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

[Terrapin Station]

If almost universal physiological responses to certain behaviours does not qualify as "objective morality" then nothing does.

Right, nothing does. That's what we should be agreeing on.

[Terrapin Station]

"Jeremy knows Paris is not the capital of France " is true A performative statement.

???

Greta is correct if power is the basic motive.

If power is the motive?

[Belindi]

"Jeremy knows Paris is not the capital of France " is true A performative statement.

???

Greta is correct if power is the basic motive.

If power is the motive?

Performatives are weird!

What, other than power , can be the basic motive for any intelligent animal species.
Individuals of the species will perish when they lack sufficient power . That is why affiliation is such a main motivator. You have to be either daft or courageous to go against the tide of public approval.

[GE Morton]

If almost universal physiological responses to certain behaviours does not qualify as "objective morality" then nothing does.

Well, that is quite a dogmatic statement. Are you assuming some different definition of "objective" than the one I gave? Or do you think the word means something different when applied to moral propositions?

At least a physiological response is clearly measurable.

It is (roughly) measurable by the person experiencing it, but not by anyone else. Only you can know how appalled you are by a particular act. I may infer that you are appalled by it from your subsequent behavior, but that would be an inductive conclusion --- a guess --- that may well be wrong.

Thus I have no choice but to revert to my primary point all through this thread as opposed to recent secondary musings. That is, the notion of objective morality is simply invalid, for many of the reasons mentioned by me and many others over the last 100 pages or so of digital philosophical bumf.

It really depends upon what you take "morality" to be. If you take it, as you seem to do, to consist in emotional responses to events, then it certainly won't be objective. I take it to refer to a set of rules governing interactions between moral agents in a social setting, the aim of which is to enable all agents in that setting to maximize their welfare, to the extent that is affected by the actions of other agents. Whether a given rule does or does not serve that purpose can be, in many cases, readily determined empirically, and thus will be objective. E.g. (to take an example previously offered) "Slavery is wrong," is objective, because slavery prevents the slave from improving his welfare in many ways, a fact which is empirically confirmable.

[Terrapin Station]

"Jeremy knows Paris is not the capital of France " is true A performative statement . . .
Performatives are weird!

First it's weird to call a sentence like "Jeremy knows that P" a performative. Performatives are usually where you're performing something with the utterance. For example, if you say, "I dub you DJ Danish," or if you say, "I promise to pick up Johnny from the meth lab," or "I pledge allegiance to Dracula" or anything in that vein. On some accounts, performatives are not true or false. On other accounts, they have truth-values, but the truth value basically just amounts to whether the person is being sincere or not. For example, if you sincerely promise to pick up Johnny from the meth lab, that's a "true" performative, versus if you're just saying that so that you can borrow the car, but you really have no intention of picking up Johnny from the meth lab, in which case it would be false.

Saying that "Jeremy knows Paris is not the capital of France" is (a) a performative, and (b) is true doesn't make any sense to me.

What, other than power , can be the basic motive for any intelligent animal species.
Individuals of the species will perish when they lack sufficient power . That is why affiliation is such a main motivator. You have to be either daft or courageous to go against the tide of public approval.

Anything imaginable could be a motive. My motive for many things that I do is simply that they give me enjoyment. Other common motives for things that I do are that they result in me feeling better than I would otherwise (for example, this is one of my primary motives for exercise), they relax me, etc.

[GE Morton]

3 I disagree with GEM's account of objectivity and subjectivity as referring to propositions - though I fear I accepted it some time ago in this discussion - and that therefore objectivity is 'public confirmability' of propositions.

First. What we call objectivity is independence from opinion when considering the facts. So the existence and nature of what we call facts is the issue - not the public confirmability of propositions. And moral objectivism is the claim that there are moral facts.

"Objectivity" (and "subjectivity") are ambiguous. "Objective" and "subjective" can be applied to persons as well as to their judgments, opinions, beliefs. When applied to persons they distinguish between persons whose judgments and beliefs are warranted by the publicly confirmable facts, in contrast to those influenced by prejudices, emotional responses, or other extraneous factors. For example, judges in tort trials routinely admonish jurors to base their verdict only upon whether the evidence presented establishes that the defendant is actually responsible for the plaintiff's injuries, not upon their sympathy for the victim and the fact that the defendant has "deep pockets."

Judgments and beliefs are expressed in propositions. Those propositions are objective if their truth conditions are publicly confirmable. An objective person is someone whose judgments and beliefs tend to be based on those publicly confirmable facts.

Second. What we call a fact is either a feature of reality that is or was the case, or a description of such a feature of reality whose truth-value ('true') is independent from opinion. (This is my take on standard dictionary definitions of 'fact'.) And the second meaning of 'fact' depends on the first . To claim that there are moral facts is to claim that there are moral features of reality, such as moral rightness and wrongness.

Agree, though I think we use the word "fact" most often to denote propositions which assert states of affairs which are publicly confirmable. E.g., "It is a fact that Paris is the capital of France." But it can also denote the state of affairs itself.

As just mentioned to Greta, whether there are moral facts depends upon what you take "morality" to be. If it is a set of rules governing interactions between moral agents in a social setting having a certain purpose, as I assume, then whether a given act or rule does or does not serve that purpose is a publicly confirmable (or disconfirmable) fact --- a "moral fact" --- just as whether or not installing a traffic signal at a certain intersection will or will not reduce accidents there is a fact.

[GE Morton]

"Jeremy knows Paris is not the capital of France " is true A performative statement . . .
Performatives are weird!

First it's weird to call a sentence like "Jeremy knows that P" a performative. Performatives are usually where you're performing something with the utterance. For example, if you say, "I dub you DJ Danish," or if you say, "I promise to pick up Johnny from the meth lab," or "I pledge allegiance to Dracula" or anything in that vein. On some accounts, performatives are not true or false. On other accounts, they have truth-values, but the truth value basically just amounts to whether the person is being sincere or not. For example, if you sincerely promise to pick up Johnny from the meth lab, that's a "true" performative, versus if you're just saying that so that you can borrow the car, but you really have no intention of picking up Johnny from the meth lab, in which case it would be false.

Saying that "Jeremy knows Paris is not the capital of France" is (a) a performative, and (b) is true doesn't make any sense to me.

What, other than power , can be the basic motive for any intelligent animal species.
Individuals of the species will perish when they lack sufficient power . That is why affiliation is such a main motivator. You have to be either daft or courageous to go against the tide of public approval.

Anything imaginable could be a motive. My motive for many things that I do is simply that they give me enjoyment. Other common motives for things that I do are that they result in me feeling better than I would otherwise (for example, this is one of my primary motives for exercise), they relax me, etc.

Good post, TS.

[Sy Borg]

Science - our official bodies of knowledge that are considered to be objective (putting aside epistemological concerns) - is simply a matter of consensus amongst informed observers.

Again, no. What you wrote here is wrong. Science is NOT a matter of consensus! Do you understand why that's wrong?

More lessons required, it seems. Two mistakes by you in one morning through not comprehending what is written.

Consensus amongst informed observers. If you don't have significant agreement amongst those who actually know what's going on, you don't have a theory.

The Scientific Consensus represents the position generally agreed upon at a given time by most scientists specialised in a given field.

It's not a matter of consensus period. It doesn't matter how we qualify that. Who taught you, or based on what did you conclude that science works via knowledge by consensus?

Your claim is essentially that a hypothesis can be published in a peer reviewed publication and subsequently be declared theory even if not one other a single scientist agrees with it, ie. without consensus

Why would you believe that theories magically create themselves without human input?

[Peter Holmes]

It's a mistake to confuse how we may reach a conclusion with the nature of the conclusion.

[Sy Borg]

If almost universal physiological responses to certain behaviours does not qualify as "objective morality" then nothing does.

Right, nothing does. That's what we should be agreeing on.

If you are feeling masochistic, you will see that I argues against "objective morality" for many pages throughout this thread before giving up.

As said, I was just throwing GE a bone, trying to find some kind of middle ground to wrap up a thread that has extended beyond any usefulness. No one will wade through 100+ pages of this. However, he did not take the offering. Without any middle ground concessions, we have only the fact that morality is subjective even without considering how often it is deeply anthropocentric.

[Sy Borg]

"Jeremy knows Paris is not the capital of France " is true A performative statement.

???

Greta is correct if power is the basic motive.

If power is the motive?

Performatives are weird!

What, other than power , can be the basic motive for any intelligent animal species.

Individuals of the species will perish when they lack sufficient power . That is why affiliation is such a main motivator. You have to be either daft or courageous to go against the tide of public approval.

The "might is right" effect. A totalitarian dictator can decree facts and deem his own moralities to be absolutes.

[Belindi]

Greta wrote:

The "might is right" effect. A totalitarian dictator can decree facts and deem his own moralities to be absolutes.

All totalitarian dictators are paranoid cowards who think the people they rule have to be either manipulated or terrified.

[GE Morton]

Your claim is essentially that a hypothesis can be published in a peer reviewed publication and subsequently be declared theory even if not one other a single scientist agrees with it, ie. without consensus.

Theories and hypotheses are quite different animals. An hypothesis is a straightforward true or false empirical proposition whose truth value is unknown but is testable in principle. E.g., "There is life on Mars," or, "There was once life on Mars."

A theory is a set of propositions that relates and explains a range of phenomena. Some of those propositions can be untestable in principle, because they postulate unobservable entities (e.g., "quantum foam," "superstrings") or events that occurred in the past, prior to any human observation (most phenomena postulated by the theory of evolution). Theories are neither true nor false; they are only "good" or "bad," depending upon how well they predict future observable phenomena. Hypotheses don't become theories, by declaration or by any other means.

And, yes, a set of propositions which purports to explain some realm of phenomena is a theory of that phenomena, even if only one person subscribes to it. But if only one person subscribes to it, it is probably not a very good theory --- it doesn't relate the phenomena it purports to explain very well, and has little or no predictive power.

Why would you believe that theories magically create themselves without human input?

Who suggested that theories create themselves?

[Sy Borg]

Who suggested that theories create themselves?

TP scoffed at me saying that consensus amongst experts was required for a theory to be accepted.

How is a theory created without expert consensus?

Note that, after 105 pages, your notion of objective reality is as dead as a dodo for all the reasons outlined in the last book's worth of chatter.

[Peter Holmes]

The possibly publicly-confirmable claim 'X is consistent/inconsistent with goal Y' says nothing about the moral rightness or wrongness of either X or goal Y, so it isn't a moral assertion - and its truth doesn't demonstrate moral objectivity - independence from opinion when considering the facts.

The claim that a moral assertion is no different from a factual assertion - that 'ought', 'should', 'right' and 'wrong' have no special moral meaning - because those words merely refer to goal-consistency - is false, in my opinion. There are no moral facts, but only facts about which there can be moral opinions, expressed by means of moral assertions.