.

Well of course it’s not a contradiction, and of course it’s possible! That’s obvious! The point that you still seem to be missing is just about the subjective constitution of objectivity. It seems you don’t want to think about the actual constitution of ‘objectivity’ and ‘subjectivity’ as such; you just want to use them in the way that they’re just ‘obviously’ meant to be used - you think you know what you’re talking about, so you don’t need to think about what you’re saying and the conditions (or lack thereof) grounding the possibility of what you’re saying (same goes for what others are saying to you).

Value judgments are of the purple unicorn variety. I can perceive them, and I can also correctly judge, based on evidence, or the lack of it, that they are entirely dependent on minds.

Sorry dude, but that’s hilarious! So you’re claiming that your moral values are the product of your imagination in just the way in which your purple unicorn is? Wow! You obviously are averse to answering questions, but I’ll ask anyway: Is this really how you want to describe the constitution of your moral judgments?

[The stuff Leela is trying to bring up is irrelevant to this; the “value” that may or may not inform my statement “my coffee cup objectively exists” is of a completely different type of “value” than the ones under discussion in this thread. Just because two things can share the same label doesn’t mean that they’re identical]

The last statement is another of your true statements that don’t say anything interesting or relevant.

Well, here we go. I think the evidence is overwhelming that value judgments arise in the mind and are dependent on minds. What evidence do you think contradicts that? Please be very specific and explain very slowly and carefully. If you’d like, imagine that you’re explaining it to a child – in fact, if I am “morally ignorant,” or whatever phrase you’ve used to describe me, then I would in fact, in your worldview, be something like a child when it comes to this subject.

So please – very slowly and very clearly. What do you think is the best evidence for your position?

I’m writing as fast as I can, but I invite you to read as slowly as you like! To answer your first question: It is a badly posed question! Read this very slowly: ALL judgments arise in the mind and are dependent on minds. I don’t think there is ANY evidence to contradict that! Why would you ask such a question after all that I’ve said so far? Don’t tell me “I read it twice and it didn’t make sense” - put in a little effort!

To your second question: what position? I have many positions; which one would you like to know about? Fundamentally, my position is that we’re having a discussion here, the end result of which will hopefully be the gaining of some clarity on the content of and grounds for our mutual/respective positions.

 

[Kevroy]

I believe that there are objective morals, in that some things are always intrinsically wrong, like breaking and entering for example, but I do not believe that whoever commits these objectively wrong acts is always subjectively guilty. On the flip side, there are objectively good acts, like helping the poor, but the person that does them isn’t necessarily subjectively worthy of praise- they might have been doing it just to look good. So I believe this requires us to separate the act from the actor, so to speak, and to say that some things are always wrong, but the person committing the act isn’t necessarily guilty. They could think what they are doing is good, or be under alot of duress, or be mentally ill, etc. But their subjective innocence does not mean the act is good- it in itself is still objectively wrong.

 

[Mimi]

Buddhism has objective moral authority and does not have a creator.

rossum

The ultimate truth is that there is no Ultimate Truth. (your signature)

How do you know THAT is the Truth??

This statement does not make any logical sense to me at all and is relativism.

Mimi

 

[Leela]

How do you know THAT is the Truth??

This statement does not make any logical sense to me at all and is relativism.

Mimi

I think the point is that ultimately a whole lot of things are true. What makes no sense to me is to distinguish between truth and Ultimate Truth. Can you explain the difference? What is the difference between asserting that a particular proposition is true and asserting that the same proposition is Ultimately True? Suggesting that there are different sorts of truth is what sounds like relativism to me. Are you saying that when you say that something is true, you only mean that it is “sort of like true” but not Ultimately True? I’ll have to be careful to notice whether you are saying merely true things or things that are Ultimately True. It would be simpler if we all just agreed to use “true” to mean true rather than “sort of like true.” That way we won’t need the expression “Ultimate Truth.”

Best,
Leela

 

[AntiTheist]

Betterave:

Okay, here’s your sentence again:“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?”

Here was my paraphrase:“you consider a view justified simply because it doesn’t contradict itself”

Here’s you again: “that is not an accurate paraphrase of what I wrote.”

Sorry, I don’t get it. What did you actually mean by the original sentence? And what do I win by guessing it?

Now, I said the following: “the kind of “objectivity” relevant to this conversation is the “not dependent on any mind” definition.”

You asked:

Why is that?

Because we’re talking about whether morality is objective or not in the sense of whether it depends entirely on the minds of thinkers – like a purple unicorn – or whether it is something “out there” that people are perceiving that is independent of the people perceiving it – like the tree outside my window.

In other words, there are people who think morality is like the tree in that there really are things that are “good” or “bad” independent of what people believe about them. There are others, like me, who claim that morality is something that depends only on minds and that it stops existing when no one is thinking it into existence, like the purple unicorn.

Sorry dude, but that’s hilarious! So you’re claiming that your moral values are the product of your imagination in just the way in which your purple unicorn is?

Yes, that’s precisely what I’m claiming.

ALL judgments arise in the mind and are dependent on minds.

Right. And since all morality consists of judgments, all morality is dependent on minds, and there is no morality outside of human minds, just like there are no purple unicorns outside of human minds.

Some mental phenomena – unlike judgments – correspond to things outside of my head. Here’s a statement that corresponds to something outside of my head: “There is a tree outside.”

Here is a judgment (i.e. a statement that depends entirely on my mind): “That tree over there is spooky-looking.”

Here’s a statement that corresponds to something outside of my head: “If that tree grows taller, it will fall over and crush my shed.”

Here’s a judgment (i.e. a statement that depends entirely on my mind): “It would be a bad thing if the tree grows taller.”

That idea of “bad” is completely imaginary. The tree’s growth would not be “bad” – it’s just something I wouldn’t like. There’s nothing outside of my head and my value judgment that makes the growth of the tree “bad.”

Substitute anything else for the tree – taking candy from a baby, murdering, raping, committing arson, etc. All things that I might “judge” to be things that I don’t like, but no more “bad” than a tree growing.

I sense that your objective revolves around “the subjective constitution of objectivity,” which is a meaningless phrase unless you explain it further. I really hope it’s not something as silly as “our values inform what we consider ‘objective.’” I really hope it’s not.

 

[Betterave]

I believe that there are objective morals, in that some things are always intrinsically wrong, like breaking and entering for example, but I do not believe that whoever commits these objectively wrong acts is always subjectively guilty. On the flip side, there are objectively good acts, like helping the poor, but the person that does them isn’t necessarily subjectively worthy of praise- they might have been doing it just to look good. So I believe this requires us to separate the act from the actor, so to speak, and to say that some things are always wrong, but the person committing the act isn’t necessarily guilty. They could think what they are doing is good, or be under alot of duress, or be mentally ill, etc. But their subjective innocence does not mean the act is good- it in itself is still objectively wrong.

Quite right, Kevroy, but when we’re talking about the nature of morality itself, not just casuistry (the evaluation of particular acts and agents), we take all of these distinctions to be objectively necessary components of mature moral understanding. If someone doesn’t understand the difference between material acts and subjective motivations then their understanding of morality is objectively deficient. What we are discussing here is the nature of morality itself and in this context it is objectively correct to say that there is always a subjective component to moral acts; it obviously does not follow from this, however, that morality is not objective, that moral judgements are constituted simply on the basis of the various things which various individuals happen to prefer.

 

[Betterave]

Betterave:

Okay, here’s your sentence again:“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?”

Here was my paraphrase:“you consider a view justified simply because it doesn’t contradict itself”

Here’s you again: “that is not an accurate paraphrase of what I wrote.”

Sorry, I don’t get it. What did you actually mean by the original sentence? And what do I win by guessing it?

Guessing it correctly, you mean? I don’t think that’s going to happen! I’d really prefer that you didn’t guess. Just read what I wrote; I already answered your question. (If you don’t understand my explanation, just say which part you don’t understand and ask for clarification - it might just be that ‘objectively’ it makes sense, although ‘subjectively’ you have trouble understanding.)

Now, I said the following: “the kind of “objectivity” relevant to this conversation is the “not dependent on any mind” definition.”

You asked: “Why is that?”

Because we’re talking about whether morality is objective or not in the sense of whether it depends entirely on the minds of thinkers – like a purple unicorn – or whether it is something “out there” that people are perceiving that is independent of the people perceiving it – like the tree outside my window.

In other words, there are people who think morality is like the tree in that there really are things that are “good” or “bad” independent of what people believe about them. There are others, like me, who claim that morality is something that depends only on minds and that it stops existing when no one is thinking it into existence, like the purple unicorn.

So morality is contingent on there being minds to ‘think’ it into existence. But treeness/the being of trees is also contingent on there being trees to ‘tree’ it into existence. The fact of there objectively being a tree outside your window depends on the existence of a tree there. Likewise, the fact of there objectively being morality in the world depends on the existence of moral beings with moral awareness.

Now do you see the problem? Your claim is a non sequitur. “Depends on minds” does not equal “depends entirely on minds” or “purely subjective/not objective”; and “is independent of the people perceiving it” does not mean “continues to exist even if no people (conscious beings) exist”.

ME: “you’re claiming that your moral values are the product of your imagination in just the way in which your purple unicorn is?”
YOU: Yes, that’s precisely what I’m claiming.

That’s very ‘bold’ of you! I suppose you’ll ignore this comment unless I say “I suppose you’ll ignore this comment”… but anyway, do you see now what is ridiculous about this claim? Here’s a simple exercise for you: list all the ways you can think of in which your moral judgments are different from your purple unicorn. I’m sure you can do this if you try!

Right. And since all morality consists of judgments, all morality is dependent on minds, and there is no morality outside of human minds, just like there are no purple unicorns outside of human minds.

Right. We agree: “all judgments depend on minds.” You’re just being sloppy (cheating) with your consistency in using this slogan and with the way you attach it the notions of ‘objectivity’/‘subjectivity’.

Some mental phenomena – unlike judgments – correspond to things outside of my head. Here’s a statement that corresponds to something outside of my head: “There is a tree outside.”

What does it correspond to?

Here is a judgment (i.e. a statement that depends entirely on my mind): “That tree over there is spooky-looking.”

Why do you think this judgment depends entirely on your mind? What do you mean by that? Just the banal claim that your mind is a sine qua non of this particular judgment insofar as this judgment subsists as a particular in your mind? Or what?

Here’s a statement that corresponds to something outside of my head: “If that tree grows taller, it will fall over and crush my shed.”

What does that statement correspond to ‘outside of your head’?? The future? The truth? The ‘Truth’ (that would make Leela happy)?

Here’s a judgment (i.e. a statement that depends entirely on my mind): “It would be a bad thing if the tree grows taller.”

Why does this depend entirely on your mind?

That idea of “bad” is completely imaginary. The tree’s growth would not be “bad” – it’s just something I wouldn’t like. There’s nothing outside of my head and my value judgment that makes the growth of the tree “bad.”

Your idea of ‘bad’ is completely imaginary? I’m sure that’s not right. I think your idea of “bad” is silly and naive, but you have reasons for holding it which you attempt to defend. They’re ‘bad’ reasons, I think, but they don’t just come from your imagination. Surely they are the products of inferences from evidence (bad inferences from rashly considered evidence, leading to your present conceptual confusion)… Or not? (Are you just offering us your groundless purple-unicornesque imaginings on morality here and asking us to imagine the same thing, indeed insisting that we imagine the same thing if we want to be objectively reasonable?)

Substitute anything else for the tree – taking candy from a baby, murdering, raping, committing arson, etc. All things that I might “judge” to be things that I don’t like, but no more “bad” than a tree growing.

So you imagine - but we’re looking for reasons here.