Peter Holmes wrote: ↑February 3rd, 2020, 4:14 am
GE Morton wrote: ↑February 3rd, 2020, 12:47 am
Very often we are. But those value judgments are subjective and have no rational basis. A philosophically respectable moral theory must be universal and have a rational basis.
Agreed, value-judgements are subjective, by definition. But they can be, and usually are, perfectly rational. It's their rationality that has resulted in social moral codes, often with universal scope, and often reinforced by law.
In response to your assertion, "When we say 'this action is morally good or bad, right or wrong', we're making a value-judgement," I said, "Very often we are." "Vernacular moralities" --- the moral precepts accepted and applied by most people --- are indeed often based on subjective values. They are absorbed unexamined through religious indoctrination, cultural conditioning, or simply reflect personal interests, preferences, emotional responses, i.e., personal values. And values are non-rational by definition.
Why identify subjectivity with irrationality? How strange
I don't. Those are different properties. Values are not irrational; they're non-rational (true of values assigned to "end goods." Values assigned to "means goods" can be rational). And because they are also subjective moral principles based on them cannot be universal.
And the very idea of a 'philosophically respectable moral theory' needs unpacking. What we need is an explanation or description of morality that makes rationally justified claims derived from sound arguments. If that's what you mean - I agree.
Yes, that is what I mean. It should be obvious that a morality based on values cannot possibly satisfy that criterion.
And I agree that description isn't prescription, in moral as in any other discourse. But the question 'what is morally right and wrong?' is central to both moral and ethical theory. And it goes beyond and deeper than a description of what people want and say about it.
Well, if so, then those depths need to be explored. But in my view, to say that some act was morally wrong merely means that it violates one or more theorems of a sound moral theory, the theorems of which impose duties or constraints on the actions of moral agents in a social setting.
My point is that value-judgements and facts are completely different things, so that nothing can make morality objective.
A moral judgment --- a rationally defensible one --- is not a value judgment. That mistake reveals why it is important not to confuse deontology with axiology. "That painting is not worth what Alfie paid or it" is a value judgment. "It was (morally) wrong for Alfie to beat his wife" is not. The latter asserts that Alfie's act violated a sound moral principle. That it did so is a matter of fact.
We do, of course, assign positive value to morally acceptable acts (they're "good") and negative value to unacceptable ones ("bad"). But that valuation has nothing to do with the soundness of the principles applied in judging those acts.
Morality is about what is morally right or wrong. Moral assertions, expressing moral judgements, contain words like 'right', 'wrong', 'good', 'bad', 'should' and 'ought'. But commands such as 'do not kill' aren't even declaratives, let alone moral declaratives. The morally significant (operative or functional) claim is 'it is wrong to kill'. 'Do and don't' commands - and, more important, simply obeying them, are morally insignificant, in the sense that the moral questions are taken as having been settled. (Of course, you're right about the practical consequences of different codes and rules.)
That is a verbal quibble. "One ought not kill" implies, "Do not kill." The declarative entails the imperative. But I agree that merely following a rule, any rule, blindly, without understanding its rationale, merits no moral praise.