Philosophy Discussion Forums

The only thing that can make morality objective is the conscious subject he makes it manifest in the structures and systems which will establish guide and enforce the rule of conduct regarding the said morality. The sanest morality to establish would be one based on the life and well-being of the moralities subjects. So, based on a common biology. The fact that this thread is going on forever kind of proves nobody is really hearing anybody, it has reached the point of absurdity.

Gertie wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2021, 7:44 pm Morality is only relevant to experiencing Subjects. Conscious creatures with a quality of life.

So for example on a planet of dead rocks or non-conscious robots, there can be no Right or Wrong, there are only objective facts about actions and events.

So morality is inevitably tied to experiencing Subjects. For Subjects, things are deemed harmful or helpful, pleasant or unpleasant, healthy or unhealthy, etc in terms of quality of life, or welfare.

So we can say it's objectively true that it is harmful, or morally bad, to unnecessarily hurt someone else, or another sentient species for that matter. But that is because other people are Subjects capable of experiencing harm. And individual Subjects might differ about what they consider harmful or helpful, or priorities. And that can make things messy.

That the harmful is morally wrong is a matter of opinion, which is necessarily subjective. And sometimes we think it morally right - or at least not morally wrong - to inflict harm.

The missing step in moral objectivism is the judgement: this is morally right/wrong, good/bad, appropriate/inappropriate, and so on. Moral objectivists refuse to recognise it as a judgement - a decision or choice. They want it to be 'just a fact' that harming people is wrong, for example.

The egotism is genial, as long as we agree with the moral conclusions.

CIN wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2021, 12:39 pm 'We ought to feed the hungry (unless they can feed themselves)' is a moral fact, and I showed why it's a moral fact in my 5-step argument, which you have yet to address.

I'd like to address the detail of your post later - but here's a holding question:

If the claim 'we ought to feed the hungry if they can't feed themselves' is true, if it describes a fact - a feature of reality that exists independent from opinion - then in what way could it be false? What in reality would have to be different for it to be false?

CIN wrote: ↑May 23rd, 2021, 6:50 pm Please ignore my last post, which was unnecessarily defeatist. I shall attempt to find time to come here occasionally. It's around midnight again, but who needs sleep anyway?

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑May 11th, 2021, 4:56 pmI think the 'universality' condition or criterion is the red herring in the ointment

I think I once had some of that ointment. It smelled awful.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑May 11th, 2021, 4:56 pm

CIN wrote: ↑May 10th, 2021, 7:29 pm (It's worth noting here that the fact that 'good health' can be defined objectively, albeit fuzzily, shows that the word 'good' can sometimes attribute an actual property or properties, and is therefore not always a purely evaluative term as some have suggested.)

Perhaps you mean that we can use the word 'good' non-morally - and I agree. But we're discussing the moral use. The expression 'in good health' has no moral connotation, so I think you may be equivocating here.

'In good health' does have moral connotations for me: my doctor has a moral responsibility to help me keep in good health, and I have a moral responsibility to remain in good health so that I can continue to look after my disabled wife.

I don't think I can be held guilty of equivocation on the basis of mere connotations, because they are subjective. I could be held guilty if 'good' had different primary or denotative meanings in different contexts; but I don't think it does. I think good health is called 'good' because good health merits a pro-attitude, which is the same reason we call good deeds 'good'.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑May 11th, 2021, 4:56 pm

CIN wrote:It's not relevant to my argument that many people, perhaps even all people, may hold that we ought to feed people who are hungry and can't feed themselves. I'm claiming that the obligation arises from the fact of their hunger and the fact of our ability to feed them, not from anything people may believe.

But there's the rub. Why does it arise? Whence the obligation? You say it isn't a matter of what people think.

I think the argument is reasonably straightforward.
1. Hungry sentient beings suffer unpleasantness if we don't feed them.
2. Unpleasantness is intrinsically bad. (That is, it intrinsically merits an anti-attitude; this is just a fact about pleasantness and unpleasantness - by their very nature, a pro-attitude is appropriate to the first, and an anti-attitude to the second. To take the most obvious case, it is not reasonable to claim that how one feels about a severe and continuing pain is just a matter of personal subjective choice or opinion: severe pain forces on us an anti-attitude - we dislike it - by its very nature.)
3. If we don't feed the hungry and they can't feed themselves, we are allowing badness to continue when we could prevent it, and we are therefore doing evil by omission.
4. We ought not to do evil, even by omission. (I take this to be self-evident. As a candidate course of action, evil is by its nature self-disqualifying.)
5. Therefore we ought to feed the hungry (unless they can feed themselves).

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑May 11th, 2021, 4:56 pmWhat we call objectivity is independence from opinion when considering the facts. And what we call facts are features of reality that are or were the case, or descriptions of them. So moral objectivism is the claim that there are moral facts - moral features of reality. And that covers the universality and validity for all people in your preferred definition.

Okay, I accept this. I think unpleasantness is bad independently of anyone's opinion. The unlikeability of pain is not the same as people having the opinion that pain is bad, it is what constitutes pain being bad.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑May 11th, 2021, 4:56 pmTalk of moral principles and their validity sounds grand, but actually muddles the issue. The only fact (the only universal thing) here is that a person/people/all people must eat (or they die). Quantification is irrelevant.

The issue is not quantification, it's nature. The universality of the principle that we should feed the hungry arises ultimately from the natural facts that hunger is unpleasant, and that unpleasantness intrinsically merits an anti-attitude (i.e. is bad).

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑May 11th, 2021, 4:56 pm The question is: does the fact that people must eat (the 'is') entail the conclusion that they ought to have food? And the conclusion doesn't follow, deductively or inductively.

I think it does follow. See my argument (steps 1-5) above.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑May 11th, 2021, 4:56 pmThat it's prudential for me to eat doesn't mean that I ought to eat - that I 'owe it to myself' to eat.

CIN wrote: ↑May 10th, 2021, 7:29 pmI disagree with this. If my good health (see my remark about this above) is being lost as a result of my not eating, then obviously I am descending into bad health (though we more usually call it 'ill health') as a result of my own actions, and it's open to me to act to rectify this. If it's a fact that I can change bad health to good health (remember that I just argued that these can be defined objectively, albeit fuzzily), then we have already crossed the supposedly unbridgeable gap between fact and value, and is there then any real motivation to refuse to go the whole hog and accept that an obligation to replace the bad with the good exists?

As I suspected, you're equivocating on the word 'good'.

I don't think you're making the charge of equivocation stick. I have offered a single definition of 'good', and I claim that under that definition, 'good' can apply to types of object as various as states of health, actions, cakes, pieces of music, etc ad nauseam. So I reject the accusation of equivocation.

I don't recall you offering a definition of 'good'. Would you care to do so?

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑May 11th, 2021, 4:56 pmI agree with you about abortion, because I think the rght to control what happens to your own body must be paramount, so that nobody has the right to use your body without your consent. And that's my moral opinion.

But can I point out the nastiness of moral objectivity in this case? Those who abused you hold as a universal, objective moral principle, valid for all people, that ending an innocent human life is wrong. 'Life is objectively better than death, so life is an objective good' - and so on.

The delusion that there are moral facts can have vicious consequences: murdered abortion practitioners; homosexuals thrown off tall buildings; or planes flown into them.

I think you are tarring all the babies with the same brush before tnrowing them out with the bathwater. (You're not the only one who can mix metaphors.) The inference from 'some moral objectivist views have vicious consequences' to 'all moral objectivist views have vicious consequences' is not valid. It isn't moral objectivism per se that is nasty in your examples, it's the particular moral objectivist views that you are quoting.

While we're talking about this stuff - murdered abortion practitioners; homosexuals thrown off tall buildings, and so on - I'd like to point out that your behaviour in this forum is very odd. Firstly, in one breath you tell us that moral opinions are purely subjective and are not justified by anything objective; and then, in the next breath, you express outrage at some particular kinds of behaviour, just as if you thought your own moral opinions had some objective weight and therefore ought to be taken notice of by other people. You seem to be behaving, if I can put it like this, like an objectivist in subjectivist's clothing. I wouldn't say this if you shrugged your shoulders and said, 'Well, of course I personally don't like people murdering abortion practitioners and throwing homosexuals off tall buildings, but there's nothing actually wrong with doing these things.' That sort of talk would be consistent with your professed subjectivism. But that is not how you talk; you talk about 'nastiness' and 'vicious consequences'. I'm rather glad you do, because it shows that you have the right moral attitudes. But I think it also shows that there is a serious disconnect between your heart and your head.

Secondly, if you are so outraged at certain kinds of behaviour, why on earth do you come on a forum like this and try to convince other people that there is no objective reason why they should not engage in any behaviour they happen to choose? Isn't it obvious that to the extent that you manage to convince people here that subjectivism is correct, you risk making them more inclined to behave in ways that you yourself disapprove of?

Personally, I would not support the force feeding of competent adults on a hunger strike protest, due to my moral belief in the conecpt of autonomy.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑June 3rd, 2021, 1:42 am

Gertie wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2021, 7:44 pm Morality is only relevant to experiencing Subjects. Conscious creatures with a quality of life.

So for example on a planet of dead rocks or non-conscious robots, there can be no Right or Wrong, there are only objective facts about actions and events.

So morality is inevitably tied to experiencing Subjects. For Subjects, things are deemed harmful or helpful, pleasant or unpleasant, healthy or unhealthy, etc in terms of quality of life, or welfare.

So we can say it's objectively true that it is harmful, or morally bad, to unnecessarily hurt someone else, or another sentient species for that matter. But that is because other people are Subjects capable of experiencing harm. And individual Subjects might differ about what they consider harmful or helpful, or priorities. And that can make things messy.

That the harmful is morally wrong is a matter of opinion, which is necessarily subjective. And sometimes we think it morally right - or at least not morally wrong - to inflict harm.

The missing step in moral objectivism is the judgement: this is morally right/wrong, good/bad, appropriate/inappropriate, and so on. Moral objectivists refuse to recognise it as a judgement - a decision or choice. They want it to be 'just a fact' that harming people is wrong, for example.

The egotism is genial, as long as we agree with the moral conclusions.

Agreed. If you don't accept the existence of an independently existing perfect moral law giver and arbiter (God), then the issue of objective morality is a dead one.

Morality is a concept humans created reflecting the fact that human Subjects can experience qualiative value and meaning, like harm and flourishing. Conscious experiencing (being a Subject) brings qualiative characteristics like these into a cold world of quantitive objective facts. Conscious experience is what makes actions matter, because it gives Subjects interests in the state of affairs and a stake in outcomes. Hence the issue of Oughts arises.

We can inter-subjectively agree on Right and Wrong, Oughts, Rules, and so on based on this. But there won't be perfect agreement, because while we have much in common, each Subject is complex and unique.

Gertie wrote: ↑June 3rd, 2021, 8:16 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑June 3rd, 2021, 1:42 am

Gertie wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2021, 7:44 pm Morality is only relevant to experiencing Subjects. Conscious creatures with a quality of life.

So for example on a planet of dead rocks or non-conscious robots, there can be no Right or Wrong, there are only objective facts about actions and events.

So morality is inevitably tied to experiencing Subjects. For Subjects, things are deemed harmful or helpful, pleasant or unpleasant, healthy or unhealthy, etc in terms of quality of life, or welfare.

So we can say it's objectively true that it is harmful, or morally bad, to unnecessarily hurt someone else, or another sentient species for that matter. But that is because other people are Subjects capable of experiencing harm. And individual Subjects might differ about what they consider harmful or helpful, or priorities. And that can make things messy.

That the harmful is morally wrong is a matter of opinion, which is necessarily subjective. And sometimes we think it morally right - or at least not morally wrong - to inflict harm.

The missing step in moral objectivism is the judgement: this is morally right/wrong, good/bad, appropriate/inappropriate, and so on. Moral objectivists refuse to recognise it as a judgement - a decision or choice. They want it to be 'just a fact' that harming people is wrong, for example.

The egotism is genial, as long as we agree with the moral conclusions.

Agreed. If you don't accept the existence of an independently existing perfect moral law giver and arbiter (God), then the issue of objective morality is a dead one.

Morality is a concept humans created reflecting the fact that human Subjects can experience qualiative value and meaning, like harm and flourishing. Conscious experiencing (being a Subject) brings qualiative characteristics like these into a cold world of quantitive objective facts. Conscious experience is what makes actions matter, because it gives Subjects interests in the state of affairs and a stake in outcomes. Hence the issue of Oughts arises.

We can inter-subjectively agree on Right and Wrong, Oughts, Rules, and so on based on this. But there won't be perfect agreement, because while we have much in common, each Subject is complex and unique.

Thanks. But the existence of an independently existing perfect moral law giver and arbiter would not make morality objective. The claim 'this is good because a god (or any agent, how ever defined) says it is' has no place in a rational moral discussion.

I think it's possible to make a good argument that a perfect omniscient being knows what is right and wrong, is perhaps the source of goodness too, which is as good as ''objective'' to us lesser imperfect beings.

But I agree it's not worth arguing over.

Gertie wrote: ↑June 4th, 2021, 1:08 pm I think it's possible to make a good argument that a perfect omniscient being knows what is right and wrong,

Being a "perfect omniscient being" wouldn't make ethical judgments cognitive (wouldn't make them knowledge claims that can be true or false).

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑June 4th, 2021, 2:35 pm

Gertie wrote: ↑June 4th, 2021, 1:08 pm I think it's possible to make a good argument that a perfect omniscient being knows what is right and wrong,

Being a "perfect omniscient being" wouldn't make ethical judgments cognitive (wouldn't make them knowledge claims that can be true or false).

Why couldn't a being which knows everything by definition know what is right and wrong? It might be beyond our understanding how, but that's what gods are for.

Gertie wrote: ↑June 4th, 2021, 4:45 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑June 4th, 2021, 2:35 pm

Gertie wrote: ↑June 4th, 2021, 1:08 pm I think it's possible to make a good argument that a perfect omniscient being knows what is right and wrong,

Being a "perfect omniscient being" wouldn't make ethical judgments cognitive (wouldn't make them knowledge claims that can be true or false).

Why couldn't a being which knows everything by definition know what is right and wrong? It might be beyond our understanding how, but that's what gods are for.

If right and wrong aren't properties of the world outside of minds, then one can't know that certain things are factually right or wrong.

In other words, if all that "It is ethically good to help a little old lady across the street" is a way that someone can feel, then there's nothing to know regarding whether it's "really ethically good (whether anyone agrees or not)".

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑June 3rd, 2021, 2:06 am

CIN wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2021, 12:39 pm 'We ought to feed the hungry (unless they can feed themselves)' is a moral fact, and I showed why it's a moral fact in my 5-step argument, which you have yet to address.

I'd like to address the detail of your post later - but here's a holding question:

If the claim 'we ought to feed the hungry if they can't feed themselves' is true, if it describes a fact - a feature of reality that exists independent from opinion - then in what way could it be false? What in reality would have to be different for it to be false?

Interesting question. Apologies for my delay in replying.

When I Google 'hungry meaning', I get a variety of definitions, including the following:
- feeling or showing the need for food
- wanting or needing food
- feeling an uneasy or painful sensation from lack of food.
- "When you are hungry, you want some food because you have not eaten for some time and have an uncomfortable or painful feeling in your stomach." (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dicti ... ish/hungry)

So being hungry consists of some or all of the following:
- not having eaten for some time
- needing food
- wanting food
- having an uncomfortable or uneasy or painful feeling or sensation from lack of food.

Suppose we discovered a planet inhabited by beings similar to ourselves in that they require food in order to keep alive, but different from us in that they do not have any unpleasant sensations when they fail to get food. If we asked ourselves 'ought we to feed these beings when they get hungry?', the answer wouldn't be as clear as it is with us. These beings don't mind being in a state where they haven't eaten for a long time; and since they don't mind, why should we?

Well, obviously there could be other reasons. If they fail to eat for a long enough time, presumably they will die. Does this matter? That largely depends on whether they derive pleasure from their lives. If they do, then since pleasure is a good, letting them die of hunger will be choosing a situation in which there is less good in preference to a situation where there is more good, and I would say that this is morally wrong. If, on the other hand, not only do they not feel unpleasant sensations when they haven't eaten, they never have any pleasant or unpleasant feelings, then it's hard to see how their lives could have any value to them at all, so presumably they won't mind dying; so again, why should we mind if they die? In this situation, if we don't feed them and let them die, then we are choosing between two situations in which there is no pleasure at all, and hence, if I am right in claiming that pleasure is the only good, there is no good either. So whether they live or die, there is no difference in the amount of good, so it makes no moral difference whether we feed them or not.

So, to answer your question directly: two things would have to be different in reality for it not to be the case that we ought to feed the hungry: first, humans would have to have no unpleasant sensations from being hungry; and second, they would have to be incapable of pleasure, so that their lives would be of no value to them.

In practice, I think a species that had either of these characteristics would be unlikely to evolve in the first place (what would motivate members of the species to eat to stay alive so as to pass on their genes?), and if it did evolve, would be unlikely to survive for long (same problem). However, I can imagine humans being replaced by artificially created robots who, while they get hungry in the sense that they die if they do not eat, are incapable of both pleasant and unpleasant sensations, so that they do not feel the unpleasantness of being hungry, and do not get any value from being alive. I think it would not be the case that we ought to feed such beings when they get hungry; morally, it wouldn't matter.

CIN wrote: ↑June 22nd, 2021, 7:01 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑June 3rd, 2021, 2:06 am

CIN wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2021, 12:39 pm 'We ought to feed the hungry (unless they can feed themselves)' is a moral fact, and I showed why it's a moral fact in my 5-step argument, which you have yet to address.

I'd like to address the detail of your post later - but here's a holding question:

If the claim 'we ought to feed the hungry if they can't feed themselves' is true, if it describes a fact - a feature of reality that exists independent from opinion - then in what way could it be false? What in reality would have to be different for it to be false?

Interesting question. Apologies for my delay in replying.

When I Google 'hungry meaning', I get a variety of definitions, including the following:
- feeling or showing the need for food
- wanting or needing food
- feeling an uneasy or painful sensation from lack of food.
- "When you are hungry, you want some food because you have not eaten for some time and have an uncomfortable or painful feeling in your stomach." (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dicti ... ish/hungry)

So being hungry consists of some or all of the following:
- not having eaten for some time
- needing food
- wanting food
- having an uncomfortable or uneasy or painful feeling or sensation from lack of food.

Suppose we discovered a planet inhabited by beings similar to ourselves in that they require food in order to keep alive, but different from us in that they do not have any unpleasant sensations when they fail to get food. If we asked ourselves 'ought we to feed these beings when they get hungry?', the answer wouldn't be as clear as it is with us. These beings don't mind being in a state where they haven't eaten for a long time; and since they don't mind, why should we?

Well, obviously there could be other reasons. If they fail to eat for a long enough time, presumably they will die. Does this matter? That largely depends on whether they derive pleasure from their lives. If they do, then since pleasure is a good, letting them die of hunger will be choosing a situation in which there is less good in preference to a situation where there is more good, and I would say that this is morally wrong. If, on the other hand, not only do they not feel unpleasant sensations when they haven't eaten, they never have any pleasant or unpleasant feelings, then it's hard to see how their lives could have any value to them at all, so presumably they won't mind dying; so again, why should we mind if they die? In this situation, if we don't feed them and let them die, then we are choosing between two situations in which there is no pleasure at all, and hence, if I am right in claiming that pleasure is the only good, there is no good either. So whether they live or die, there is no difference in the amount of good, so it makes no moral difference whether we feed them or not.

So, to answer your question directly: two things would have to be different in reality for it not to be the case that we ought to feed the hungry: first, humans would have to have no unpleasant sensations from being hungry; and second, they would have to be incapable of pleasure, so that their lives would be of no value to them.

In practice, I think a species that had either of these characteristics would be unlikely to evolve in the first place (what would motivate members of the species to eat to stay alive so as to pass on their genes?), and if it did evolve, would be unlikely to survive for long (same problem). However, I can imagine humans being replaced by artificially created robots who, while they get hungry in the sense that they die if they do not eat, are incapable of both pleasant and unpleasant sensations, so that they do not feel the unpleasantness of being hungry, and do not get any value from being alive. I think it would not be the case that we ought to feed such beings when they get hungry; morally, it wouldn't matter.

Thanks again - but an elaborate scenario doesn't help. Here are your two (related) arguments:

1 People find hunger unpleasant; therefore they ought to have food.

2 People experience pleasure and so value their lives; therefore they ought to have food (in order to live).

Neither conclusion follows from its premise - which is why negating the conclusion doesn't produce a logical contradiction.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑June 23rd, 2021, 9:34 am Thanks again - but an elaborate scenario doesn't help. Here are your two (related) arguments:

1 People find hunger unpleasant; therefore they ought to have food.

2 People experience pleasure and so value their lives; therefore they ought to have food (in order to live).

Neither conclusion follows from its premise - which is why negating the conclusion doesn't produce a logical contradiction.

You didn't ask me for an argument that derived these conclusions from these premises, and so I did not provide one. You only asked me what would have to be different in reality for the claim 'we ought to feed the hungry if they can't feed themselves' to be false, and that was the question I answered.

For the detail of how to derive the conclusions from the premises in your statements numbered 1 and 2, you need to refer to my 5-step argument, to which you have still not provided an answer. As I said, to refute that argument, you need to show which step(s) fail and why. When you simply say 'neither conclusion follows from its premise', you are once again answering a truncated straw man argument of your own creation, not the actual 5-step argument that I offered. Here it is again, just to remind you:

1. Hungry sentient beings suffer unpleasantness if we don't feed them.
2. Unpleasantness is intrinsically bad. (That is, it intrinsically merits an anti-attitude; this is just a fact about pleasantness and unpleasantness - by their very nature, a pro-attitude is appropriate to the first, and an anti-attitude to the second. To take the most obvious case, it is not reasonable to claim that how one feels about a severe and continuing pain is just a matter of personal subjective choice or opinion: severe pain forces on us an anti-attitude - we dislike it - by its very nature.)
3. If we don't feed the hungry and they can't feed themselves, we are allowing badness to continue when we could prevent it, and we are therefore doing evil by omission.
4. We ought not to do evil, even by omission. (I take this to be self-evident. As a candidate course of action, evil is by its nature self-disqualifying.)
5. Therefore we ought to feed the hungry (unless they can feed themselves).

CIN wrote: ↑June 23rd, 2021, 7:04 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑June 23rd, 2021, 9:34 am Thanks again - but an elaborate scenario doesn't help. Here are your two (related) arguments:

1 People find hunger unpleasant; therefore they ought to have food.

2 People experience pleasure and so value their lives; therefore they ought to have food (in order to live).

Neither conclusion follows from its premise - which is why negating the conclusion doesn't produce a logical contradiction.

You didn't ask me for an argument that derived these conclusions from these premises, and so I did not provide one. You only asked me what would have to be different in reality for the claim 'we ought to feed the hungry if they can't feed themselves' to be false, and that was the question I answered.

For the detail of how to derive the conclusions from the premises in your statements numbered 1 and 2, you need to refer to my 5-step argument, to which you have still not provided an answer. As I said, to refute that argument, you need to show which step(s) fail and why. When you simply say 'neither conclusion follows from its premise', you are once again answering a truncated straw man argument of your own creation, not the actual 5-step argument that I offered. Here it is again, just to remind you:

1. Hungry sentient beings suffer unpleasantness if we don't feed them.
2. Unpleasantness is intrinsically bad. (That is, it intrinsically merits an anti-attitude; this is just a fact about pleasantness and unpleasantness - by their very nature, a pro-attitude is appropriate to the first, and an anti-attitude to the second. To take the most obvious case, it is not reasonable to claim that how one feels about a severe and continuing pain is just a matter of personal subjective choice or opinion: severe pain forces on us an anti-attitude - we dislike it - by its very nature.)

What does the word 'bad' mean here? If it just means 'unpleasant', the claim is a tautology. And why does pleasantness (pleasure?) merit a pro-attitude, and unpleasantness (pain?) an anti-attitude? There's a long tradition of ascetic denial of pleasure as corrupting and pain as ennobling. Your claim of 'intrinsicness' is a matter of opinion. And anyway, there's no 'ought' here.

3. If we don't feed the hungry and they can't feed themselves, we are allowing badness to continue when we could prevent it, and we are therefore doing evil by omission.

This is your sleight-of-hand dishonesty. You slide from unpleasantness to badness to evil. And, of course, we ought not to do or be evil! Then you retroject that back to unpleasantness: unpleasantness is evil, so we ought not to cause unpleasantness. QED.

4. We ought not to do evil, even by omission. (I take this to be self-evident. As a candidate course of action, evil is by its nature self-disqualifying.)
5. Therefore we ought to feed the hungry (unless they can feed themselves).

The reason why it's important to strip an argument such as yours down to a simple premise, or simple premises, and a conclusion - is that it can expose the invalidity and/or unsoundness of the argument. But I can see why you don't like it.

What we count as good or bad (or evil) is a matter of opinion, which is therefore subjective. So that we ought to do something is also a matter of opinion, which is therefore subjective. And facts about human nature have no bearing on the necessary subjectivity of our opinions.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑June 24th, 2021, 2:57 am

CIN wrote: ↑June 23rd, 2021, 7:04 pm 1. Hungry sentient beings suffer unpleasantness if we don't feed them.
2. Unpleasantness is intrinsically bad. (That is, it intrinsically merits an anti-attitude; this is just a fact about pleasantness and unpleasantness - by their very nature, a pro-attitude is appropriate to the first, and an anti-attitude to the second. To take the most obvious case, it is not reasonable to claim that how one feels about a severe and continuing pain is just a matter of personal subjective choice or opinion: severe pain forces on us an anti-attitude - we dislike it - by its very nature.)

What does the word 'bad' mean here?

I've already answered that: it means 'merits an anti-attitude'.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑June 24th, 2021, 2:57 am If it just means 'unpleasant', the claim is a tautology.

It doesn't, and so it isn't.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑June 24th, 2021, 2:57 am And why does pleasantness (pleasure?) merit a pro-attitude, and unpleasantness (pain?) an anti-attitude?

It's an empirical fact that pain makes you want the pain to stop, and pleasure makes you want the pleasure to continue. These are properties of pain and pleasure, not subjective attitudes or opinions that we foist onto them. Pain is aversive; and the more severe the pain, the more aversive it becomes (i.e. the more you want it to stop). These are simply facts of nature.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑June 24th, 2021, 2:57 amThere's a long tradition of ascetic denial of pleasure as corrupting and pain as ennobling.

Indeed there is, and it's perfectly possible for these opinions to be correct without endangering my theory. (Whether they really are correct is of secondary importance.) All it would mean is that while pleasure is intrinsically good (i.e. merits a pro-attitude), it can be instrumentally bad (i.e. lead ultimately to pain or some other kind of unpleasantness, which merits an anti-attitude). And the opposite for pain.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑June 24th, 2021, 2:57 amYour claim of 'intrinsicness' is a matter of opinion.

My opinion is backed by argument.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑June 24th, 2021, 2:57 amAnd anyway, there's no 'ought' here.

Well, there wouldn't be, would there? We're only in step 2 of a 5-step argument.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑June 24th, 2021, 2:57 am

CIN wrote: ↑June 23rd, 2021, 7:04 pm3. If we don't feed the hungry and they can't feed themselves, we are allowing badness to continue when we could prevent it, and we are therefore doing evil by omission.

This is your sleight-of-hand dishonesty.

Ah, the ad hominem insult. So useful when you can't actually refute what the other guy is saying.

You slide from unpleasantness to badness to evil.

I don't slide. I note that unpleasantness, as a fact of experience, merits an anti-attitude, and that badness, as a fact of language, means 'merits an anti-attitude'; and therefore, that unpleasantness is bad. You cannot refute these assertions of mine simply by labelling them as 'sliding'. That's not a reasoned rebuttal, it's just a kind of philosophical defamation.

And, of course, we ought not to do or be evil!

Indeed we oughtn't. As I say in the next step, I take this to be self-evident. Once you have crossed the supposedly unbridgeable gulf between fact and value, subjectivism is already lost. What reason could you have to defend an already hopeless position?

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑June 24th, 2021, 2:57 amThen you retroject that back to unpleasantness: unpleasantness is evil, so we ought not to cause unpleasantness. QED.

Your language is colourful (sliding, retrojecting), but bears no relation to what I actually do in my argument. Once I have reached 'ought' in my argument, I don't return to unpleasantness. I've already dealt with it.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑June 24th, 2021, 2:57 amThe reason why it's important to strip an argument such as yours down to a simple premise, or simple premises, and a conclusion - is that it can expose the invalidity and/or unsoundness of the argument.

Well, if it ever does that - and I'm deeply sceptical - it certainly doesn't do it in your hands. All it does in your hands is distort my argument out of all recognition.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑June 24th, 2021, 2:57 amBut I can see why you don't like it.

Whether I like it or not is beside the point. The point is that you use it as an excuse for not confronting my argument properly.

What we count as good or bad (or evil) is a matter of opinion, which is therefore subjective. So that we ought to do something is also a matter of opinion, which is therefore subjective. And facts about human nature have no bearing on the necessary subjectivity of our opinions.

Yes, I'm familiar with the articles of your faith. I just don't happen to believe them.