How to argue with subjective moralists

[AntiTheist]

You see, any instance of “should” assumes a goal. When we say, “you should get some rest” we mean “you should get some rest if you want to be healthy.” When we say, “you really shouldn’t lie to your parents” we mean “you really shouldn’t lie to your parents if you wish to maintain their trust.” But there isn’t any objective way to determine which goals are “better” than others. There is nothing in the universe telling us that maintaining trust (or our health) is a worthwhile end other than–you guessed it–our own emotional assurances. And even if there was some natural indication that we should act a certain way, why should we respect nature? What tells us that? Eventually you reach a dead end no matter how you look at it. Most people stop long before they get to that dead end, however.

Oreoracle is doing a great job explaining these concepts in the exact same way that I would.

The problem is, as usual, language. Language is a very limiting thing. Oreoracle writes, quite correctly, that “My mother should not have died” is not a statement about reality, and then the weak objection comes along, “But wait! It reflects emotions and emotions are part of reality, and so…”

The objection misses the whole point. Oreoracle is trying to draw a distinction between the world outside of our heads and the world inside of our heads. Now the stuff happening inside of our heads is “objectively” happening (it’s part of reality), but it doesn’t always correspond to the part of reality outside of our heads.

“Better” is an idea that only exists in our heads. There’s no “better” in the world outside our heads. There’s just stuff. In order to have a “better,” you need a discriminating consciousness (with preferences) and a standard of measurement.

 

[Betterave]

I wrote:
“To clarify: I just wanted you to explain the claim that you made: “moralizing” is synonymous with “taste-testing” - and I don’t see how you’ve done that. I’m inviting you, if I may, to be careful and precise with how you frame your views in the hopes that they will be clarified for all of us, yourself included. It seems like you’re saying that “preferring A” is the same as “trying A in order to determine if you prefer it” - obviously most people will not agree to this alleged synonymy.”

That isn’t what I’m saying. I’m saying that moralizing–the process of determining what is right and wrong–is comparable to taste-testing–the process of determining what is preferable and what is not.

okay, so let’s try to stick to baby steps! Can we assume for the sake of this discussion that honesty is good, i.e., we prefer honesty to dishonesty, and that clarity is preferable to ambiguity? Now when you say, “That isn’t what I’m saying,” do you mean that that isn’t what you are or have been saying, or that you’re modifying your earlier claim and what you’re saying now is your real position? Or are you simply rejecting the way I defined moralizing without telling me that’s what you’re doing or justifying/explaining that rejection? To remind you, I wrote:

“Moralizing is just moving beyond taste-testing and saying this is what I prefer, don’t even try to feed me that other stuff, I’ve tried it, it’s terrible. That is bad; this is good. Regardless of what you happen to prefer, I will oppose you on that and support you on this because that is vicious/morally wrong and this is virtuous/morally right.”

Language, Antitheist, is indeed a very limiting thing when it is used to obfuscate. It needn’t be used this way, however; it can actually be liberating rather than limiting, if you know how to use it.

 

[Betterave]

Oreoracle is doing a great job explaining these concepts in the exact same way that I would.

The problem is, as usual, language. Language is a very limiting thing. Oreoracle writes, quite correctly, that “My mother should not have died” is not a statement about reality, and then the weak objection comes along, “But wait! It reflects emotions and emotions are part of reality, and so…”

The objection misses the whole point. Oreoracle is trying to draw a distinction between the world outside of our heads and the world inside of our heads. Now the stuff happening inside of our heads is “objectively” happening (it’s part of reality), but it doesn’t always correspond to the part of reality outside of our heads.

“Better” is an idea that only exists in our heads. There’s no “better” in the world outside our heads. There’s just stuff. In order to have a “better,” you need a discriminating consciousness (with preferences) and a standard of measurement.

Apparently Oreo was doing a great job of explaining things until I insisted that he state his views honestly and clearly.

Anyway Mr. AntiTheist, let me try to continue this conversation with you. Now you want to say that there is a clear distinction between what happens inside of our heads and what happens outside of our heads. That’s true, I suppose, in a trivial sense. But so what? Is it true in any sense that is relevant to the issue of the nature of morality? (Do you take yourself to have proven that morality is stuck in people’s heads and not part of the ‘real’ world? I missed that argument.) Are you just pointing out the obvious fact that the world is often full of immorality even if a given individual’s ‘head’ is not (your claim about “…doesn’t always correspond…”)? So what? But in fact you implicitly seem to deny this - but how can you? Are you really philosophically enlightened; or just morally blind? Now of course it’s true that “In order to have a ‘better,’ you need a discriminating consciousness (with preferences [a.k.a. judgments]) and a standard of measurement.” But does it follow that “better” is “an idea that only exists in our heads”? In fact, the latter claim is obviously false, isn’t it? But you claim it’s true, so please explain. (Is it because you regard all ideas as restricted to our heads? I think not. Is this supposed to be the corollary of some doctrine of mind-matter dualism? Again, I think not. So what is it?)

 

[AntiTheist]

Anyway Mr. AntiTheist, let me try to continue this conversation with you. Now you want to say that there is a clear distinction between what happens inside of our heads and what happens outside of our heads. That’s true, I suppose, in a trivial sense. But so what? Is it true in any sense that is relevant to the issue of the nature of morality?

Well, I’d say it’s true in much more than a trivial sense. Most people spend a lot of time in their heads, rather than in the world outside of their heads. A lot of times, we react not to the world outside of our heads but to our interpretation of that world, to our emotions about that world, to the “shoulds” and “should nots” that we dream up about that world. Instead of confronting reality on its own terms, we cling to the ideas we impose on reality.

Morality is one of the ideas that we dream up and impose on the world around us. It consists of value judgments that we project onto the world. We’ll continue to run with Oreoracle’s example: “My mother should not have died” = “It’s bad that my mother died” = “I don’t like that my mother died.”

That’s all that “bad” means. “I don’t like it.” And the word “evil” is just a strong way of saying “I don’t like it.”

All of those things are in our heads, not in the world. One’s sadness at losing a family member is entirely a product of one’s mind. Once you get outside of your mind, you see that everyone is going to die and that death is simply the way that the world works. It’s not “good” or “bad” in and of itself – it’s just what is.

True, it happens to make most people feel bad, but it’s not bad in and of itself. It’s just what happens.

(Do you take yourself to have proven that morality is stuck in people’s heads and not part of the ‘real’ world? I missed that argument.)

I don’t have to prove it. It’s obvious that moral judgments (and other value judgments) come from the minds of individuals. We impose them on the reality outside of our heads.

If you think that those judgments are somehow “out there,” I’d be interested in seeing you demonstrate it.

Are you just pointing out the obvious fact that the world is often full of immorality even if a given individual’s ‘head’ is not (your claim about “…doesn’t always correspond…”)?

No. “Morality” and “immorality” don’t exist in the world. They only exist as value judgments in an individual’s head.

But does it follow that “better” is “an idea that only exists in our heads”? In fact, the latter claim is obviously false, isn’t it?

“Better” only exists in our heads. It makes no sense outside of a particular perspective.

For example, let’s go back to the “my mother should not have died” scenario. Some guy’s mother dies. Would it have been “better” if the mother didn’t die? Such a question doesn’t make any sense at all unless you first have an individual perspective. Obviously, the son thinks it would be “better” if she didn’t die because he has his particular standard of judgment. The funeral director who makes money off the mother’s death might have a very different standard of “better.” The mother, who might have been suffering for all we know, might also have a different standard of “better.”

But outside of those perspectives, there is no “better.” There’s just what happened.

Or let’s say that some guy gets mugged on his way to work. Would it have been “better” for the mugging not to take place? Again, from whose perspective? We know the victim’s standard for “better.” The mugger – who might desperately need the money for some reason – probably has a very different standard. So do the police who are paid to catch criminals like that, the underworld kingpin who will receive a cut of the money, and the people who manufacture the kind of wallet that the victim will buy to replace the one he lost in the mugging.

But outside of those perspectives, there is no “better.” There’s just what happened.

 

[Oreoracle]

Apparently Oreo was doing a great job of explaining things until I insisted that he state his views honestly and clearly.

Actually, if you would look, I haven’t posted anything on these forums in about two weeks. To be honest, I’m about through with this site, from the looks of it. Anyway, it’s obvious to me that you haven’t done any introspection. I’ve said this before and you mocked me for it, but if you don’t take the time to ask yourself what it means for one thing to be better than another, then you will never understand. Instead of taking me seriously you’ve assumed that I’m being dishonest. I can’t tell if this gesture of yours is just a typical playground insult or genuine narcissism. Maybe you are unable to believe that others could truly have different perspectives.

But I’ll play along for a bit. Let’s pretend that the idea of “objective value” makes sense (and let me be clear that it doesn’t). As far as we know, everything that exists affects other existing entities in some way. Indeed, this is how many substances were discovered and understood. Could we discover the existence of value by its interaction with other entities? Clearly, something can possess the property of evil–that is, the property of “should not exist”–and still exist. So if things that should exist exist, and things that should not exist exist, how on earth do you tell the difference without consulting your emotions? How do I tell whether this can of root beer in front of me should or should not exist?

To me, these questions make the idea of “should” or “obligation” look suspect from the start. These supposed properties of goodness and badness seem entirely arbitrary; their existence doesn’t seem apparent when we observe other entities, as every known substance does. And when we consider what “evil” and “good” typically mean (“should not exist” and “should exist” respectively), their usage doesn’t tell us squat about what something is, what state it’s in, etc. If someone were to see offensive graffiti on their building and exclaim, “That shouldn’t be there!” this clearly isn’t the same as saying, “That isn’t there.” Should =/= is. You could say that it’s more complicated than that, but I would question your defenses until you reached a dead end and you would inevitably declare that I’m being dishonest. I really can’t make it any clearer than that without your cooperation.

Good luck to you.

 

[Oreoracle]

Betterave,

I like AntiTheist’s approach to this. He states things more clearly than I. Maybe you’ll have better luck with him.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Just butting into the conversation here…

I don’t have to prove it. It’s obvious that moral judgments (and other value judgments) come from the minds of individuals. We impose them on the reality outside of our heads.

First of all, I cannot refute your assertions. But then again, you cannot, by your own admission, prove them. It is, then, a matter of which position seems more credible.

The reason I cannot dispute your assertions is that they are matters of fact. Any refutation would rely on some claim about the world, and you could very well claim that my perception (or intuition) was false. (Can you tell I’ve been reading Hume lately?)

The problem is that the same goes for all our observations about the world. You say, “It’s obvious that moral judgments (and other value judgments) come from the minds of individuals.” You might as well say that it’s obvious that scientific judgments come from the minds of scientists. Does that mean that we cannot rely on them?

The difference, you would say, is that the scientists rely on physical observations. But moral judgments rely on observations as well, or intuitions – perceptions about the world. You may assert that these are just emotions, but you cannot defend this assertion with any evidence.

There is another difference, perhaps: perceptions of physical objects, you might say, are falsifiable, whereas perceptions of moral realities are unfalsifiable. But this distinction is unacceptable. The proposition that “my mother experiences consciousness” is unfalsifiable, and yet I do not think that my belief in it is irrational. It is a perception about the world, a perception I can only assert, not argue for. And yet it is a perfectly “sensible” belief.

Can you explain to me why I ought to consider my mother’s consciousness reasonable to believe, but I ought not consider my moral perceptions the perceptions of something real? If you cannot explain that, then your position reduces to the argument that “different people make moral judgments, therefore there is no fact of the matter”. But the logic to that argument is sorely lacking.

 

[Leela]

As the term is most commonly used, “relativist” is usually simply an epithet used to malign a person who disagrees with a moral claim the Church makes, but it looks like you have actually found an honest to goodness relativist in Oreoracle.

So you don’t think that every nonbeliever holds such views, I offer some definitions to help move this discussion forward:

Knowledge: justified true belief. A term that is best understoof by
distinguishing truth, justification, and belief. What one may be
justified in believing to be true may not actually be true. Truth is
independent of justification and belief.

Truth: One among many values that we want our theories to have but do not need a theory about. A transparent concept about which we learn all we need to know by considering how the word “true” functions in sentences such as, ‘“The cat is on the mat” is true if
and only if the cat is on the mat.’

Moral realism: The view that moral propositions such as “slavery is evil” have truth value; the view that moral propositions do not suffer in epistemological standing when compared to scientific statements.

Relativism: the idea that any theory is as good as any other; the idea that the same proposition can be true relative to one conceptual scheme and false relative to another. This view conflates justification with truth.

Pragmatism: the idea that what you are justified in believing or warranted in asserting or able to treat as a candidate for your assent depends upon what concepts or modes of reasoning are available to you; the idea that what makes a theory or an interpretation good or bad depends upon the purposes you might reasonable want it to serve.

Moral nihilism: The view that there is no such thing as truth in ethics

Moral skepticism: The view that if there are moral truths, we do not justified beliefs about them. In other words moral knowledge does not exist.

Moral relativism: the view that what may be wrong for one group based on its fundamental assumptions may not be wrong for another group whose moral reasoning is based on different assumptions. Associated with a denial of moral realism

Moral pragmatism: the view that what may be justifiable for one group based on its fundamental assumptions may not be justifiable for another group whose moral reasoning is based on different assumptions, but the truth of a given moral proposition is independent of whether or not anyone is justified in believing it, In other words, justification is relative to an epistemic context, but truth (whether ethical or scientifc) is truth; asociated with moral realism and denial of both moral relativism and moral absolutism.

Moral absolutist: one holding to moral realism and claiming to have access to the Moral Law. Pragmatists aren’t interested in the question of wether or not a Moral Law exists “out there” because they can’t see how we could ever compare a moral assertion in question to the Moral Law.

Relativist: a epithet used to accuse someone of holding to moral relativism and denying the existence of truth. Pretty much no one takes this position (except for Oreoracle?), so it is merely an epithet for anyone who doubts a moral absolutist about his claim to have special knowledge of the Moral Law.

Best,
Leela

 

[Prodigal_Son]

As the term is most commonly used, “relativist” is usually simply an epithet used to malign a person who disagrees with a moral claim the Church makes, but it looks like you have actually found an honest to goodness relativist in Oreoracle.

I think honest-to-goodness relativists are becoming more common these days, Leela. Maybe it’s because we feed our children with the poisonous dogma that “everybody has a right to their opinion” and “nobody’s opinion is better than anybody else’s”.

In science, this seems blatantly false, but in morality, it is quite tempting. I have respect for agnostic positions about moral truth, but moral nihilism is extremely disheartening. The nihilist argument reminds me of Parmenides’ argument about the nature of reality. Aristotle’s comment on Parmenides:

“These opinions seem to follow in the light of the arguments, but to hold them in the light of the facts seems almost madness.”

 

[AntiTheist]

The difference, you would say, is that the scientists rely on physical observations. But moral judgments rely on observations as well, or intuitions – perceptions about the world. You may assert that these are just emotions, but you cannot defend this assertion with any evidence.

The difference is that scientific findings are based on repeatable experiments conducted on observations – experiments that will lead all observers to reach the same conclusions. Moral judgments are just value judgments made about the situation.

For example, any intellectually honest person will look at the evidence for the theory of relativity and accept the conclusions that follow from it. But lots of people can and do differ over the mere question of whether some act qualifies as moral. To take my favorite example, a Hindu thinks that eating a hamburger is an act of immorality; we here in this culture think of it as fast food. There’s no intellectual dishonesty going on there – people are just judging according to different values.

Scientific conclusions don’t depend on any individual observer; that’s the reason that they rely on repeatable experiments and peer-reviewed journals. Something doesn’t become “scientific” because one guy with a degree says so. Science is something decided by a body of experts looking at evidence that needs to be sufficient to compel belief in all reasonable people.

Morality is nothing of the sort. It might be “based on” observations – in the sense that it’s a judgment about observations – but nothing about the observations compels moral judgment the way that scientific evidence compels belief. What about the act of eating a cow will convince all people that it is immoral, exactly? Or, to back to the example I used earlier, what is it about the death of a family member that will convince all people that it is “bad”? As I demonstrated, there are other people – including possibly the ailing family member herself – who would consider death to be “good” and “better.”

All moral questions depend on perspective. There’s no such thing as morality outside of perspective, and I would be interested in seeing someone demonstrate otherwise.

The proposition that “my mother experiences consciousness” is unfalsifiable, and yet I do not think that my belief in it is irrational. It is a perception about the world, a perception I can only assert, not argue for. And yet it is a perfectly “sensible” belief.

You need to learn what a logical inference is. There are plenty of things that we cannot prove absolutely yet still rely upon. The reason I’m claiming that morality is a value judgment is not that I can’t prove otherwise – it’s that it’s the most logical inference based on the evidence.

Given all of the evidence available to us – that brains produce consciousness, that all people that have ever existed claim to experience consciousness, that all people who have ever existed demonstrate behavior that seems to point to their experience of consciousness – it’s a very, very safe bet that your mother experiences consciousness, and it’s based on a great, great deal of evidence.

Moral judgments, though, necessarily require a standard for judgment, and standards are always based on an individual’s values and position in the world.

What we’re talking about here is whether morality exists outside of judgments. The evidence points to the fact that moral judgments are entirely dependent upon individual perspectives, and there is not a single shred of evidence to suggest that morality exists outside of those perspectives and judgments.

If it does exist outside of judgments, then how do you propose to determine whether eating a cow is “good” or “evil”? How do you propose to determine whether the death of a person is good or bad?

You always judge from a standard, and if you go back far enough, the source of that standard is simply your values.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

For example, any intellectually honest person will look at the evidence for the theory of relativity and accept the conclusions that follow from it. But lots of people can and do differ over the mere question of whether some act qualifies as moral. To take my favorite example, a Hindu thinks that eating a hamburger is an act of immorality; we here in this culture think of it as fast food. There’s no intellectual dishonesty going on there – people are just judging according to different values.

I agree, in the case of a hamburger. This is a matter of custom, which many mistake for morality. Nothing about the actual situation of hamburger-eating presents a moral intuition – or, if it does, it’s because a person’s moral intuition has been “tuned” wrongly. (Similarly, some people continue to make the bizarre scientific inference that the sun revolves around the Earth, because they make the wrong inferences from perception.)

Morality is nothing of the sort. It might be “based on” observations – in the sense that it’s a judgment about observations – but nothing about the observations compels moral judgment the way that scientific evidence compels belief.

Consider a clearer example: A group of men surround a defenseless woman and proceed to rape her. Even a bystander who hated the woman would have the intuition that what the men are doing is wrong. It is not simply a matter of feelings; it is a matter of perceiving the objective wrongness of an action. It is possible to feel vindicated by an action, and still consider that action wrong. Our moral judgments may be influenced by emotion, but they can exist without them.

You need to learn what a logical inference is. There are plenty of things that we cannot prove absolutely yet still rely upon. The reason I’m claiming that morality is a value judgment is not that I can’t prove otherwise – it’s that it’s the most logical inference based on the evidence.

Gee, believe it or not, I know what a logical inference is. But thank you for your eagerness to educate.

Given all of the evidence available to us – that brains produce consciousness, that all people that have ever existed claim to experience consciousness, that all people who have ever existed demonstrate behavior that seems to point to their experience of consciousness – it’s a very, very safe bet that your mother experiences consciousness, and it’s based on a great, great deal of evidence.

Question: What evidence do we have that brains produce consciousness? There is only one person to whom we can ascribe consciousness with absolute certainty: ourselves. This leaves us with the observation that: “One person who has a brain is conscious”. From that, our inferential capacity is very slim. If you had only seen one squirrel in your life, and it was brown, would you be justified in making the inference that “all squirrels are brown”? Hardly.

I agree, however, that we have other ways of making inferences. The (apparent) best explanation of the existence of being that act like I seem to act is that they are conscious beings, just like me. But, likewise, the (apparent) best explanation of the moral intuitions that I have, especially in reference to the ways people have harmed me in the past (which gives me a subjectively rooted standard for objective moral truths) is that these moral intuitions describe moral realities.

How do you propose to determine whether the death of a person is good or bad?

I don’t. I simply claim that the person’s death is not ours to bestow upon them – if we do so, we are acting wrongly.

 

[Leela]

The difference is that scientific findings are based on repeatable experiments conducted on observations – experiments that will lead all observers to reach the same conclusions.

This isn’t true. A scientist could take me into her lab and conduct an experiment, have me look into the microscope or whatever and say, “see, it worked!” And I would respond, “see what?”

I am not a competant observer in a science lab. By the same token, certain people (like children or people with brain damage for example) are not competant judges of morality.

Moral judgments are just value judgments made about the situation.

Well, yeah, of course. That’s because morals and values mean the same thing.

Moral judgments are value judgments. Why the “just” in the above?

…Morality is nothing of the sort. It might be “based on” observations – in the sense that it’s a judgment about observations – but nothing about the observations compels moral judgment the way that scientific evidence compels belief. What about the act of eating a cow will convince all people that it is immoral, exactly? Or, to back to the example I used earlier, what is it about the death of a family member that will convince all people that it is “bad”? As I demonstrated, there are other people – including possibly the ailing family member herself – who would consider death to be “good” and “better.”

All moral questions depend on perspective. There’s no such thing as morality outside of perspective, and I would be interested in seeing someone demonstrate otherwise.

There is no way to evaluate the outcome of a scientific experiment but from a particular persepctive as well.

Your issue seems to be rooted in the question, “why is it that there seems to be so much agreement on science and so much disagreement on morals?” Is our epistemic situation when it comes to so-called “subjective” moral assertions any worse off than our epistemic situation is when it comes to scientific “objective” assertions? (I put the terms “objective” and “subjective” in quotes because I don’t want to imply any metaohysical distinction between the two.) Part of the issue that makes these situations seem so different to us is probably that our conversations about morals tend to be about our disagreements while our conversations about science focus on explaining what has been agreed to within the scientific community. However, within that community, we would find that the conversations are more likely to revolve around scientist’s disagreements, especially during times of scientific revolution, since it is in such areas where the interesting most scientific work will be done.

Professional scientists at these times are like the political pundits, seeming to disagree on just about everything, but their disagreements only make sense within a context where they share enough beliefs in common that they can agree that they are in fact disagreeing. Likewise, the interesting conversations that we want to have about morality will not be mostly about whether we should be honest, whether murder is wrong, or whether it is good to be lazy, but about, say, how our value of personal freedom should be balanced with the value of human solidarity. If we didn’t already largely agree on the good of such values, we wouldn’t be able to have a conversation about how to balance them. We should compare the disagreement on issues like abortion to scientificly unsettled issues like the origin of the universe rather than to the shape of the earth.

A second issue comparing agreement in ethics with that of science is who is expected to agree. We generally call scientific knowledge “objective,” since scientists are in agreement on what is knowledge, while the knowledge of an ethicist is called “subjective” when she can’t get agreement with such hypothetical conversation partners as “the Nazi” and “the sociopath” and “the Cartesian skeptic” who is not sure whether he is a brain in a vat. Scientists aren’t expected to have to answer for such bogey-men, while moral philosophers are. Scientists are only expected to be able to convince other scientists who have been acculturated into a narrow field with specialized training. Kuhn pointed out that this training involves door-keeping where only those who see things largely the same way get in at all, so it is no wonder that they are in agreement on one another’s work. “The Nazi” or “the sociopath” or a small child isn’t expected to be able to go into a lab and evaluate an experiment that a scientist has just performed to verify the truth of what the scientist has claimed. They are not considered to be competent observers. Yet, in ethics, we have been taught to demand a foundation for ethical arguments that will make them so convincing as to convince even these moral incompetents of their truth. We should stop demanding such a foundation for knowledge in ethics if we are satisified in claiming knowledge using a less universal standard in science.

What do you think?

Best,
Leela

 

[Betterave]

Actually, if you would look, I haven’t posted anything on these forums in about two weeks. To be honest, I’m about through with this site, from the looks of it. Anyway, it’s obvious to me that you haven’t done any introspection. I’ve said this before and you mocked me for it, but if you don’t take the time to ask yourself what it means for one thing to be better than another, then you will never understand. Instead of taking me seriously you’ve assumed that I’m being dishonest. I can’t tell if this gesture of yours is just a typical playground insult or genuine narcissism. Maybe you are unable to believe that others could truly have different perspectives.

But I’ll play along for a bit. Let’s pretend that the idea of “objective value” makes sense (and let me be clear that it doesn’t). As far as we know, everything that exists affects other existing entities in some way. Indeed, this is how many substances were discovered and understood. Could we discover the existence of value by its interaction with other entities? Clearly, something can possess the property of evil–that is, the property of “should not exist”–and still exist. So if things that should exist exist, and things that should not exist exist, how on earth do you tell the difference without consulting your emotions? How do I tell whether this can of root beer in front of me should or should not exist?

To me, these questions make the idea of “should” or “obligation” look suspect from the start. These supposed properties of goodness and badness seem entirely arbitrary; their existence doesn’t seem apparent when we observe other entities, as every known substance does. And when we consider what “evil” and “good” typically mean (“should not exist” and “should exist” respectively), their usage doesn’t tell us squat about what something is, what state it’s in, etc. If someone were to see offensive graffiti on their building and exclaim, “That shouldn’t be there!” this clearly isn’t the same as saying, “That isn’t there.” Should =/= is. You could say that it’s more complicated than that, but I would question your defenses until you reached a dead end and you would inevitably declare that I’m being dishonest. I really can’t make it any clearer than that without your cooperation.

Good luck to you.

Wow, this thread really flared up again, didn’t it? Thanks for butting in Prodigal! Oreo, it has been two weeks for me too - waiting for you to answer my questions. I appreciate your graciousness in the post following this one, but what you say here is quite silly and thoroughly ungracious and you have continued to avoid answering my direct question by which I was seeking to make this a well-ordered discussion free of equivocations, indeed, by which I was seeking to ensure that I understood your position (which, obviously, I recognize is different from mine) and that you understood mine. But repeatedly avoiding/miscontruing a direct question, or carrying on as if no question was asked, is a form of dishonesty and I am describing your posts, not offering a playground insult, when I point this out. I’m not interested in hearing you preach about what you have introspected unless you are willing to subject the results of that introspection to a careful, respectful (I try! - I’m sorry for the times when I fail) cross-examination. If you don’t think you need to test or defend your views because they are too inherently obvious to be questioned, that’s fine, I can accept that’s your perspective. But you’re not being honest if you pretend that the nature of your position is anything other than an idiosyncratic, undefended (and hence quite possibly indefensible) one.

Anyway, I’m happy to focus my attention on addressing AntiTheist’s ethical formulations, especially if you feel that his formulations explain things more clearly than yours. (It’s nice (ironic?) that both of you feel that the other provides clear expositions of your shared position.)

Take care

p.s.: Leela, if you’re wondering what I think, I think you’ve made an excellent contribution to this discussion.

 

[Betterave]

For example, any intellectually honest person will look at the evidence for the theory of relativity and accept the conclusions that follow from it.

So “better” only exists in our heads… What about “intellectual honesty”? Is that only in our heads too? Or do you discover that in the world? Do you even discover that it’s “better” than intellectual dishonesty? You better, if you want to be able to have a reason for saying that accepting the theory of relativity is better than not accepting it… But maybe you don’t want to say that; after all, we wouldn’t want to let “better” out of our heads and into “the world”, right?

I guess I’m confused about your position (or is your position just confused?). But maybe you can explain all this in a coherent way…?

 

[AntiTheist]

I agree, in the case of a hamburger. This is a matter of custom, which many mistake for morality. Nothing about the actual situation of hamburger-eating presents a moral intuition – or, if it does, it’s because a person’s moral intuition has been “tuned” wrongly.

Well, a Hindu would disagree. He would say that it’s actually evil to eat a cow, and he would say that your moral intuition has been “tuned” wrongly. On what basis do we accept your judgment and reject his?

Consider a clearer example: A group of men surround a defenseless woman and proceed to rape her. Even a bystander who hated the woman would have the intuition that what the men are doing is wrong. It is not simply a matter of feelings; it is a matter of perceiving the objective wrongness of an action.

So what about the action makes it objectively wrong?

Again, the judgment that it’s “wrong” is only in our heads – in the real world, it’s just something that happens. [In fact, there was a case pretty recently where a woman was being raped and bystanders just came up and apparently started participating in the rape; so it seems like not everyone has this “moral intuition” you speak of]

Question: What evidence do we have that brains produce consciousness?

Tons. The fact that we have only encountered consciousness in connection with brains. The fact that altering brains alters consciousness. The fact that it doesn’t appear that there is such a thing as consciousness without a brain. Tons and tons and tons of evidence. Everything we’ve ever discovered about brains and consciousness suggests it.

But, likewise, the (apparent) best explanation of the moral intuitions that I have, especially in reference to the ways people have harmed me in the past (which gives me a subjectively rooted standard for objective moral truths) is that these moral intuitions describe moral realities.

No, the best explanation of moral intuitions is that they are the same as other intuitions – subjective feelings that depend on perspective.

I don’t. I simply claim that the person’s death is not ours to bestow upon them – if we do so, we are acting wrongly.

And on what basis do you make that claim? Just cause you “feel” that way? What about serial killers who “feel” differently? What about people in favor of the death penalty who “feel” differently?

Leela:

This isn’t true. A scientist could take me into her lab and conduct an experiment, have me look into the microscope or whatever and say, “see, it worked!” And I would respond, “see what?”

Obviously, I meant that any reasonable person with enough knowledge of the subject to understand the evidence. But the point is that anyone, in theory, could educate themselves enough to understand the evidence and be persuaded by it.

Moral judgments are value judgments. Why the “just” in the above?

Because there are people here who are arguing that moral judgments are more than just value judgments – that moral judgments somehow correspond to “moral realities” which (I suppose they would argue) are eternal or some such nonsense like that.

Professional scientists at these times are like the political pundits, seeming to disagree on just about everything

Sure, scientists disagree over details, but they’re arguing over evidence. There’s an expectation that evidence will compel belief.

Moral situations don’t compel the acceptance of moral judgments. Let’s use that rape example since it’s so provocative. Some woman is getting raped. When I say, “rape shouldn’t happen,” I’m making a value judgment. I’m not describing reality; I’m describing my reaction to the situation: “I don’t like this action.” There’s nothing about the situation that means that others have to accept my value judgment. In fact, we’ve got an example of bystanders coming to participate in a rape – so they clearly were not compelled to accept the rape as something that shouldn’t be.

Betterave:

So “better” only exists in our heads… What about “intellectual honesty”? Is that only in our heads too? Or do you discover that in the world? Do you even discover that it’s “better” than intellectual dishonesty? You better, if you want to be able to have a reason for saying that accepting the theory of relativity is better than not accepting it… But maybe you don’t want to say that; after all, we wouldn’t want to let “better” out of our heads and into “the world”, right?

“Better” only has a meaning in a context, from a perspective.

It’s “better” to be intellectually honest from the perspective of being a person who wants to persuade other reasonable people and hold a public discussion on these topics. If you don’t want to do those things and you instead want to rave on a street corner about your religious faith, then it would indeed be “better” to be intellectually dishonest so that you can ignore all the evidence against your position.

It’s “better” to accept the theory of relativity from the perspective of wanting to understand reality more fully. If you don’t want to do that and you instead want to hold on to your old idea of physics, then it would indeed be “better” to reject the theory of relativity – but in that case, you shouldn’t expect anyone to take you seriously.

 

[Betterave]

I agree, in the case of a hamburger. This is a matter of custom, which many mistake for morality. Nothing about the actual situation of hamburger-eating presents a moral intuition – or, if it does, it’s because a person’s moral intuition has been “tuned” wrongly. (Similarly, some people continue to make the bizarre scientific inference that the sun revolves around the Earth, because they make the wrong inferences from perception.)

It’s clearly important to distinguish morality from custom (or natural law in the strict sense from natural law in the extended sense, to use Scotus’ formulation - and there are obviously other formulations of the distinction but the idea is the same). But it is an exaggeration to speak of a “mistake” here, or of being tuned “wrongly”, if you think that you have a moral duties entailed by your customs: if you are a Hindu, it is not a mistake to think that you shouldn’t eat beef - you shouldn’t and it would be immoral for you or other Hindus to do so. It is only a mistake if you also think that non-Hindus ought not to eat beef. Similarly, if I go hunting and kill an elk, that’s not immoral; but if the elk is on an elk farm and belongs to someone, then it is immoral. It is immoral for a Catholic to skip Sunday mass without a good reason, or a muslim to not care about praying 5 times a day, but it would not be immoral for an atheist to make these kinds of omissions. Immorality is constituted by a wilful contravention of the law of love, of respecting and caring for all persons in a way appropriate to one’s circumstances (means, maturity, knowledge, relationship, etc.).

 

[Betterave]

Betterave:
“Better” only has a meaning in a context, from a perspective.

It’s “better” to be intellectually honest from the perspective of being a person who wants to persuade other reasonable people and hold a public discussion on these topics. If you don’t want to do those things and you instead want to rave on a street corner about your religious faith, then it would indeed be “better” to be intellectually dishonest so that you can ignore all the evidence against your position.

It’s “better” to accept the theory of relativity from the perspective of wanting to understand reality more fully. If you don’t want to do that and you instead want to hold on to your old idea of physics, then it would indeed be “better” to reject the theory of relativity – but in that case, you shouldn’t expect anyone to take you seriously.

*“Better” only has a meaning in a context, from a perspective *- right (that’s just banal): but there always is a context/perspective and that context/perspective is not originally found “inside our heads”, it is found in the real world (of which “inside our heads” is just a part). Did that ever occur to you? You should re-read Leela’s excellent post #170.

Do you take it that the point of believing a physical theory is in order to know about the world; or is the point that you want people to take you seriously? But if it were the latter, people shouldn’t take you seriously, so it must be the former (at least in part). Right?

But you suppose that some people just want others to take them seriously, and they don’t care about taking themselves seriously, at least as intellectuals (the street-corner raver). But why would others take them seriously if they don’t take themselves seriously? No need, right? The raver just wants to win over other intellectually dishonest types.

But if that’s what he wants, you claim, so what? - he’s no better or worse than someone who wants to be taken seriously by others because she takes herself seriously and expects others to do the same - i.e., from **your **perspective, integrity is no better than lack of integrity, except, that is, relative to some ‘perspective’, which, again, happens to be yours, and which is itself (allegedly), qua perspective, a brute value-neutral psychological fact …and you expect to be taken seriously and to pass yourself off as intellectually honest when you make such claims? What if that doesn’t work? Would it be time for a new plan then maybe?

So what about intellectual honesty? Do you suppose someone could value intellectual honesty just so as to make people respect him; or would that not really be intellectually honest?

How about you? Do you value intellectual honesty? If so, why? I guess you just do (you claim) - it’s a brute fact about the world inside your head. Or is it? Is that appraisal of yourself just “in your head” (and that’s why others are necessarily unable to see that you value intellectual honesty)? But is that right? You at least pay lip-service to intellectual honesty - does that count as valuing it? Or is there an “outside-your-head” sense in which we want to evaluate the question, beyond the stories you tell yourself inside your head? Obviously! But what are the criteria we ought to use to make this evaluation of your true character, your intellectual honesty? Whether or not you “persuade other reasonable people” in the course of a public discussion? (You’ve failed so far - or do you want to claim that those who do not buy what you’re selling are “unreasonable”?) Maybe your street corner ranter should have thought of that! But let’s not impose our ‘should’s’ on others - let’s keep them inside our own heads, right, where they brutally originate and where they belong? If some people like to rave for the sake of raving, let them - obviously such people just don’t care about intellectual honesty, and neither should we (except when we slip into the “I don’t like intellectual dishonesty” perspective, as we are prone to do from time to time).

But what is intellectual honesty anyway? Would we need to be intellectually honest to know the answer to that question? I think so. What do you think?

 

[Prodigal_Son]

It’s clearly important to distinguish morality from custom (or natural law in the strict sense from natural law in the extended sense, to use Scotus’ formulation - and there are obviously other formulations of the distinction but the idea is the same). But it is an exaggeration to speak of a “mistake” here, or of being tuned “wrongly”, if you think that you have a moral duties entailed by your customs: if you are a Hindu, it is not a mistake to think that you shouldn’t eat beef - you shouldn’t and it would be immoral for you or other Hindus to do so. It is only a mistake if you also think that non-Hindus ought not to eat beef. Similarly, if I go hunting and kill an elk, that’s not immoral; but if the elk is on an elk farm and belongs to someone, then it is immoral. It is immoral for a Catholic to skip Sunday mass without a good reason, or a muslim to not care about praying 5 times a day, but it would not be immoral for an atheist to make these kinds of omissions. Immorality is constituted by a wilful contravention of the law of love, of respecting and caring for all persons in a way appropriate to one’s circumstances (means, maturity, knowledge, relationship, etc.).

Good point. I would insist, though, that nothing about hamburger-eating-in-itself would ever strike a prudent man as wrong. It would strike them as wrong because they have made certain commitments – promises, if you will – to a group of people or to a god (whether or not their god exists). Breaking a promise is prima facie wrong to an observant Jew, but eating pork is not – it is wrong because they have made a covenant (promise) with God.

Hunting the elk on a person’s property, similarly, is breaking a code you have implicitly “signed” with your society. My point was not that Hindus are wrong to follow their customs, nor that they would be justified in breaking them – but that their customs do not conform to any system of morality that can be known a priori. So, in essence, we agree, I think – although we’re using different terminology.

 

[Leela]

p.s.: Leela, if you’re wondering what I think, I think you’ve made an excellent contribution to this discussion.

I am always interested in what you think, Betterave. Thanks.

 

[Leela]

Hi AntiTheist,

Well, a Hindu would disagree. He would say that it’s actually evil to eat a cow, and he would say that your moral intuition has been “tuned” wrongly. On what basis do we accept your judgment and reject his?

Looking for a “basis” to explain morality is buying into the Moral Law idea that you (and I) reject. We don’t need to identify a metaphysical foundation before we can talk about what is true and false with regard to scientific or ethical propositions.

Leela: Obviously, I meant that any reasonable person with enough knowledge of the subject to understand the evidence. But the point is that anyone, in theory, could educate themselves enough to understand the evidence and be persuaded by it.

Yes, and by the same token, when I assert that slavery is evil, I also believe that anyone who has had the right experiences to be considered a competent judge would come to the same conclusion.

Because there are people here who are arguing that moral judgments are more than just value judgments – that moral judgments somehow correspond to “moral realities” which (I suppose they would argue) are eternal or some such nonsense like that.

This is indeed where you and I part company with the theists who believe that in order for a proposition about ethics to have truth-value, there would need to be an entity called “the Moral Law” for propositions to correctly correspond to.

Pragmatists like me (to quote Jeffery Stout) “object to the idea that we can explain what it is for moral propositions to be true by saying that they correspond to the Law, since the relation of correspondence invoked by such an explanation doesn’t seem clear enough to explain anything…To say that a moral proposition corresponds to the Moral Law doesn’t obviously add anything more than a well-worn figure of speech–anything of explanatory value–to saying that the proposition is true.”

If there were some way to “look directly, without help from variable tradition-bound presuppositions, at the Moral Law and then back again at our beliefs, surveying the relations for instances or failures of correspondence” we would be better off for believing in a Moral Law. But our epistemic situation is such that the existence or non-existence of a Moral Law is of no consequence. So an absolutist may be someone who believes in such a Law while a relativist is one who claims that such a law does not exist. A pragmatist is neither one of these. A pragmatist doesn’t see the point in arguing the issue since even if such entities as the Moral Law exist “out there,” they don’t get us anywhere.

I’m trying to convince you to be a moral pragmatist rather than a moral relativist. The relativist will always have a problem since his assertion that there is no such thing as moral truth by his own standards is no better or worse than saying that there is such a thing as moral truth. You are right to argue that “correspondence to the Moral Law” is problematic as an ethical theory. It sounds like this is your real issue with what the theists here are saying. You can criticize this view without falling into Oreoracle’s self-defeating nihilism.

Best,
Leela