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[Peter Holmes]

Peter Holmes wrote(my underlines):

the only features of reality that have truth-value - can be true or false - are factual assertions, such as 'this is a tangerine' and 'water is H2O'. And those factual assertions have truth-value because they assert things about reality that may or may not be the case - which has nothing to do with language whatsoever.

Ontological reality is not the same as social reality.

Contrary to what has been asserted by one of the participants n this conversation, great philosophers have actually created theories of what really exists, and those theories have real moral implications.

" 'this is a tangerine' and 'water is H2O' " are facts of social reality, they are not facts of ontological reality. Factuality applies to social reality, but not to ontological reality.

Moral reality is 'objective' only insofar as the morality in question is implicated in a grand theory of existence.

1 Inasmuch as I understand it, I don't accept your distinction between ontological and social reality. The reality I refer to is physical reality, of which 'social reality' can only be a part. And what we call facts are features of that physical reality, or descriptions of them. So the chemical constitution of water is one of those facts - a feature of physical reality. The claim that it's not a feature of 'ontological reality' is absurd.

2 The so-called theories of reality or being (ontologies) produced by philosophers have been nothing more than explanations of the ways we use or could use certain words. And to the extent they have proposed physical explanations of reality, they've been wrong and long-superceded by natural science theories.

3 No theory of physical reality has or can ever entail moral conclusions. An is-the-case cannot entail an ought-to-be-the-case. The very expression 'moral reality', like the expression 'moral fact', is incoherent.

Do you think mind is (an) ontological reality?

Do you think nature is (an) ontological reality?

1 I don't know what an ontological reality is. For me, what we call reality is physical reality, which is everything that exists physically.

2 I think that what we call the mind is a metaphysical, or non-physical fiction - because, to my knowledge, there's no evidence for the existence of anything non-physical.

3 I use 'nature', 'reality' and 'universe' or 'cosmos' as synonyms.

[Terrapin Station]

I think that what we call the mind is a metaphysical, or non-physical fiction

The fiction is that there is anything nonphysical about mind. Not that there is mind.

[Peter Holmes]

I think that what we call the mind is a metaphysical, or non-physical fiction

The fiction is that there is anything nonphysical about mind. Not that there is mind.

Here's an extract from a Wiki entry on 'mind':

'Central questions for the study of mind, like whether other entities besides humans have minds or how the relation between body and mind is to be conceived, are strongly influenced by the choice of one's definition.

Mind or mentality is usually contrasted with body, matter or physicality. The issue of the nature of this contrast and specifically the relation between mind and brain is called the mind-body problem.[5] Traditional viewpoints included dualism and idealism, which consider the mind to be non-physical.[5] Modern views often center around physicalism and functionalism, which hold that the mind is roughly identical with the brain or reducible to physical phenomena such as neuronal activity[6][need quotation to verify] though dualism and idealism continue to have many supporters.'

As you know, I think the fiction of the non-physicality of the mind is built into all mentalist talk - ineluctably. The mind containing mental things and events is one big metaphor.

[Terrapin Station]

I think that what we call the mind is a metaphysical, or non-physical fiction

The fiction is that there is anything nonphysical about mind. Not that there is mind.

Here's an extract from a Wiki entry on 'mind':

'Central questions for the study of mind, like whether other entities besides humans have minds or how the relation between body and mind is to be conceived, are strongly influenced by the choice of one's definition.

Mind or mentality is usually contrasted with body, matter or physicality. The issue of the nature of this contrast and specifically the relation between mind and brain is called the mind-body problem.[5] Traditional viewpoints included dualism and idealism, which consider the mind to be non-physical.[5] Modern views often center around physicalism and functionalism, which hold that the mind is roughly identical with the brain or reducible to physical phenomena such as neuronal activity[6][need quotation to verify] though dualism and idealism continue to have many supporters.'

As you know, I think the fiction of the non-physicality of the mind is built into all mentalist talk - ineluctably. The mind containing mental things and events is one big metaphor.

That it's a popular fiction (that there's something nonphysical to mind) doesn't mean it's not a fiction. But it's silly to say that mind, period, is a fiction. Obviously we have thoughts, emotions, desires, we formulate concepts, etc.

[Peter Holmes]

I think that what we call the mind is a metaphysical, or non-physical fiction

The fiction is that there is anything nonphysical about mind. Not that there is mind.

Here's an extract from a Wiki entry on 'mind':

'Central questions for the study of mind, like whether other entities besides humans have minds or how the relation between body and mind is to be conceived, are strongly influenced by the choice of one's definition.

Mind or mentality is usually contrasted with body, matter or physicality. The issue of the nature of this contrast and specifically the relation between mind and brain is called the mind-body problem.[5] Traditional viewpoints included dualism and idealism, which consider the mind to be non-physical.[5] Modern views often center around physicalism and functionalism, which hold that the mind is roughly identical with the brain or reducible to physical phenomena such as neuronal activity[6][need quotation to verify] though dualism and idealism continue to have many supporters.'

As you know, I think the fiction of the non-physicality of the mind is built into all mentalist talk - ineluctably. The mind containing mental things and events is one big metaphor.

That it's a popular fiction (that there's something nonphysical to mind) doesn't mean it's not a fiction. But it's silly to say that mind, period, is a fiction. Obviously we have thoughts, emotions, desires, we formulate concepts, etc.

It's more than a popular fiction. It's a fiction full stop.

If we 'have' and 'share' thoughts, what exactly do we have and share? Synaptic firings? And if we're 'of the same mind', what exactly does that mean? That our brains have fused?

[Terrapin Station]

If we 'have' and 'share' thoughts, what exactly do we have and share? Synaptic firings? And if we're 'of the same mind', what exactly does that mean? That our brains have fused?

I didn't say anything like we (literally) share thoughts or that we're (literally) "of the same mind." When we say things like that we're speaking loosely--we're saying that we are sharing (in the show and tell sense) the expressive correlates of thoughts (such as typing as we are here), or that based on those expressive correlates and our interpretation of them (the latter being a mental function of course), we believe that we have very similar thoughts.

You have thoughts (hopefully, otherwise we'd need to wonder if you're not some sort of robot/android). And yes, those are brain states ("synaptic firings" and so on), from the spatiotemporal perspective of (being) those brain states.

[Gertie]

Leon

I'll give it one last good faith try your way, but if we're not to keep going round in circles you need to absorb my position as I state it on its own terms. The reason I have to tediously repeat it, is because the objections are answered within my position. Please take a moment to take it in without jumping to comparisons with other positions it reminds you of, and give it a fair go.

Gertie wrote: ↑August 9th, 2021, 1:08 pmThis shouldn't be this difficult and frustrating. Lets re-boot.

Unfortunately issues that have baffled philosophers for 300 years are difficult. Our age has imbibed that confusion.

My position -

We collectively treat issues as objective if they are falsifiable via observation/measurement (maths). Like every case of shared knowledge this involves inter-subjective comparison of the content of our experience.

I answered this point in detail in this post, beginning with the words, "There is a second issue," and ending with the words, "Do you disagree that this is knowledge by consensus?" You made this assertion six different times in your previous post.

Gertie wrote: ↑ August 6th, 2021, 4:52 am Leontiskos wrote: ↑ July 30th, 2021, 1:10 am ...What I mean when I say that the brother or the pro-lifer makes an "ought"-claim is that they intend their claim to be normative. In the first place I wanted to attend to the matter of intention. OK, lets agree …

Good, I agree.

There is also a second issue...

I wanted you to simply lay out your foundation here, so we'd hopefully stop talking past each other, but you went on instead to dissect my position again in ways which I consider answered within my position.

In this post you claim at multiple points that you want to, "Forget stipulative and M1 stuff." That is, you want to concede my points about intersubjective agreement, stipulation, and M1. At the same time, a fair portion of your reply still engages this question about stipulative claims, and therefore I think the issue is still pertinent.

So the second issue has to do with stipulative claims vs. substantive claims. We are in agreement that they both exist and that they are different. A crucial further point is that scientific claims can be either and moral claims can be either. Regarding the scientific side, I gave the examples of helium and heliocentrism in my last post. Now when you talk about, "calling things objectively true," and "third-person falsification," and, "the fact that a hanging is happening in front of it," it seems to me that you are still working in the stipulative or intersubjective sphere. We can examine this claim with two different concepts: verification and adjudication.

My position outlines the playing field in which all shared/public knowledge and opinions, etc inevitably happen - ie the inter-subjective comparing of the contents of our own private consciousness experience. This includes building a shared model of the physical 'real world' and labelling aspects of it together, like ''tangerine'' and ''clementine''.

The physical aspects are by their nature observable and measurable, and falsifiable using that methodology (the scientific method) and this the basis upon which we generally assign the stamp of objective fact. (Scientific measurability is abstract, but in its falsifiability role it relies on a concrete something to measure).

It's the methodology which justifies the distinction 'objective' here.

So for me the fact that we label this thing a tangerine and that thing a clementine isn't a big deal. If we disagree which pre-agreed category this something fits in, we just need to observe/measure more closely.

Agreed? If so, my position covers this.

Verification is what we do when we want to confirm or verify that what we believe to be true is in fact true. Your claim is that if there is a hanging happening in front of us, we might second-guess ourselves and turn to our neighbor, saying, "Are you seeing this too!?" Your claim is that scientific claims are objective because they are falsifiable and checkable in this way. Adjudication is similar, but it is about adjudicating a dispute between two parties who disagree. So you would say that if my neighbor disagrees and says there is no hanging occurring, we could always ask another person or the larger community since the hanging is, "third person observable/measurable."

Yes, fine.

But this whole concept you have presented is still stipulative, based on intersubjective agreement, for you are essentially taking a poll. How does a poll get us beyond intersubjective agreement? How could Copernicus' view have been objectively true if objective truth is based on a majority vote and he was contra mundum? Let's call this view that objective propositions are obtained by intersubjective agreement, "Knowledge by consensus." It is my guess that popular level arguments against objective morality, such as Peter's, are based on knowledge by consensus, where knowledge is reducible to consensus.

As I say, all shared/public knowledge, (including the model we create together of the real physical world which we share), is based in comparing notes, it can't be done any other way. This is the context established before we start making distinctions between 'objective reality' and 'subjective opinion'. If this is your point, it's one I've actually made over and over.

Do you hold to knowledge by consensus?

In as much as all shared/public knowledge could be called knowledge by consensus, sure. I don't think it adds anything to my stated position which specifies the role of inter-subjective comparing of notes, and then goes on to describe how we collectively agree what to treat as objectively true , individual subjective opinion, etc

Gertie wrote: ↑August 6th, 2021, 4:52 amIf it is observable/measurable/falsifiable we treat it as a fact, objective knowledge of reality, by comparing the content of our experience which is the source of our knowledge. This is the scientific method.

So this last quote of yours makes your point most concisely. You appear to be subscribing to knowledge by consensus. You think that the epitome of objective knowledge is rooted in empirical realities which are "observable/measurable/falsifiable." You say that we should compare our claims with others to see if they agree with us. If they do we can count it as objective knowledge or fact. Since the strongest agreement occurs with empirical claims, empirical knowledge is the epitome of 'objectivity'. Do you disagree that this is knowledge by consensus?

What I actually say is we treat this third person observational/measurable knowledge as objectively true shared/public knowledge about the real world. (What we're actually doing is comparing notes based on the limited and flawed content of our subjective private conscious experience - hence it is inter-subjective). So yes, 'objective' is a consensus we arrive at using a particular methodology. Using this particular methodology we'd expect any normally functioning human to agree with our own observations/measurements, and so we can treat it as true/real/objective/fact.

I'm flummoxed why you can't just agree with this much and we can move on?

And yes, this particular consensus methodology is probably as good as it gets for us limited, flawed observers and thinkers re determining the real nature of physical/observable things.

Gertie wrote: ↑August 6th, 2021, 4:52 am...Note it can't be applied to abstract concepts like morality, which isn't third person falsifiable via observation/measurement.

Gertie wrote: ↑August 6th, 2021, 4:52 am...Morality is an abstract concept, it can't be observed/measured this way, and moral claims can't be falsified this way.

Gertie wrote: ↑August 6th, 2021, 4:52 am...But an abstract concept like morality isn't checkable in that way. It doesn't have a mind independent existence 'out there' we can observe.

Gertie wrote: ↑August 6th, 2021, 4:52 am...The morality of hanging isn't observable/measurable/falsifiable in that way. Is the distinction I'm making clear now?

Gertie wrote: ↑August 6th, 2021, 4:52 am...But a moral claim/opinion isn't falsifiable via observation/measurement. We'd need to use different criteria to establish the objectivity. I'm still unclear what yours are?

Gertie wrote: ↑August 6th, 2021, 4:52 amSo to support the claim that morality is objective, you need a different method to the way scientific claims are falsiable.

First it should be noted that abstract concepts need not lack intersubjective agreement. An easy example is mathematical or geometrical truths, such as the theorems governing the properties of triangles.

Yes this is true, we categorise knowledge in many types of ways, not just about the existence of physical observable stuff and personal opinions. Measurement can be seen as abstract itself, so on what basis is it a methodology for falsification? Not something I've thought about, but here goes.

I'd say it's that measurement's reliability is rooted in third person observation. Once normally functioning humans have observed and measured enough three-sided shapes we can note patterns which we assume will always hold. We give these observable patterns law-like status. This pattern observation also allows us to establish abstract notions like causality, the existence of gravity without being able to observe gravitons, etc, create the scientific model we currently have of what the real world is made of and how it works. But without something third person observable (eg a three sided shape), the measurement falsifiability is lost. Once we establish the patterns and rules based in third person observation we can treat them as facts, and manipulate them purely conceptually.

Until a new third person observable discovery suggests there's an error somewhere (or someone spots an error in the maths/conceptualised manipulation), then the theory/concept has to adapt. The truth/reliability of theoretical physics and maths is still grounded in third person/shared/public observation. I think. Yes?

Now you say that morality isn't observable/measurable/falsifiable "in that way." In what way? In the case of empirical claims you were taking a poll. You were asking others if they agreed with your belief. Why can't we do the same with morality? Why not take a poll and ask if they agree with our belief?

So it can't be right that morality lacks objectivity because it is abstract. Lots of abstract things possess objectivity.

See above. I can't make a third person accessible observation tomorrow to falsify a moral opinion.


So back to my question to you - on what basis should I treat a moral opinion as falsifiable, if not this one of observation/measurement?

The initial difference seems to be that when we ask someone about an empirical claim they are going to consult their senses, whereas when we ask them about a moral claim they are going to consult their mind. Yet they would also consult their mind if we asked them about triangles, or algebra, or historical facts, or rules of grammar, etc. It seems to me that the distinction you have in mind isn't empirical vs. abstract, but rather consensus vs. non-consensus. That is, consensus obtains with regard to empirical claims and abstract mathematical claims, but not with abstract moral claims.

Once again, the distinction I'm pointing out is methodological. You can find consensus in all types of ways, but we don't treat them all as facts. We've done algebra, we could do history and grammar too if we had 300 years to spare. But we don't need to if you simply accept that falsifiability via third person observation and measurement is what we treat as objective truth for the reasons given.

It doesn't have to be the only methodology tho. If you can justify another, I might agree. And if that justification includes moral opinions, bingo! Then we just have to persuade everyone else to treat it as objectively true too.

Look it's just the way it is that directly known knowledge is in the form of first person private conscious experience. Whether it's seeing an ice cream, the taste of chocolate ice cream, liking the taste; or feeling happy, reading a history book, thinking with that linguistic narrative voice in our head we call reasoning, or seeing a hanging. Some of those things are third person falsifiable when we share the content of our private first person experience with each other, some aren't. We give this objective status to third person observable/measurable (physical) stuff because we can check with other and every normally functioning human will agree.

The physical event of a hanging fits that falsifiability criteria, an opinion about its morality doesn't.

I've now said this more ways than I should need to. I don't care if you call it consensus. But if that consensus framing is the justification for claiming there's no difference between ''Ought to agree this is a tangerine'' and ''Ought to agree hanging is morally right/wrong'', then there must be a different ought foundation than falsification via observation/measurement. Agreed?

So here the onus moves on to you to dispute the basis of my analysis (which as I say, is just the way it is), or provide a different methodology, or something else, to support the tangerine ought claim. So far I still don't know what your foundation for an alternative way treat moral opinions as objective is, except it involves intention. This might be an interesting approach, I might agree, who knows. But the link to objectivity still isn't obvious to me.

Here you are very Kantian and are talking about, "consistent working models of reality," and, "a model of reality which is comprehensible to us." This takes us right back to stipulation and intersubjective agreement. You have again moved away from the idea that we can make true claims about reality. Instead we are limited to making claims with regard to our intersubjective agreement, which must have the same "limitations and faults" of each individual member. So instead of looking for truth you settle for "consistent working models of reality." Again, this is consensus, not real objectivity. The object of your knowledge is a collection of converging opinions, not reality.

Right, I don't believe humans have the ability to have direct/certain/complete knowledge of the real world. Do you believe we do? If so, that's a whole nother debate. If not, we can move on. Which is it?

Gertie wrote: ↑ August 6th, 2021, 4:52 am Leontiskos wrote: ↑ July 30th, 2021, 1:10 am ...What I mean when I say that the brother or the pro-lifer makes an "ought"-claim is that they intend their claim to be normative. In the first place I wanted to attend to the matter of intention. OK, lets agree …

I don't know if you have been following my conversation with Peter,

No sorry.

but I have fleshed out the obligation there. The basic idea is that we have an obligation to seek and believe truth. The argument I gave was that we have an obligation to believe the conclusions of sound arguments. That is, the conclusions of arguments we believe to be sound. One of our concrete disagreements was over H2O. He doesn't think we have an obligation to believe that the molecular makeup of water is H2O. I think we do.

(OK. But I don't agree we treat the molecular make up of water as objective fact on the basis of sound argument, we do it on the basis of... wait for it.... observation and measurement!).

Re your argument that we have an obligation to seek and believe truth -

- What is the underlying underlying foundation for the obligation?

- Are you assuming humans can in principle know the complete, fault-free truth of what it is to be eg a tangerine? (Obviously I disagree)

- And wouldn't it still necessarily require methodologies for establishing what should and shouldn't be treated as objective/true/fact? If so what?

But if facts and objectivity are nothing more than consensus and intersubjective agreement, then I don't see why we would have any obligation to believe them.

Well the way I see it, in practice we just do agree to treat certain things as objective based on the inter-subjective methodological basis of observation and measurement, because it's third person/inter-subjectively falsifiable. Simple as that, it makes sense and it enables us to create this usefully coherent, reliable, predictable, publically methodologically falsifiable, inter-subjective model of the public world we share.

Nor would it make sense for the brother to claim that his sister ought to believe that the fruit is a tangerine. Nor would it make sense to claim that we have an obligation to believe that water is made up of H2O. Nor would it make sense to say that we have an obligation to believe the conclusions of sound arguments. But that's absurd - reductio ad absurdum. Therefore facts and objectivity must be more than mere intersubjective agreement, stipulation, and "consistent working models."

The consistency of the model relies on falsifiability tho. Otherwise nothing can be reliably inter-subjectively agreed about the properties of tangerines.(Then we go on to agree to label all objects with these specific properties we all observe as ''tangerines'', which I understood to be the M1/M2 distinction you initially made, and which I'm happy to move on from).

If our shared observations and measurements are consistent, we treat them as facts and go on to treat patterns in observations as law-like truths about the world - until a new contradictory observation or measurement comes up. Then we try to falsify that. If we can't, we adjust our model to account for it.

So you can say we 'ought' to believe something which is falsifiable via observation and measurement, on the underlying basis that every normally functioning human observer/measurer would agree. But this method of falsification, establishing inter-subjectively agreed truths, is only possible for things which are third person observable/measurable. Moral opinions aren't.


Again I don't know what else to do but keep repeating the same points. And now I've run out of steam so I'm stopping there. If we can't make some progress now, and move on from what I originally referred to as 'clearing away the weeds', I'm done.

So if you want to succinctly lay out your own position, and any remaining objections with mine, we can move on in a more focussed way.

[If you're interested in my views on morality in general, Goldstein's thoughts on Mattering are a good place to start, tho my framing is a little different. My formal education is philosophy is limited to theology].

[Belindi]

Peter, mind is how we perceive from the point of view of subjects of experience. Your body would not exist for you if you had no mind to perceive it with.

(Edited)
On second thoughts, we could all be mindless robots reacting to stimuli as machines do. However I know I am not a mindless robot because I immediately feel emotions and qualities such as colours. These feelings are not 'out there' in the physical world; they are mind phenomena.

All the other people may be mindless robots for all I know. However my lifelong attitude to other people is they also feel. It is unreasonable to take for granted that people always must regard others as having minds and feelings. Descartes is infamous for his actual cruelty to animals because he regarded them as automata. Nazis were undoubtedly cruel to peoples they regarded as sub-human.
Today there are children in schools where they are taught that they are superior to others by reason of being white skinned, of a higher social class, more able, acceptable gender orientation, or male sex.

[Gertie]

Peter Holmes wrote(my underlines):



Ontological reality is not the same as social reality.

Contrary to what has been asserted by one of the participants n this conversation, great philosophers have actually created theories of what really exists, and those theories have real moral implications.

" 'this is a tangerine' and 'water is H2O' " are facts of social reality, they are not facts of ontological reality. Factuality applies to social reality, but not to ontological reality.

Moral reality is 'objective' only insofar as the morality in question is implicated in a grand theory of existence.

1 Inasmuch as I understand it, I don't accept your distinction between ontological and social reality. The reality I refer to is physical reality, of which 'social reality' can only be a part. And what we call facts are features of that physical reality, or descriptions of them. So the chemical constitution of water is one of those facts - a feature of physical reality. The claim that it's not a feature of 'ontological reality' is absurd.

2 The so-called theories of reality or being (ontologies) produced by philosophers have been nothing more than explanations of the ways we use or could use certain words. And to the extent they have proposed physical explanations of reality, they've been wrong and long-superceded by natural science theories.

3 No theory of physical reality has or can ever entail moral conclusions. An is-the-case cannot entail an ought-to-be-the-case. The very expression 'moral reality', like the expression 'moral fact', is incoherent.

Do you think mind is (an) ontological reality?

Do you think nature is (an) ontological reality?

1 I don't know what an ontological reality is. For me, what we call reality is physical reality, which is everything that exists physically.

2 I think that what we call the mind is a metaphysical, or non-physical fiction - because, to my knowledge, there's no evidence for the existence of anything non-physical.

3 I use 'nature', 'reality' and 'universe' or 'cosmos' as synonyms.

What way do you have of knowing anything exists (including physical stuff) if not through mentally experiencing it?

[Belindi]

If you don't have a mind you are a robot made of biological tissues.

[Leontiskos]

Leon

I'll give it one last good faith try your way, but if we're not to keep going round in circles you need to absorb my position as I state it on its own terms. The reason I have to tediously repeat it, is because the objections are answered within my position. Please take a moment to take it in without jumping to comparisons with other positions it reminds you of, and give it a fair go.

Okay, sure. You think I misunderstand your position; I think you are failing to understand and meet the objection I have posed. Indeed, it seems to me that you simply have not comprehended the stipulative/substantive distinction and the problems with knowledge by consensus. Of course that's fine, because I was merely trying to get you to understand that you were subscribing to knowledge by consensus. I haven't yet argued at any length against that view (apart from my arguments that stipulative science is an oxymoron). We can move to that question now.

So I will consider your position as it is in itself, and you must try to understand the objection posed.

I wanted you to simply lay out your foundation here, so we'd hopefully stop talking past each other, but you went on instead to dissect my position again in ways which I consider answered within my position.

It is a bit difficult to move a non-realist to realism if they haven't studied epistemology. I've tried to give you indications of my position, such as when I claimed that the difference between facts and opinions or scientific knowledge and moral knowledge is a matter of degree and obscurity, not a matter of quality. What I will try to do in this post is to give you a clear alternative to knowledge by consensus.

My position outlines the playing field in which all shared/public knowledge and opinions, etc inevitably happen - ie the inter-subjective comparing of the contents of our own private consciousness experience. This includes building a shared model of the physical 'real world' and labelling aspects of it together, like ''tangerine'' and ''clementine''.

The physical aspects are by their nature observable and measurable, and falsifiable using that methodology (the scientific method) and this the basis upon which we generally assign the stamp of objective fact. (Scientific measurability is abstract, but in its falsifiability role it relies on a concrete something to measure).

It's the methodology which justifies the distinction 'objective' here.

So for me the fact that we label this thing a tangerine and that thing a clementine isn't a big deal. If we disagree which pre-agreed category this something fits in, we just need to observe/measure more closely.

Agreed?

I think your position is knowledge by consensus. To be clear, I do not agree with knowledge by consensus.

But this whole concept you have presented is still stipulative, based on intersubjective agreement, for you are essentially taking a poll. How does a poll get us beyond intersubjective agreement? How could Copernicus' view have been objectively true if objective truth is based on a majority vote and he was contra mundum? Let's call this view that objective propositions are obtained by intersubjective agreement, "Knowledge by consensus." It is my guess that popular level arguments against objective morality, such as Peter's, are based on knowledge by consensus, where knowledge is reducible to consensus.

As I say, all shared/public knowledge, (including the model we create together of the real physical world which we share), is based in comparing notes, it can't be done any other way. This is the context established before we start making distinctions between 'objective reality' and 'subjective opinion'. If this is your point, it's one I've actually made over and over.

Do you hold to knowledge by consensus?

In as much as all shared/public knowledge could be called knowledge by consensus, sure. I don't think it adds anything to my stated position which specifies the role of inter-subjective comparing of notes, and then goes on to describe how we collectively agree what to treat as objectively true , individual subjective opinion, etc

Okay, so we are both in agreement that you hold to knowledge by consensus (as outlined in this post). (Note: my arguments against stipulative claims in this post run parallel to this argument about knowledge by consensus. The problem with knowledge by consensus is that it cannot support substantive claims.)

Before looking at the problems with knowledge by consensus, let me include this next quote of yours, which is also on topic:

So this last quote of yours makes your point most concisely. You appear to be subscribing to knowledge by consensus. You think that the epitome of objective knowledge is rooted in empirical realities which are "observable/measurable/falsifiable." You say that we should compare our claims with others to see if they agree with us. If they do we can count it as objective knowledge or fact. Since the strongest agreement occurs with empirical claims, empirical knowledge is the epitome of 'objectivity'. Do you disagree that this is knowledge by consensus?

What I actually say is we treat this third person observational/measurable knowledge as objectively true shared/public knowledge about the real world. (What we're actually doing is comparing notes based on the limited and flawed content of our subjective private conscious experience - hence it is inter-subjective). So yes, 'objective' is a consensus we arrive at using a particular methodology. Using this particular methodology we'd expect any normally functioning human to agree with our own observations/measurements, and so we can treat it as true/real/objective/fact.

I'm flummoxed why you can't just agree with this much and we can move on?

And yes, this particular consensus methodology is probably as good as it gets for us limited, flawed observers and thinkers re determining the real nature of physical/observable things.

The reason we cannot move on is because this is the heart of the matter. Let me try approaching the problem with knowledge by consensus from a few different angles.

Throughout this conversation I have pointed out your odd usage of saying we "treat things as objective." Let's draw this out since it is an important wrinkle in your argument. If something is objectively true then it is true regardless of how it is treated. That is the whole meaning of objectivity. We could call objective things treatment-independent. If they are objective then it doesn't matter how they are treated or what people think about them. They are objective either way. So to say that things become objective when we "treat them as objective" is a contradiction. What you're talking about here can't be objectivity.

The problem with knowledge by consensus or knowledge by intersubjective agreement is similar. Taking a poll and seeing if there is a consensus will not tell us about objective reality. It will only tell us about the opinions of the group we are polling. Something which is objectively true is always true regardless of opinion, or agreement, or consensus. For example, "Water is made up of H2O." You can take a poll, and even if there is a unanimous consensus that water is not H2O, it wouldn't matter. It is still objectively true that water is made up of H2O. If you took a poll that indicates the opposite you would be forced to "treat as objective" the claim that water is not made up of H2O. In that case your "objective" "fact" is not objective, and is in fact false. Knowledge is not constituted by consensus (or by intersubjective agreement). "Knowledge by consensus" fails.

(There are good reasons we take consensus to be indicative of truth, but I know you desire a shorter conversation so I won't go there. The deeper point is that consensus can't be the thing that grounds and constitutes knowledge.)

Yes this is true, we categorise knowledge in many types of ways, not just about the existence of physical observable stuff and personal opinions. Measurement can be seen as abstract itself, so on what basis is it a methodology for falsification? Not something I've thought about, but here goes.

I'd say it's that measurement's reliability is rooted in third person observation. Once normally functioning humans have observed and measured enough three-sided shapes we can note patterns which we assume will always hold. We give these observable patterns law-like status. This pattern observation also allows us to establish abstract notions like causality, the existence of gravity without being able to observe gravitons, etc, create the scientific model we currently have of what the real world is made of and how it works. But without something third person observable (eg a three sided shape), the measurement falsifiability is lost. Once we establish the patterns and rules based in third person observation we can treat them as facts, and manipulate them purely conceptually.

Until a new third person observable discovery suggests there's an error somewhere (or someone spots an error in the maths/conceptualised manipulation), then the theory/concept has to adapt. The truth/reliability of theoretical physics and maths is still grounded in third person/shared/public observation. I think. Yes?

Your thinking here isn't too bad, but by "third person observable" you presumably just mean "objective." The same question then arises: how does "third person observable" relate to consensus and intersubjective agreement?

Listen, I don't know how to address these issues in short replies, and I know you don't like long replies, so I'm in a lurch. The basic question you're being confronted with is how to ground objectivity.

See above. I can't make a third person accessible observation tomorrow to falsify a moral opinion.

This is your larger point: "I can make a third person accessible observation to falsify a geometrical opinion, but I can't make a third person accessible observation to falsify a moral opinion."

We could rephrase the first part of that claim in three different forms, all of which arrive at the same problem:

• I can make [a third person accessible observation] to falsify a geometrical opinion.
• I can make [an objective observation] to falsify a geometrical opinion.
• I can make [an observation based on consensus] to falsify a geometrical opinion.

The problem is that you can't do that, as consensus is merely stipulative (see above). So the truer claim would be, "I can't make a third person accessible observation to falsify a geometrical opinion, and I can't make a third person accessible observation to falsify a moral opinion." As I noted at the outset, you are in the same boat with regard to scientific and moral claims (as well as abstract mathematical claims).

I've now said this more ways than I should need to. I don't care if you call it consensus. But if that consensus framing is the justification for claiming there's no difference between ''Ought to agree this is a tangerine'' and ''Ought to agree hanging is morally right/wrong'', then there must be a different ought foundation than falsification via observation/measurement. Agreed?

So here the onus moves on to you to dispute the basis of my analysis (which as I say, is just the way it is), or provide a different methodology, or something else, to support the tangerine ought claim. So far I still don't know what your foundation for an alternative way treat moral opinions as objective is, except it involves intention. This might be an interesting approach, I might agree, who knows. But the link to objectivity still isn't obvious to me.

But I have disputed the basis of your analysis. Knowledge by consensus isn't objective. Let me give you my own formulation of your argument, since you clearly don't believe that the consensus problem is related to the moral problem:

So back to my question to you - on what basis should I treat a moral opinion as falsifiable, if not this one of observation/measurement?

This is your argument as I understand it:

P1. Objective knowledge exists if and only if there is consensus. ("Knowledge by consensus")
P2. Consensus obtains in science.*
P3. Consensus does not obtain in morality.
C4. Therefore, science counts as objective knowledge. (From P1 & P2)
C5. Therefore, morality does not count as objective knowledge. (From P1 & P3)

*The reason that consensus obtains in science is because science studies that which is observable/measurable/falsifiable


You keep defending P2 and P3. My point is that P1 is false. And if P1 is false then C5 is invalid (as is C4). You seem to think you have proved C4 and you keep asking me why I reject C5. My point is that you haven't proved C4, and therefore you have no valid reason to reject C5.

but I have fleshed out the obligation there. The basic idea is that we have an obligation to seek and believe truth. The argument I gave was that we have an obligation to believe the conclusions of sound arguments. That is, the conclusions of arguments we believe to be sound. One of our concrete disagreements was over H2O. He doesn't think we have an obligation to believe that the molecular makeup of water is H2O. I think we do.

(OK. But I don't agree we treat the molecular make up of water as objective fact on the basis of sound argument, we do it on the basis of... wait for it.... observation and measurement!).

I am trying to avoid tangents and long posts, but points such as these are simply false. We do not observe or measure the proposition, "Water is H2O." There is a complex process which eventually arrives at that conclusion, and this is inevitably based on sound argument. Claims of empirical science are just the conclusions of arguments which happen to have some empirical premises. Science doesn't avoid argument.

Re your argument that we have an obligation to seek and believe truth -

- What is the underlying underlying foundation for the obligation?

- Are you assuming humans can in principle know the complete, fault-free truth of what it is to be eg a tangerine? (Obviously I disagree)

- And wouldn't it still necessarily require methodologies for establishing what should and shouldn't be treated as objective/true/fact? If so what?

It's just a fact of reality that we are obligated to seek and believe truth. For example:

1. All men are mortal.
2. Socrates is a man.
3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

If I accept this argument as sound then I am obliged to accept the conclusion. That is, if I understand and accept as true the two premises, then I am obliged to accept the third premise. To accept (1) and (2) while denying (3) would be to fail my obligation to truth.

Well the way I see it, in practice we just do agree to treat certain things as objective based on the inter-subjective methodological basis of observation and measurement, because it's third person/inter-subjectively falsifiable. Simple as that, it makes sense and it enables us to create this usefully coherent, reliable, predictable, publically methodologically falsifiable, inter-subjective model of the public world we share.

Above I pointed out why it makes sense, and just because something is practically useful does mean it is objectively true. There's a fallacy in there.

Further, I think it is very clear that objective truths are recognized, not created. For example, that reality is reliable is something we recognize, not something we create. It is only because we recognize that reality is reliable--and not on the basis of any mere consensus--that we can do science in the first place. We are only able to create because we recognize objective truth, not because we "treat things as objective."

Again I don't know what else to do but keep repeating the same points. And now I've run out of steam so I'm stopping there. If we can't make some progress now, and move on from what I originally referred to as 'clearing away the weeds', I'm done.

Our argument requires you to defend your claim that knowledge is consensus, so that's what you ought to do. Above I argued that knowledge is not consensus. The alternative to knowledge by consensus is the view that a single person, apart from any other people and without any poll-taking or consensus, can arrive at objective knowledge of the world. It is the view that Copernicus could arrive at the truth of heliocentrism even when the consensus said otherwise. It is the view that if every other person on Earth died, you would still be able to arrive at objective truth. If knowledge is based on consensus and intersubjective agreement then none of these things would be possible.

[If you're interested in my views on morality in general, Goldstein's thoughts on Mattering are a good place to start, tho my framing is a little different. My formal education is philosophy is limited to theology].

Okay, thanks.

Best,
Leontiskos

[Leontiskos]

Again I don't know what else to do but keep repeating the same points. And now I've run out of steam so I'm stopping there. If we can't make some progress now, and move on from what I originally referred to as 'clearing away the weeds', I'm done.

Our argument requires you to defend your claim that knowledge is consensus, so that's what you ought to do. Above I argued that knowledge is not consensus. The alternative to knowledge by consensus is the view that a single person, apart from any other people and without any poll-taking or consensus, can arrive at objective knowledge of the world. It is the view that Copernicus could arrive at the truth of heliocentrism even when the consensus said otherwise. It is the view that if every other person on Earth died, you would still be able to arrive at objective truth. If knowledge is based on consensus and intersubjective agreement then none of these things would be possible.

To say a bit more, a perfectly good alternative to knowledge by consensus would be the commonly-accepted epistemological theory of knowledge as justified true belief (JTB). This is one way to allow individuals to acquire knowledge without the mediation of a consensus.

There is the old canard that science observes objective reality whereas morality is just an emotional or subjective manifestation. I don't think this theory has any merit and it is usually supported by something like 'knowledge by consensus', which fails under scrutiny.

Science and morality both make presuppositions, and the presuppositions of both are rationally defensible (that is, they could certainly count as a justified belief). When science tells us that water is H2O it presupposes that water in America is the same as water in China, which is the same as water on Mars. It presupposes various laws of chemistry. It presupposes that reality is intelligible and consistent, and will continue to be so day after day. We can make observations about the chemical structure of an atom, but without these various presuppositions the observation does not give us knowledge.

When morality tells us that theft is wrong it presupposes the existence of private property. It presupposes that the cup I have paid for, or the rope I have made, or the child that my wife and I gave birth to belong to me (or my wife). Others are not allowed to take such things without my permission. Morality requires observations, such as which things are in whose possession, who has taken what, whether they have received permission, whether they have rendered proper payment, etc. We can make observations about human transactions, but without the presupposition about private property we cannot say whether morality has been infringed upon.

I don't see what the big deal is. I don't see a big difference between the presuppositions of science and the presuppositions of morality. Neither are based on mere consensus, neither are based on mere observations, neither are demonstrable apart from presuppositions, and both rely on rationally justified presuppositions. I mean, you can claim that property (or guardianship) doesn't exist when you kidnap the 6 year-old girl from her parents' house. You can also claim that the Earth is flat, or that the laws of nature aren't laws and won't last beyond tomorrow, or that there is no difference between men and women. The first person fails to understand morality; the second fails to understand science. Apart from that there isn't much difference.

The truly weird thing is that our age has convinced itself that science possesses apodictic certainty (even despite all of the current disputes that relate to that field, both internally and externally).

[Terrapin Station]

I don't see what the big deal is. I don't see a big difference between the presuppositions of science and the presuppositions of morality.

The relevant difference re talking about whether they're objective is whether the "truthmakers" obtain external to persons (and specifically their dispositions, feelings, preferences, etc.) or not.

[Sculptor1]

I don't see what the big deal is. I don't see a big difference between the presuppositions of science and the presuppositions of morality.

Really??
Why don't you give me a couples of examples and I'll show you where you are going wrong.

[Leontiskos]

I don't see what the big deal is. I don't see a big difference between the presuppositions of science and the presuppositions of morality.

The relevant difference re talking about whether they're objective is whether the "truthmakers" obtain external to persons (and specifically their dispositions, feelings, preferences, etc.) or not.

You are asserting that the truthmaker of the moral presupposition is something like an internal disposition, feeling, or preference? But the person who believes in private property does not claim such a thing. Private property exists independent of such things. Stealing Bob's rope is wrong regardless of his feelings.

Granted, I think this improves on your former argument, as your new distinction is more subtle:

We're still talking about personal and specifically mental phenomena, and not phenomena that are found in the world independently of persons/minds.

Your argument is apparently as follows: "Objective" means mind-independent; happiness is found only within minds; therefore happiness is not objective. The ambiguity attaches to the term "mind-independent." I would contend that the term does not mean, "Able to exist independent of minds." Instead it means, "Unable to be influenced by minds." If we accept the latter meaning, then necessary properties of minds, such as happiness, are objective. That is, they are objectively predicated of the entire class of persons/minds and this cannot be altered by minds. This is just the sort of thing that has the potential to solve the problem at hand.