Greta wrote: ↑February 11th, 2021, 9:36 pm
GE Morton wrote: ↑February 11th, 2021, 9:13 pm
Greta wrote: ↑February 11th, 2021, 5:12 pm
Obviousness is as close as we can come to objectivity in this sphere.
I suspect there is some confusion or disagreement as to what "objective" and "subjective" mean (in this context). Those two adjectives denote properties of propositions, as do the adjectives "true" and "false." A proposition is subjective if its truth conditions are private, confirmable only by one person (usually the utterer). A proposition is objective if its truth conditions are public, confirmable or disconfirmable by anyone suitably situated. "Paris is a lovely city" is subjective; it asserts an aesthetic response of the speaker to the city. "Paris is the capital of France" is objective; it asserts that Paris is where the Assembly sits and where most government departments have their principle offices, which facts are confirmable by anyone who cares to investigate.
How many people know or agree that Paris is the capital of France has nothing to do with the objectivity of that proposition.
If consensus is not enough, then what is? 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.
Answered above --- what is "enough" is that the propositions expressing that knowledge are publicly confirmable. That there may be a consensus among scientists with respect to the truth of a particular proposition has nothing do with whether it is objective (and of course, there have been consensuses among scientists on many issues which were later seen to be false). Scientific theories, BTW, are neither true nor false, neither objective nor subjective. They are only "good" or "bad." But that's another issue.
Yes indeed. I do not consider "moral objectivity" to be a useful idea because it can only be applied to the very most obvious cases. One needs no moral framework to be appalled at witnessing, say, the torture of a small child - the kinds of issues that would bring intense physiological responses to any non-psychopathic person.
That someone is appalled by an act, nor any other psychological response to it, no matter how intense, has nothing to do with whether the act is moral. Emotional responses, being idiosyncratic and subjective, are not evidence of the truth of a moral proposition. Moral propositions, like all others, are objective IFF their truth conditions are publicly confirmable.
If almost universal physiological responses to certain behaviours does not qualify as "objective morality" then nothing does. At least a physiological response is clearly measurable.
I was just trying to "come to you" so some agreement might be reached after all this time, but you resist that too.
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.
1 I agree with GEM that facts, such as almost universal human physiological responses, can never entail moral conclusions. The is/ought barrier is insuperable.
2 I agree with GEM that consensus theories of what we call truth are obviously incorrect.
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.
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.
Third. It follows that the existence and confirmation of facts-as-features-of-reality has nothing to do with propositions - or, more precisely, factual assertions - because, outside language, reality is not linguistic. Features of reality just are or were the case - or not. There either are or are not moral features of reality.
Fourth. It also follows that, since what we call objectivity is independence from opinion when considering a fact-as-feature-of-reality, public confirmability is an epistemological side-issue. 'Independence from opinion' means what it says on the tin.
4 If there are no moral features of reality, a moral assertion is never publicly verifiable anyway.
