Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Terrapin Station]

You have missed the entire thrust of my argument.

It wasn't a reply to you. But okay, maybe that's your argument at any rate.

There is no uniquely or distinctly "moral sense" of "should," or "ought."

Sure there is and I just explained it.

Morally, we're not talking about a condition that has to be met for achieving something, but there's a colloquial way of using "should" for that.

It's a precondition of going up to the roof with a ladder that we have a ladder. So it's not uncommon to say in that situation, "You should have a ladder to go up to the roof with a ladder."

But that's not the gist of a moral normative. There's nothing moral about the "should" there. It's simply an alternate way of noting a precondition for achieving something.

Moral normatives are rather focused on "right conduct," in a value sense of being an admirable, virtuous way to behave, where there are available options where other options would be "wrong conduct."

That's why it's not considered moral to pull the trigger of a gun and shoot someone in the head nonconsensually even though if you have a goal of shooting someone in the head with a gun, you "should" pull the trigger--that's a precondition for shooting someone in the head with a gun.

[Terrapin Station]

It is the very same sense of "should." The only difference is that the goal sought is not a moral one.

The whole aim of objective morality is that people want the morality part to be objective. Hence why we use the phrase "objective morality," where we have the adjective "objective" modifying the noun, "morality."

You're talking about objective preconditions for achieving something, rather, and you're misleadingly calling that "morality." If some goals "are not moral goals," then what is determining that? Surely nothing objective. Which means there's nothing objective about morality per se.

[Belindi]

GEMorton wrote:

Also, attempts to promote or encourage or instill any attitude, personality trait, or emotional response pattern are usually quixotic, futile.

As matter of fact powerful men constantly try to change , encourage, or indoctrinate attitudes throughout recorded history and here, there, and now.

Agape is widely associated with order and civilisation.Why would you want to remain cynical ? Cynicism which must be associated with intransigence will accomplish nothing.

[Terrapin Station]

Re preconditions, by the way, we should probably make a distinction between logical preconditions and contingent, "practical" preconditions.

It's a logical precondition that if you want to go up to the roof with a ladder, you need a ladder. It's a contingent, practical precondition that if you want to shoot someone in the head with a gun, you need to pull the trigger--given that contingently, you don't have a gun where you could activate it by pushing a button instead, or saying "shoot" instead, etc.

Also, we should make a distinction between necessary preconditions and sufficient preconditions. Most of the time with most morality talk, we're going to be suggesting sufficient preconditions to achieve some goal, not necessary preconditions, and it's often going to be a (subjective) judgment as to whether particular actions are either necessary or sufficient preconditions. Given the moral goals people usually have, it's rarely clear that there are necessary preconditions in the vein of "if you want to go up to the roof with a ladder, you need a ladder," or even, "if you want to murder someone, then you need a good weapon and/or some basic physiological knowledge/combat skills."

[Peter Holmes]

It is the very same sense of "should." The only difference is that the goal sought is not a moral one.

The whole aim of objective morality is that people want the morality part to be objective. Hence why we use the phrase "objective morality," where we have the adjective "objective" modifying the noun, "morality."

You're talking about objective preconditions for achieving something, rather, and you're misleadingly calling that "morality." If some goals "are not moral goals," then what is determining that? Surely nothing objective. Which means there's nothing objective about morality per se.

I think this discussion of the ways we use modals 'should', and so on, may be at the heart of what's wrong with GEM's argument. But I'll post separately about it. Sorry to butt in.

[Steve3007]

I disagree that it's subjective all the way down. I think the question of whether going to school results in a good education is not an entirely subjective one. That's not saying it's not debatable. But it's not entirely subjective in the sense that, say, the statement "school is nice" is subjective.

That isn't the point. It may be that going to results in a good education. That may be an emprically verifiable fact. (It isn't, but never mind.)

But wanting to go to school, and wanting a good education, are both preferences, which are therefore subjective.

I disagree. I think that if they were merely tastes, with no underlying reason to them other than that they feel good, then you could say they were entirely subjective. But most preferences are not like that. People tend to present justifications for them in the form of emprical propositions. They make arguments. As I was saying, it's only when we follow those justifications until we reach something that can't be so justified that we find something that can be characterised as a personal taste. At that point, we could perhaps appeal to our evolved nature. So, in the example I gave, the line of analysis ended with:

"I want you to be happy."

Why do parents want their children to be happy? We could then bring in a discussion about such things as "selfish genes". We could thereby make an argument that our morality, and our moral choices, are determined by our biological nature.

An example you used in the OP was this:

An objection to moral subjectivism is that, if moral values and judgements are matters of opinion, we can't know if they're correct. For example, we can't know if slavery is right or wrong, and can't therefore morally condemn those who think slavery is justifiable. That's just their opinion, and we can't say which opinion is correct or true.

If you were trying to present a case for slavery being wrong, perhaps to a slave owner, what kinds of things might you say? Would you simply say that slavery is not to your personal taste? Would you assert that there is some absolute moral law, perhaps derived from a religious edicts, that slavery is wrong?

In general, I think the way people try to present these cases is to use a process similar to the one I illustrated. They propose objective causal chains linking goals to deeper goals in the hope of finding common ground.

[Belindi]

Objective morality is the same as morality that is necessarily so. 'Objective' means 'necessary'.

This must be the case because if an empirical fact is necessarily so it must be an objectively true fact. and vice versa. There is only one criterion for the truth of that claim and that criterion is order itself. If this is an ordered world and not a random one then all events must be caused events. Events with a moral attribute e.g. judicial hangings are compounded of civilised societies ' need for civil order, and the several causes of the punishable crime. All that causes any event with a moral attribute can be explained by reference to the orderliness of nature.
True, we constantly try to seek better solutions for the control of crimes and the promotion of happiness and our searching is also natural.

Some people think a supernatural being is the instigator of order. I think nature itself is sufficient to explain order.

[Steve3007]

viewtopic.php?p=351680#p351680

As in "If you want to promote happiness and lessen pain then you should promote agape."

This juncture brings us to the question of utilitarianism as a candidate for objective morality.

If we're looking for an objective root to morality I don't think those various candidates for moral axioms that have been proposed over the years do the job because, being axioms, they're simply asserted without a proposed objectively verifiable justification. I think the only way to think of morality as objective (assuming we're not proposing the existence of a God) is to root the prescriptions in description. That is, to make observations about the evolved nature of human beings and extrapolate from those to observations of human behaviour and human desires.

[Steve3007]

Objective morality is the same as morality that is necessarily so. 'Objective' means 'necessary'....

I essentially agree with what I take to be your point.

[Terrapin Station]

That isn't the point. It may be that going to results in a good education. That may be an emprically verifiable fact. (It isn't, but never mind.)

But wanting to go to school, and wanting a good education, are both preferences, which are therefore subjective.

I disagree. I think that if they were merely tastes, with no underlying reason to them other than that they feel good, then you could say they were entirely subjective. But most preferences are not like that. People tend to present justifications for them in the form of emprical propositions. They make arguments. As I was saying, it's only when we follow those justifications until we reach something that can't be so justified that we find something that can be characterised as a personal taste. At that point, we could perhaps appeal to our evolved nature. So, in the example I gave, the line of analysis ended with:

"I want you to be happy."

Why do parents want their children to be happy? We could then bring in a discussion about such things as "selfish genes". We could thereby make an argument that our morality, and our moral choices, are determined by our biological nature.

An example you used in the OP was this:

An objection to moral subjectivism is that, if moral values and judgements are matters of opinion, we can't know if they're correct. For example, we can't know if slavery is right or wrong, and can't therefore morally condemn those who think slavery is justifiable. That's just their opinion, and we can't say which opinion is correct or true.

If you were trying to present a case for slavery being wrong, perhaps to a slave owner, what kinds of things might you say? Would you simply say that slavery is not to your personal taste? Would you assert that there is some absolute moral law, perhaps derived from a religious edicts, that slavery is wrong?

In general, I think the way people try to present these cases is to use a process similar to the one I illustrated. They propose objective causal chains linking goals to deeper goals in the hope of finding common ground.

When we say that something is a "taste" --that it's simply something the person likes or dislikes, yays or boos, we're not saying that there isn't a biological reason for it--obviously there is, because mental phenomena in general are biological phenomena, and there's going to be a biological reason for biological phenomena.

And obviously people think about, rationalize this stuff beyond just having a like or dislike where they don't relate that to anything else they feel or think. And obviously a big part of interacting with others about this stuff is trying to persuade others with respect to our preferences, often where we appeal to what we know about their preferences, their dispositions.

None of that makes any of this anything other than ways that people feel about things.

[Terrapin Station]

Objective morality is the same as morality that is necessarily so. 'Objective' means 'necessary'....

I essentially agree with what I take to be your point.

??? I didn't see that until you quoted it, but it's very unusual to say that objective things can't be contingent.

[Peter Holmes]

I think TS has found the real issue.

Moral objectivists claim that the assertion 'If we want goal Y, then we should do X' can be objective - which GEM defines as 'having public truth conditions' - if goal Y is what they call a moral goal. And this is by analogy with other assertions where Y is non-moral. To adapt TS's example -

If we want to get to the roof, then we [must/should/can/could] use a ladder.

Here, only 'can' and 'could' make the assertion true, because we can or could use a cherry-picker instead of a ladder. The choice of modal is critical for the truth-value of the assertion. With 'can' and 'could', the assertion is objective and has a truth-value. Modals 'must' and 'should' would have different functions here. And, given no other information, their use would render this assertion subjective, because it would then express an opinion, rather than a fact.

But notice the nature of the goal: 'to climb to the roof'. Like all terms, this has no truth-value, and it can't be objective or subjective, because only assertions can be one of those. And this is true of any object term in the conditional antecedent (the 'if' bit). For example: If we want chocolate, then... In other words, it isn't the object - goal Y - that confers objectivity and truth-value on the assertion. Instead, it's the claim being made by means of the modal - must/should/can/could - in the consequent (the 'then' bit).

(Of course, getting to the roof is something we can do, and something about which we can make objective factual assertions with truth-value. But that isn't the point here.)

To nail this: we can't use an assertion of any kind, moral or not, as the object in a conditional antecedent: If we want [chocolate is nice], then...; If we want [slavery is morally wrong], then...; If we want [our goal is world peace], then... The object - goal Y - has to be a term, and can't be an assertion. So goal Y in this kind of conditional premise can't be objective. Objectivity can come only from the claim made in the consequent.

Before pursuing this, does anyone have any thoughts about this analysis? And I need a lie down anyway.

(I'll come to 'If our goal is world peace, then...' - which is a different structure - later.)

[Terrapin Station]

The most ridiculous thing about this is that General Electric Morton claimed that we can have objective morality via there being things that are objectively required to meet some goal, but then he turns around and says that some goals wouldn't be moral, making obvious that the "moral" part of "objective morality" isn't objective at all in his view.

[Peter Holmes]

The most ridiculous thing about this is that General Electric Morton claimed that we can have objective morality via there being things that are objectively required to meet some goal, but then he turns around and says that some goals wouldn't be moral, making obvious that the "moral" part of "objective morality" isn't objective at all in his view.

Agreed. And that's a neat way of putting it. I'm laboriously trying to unpack the mistake, which may be a waste of time. If we're bewitched by the way we say things, maybe we can't reason away the problem.

[chewybrian]

Objective morality is the same as morality that is necessarily so. 'Objective' means 'necessary'.

This must be the case because if an empirical fact is necessarily so it must be an objectively true fact. and vice versa.

So, if I am wearing a blue shirt, then it was 'necessary' that I put on a blue shirt today?

There is only one criterion for the truth of that claim and that criterion is order itself. If this is an ordered world and not a random one then all events must be caused events.

What makes you say the world is ordered and not random? You could get hit by a meteor in your sleep tonight, or zapped by lightning, or struck with cancer, or eaten by a bear. Nature only rewards effort and common sense on a grand scale, and only some of the time. There is no order for the individual, and only intermittent order for the community. Most order I find in the world is imposed by people, and only acknowledged some of the time by some of them.

All that causes any event with a moral attribute can be explained by reference to the orderliness of nature.
True, we constantly try to seek better solutions for the control of crimes and the promotion of happiness and our searching is also natural.

Some people think a supernatural being is the instigator of order. I think nature itself is sufficient to explain order.

Can you explain this a bit or give an example of how this works, step by step? If you were raped and murdered on your way home tonight, the order of nature would sufficiently explain the morality of the situation for you? Across town, someone else is feeding the homeless, and this is also fully explained by the order of nature, and has nothing to do with choice? It seems like you are claiming to understand morality while also claiming it does not, can not exist.