Ethics, morality and other metaphysical statements without theism.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Ethics, morality and other metaphysical statements without theism.

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Acknowledging that something is up to subjective meaning does not preclude believing or fighting for it, that idea comes from confusing theories of knowledge and ethics. While knowledge informs ethics, it cannot determine them, so it's not actually that difficult to do what you're saying - in fact, I'd go further and say that even theism doesn't save from emotivism, because even if you believe god exists, you cannot prove that it is moral.

Ghost of Reagan Past posted:

The verificationist criteria of meaning is itself not verifiable, and so by its own lights meaningless. This is the most common criticism of logical positivism and is usually considered the knock-down argument.

It's considered a knock down proof by people unfamiliar with the subject matter - axioms cannot prove themselves, this isn't something unique to positivism, Godel would have something to say about that.

# ¿ May 19, 2016 07:32

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 01:11

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

The people I don't get are the atheist moral realists, which according to that poll posted, is definitely something that exists in philosophy departments. Why bother? The creation of moral realism was there to save the idea of god from the problem of evil, absent god you no longer need moral realism. I think people just like the idea of their morals being 'objective', because they're taught that subjective = bad and objective = good, which is important for theories of knowledge, but a bad way to think about ethics.

I also think you can solve the problems of utilitarianism if you think of pleasures/enjoyment not as a continuous metric, but as an infinite ordered set of satisfied desires. You can starve 1 to feed 100, but you can't make 100 content by starving 1 - the 'addition' is in different dimensions, and the 'hunger' dimension takes priority over the 'entertainment' dimension. Of course, that reduces some of the appeal of utilitarianism, by getting rid of a single metric of 'utility' that everything can add or subtract from, and you have to go through the hard work of deciding the ordering of those desires, but that classic simplification is what introduces the problems of the utility monster in the first place. Keeping your terms separate is probably for the best.

Juffo-Wup posted:

Yes, but this is a blunting of the verificationist sword - you can no longer say that certain statements about metaphysical states of affairs are meaningless full stop, you can only really say that you are unwilling to accept the axiomatic system under which they are meaningful. Which is more Carnap than Ayer; not nearly as flashy, because you can't go around telling people they're fundamentally and systematically mistaken about what they think they mean when they speak.

That is, it is not the positivists reliance on the principle of verification that is a problem, it is their insistence that it is the only justifiable axiom.

I see your point, and it's valid. I just strongly don't like this idea of importing the issue of self-referential sets into theories of knowledge. How many other systems of morality or knowledge could survive having to justify their own axioms with themselves? Not many, but only the positivists get hit with it again and again.

rudatron fucked around with this message at 05:43 on May 20, 2016

# ¿ May 20, 2016 05:40

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

There's a difference between morals being subjective, and that there exist an objective morality that is inherently unknowable. It technically wouldn't undermine moral realism, you'd need something else. Though I suppose you could say that, just as atheism is the pragmatic choice for when you lack knowledge of God, moral realism is therefore not useful in the same way. But I think the argument against moral realism can be made a bit stronger than that.

the trump tutelage posted:

Couldn't you then contort any "utilitarian" argument to individual ends based on how you order those desires? Why bother with the contrivance of utilitarianism at that point?

That already happens. Take the colosseum example. with a continuous metric of happiness, there must be some number of people watching that would counter balance the people suffering - what that number is depends on how much you value each of the experiences involved, what the numerical relationship would be between them.

All moral systems are contrivances, I guess is the point. But that's okay

Juffo-Wup posted:

Well, all historical narratives involved in philosophy are a little fast and loose with the truth. I guess that's my bias showing up, because that's how it's treated in Abrahamic faiths. Greek pagan religion had no problem showing Gods as callous and capricious entities, which I presume you can judge for yourself. In systems with an unquestionable good deity, you need to deploy moral realism at some point, just to save His skin. You absolutely do see it in religious debates In The Wild, as it were.

rudatron fucked around with this message at 10:45 on May 21, 2016

# ¿ May 21, 2016 08:16

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

I mean if you subjectively valued popularity, then they would. Which people kind of do, a bit, which is why conformity is a thing?

# ¿ May 25, 2016 01:12

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Do you have an example of a moral statement that does not itself take moral premises? Because while it's trivial to show that a moral statement can result from moral premises, without a moral statement minus moral premises, you end up with an infinite regression.

If you don't have such a premise, then you're belief in moral realism is simply a matter of faith, that this moral statement without moral premises exists. That doesn't seem parsimonious, and thus I think the naturalistic fallacy should be considered a fallacy.

# ¿ May 26, 2016 15:41

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Explain yourself further.

# ¿ May 26, 2016 15:55

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

To be more specific: do you mean the problem of putting into language the act of recognition of the object (ie define 'chair', then define all the words you use, and so on and so forth), or are you claiming that empirical knowledge suffers such an regression by it's own nature? The former is easy for smoosh, the latter is more interesting, but I'll need more argumentation from you to see why you think that.

# ¿ May 26, 2016 16:04

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

You're responding to an argument no one has actually used (moore's argument). You were the first person to bring up Moore, and the person you originally used it against did not seem to care about them, beyond your mention of him. The fact that they immediately jumped to Hume after you mentioned them should have been a give away. The argument you're presenting seems more related to the nature of definitions and reference w.r.t the objects they're referring to, it is not germane to the topic at hand.

# ¿ May 26, 2016 17:29

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

The phrase 'naturalistic fallacy' is not used solely to describe Moore's argument, a quick google search will dispel that notion. Perhaps all those other usages are incorrect, but I think it's more important to be a little generous about what people mean, rather than jumping on specific terminology.

As for Railton: all he does is simply show that the is-ought problem has not been conclusively proven either way - an emotivists would deny the existence of a metaphysics of value in the first place (value as a thing in and of itself), and would absolutely concur with you that Hume's argument is about the moral psychology of individuals, because that's what morality is. Your challenge is to prove that there exists a metaphysics of value beyond the moral psychology of individuals, because you're the moral realist.

Has the is-ought gap been conclusive proven by Moore or anyone else? No. Is assuming the gap is real the right choice? Yes. Why? Because you're assuming the existence of a statement that has not been shown to have even one example, that of a moral statement that does not take moral premises. It's a bit like atheism/theism, I guess.

rudatron fucked around with this message at 18:24 on May 26, 2016

# ¿ May 26, 2016 18:15

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

All you're doing is assuming the existence value-in-itself, then declaring that this assumption cannot be attacked, because any attack on that assumption (and that assumption alone) 'shuts down the possibility of discovery before the inquiry has begun'. Have you shown that there is actually something to discover? I could just as well take everything you find, repackage them and throw them into an empirical subject called 'psychology of human beings', which would contain a great many statements that were true (or false), but none of which moral. Your assumption that turns that into a morality is 'human beings tend to perform the good', which you should very clearly see doesn't not contradict, nor does it fit poorly, with the emotivist conception of morality - you, as a human being, would prefer that statement, absent the existence in reality of morality, but it doesn't actually have to be a statement that is true.

Observe also: the argument above is neither normative nor empirical.

It also gets a little worse for you, because an integral party of scientific theory (which I'll assume you're applying to 'discover' your moral realism) requires you to adopt simpler theories among competing explanatory theories. Now whose conception of morality is simpler?

# ¿ May 27, 2016 00:32

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

If you believe that 'facts about value' (I assume you mean statements) should be seen as statements of the physical world, then you are assuming the existence of value as an object property - that is, value-in-itself. You can't get away from that. That's not a matter of faith, that's a matter of skepticism - you are the one who is making the leap of faith in assuming that property exists. Let me ask you a question, to help you realize this: you describe this as moral realism, but where exactly do you differ from an emotivist? They'd be more than happy to jump at your 'naturalism', but they would dispense with the idea that those statements of psychology are anything but that, that they have no value inherent to them, because there is no objective value. How is that in any way less meaningful? What discovery is 'lost' because that inquiry has been shut down?

# ¿ May 27, 2016 02:09

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

'Combustion' is a short hand for a set of relations between particles which are assumed to exist, such that you can point to an objecting burning, say 'this is undergoing combustion', or equally describe the process of combustion in full. It is therefore a valid object property. Perform the same maneuver with value relations. Or, reduce some example value statement, to purely a set of physical facts, since you claim this is somehow possible. I guarantee you will not succeed.

Edit: Your account of emotivism is also wrong, because you're assuming every moral statement in an emotive system has an emotional reaction only as its basis. Empirical claims can inform normative claims, so moral disagreement is possible - it simply only makes sense between two persons who share the same basic emotional reactions. Between two person's whose fundamental emotional reactions are different, there is still a moral disagreement, in that the moralities are conflicting, it is just an irreconcilable difference.

Again, I will ask you: what is meaningful lost with this approach, when compared to yours? What advantage is conferred?

rudatron fucked around with this message at 06:30 on May 27, 2016

# ¿ May 27, 2016 06:13

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Juffo-Wup posted:

I think what you're trying is impossible for the same reason I don't think God exists: lots of people have tried to do prove it, failed, and there's no substantial reason to actually believe it. Being open minded is one thing, saying that someone who doesn't believe you and is skeptical is being prejudiced is another. You claim this reduction is possible, but have not performed it. Do you have an existence proof? I doubt it. All you're really being doing is stating your position (that this reduction is possible), over and over again, without providing justification. The closest you came was here:

Juffo-Wup posted:

To spell it out:
+ The normative fact is: Lonnie ought to drink clear liquids.
+ The meaning of the normative fact: If Lonnie had more relevant knowledge about his condition and so on, he would desire to drink clear liquids.

Which is incredibly dodgy, because 1 and 2 are not equivalent statements. The correct decomposition of the first phrase is into two statements, 'Lenny drinking more liquids would prolong his life' and the normative statement 'Lenny ought to live'. The first is a descriptive statement, the second is a normative statement, they come together to produce the original normative statement. Conceivably, some moral system could have a special emotional response that requires Lenny die, and thus any action that prolongs Lenny's life is automatically immoral. Can you prove that the second moral system is actually immoral, from pure physical facts? No, I don't think you can.

So, we have an assumption on your part, that this is possible, without proof, and we have a counter assumption, that it is not possible. You then claim that an advantage of moral realism is that 'bivalence'. This is wrong, emotivism is more than capable of dealing with bivalence, and therefore use standard predicate logic - simply map 'truth' -> positive response from yourself and 'false' -> negative response from yourself. Predicate logic will work just fine with this set up. Contradictions in that logic, then, are informative, they're just not contradictions of truth, but of emotional reactions.

So, therefore, there's no advantage in being a moral realist. It's the more complex assumption, because it makes a superfluous assumption (that this decomposition is possible, without evidence for it), so it is therefore the worse system.

# ¿ May 28, 2016 04:59

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

I've been lucky enough to never have been in such a situation, but I can't imagine many people are in such a situation all that often. If you're in anything but a leadership role, you already know exactly what's expected of you - it's more an issue of either being forced to do something you think would be unethical (the actual morality of the situation wouldn't be in doubt), or you're doing something you know is wrong but have some other interest in mind. The actual dilemma you're looking for, of having to choose between two options of unknown morality, would be quite rare.

# ¿ May 28, 2016 05:33

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

You don't get to redefine terms referring to different things, such that they refer to the same thing. You can't redefine up as down, or left as right, because that's nonsense. If they are the same, show that they are the same. If you cannot, accept that you cannot. Your entire argument is nothing but you restating, in different language, "I am a moral realist". Yes, we know, but why? You say this decomposition is possible. Yes, we know you say that, but why? There, you are silent.

Imagine I said that that I was going to prove the P=NP, and then used the same tactic you did: "I've stipulatively redefining the set P as equal to NP". Uh, okay.

Do you think what you're doing constitutes a defense of Railton's idea? Because frankly it's not.

# ¿ May 28, 2016 15:24

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Juffo-Wup posted:

Even if you'd succeeded in performing a total account of when 'good' is uttered and when 'bad' is uttered, that would not lead to the creation of an consistent morality.

Suppose anti-earth exists, there up is down, bad is good. Or rather, what we consider good, they consider bad, and vice versa. If you'd succeeded in having a total account of when 'good' is uttered on earth, it would be cancelled by the anti-earth. Therefore, you would have no basis for calling anything good or bad, by your own logic, unless you can exclude earth or anti-earth. What reasonable basis would you have to do so? None. "But anti-earth doesn't exist" Ah, but different cultures do exist on earth, and perhaps aliens may exist with a different morality again. And, more importantly, the fact that anti-earth doesn't exist isn't excluded by the physical nature of reality. There is no law of physics that prevents anti-earth, merely circumstantial happenstance. You'll be basing your morality off the results of the roll-of-the-dice that is the earth & humanity we know, and not some other kind of life on some other planet.
Even if you can solve the above, you still have no junction over the crevasse that is "this must be the good, because I said so". You still require a basis for declaring your morality objective, a basis you have not provided. You cannot declare it by fiat. Stipulative definitions are useful as a starting point, for a different kind of discussion, they cannot be used in the way you're using them.

Moral discourse not being truth-apt is the entire point about moral realism being wrong, so again, all you're stating is a very verbose form of "I am a moral realist, and you if you disagree, you are not". Yes, we know.

Juffo-Wup posted:

Another point: when the discussion was at the level of moral realism vs emotivism, you were right that the burden of proof lay on me to give a positive account. But now you're claiming that I'm wrong about what 'good' etc. mean. This isn't a difference between a positive and a negative claim, this is two distinct claims about the nature of reference. If you are sure that you know the referents of value terms, then you ought to have a positive account that establishes that claim.

Wrong, for the same reason atheism is still the right choice absent disproof of god: parsimony. Moral realism is a superfluous assumption.

rudatron fucked around with this message at 16:23 on May 28, 2016

# ¿ May 28, 2016 16:17

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Conversely, the claim that they are or can be specific would also be an a priori claim, that you are magicking out of thin air. More importantly, you haven't answered my question: on what basis are you excluded what you decide to exclude? Because it's inconvenient for you? That's not reasonable, that's the height of unreasonability. Moreover, if your 'objective' morality is now contingent, there is no 'invariant factor' to it, then doesn't that totally undermine it's utility you were describing before, about contradictions?

# ¿ May 28, 2016 16:33

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

But why stop at 'human'? If you're now retreating to that category, because of inconsistency, what reason do you not have to go right back to each individual person? In which case, you've turned your objective morality back into a subjective one. Go you!

# ¿ May 28, 2016 16:43

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

You're missing the point: the boundary you're throwing up is totally arbitrary. What if all humans & zogberts have X in common, zogberts and plerfaloids have Y in common, and humans and plerfaloids have Z in common. What referent do you take as value?

Or, if you just want to be anthrocentric or whatever, take this point: what you consider as the 'appropriate boundary' will determine what you referent is. What you, a priori decide, what is an inconsistency and what is merely a difference of opinion on the same fundamental moral value, will have implicitly declared by fiat that that is what value is. All the empirical legwork is then nothing but a way for you to disguise this initial choice, this initial assumption of yours, behind a lot of bullshit. Your assumption that there isn't an inconsistency among people is effectively you adopting an emotivist morality, without you actually realizing it - you're simply choosing the boundary that 'feels good' to you.

# ¿ May 28, 2016 16:58

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Juffo-Wup posted:

To the first paragraph: yes that would certainly be strange if that were the case. But normative facts are not the only ones that admit of that possibility: imagine we meet the zogberts and discover that they refer to the set of phenomena we call tornadoes using two non-interchangeable terms each of which also refer to things that don't count as tornadoes. It would be strange to conclude as a result of this encounter that tornadoes aren't real.

To the second paragraph, I want to make clear that I am not simply polling people for their answers to moral questions; I am trying to discover what people would want for themselves if they had all the relevant knowledge about themselves and their situation. This leaves open the possibility that there is a unified account of what people actually value even if, due to incomplete knowledge, they disagree on what is the right thing to do in any given situation.

An aside: you put a few phrases in single quotes; was it your intention to attribute those words to me, as a paraphrase or something?

I'm not totally sure, but I think I'm with you. So how do we get from there to the conclusion that people can't be mistaken about normative matters?

(Also, I think I wouldn't say that the universe is 'governed by' laws of nature, so much as 'explained by' them. I don't think anything that is at issue here hangs on this distinction though.)

You're missing the point. Before, you limited your quest to humans, just to escape an inconvenient situation I threw up: why? Because it was inconvenient for you? If you're just going to keep moving around your definitions when an objection gets thrown up, you're being dishonest. Whether you take a poll, or you use neuroscience or whatever, doesn't have an impact on my objection one iota, which I'm starting to think you do not understand.

Let me repeat: the boundary you set up, will determine, before you have even started your search (using whatever methods you want, polling, brain scans - doesn't matter one poo poo), what you find to be in common. If you take two people who are very similar, you will find a different thing in common than if you take all of humanity, and you will find a different thing in common if you take all life in the universe (in fact you'll find nothing in common, if you include all possibilities). Unless you can provide a logical, first principles, reason to limit your boundaries to some set (you can't), you have no justifiable reason to do what you're doing - your quest to find what is truly value, will simply be a reflection of what groupings you feel (not think) to be viable. Your 'discovery' of value is simply you stipulating what value ought to be, to yourself, without knowing it, through an overly convoluted means.

This isn't a minor point: you said such normative values could be reduced, without remainder, into physical facts. Your strange obsession with tornadoes aside, different terminology does not change that they are both, in the case of tornado, referring to the same, underlying physical facts. The point I'm putting up, is that what those fundamental facts will be that determine what 'value' is, is going to be whole determined by whatever boundary you throw up.

rudatron fucked around with this message at 03:36 on May 29, 2016

# ¿ May 29, 2016 03:30

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Oh dear clone posted:

OK, my jaw is on the floor. I make conscious decisions over ethical dilemmas all the time. Should I really take time to answer these posts, or would it be better and kinder to do the washing up, or would it be better to insist my niece does it instead of shirking again? for example.

(This post kept short because my answer to the first part was doubtful.)

I don't have many ethical dilemmas in my life, I can't even think of one that occurred in the past year. By 'dilemma', I mean a situation where I thought the ethicality of an action was unsure or unknown. Maybe I don't have that exciting a life! In every situation, I've had a pretty strong idea of what the right choice was.

# ¿ May 29, 2016 03:40

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Juffo-Wup posted:

I'm interested in determining if there is any sense to be made of a particular discourse. I think there is. And as it turns out, humans are the only participants in that discourse. They are also overwhelmingly the subjects of it.

So what? You're claiming that this discourse can be reduced without remainder into physical facts. What law of physics means that human beings must exist? There is none, it is a fluke of nature. If your objective morality is the result of nothing more than random chance, it cannot be consistent, and it cannot be truth.

# ¿ May 29, 2016 03:50

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

'California', 'Capital' and 'City' are not concepts reducible to physical facts, it is a fiction we all agree to because it's convenient to do so. Same with language, there is nothing tornado-ey about the word 'tornado'. That is, they are subjective impositions.

I also can't help but notice you're ignoring the boundary determination objection totally.

# ¿ May 29, 2016 04:18

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Your 'expression of interest' on discovery what is morality is itself a normative claim. That what does exist ought to exist. You are making that choice, without justification, and by making that choice, you declare by fiat what ought to be. You have not discharged the normative language, you've hidden it. That's the substance of the boundary determination problem.

Your response to that has been to simply restate your position, over and over again. "Well zogberts don't exist" And? Do you not acknowledge that you are making that choice that that is where the boundary should be?

# ¿ May 29, 2016 04:36

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

And yes, 'Capital', 'City' and 'California' cannot be reduced down to physical facts, without remainder, as some point you will have to declare an arbitrary boundary on what is a city, what is a 'capital' (what is a state for that matter) and where exactly 'California' is. By making that choice, you determine what is being referred to - own up to that choice. It's the same with morality.

# ¿ May 29, 2016 04:40

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

I find it almost impossible to believe that this is a majority philosophical position, because it's totally ignoring post modernism. I'm not a post-modernist, but you have to be able to give an effective reply to that kind of attack, and it simply cannot.

But it's over now, so that doesn't matter. Going back:

Lichy posted:

From the standpoint of political science you could argue that morality in a given society stems from that societies institutions and allows these instructions to operate and propagate efficiently. The institutions themselves arise by selective pressure in a given set of circumstances.

The fact that marriage persists as an institution in incredibly secularised countries serves as an example to demonstrate that it is possible to uncouple a given institution from its justification in theory ("marriage is a holy Union approved by God") but still have that institution enforce morality that maintains itself.

The opposite view would be that people kept getting married because they found utility in it, had it not been useful anymore it would be gone. That, and the nature of marriage has definitely changed since society has changed - marriages are no longer seen as tools of economic security (or political security, in the case of aristocratic marriage), but self-expression and part of the search for 'true love'.

So the question is, which would be the first cause, if there is one?

rudatron fucked around with this message at 06:31 on May 29, 2016

# ¿ May 29, 2016 05:46

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

The line of attack I used, that in searching for a truth 'out there' you'll only find what you want to find, is a fairly standard post-modernist tack against enlightenment values, or against anything with a meta-narrative.

# ¿ May 30, 2016 04:41

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 01:11

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

I take it to you're not a fan, but as a criticism it has legs. If you can't reply effectively, you're dead in the water. I don't think any moral realism is capable of doing so, whatever the motivation behind that realism might be. So you forced to take moral relativism as your starting point, but what exactly that means depends on what you wanted out of the project of searching for morality in the first place.

# ¿ May 30, 2016 12:33

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