No, the child cannot consent to being tortured for society's sake; but I see your point and will have to think about it: if, let's say, it was an adult then they would have implicitly consented to potentially being 'drafted' to be the one tortured. That's a fair critique.

But “Vanilla ice cream tastes good,” is nothing like, “One ought not torture babies.” Only from the latter can we infer something about what is permissible, omissible, or obligatory

That’s true, but that wasn’t the point. It was to demonstrate why your analogy to math failed.

A belief never makes a moral judgment true

Why? Doesn’t me believing vanilla ice cream tastes good make it true that my stance is that ice cream tastes good?

“Jane believes ice cream tastes good,” is a third-person proposition, and what you say of it is obviously false. A first-person statement like, “I feel pain,” is infallible, but belief statements are not like this. To say, “I believe I feel pain,” is therefore already confused, and is therefore an unused sort of locution. The same holds with, “I enjoy ice cream”/“I believe I enjoy ice cream.” Infallible statements are usually not belief statements, and to make them so is to stretch the sense of 'belief'. But again, these are non-moral according to your definition in the OP.

All reasoning for why a proposition is true is fallible; so I am not sure what you mean here. Third-person vs. first-person sentences has nothing to do with the fallibility of the statements or lack thereof. I can believe that “I love yogurt” and be wrong about that, same as I can believe that I believe I love yogurt and be wrong about that too: they are not infallible statements.

If I said, “Leontiskos believes everyone has brown hair,” this would be a false statement, and particularly problematic insofar as I know that not everyone has brown hair

You would be wrong about that if you actually don’t believe it; and of course whether or not people have brown hair is independent of your belief on it because there is a fact of the matter that makes it true...this isn’t the case with morality.

Saying that it is “true relative to myself” is a non-response.

The statement “I love yogurt” can be true relative to me and false relative to you, because we need to know who we are referring to by ‘I’.

If I disapprove of something for myself, it does not follow that I disapprove of it in others.

This is a straw man: if you disapprove it for everyone, then you disapprove it for everyone. Obviously, if you only disapprove of yourself doing something, then, of course, you don’t necessarily disapprove of it for other people.

Look, do you yourself even think personal/subjective reasons are able to justify claims about other persons?

What do you mean by “personal/subjective reasons”? I would say that some propositions are made true in virtue of beliefs we have—e.g., “I believe people shouldn’t torture babies”, “I like chocolate ice cream”, etc.

The reason it is irrational to say that someone should eat chocolate ice cream on the basis of my own idiosyncratic taste is because the putative reason does not have justificatory force for the sort of claim in question

You are just begging the question with “justificatory force”: sure, I don’t approve of forcing someone to eat chocolate ice cream, but if I did then I wouldn’t have a problem with—hence approval/disapproval.

Your deeper claim seems to be, "Yes, it is irrational. But your moral realism is irrational too, so I am justified in doing this." But even if moral realism were irrational, this would not justify you in doing irrational things.

Again, show me the contradiction or incoherent with two propositions I am holding with moral subjectivism, and I will concede it is irrational. Until then, I don’t think it is.

You seem to be like another gentleman/lady I was discussing with that thought that pyshopathic serial killers cannot act rationally with respect to their torturing and killing of innocent people because their actions are immoral and that makes it irrational. I am not saying you think that, but saying people who are consistent with their goals are irrational (which is what you are saying) are irrational seems similar to me.

I would say that a draft is ethical under at least my original deontological theory because people implicitly consent to it via social contract. If a person is living completely sans a society and some random society tries to abduct them and draft them into their military, then that would be wrong. However, one is not using them as a means to an end in the sense that it is meant as a violation of a person because their participation in society is consent to defend it if need be. It also depends on why the draft is happening as well: is the society just going to war for the fun of it? Or is that society being attacked?

Ok, let’s move on and have some fun! (:

For starters, I disagree with 2, 4, 8, and 12. Let me briefly elaborate one-by-one, and I will let you decided where you would like us to go.

2. If something 'should' be, there is a reason for it.

Three things:

1. If someone claims that ‘there should be <...>’ and that it is just an upshot of their emotions, then they have no reason for it. What is incoherent with that under your view?

2. The chain of reasons has to stop somewhere, so the very foundational reason will have no reason; and that foundational reason may very well be a claim like ‘because there should be <...>’. In fact, this gets your point 12 in a lot of trouble:

3. This seems incoherent with point 12. You say, on one hand, that every claim of ‘something should be’ has a reason underpinning and then claim in 12 that ‘existing should be’ is valid yet has not reason underpinning it: “Existence is, and has no prior reason for being besides the fact that it is. As such, it is the foundational good. It is the prime reason behind all questions of what should be.”--but ‘existing should be’ is the foundational claim of your theory, and it has no reason for it because allegedly existence doesn’t have a prior reason for it.

4. All chain of reasoning reduces down to the final question, "Should existence be, or not"?

I don’t see why this is the case. Moral realists can just have to ground the normative claim in a moral fact. For example, I could say that ‘I should not eat children’ is true because there is a Platonic Form that dictates such and that would be the end of the chain of reasoning. I don’t need to further ask “why exist?” to ground why “I should not eat children” if it is made true by a moral fact. This is unnecessary.

Also, likewise, my example here isn’t about personal opinion and it doesn’t reduce down to “should existence be, or not?”.

I need briefly pause:

We're asking why it should be beyond our own opinions. We're looking for the calculus of the universe.

This is exactly the problem with assuming moral realism without explaining it: what calculus of the universe determines what is morally right or wrong? You seem to think it is “to be or not to be, that is the question”...but what makes this a calculus of the universe and not just a human existential question? The way gravity behaves is clearly rules or laws in the universe, but asking “to be or not to be?” does not seem (by my lights) to have an analogous correlate.

8. There can be no reason to explain why nothing should be, as there is 'no reason' if there is nothing.

This is a non-sequitur: the reason can exist and be true that nothing should exist. The fact that the reason must exist has nothing to do with whether or not that reason is valid such that nothing should exist.

12. Existence is, and has no prior reason for being besides the fact that it is. As such, it is the foundational good. It is the prime reason behind all questions of what should be. It is the prime reason upon which all other moral questions are built upon.

Besides being incoherent with point 2 and that it seems to presuppose a similar non-sequitur like point 8, it having no reason for why it is has nothing to do with whether it is good. That also seems like a non-sequitur.

My apologies! I reskimmed and missed it. Your argument is dense, so I did not retain it after I had finished reading your OP the first time. That's on me. :)

Absolutely no worries! I do the same thing all the time!

If all statements are subjective, why not just say "statement"? "Subjective statement" is redundant at that point as there is no contrast. The term subjective is only uniquely useful in contrast with an "objective statement".

I think you are thinking that the term ‘subjective’ only has any meaning in relation to a statement itself, which I don’t agree with. Of course, a ‘subjective statement’ is redundant, but a ‘statement that expresses something subjective’ is not.

Subjectivity is useful insofar as it is contrasted with objectivity, which statements are categorized under the former. Statements are always contingent on the stance and mind of a subject...unless your are a platonist (;

If you eliminate the vocabulary of objective statement, then you may as well eliminate the term "subjective statement" as well.

I never used the term ‘subjective statement’: I would just say ‘statement’. I am not sure what the contention is here. Moral subjectivism has three prongs to its thesis, and prong 2 is that moral judgments express something subjective: this is not redundant.

There is still the question of making a statement in regards to utilizing only your personal viewpoint, or making a statement that can be logically agreed upon by all potential viewpoints.

I would say there is no such thing as analyzing a statement completely sans one’s viewpoint. A statement is generated by one’s viewpoint; and the use of logic doesn’t make the statement objective: the statement can express something which is objective, such as the use of logic.

‘trueness’ is the property ascribed to statements of which what they allege of (refer to about) reality correspond/agree with reality with respect to that specific regard — Bob Ross

What you've done here is make trueness subjective.

Not at all. The statement is subjective, and it’s correspondence is what it true; and that truth is not dependent on the statement.

But to say that it is neither objective nor subjective is false. To be mind independent is to be free of any mind. To be mind dependent is to have at least an iota of mind in there. :) It is still mind dependent, as without a mind, you cannot make a true statement.

This is by-at-large a fair critique. I would say that the correspondence of thought and reality is itself objective because that relationship exists mind-independently. My original reasoning was that truth being the correspondence of thought with reality would make it dependent on thought and reality and therefore it is neither subjective nor objective but, rather, a mixture of both. However, I recognize that the actual relationship (which is truth) of thought and reality such that they correspond exists mind-independently. So truth is objective and absolute. Good point Philosophim!

This is again the problem of 'everything is now subjective' and it devalues any meaning to the term.

I was just saying that statement are subjective, not that everything is now subjective. The statement can be expressing something objective, and there are things that are objective which are never uttered in a statement.

If the intention is, "What ought to be is despite what is", I agree. This assumes that what is could be something different, which is a core consideration of a moral statement.

The idea is that normativity and objectivity are exclusive categories. It doesn’t matter what is the case nor what potentially could be the case nor what would be the case but, rather, only what should be the case.

You cannot come to know something objective according to your terminology. Objectivity is mind independent. Meaning that its existence is what is without any mind ever attempting to correspond to it.

I disagree. We come to know what is objective through reasoning and observance. We intuit that there is stuff which exists without us trying to think about them and that is what is objective.

Once any attempt at correspondence is made, it is now subjective, or mind dependent

No. The claim or statement is trying to express something objective. Of course, we only approach the limit of what objectively is out there; but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist nor that we don’t have good reasons to believe it does. It is uncontroversial that we are subjects and everything we directly know is mind-dependent because that is the filter by which we come to know the objective things—this doesn’t mean that those objective things aren’t there.

"An object exists independently and we can come to know that object truthfully".

This just begs the question by invoking “truthfully”; as truth is the correspondence of thought (subjectivity) with reality (objectivity).

Likewise, a ‘fact’ is a ‘statement which is true’ or, more precisely, ‘a statement which is truth-apt (i.e., a proposition) which corresponds appropriately with reality’. — Bob Ross

Therefore, we can refine P2 to mean:
Moral facts are judgements that a particular state of reality is preferable over another possible state of reality, and that these judgements are true.

Moral facticity is not just what you described there. If a fact is a statement that corresponds to reality such that what it purports thereof is and ‘moral’ language signifies ‘what is permissible, omissible, or obligatory’, then a moral fact is a statement which accurately purports a state-of-affairs about reality that in virtue of which makes the moral judgment true (and thusly a fact). This means that there are states-of-affairs, if there are moral facts, that do inform us how reality ought to be, which violates P1.

As is, P2 is merely a definition without an assertion of its truth or falsity.

P2 is a description of what a ‘moral fact’ is based off of my correspondence theory of truth and my analysis of what ‘moral’ language signifies. To disagree with it is to disagree with one or both of those theories which are prerequisites to my metaethical theory. We can certainly discuss those if you would like!

If I had to guess what you were originally going for, I think you were neglecting potential states as part of the moral consideration and simply noting that reality at any time/state could not indicate what it should be in the next state

A potential state of reality in the sense of what could possibly happen due to the current state does not inform us of what ought to be either. You could tell me “this ball will probably hit this other ball” and I would not know from that claim anything normative, although I would know something about the next potential state of reality.

Likewise, you telling me “well, this could happen and if combine with what is happening then this should happen” and I don’t think that is valid: I cannot infer from something possibly happening nor what is happening what ought to happen.

But perhaps the above is irrelevant if we look at your next argument.
1. Moral judgments are propositional [moral cognitivism]; and
2. Moral judgments express something subjective [moral non-objectivism]; and
3. There is at least one true moral judgment [moral non-nihilism]. — Bob Ross

Just for clarification, this is not an argument I gave—it is a thesis. The arguments for those three prongs of the thesis are different and after this portion of the OP.

Lets translate this into simpler terms:
1. Moral judgements are made by subjects (minds)
2. Moral judgements are expressions of subjects.
3. At least one moral judgement corresponds with reality.

#1 here is not a summary of prong-1 (of the thesis). Prong-1 is moral cognitivism, which is the view that moral judgments are truth-apt statements (i.e., propositions) and not that moral judgments are made by subjects.

#2 is also false. Moral judgments expressing something subjective is not the same thing as judgments being expressions of subjects. Again, this is a conflation between statements and judgments being subjective and whether or not they express something objective/subjective.

#3 True! (:

The problem is this isn't anything meaningful. I can replace "moral judgements" with the word statements, and statements meaning "Any thought, word, belief, or expression".

Each prong is meaningful because it takes a stance on each relevance metaethical dilemma:

1. Are moral judgments propositional? i.e., are they truth-apt? Moral non-cognitivists, like emotivists, will say no...they are conative aspects of our psychology.

2. Are moral judgments expressing something objective? i.e., if there are true moral judgments, then are they true because they correspond to a mind-dependent or mind-independent state-of-affairs?

3. Is there at least one true moral judgment? i.e., do any moral judgments we make, even if they express something objective or subjective, actually correspond to a state-of-affairs in reality? Moral nihilists say no. They say that, yes, moral judgments express something objective but none of them are true.

Of course, we haven't actually proved number 3 with our setup.

Again, my thesis isn’t an argument. The arguments for each prong are titles with that prong number and the name that was in brackets.

As we can see, all this argument notes is that we can think say or do things, and maybe they correspond with reality. This indicates nothing that should be done.

It indicates what moral properties subsist in or of and what their nature is. Of course it doesn’t indicate what should be done, because it isn’t a normative ethical theory. That’s what I was trying to convey in the other thread! Metaethical theories should not be conflated with normative theories!

It does not indicate any criteria as to what defines morality

Depends on what you mean. It certainly answers what the nature of morality is and what moral properties subsist in or of and answers various metatethical concerns underpinning normative ethics.

Is what "should" be done central to the individual, or is there something universal we can all agree on with logic?
…
Is there a logic that we must all rationally agree upon which leads to a morality everyone can logically ascertain?

This is a false dilemma. Logic is just the form of an argument, and the logic involved in any substantive and sophisticated metaethical theory is going to be sound. Something being logically consistent does not make it something one should believe.

I agree, for example, that the logic is sound with moral non-naturalism; but that doesn’t make the theory true.

1. Moral cognitivism is the idea that there are true moral judgments.
…
But, you then attempt to prove that there is at least one moral judgement that is true. And if that is the case we can replace point 3 with that true statement and the argument will work.

No. Moral cognitivism is that moral judgments are statements that are truth-apt. Whether or not any of them are true needs a different argument because it is a different claim.

1. Moral cognitivism is the idea that there are true moral judgments
2. Assume moral cognitivism is false, that there are no moral judgements which are true.
3. I have the moral statement: "When I am drunk, I shouldn't drive and instead call a taxi."
4. Holding to point 2, this moral judgement is not true.
5. But point 3 is true.
C: Therefore moral cognitivism is true.

The problem is point 5 has not been proven to be true

That’s fine, the point was to provide a basic syllogism that gives an argument for why one would be a moral cognitivism. At the end of the day, this is going to boil down to intuitions. It seems to be very clear that P2 is true, but of course you could deny that. It seems perfectly logically valid: I see nothing wrong with it with respect to its logical form; but if moral cognitivism is true then there has to be something wrong with its logical form because it is non-propositional.

But if there are no true moral judgements, then we don't have to consider that there is anything morally permissible. There is nothing to permit or deny. Meaning my objection still holds.

I think you are trying to step outside of morality, but I say that action implicitly concedes that morality exists. You cannot go and eat a sandwich without implicitly, in action, conceding it is morally permissible to do. You can say “morality doesn’t exist”, but your actions do not match your words.

Alright, a rather long one from me! I'm still off for the holidays so I have time on my hands. I'm enjoying the exploration Bob, keep at it!

As always, great points! I always enjoy our conversations!

Bob

Bob, this has nothing to do with the argument. I'm not conflating anything. When the author is not using vocabulary that you then introduce, then you say the author is not meeting the standards of that vocabulary you have introduced, you are committing a straw man fallacy. I am not using metaethical or normative claims in the argument.

With all due respect, you are though! It doesn’t matter what terms you call them. At the end of the day you are claiming that “morality is objective” without providing any justification for it; or the justification you have given doesn’t prove it is objective, because it has nothing to do with that metaethical claim.

For the clarity of the conversation, lets us also understand 'subjective' in the normative view, not your own interpretation. Meaning a subjective moralist would be one who believes that what is moral is based on one's personal benefit, or even collective subjective culture

My biggest quibble here is just that you are claiming, on one end, to not be making metaethical claims and then, on the other, making metaethical claims in the next breath. When I point out how you haven’t provide any basis for those metaethical claims, you say I am straw-manning your position because you don’t use the term ‘metaethical’.

The meaning of subjective is absolutely not used in the sense of ‘one who believes that what is moral is based on one’s personal benefit, or even collective subjective culture’: this is a clear misapprehension of the literature. The claim that morality is ‘subjective’ is a metaethical claim, and your definition of was a normative claim: again, conflating them. A person who believes that what is moral is based on one’s personal benefit is a moral egoist—which may or may not be grounded in a moral subjectivist view or not. Likewise, a person who believes that what is moral is based on societies benefit is not necessarily a moral subjectivist, that could be also a moral realist or a different anti-realist theory.

"Does objective morality exist?" If you say no, then of course we're left with either subjective morality or existential nihilism.

Again, you say I am straw-manning you, and then explicitly invoke the central metaethical prong (#2) that I referenced before. You are assuming moral realism is true without giving any justification for it.

Also, moral anti-realism does not leave us with either moral subjectivism or moral nihilism: there’s also moral non-cognitivism.

The argument is not proving that objective morality exists. Its simply proving that all moral questions boil down to this binary, and proving what objective morality must be if it does exist

What’s the proof for the underlined portion? That’s a metaethical claim.

To enter the discussion, you do not have to agree that objective morality exists, you simply have to assume it does. If it does, what logically would it be, and how would it build? So going forward in this discussion, simply assume objective morality exists. We really can't continue to discuss until that happens. Don't worry, it doesn't mean you agree with it personally, we're just exploring the logical consequences if this is the case.

I am more than happy to grant that your view demonstrates the three prongs of the moral realist thesis and seeing where that goes. Let’s just move on, because I don’t think we are making any headway in the metaethical sphere here.

My argument is that within a binary argument in which one option must be false while the other is true, proving one option as false necessarily makes the other true. If an objective morality exists, then this is the binary we are left with.

That’s fine, and this goes back to my syllogism:

P1: Either ‘something should be’ or ‘nothing should be’ is true, but not both.
P2: ‘nothing should be’ is false.
C: TF, ‘something should be’.

What is your syllogistic argument for P2?

My point here is not to argue that there is an objective morality or argue against a subjective morality. Its taking an objective morality as assumed, then logically piecing together what that would be if true. Go with that and I think we'll have some fun exploring this Bob.

I am more than happy to just grant moral realism for the sake of the conversation, but this seems backwards to me. If you haven’t even attempted to justify moral realism then it makes no sense to me why your position would move on to normative ethics. Why assume moral realism is true? Or are you just saying I should for the sake of the conversation?

It is a choice between moral nihilism and moral objectivity.

Again, forgive me, but I have to stress this point: you are making a metaethical claim here and then saying that you aren’t; and this is just a plain misrepresentation of the literature in metaethics. The options are not ‘moral objectivity’ or ‘moral nihilism’. You haven’t even, as of yet, recognized moral non-cogntivism as a valid position within moral anti-realist positions.

I believe that subjective morality also descends into moral nihilism, but lets not have that discussion here. I think we're having that discussion in another of your threads.

Fair enough. I do think, though, that it counts against your theory that it does not at least cite what moral realist account it is making. I have no problem with assuming it for the sake of normative ethics.

If we need to revisit at some point whether we need to see if a subjective morality can exist as a viable alternative, I will gladly revisit it. Its just out of the scope of the argument at this time and not what I really want to explore at this time.

Fair enough, but I just would like to note that moral subjectivism is not a contender or a normative ethical theory. Every argument you have given is can be made compatible with moral subjectivism just as much as moral naturalism/non-naturalism and moral non-cognitivism. My moral subjectivism thread does not offer a normative ethical theory: it is strictly laying out a metaethical theory.

Anyways, to move forward, I will ask: what is your argument for P2? Or is that argument I gave not what you were getting at with your depiction of it as 'binary'?

Sorry, I didn’t get a notification of this response!

After reading I think this all comes down to the terms subjective and objective. Now that I've seen your definition, its necessary they be included in your 'pre-requisites' section

This is already in the OP under ‘Brief Exposition of a Correspondence Theory of Truth’, which, I would say, is where it should be:

‘Objectivity’ is ‘that which exists mind(stance)-independently’ and ‘subjectivity’ is the negation of objectivity.

The only quibble I have with myself is technically I need to change ‘subjectivity’ to ‘that which exists mind(stance)-dependently’ and not a negation of objectivity, because I consider certain things emergent from both which are certainly not just one or the other. So I will modify that part.

If you do not define them specifically, then people are going to assume they are the traditional definitions of subjective and objective. The argument won't go anywhere because they'll think you mean the normative terms, not your revisions.
…
As is, your statements about subjective and objective veer wildly from their original intent.

I think you are assuming that Wiki is the standard of how people use the terms—I don’t. People in colloquial speech use those terms very ambiguously and inconsistently. In metaethics, I don’t think my definitions are very controversial granted a correspondence theory of truth.

Can you clarify what the (stance) means as well?

A stance is a disposition, attitude, belief, preference, etc. that a subject has formulated.

Even further, this begs the question that your definition of subjective and objective are true. Why do we need to redefine these terms?

Honestly, I don’t think I am redefining them outside of the norm in metaethics, and I do not grant that people use them in any precise manner at all in colloquial speech. However, I am not all that interested in derailing into semantics, so if someone, at the end of the day, affirms my moral subjectivism while stipulating that I use the term ‘subjective’ weird, then I am fine with that.

This would be a widely misinterpreted argument to give to others if you've deviated strongly from the terms' original meaning without very carefully clarifying what you mean.

The misinterpretation lies in the ambiguity and inconsistency of their deployments in colloquial speech: my definitions are highly refined (or at least so I think (; ).

An object can make no objective or subjective judgements. Only a subject can. The reason we have the terms objective and subjective are to give meaning to the judgements a subject makes.

You are saying the same thing I am saying, but less refined. I say there is no such thing as an objective statement because all statements are subjective, you are merely predicating that subjective statement with ‘objective’ if it is true in virtue of corresponding to some mind-independently existing state-of-affairs.

The reason we have the terms objective and subjective are to give meaning to the judgements a subject makes

Correct. But the judgment is not objective, which is what it would technically mean when you say “there are objective judgments”. What I think you are actually conveying is that judgments are subjective and they can either express something objective or subjective themselves; and this is perfectly compatible and precisely conveyed with my terminology.

When you state the term objective means "that which is mind independent", what is 'that'? Is it existence?

A state-of-affairs in reality to be specific, which are ‘arrangements’ of existent entities: I do not tie ‘state-of-affair’ to temporal or spatial relations only. I can also modify that in the OP as well.

I see your line of thinking, but I think we could justify going to war under deontology which would preclude any justification for torturing a child to save us all.

Just as an example, a deontologist that believes that one does not have the duty to uphold the rights of a person who is engaged in the violation of other peoples' rights, which is usually called a principle of forfeiture, will have no problem going to war with people that have forfeited those rights. However, that innocent child has not done anything warranting forfeiture of their rights, and we would actually be the one forfeiting our rights by violating the child's.

This is the danger I see with consequentialism, is it gets people sucked into the view that 'the greater good is best' and blurs the lines of what a 'right' even is anymore and whether we actually have any.

I genuinely have no clue what you are talking about: you are upset that I added in the question that is the essence of the OP? Both are very clear questions, and have nothing to do with justifying moral nihilism, so I don't see why you would have a problem answering them.

I appreciate your 1-13 points, although I disagree with most of them, but to focus on the most core issue I have with it I am going to write out only the relevant parts in a syllogism. You are, in its most abstract, arguing:

P1: Either ‘something should be’ or ‘nothing should be’ is true, but not both.
P2: ‘nothing should be’ is false.
C: TF, ‘something should be’.

Why P2 and P1 are true is irrelevant to my point, as I can grant those: this argument has no metaethical claims in it. I am almost certain now that you are conflating normative judgments with metaethical judgments.

You provide an argument, that I am granting each premise as true, for why ‘something should be’ which is a normative claim and then tacking on without justification that metaethically this claim is a moral fact. To demonstrate this clearly, I can accept the argument shown above and that moral subjectivism is true because it is a metaethical thesis and has nothing to do with normative ethics.

I would say, if I accepted this as a moral subjectivist, that the shorthand ‘something should be’ and ‘nothing should be’ are both moral statements which express something subjective and when evaluated relative to myself I do believe that ‘something should be’ and do not believe ‘nothing should be’. Now, you are claiming, on top of C being true, that ‘something should be’ is or is grounded in a moral fact: what justification do you have for that claim? The reason I think you are conflating normative judgments with metaethical ones is because every time I ask this question you give the above argument (more or less) which is a normative argument.

I don’t agree with most of your 13 points, but for now I would like to stay focused on the above because the other disputes don’t matter if we can’t make headway on the above. So, I am going to skip over the parts of your responses, for now, that don’t address this central issue for the sake of brevity and to keep up on track. Then, we can move on to the other stuff.

It is not subjective because it is necessary to avoid a contradiction in the question of morality, and necessary for morality to exist.

This is a metaethical claim, and what justification or argument do you have for it? Avoiding contradictions, as a normative judgment, is not necessarily a judgment that expresses something objective. For example, by contrast to my view, I accept that ‘one ought to abide by the law of noncontradiction’ but I reject that that judgment is expressing something objective. So you would have to argue a case for why you think that it is expressing something objective: that is the crucial prong-2 of the moral realist’s thesis (that I reject).

Yes, the moral property is, "There should be existence"

That is not a moral property: it is a moral (normative) judgment. Moral properties include ‘goodness’, ‘rightness’, ‘wrongness’, ‘shouldness’, ‘badness’, etc. Asserting ‘there should be existence’ just indicates that it is better for something to existence than to not; and does not mention what the moral property of ‘shouldness’ or ‘betterness’ subsist in or of, which is a metaethical question. I can affirm, as a moral subjectivist, that ‘there should be existence’ and reject that that judgment expresses something objective without being incoherent. You have to provide an argument for why I should accept not ‘there should be existence’ but that that moral judgment is expressing something objective.

A. Morality exists
B. Morality does not exist

This is too vague: what do you mean by ‘morality exists’? That there is at least one true moral judgment? That moral judgments are propositional? That they express something objective?

I had concluded this long ago, and it suddenly came back to me. This is 'the choice'. Do you decide that morality exists, or not? If not, then we are done

This seems like your argument collapsed into moral non-objectivism: if the truth of a moral judgment is contingent on my choice, then it is certainly not expressing something objective. However, if you are just noting that moral nihilism is incompatible with your view; well, then, you still have to give an argument for why there is at least one true moral judgment: it is not a valid defense to say “we are [just] done”.

I look forward to your response!

Bob

Hello Bob, I'm happy to explore morality with you on multiple fronts here, as its a very deep topic and requires a lot of consideration from all possible sides.

I always enjoy our conversations and look forward to your take on my OP!

I think I need to provide some clarity on my position:

1. By ‘objective’, I mean ‘that which exists mind(stance)-independently’; and by ‘subjective’, I mean ‘exists mind(stance)-dependently’.

2. I do not think truth is objective nor subjective but, rather, absolute and emergent from both subjectivity and objectivity. Here’s my thread on that. More on this later.

3. My correspondence theory of truth, which can be summarized as ‘truth is correspondence of thought with reality’, requires both a subject and object; otherwise, one would have to concede that thoughts can originate from non-subjects and reality is not objective.

With that out of the way, let me try to adequately respond to your points.

In very simple terms, this doesn't work because you forgot the possibility of different states of reality.

I don’t think comparing potential states of affairs (of reality) helps get around P1. P1 is the claim that it doesn’t matter what is the case about reality at all when it comes to what ought to be: what ought to be is despite what is. If someone says “yes, that’s true, but potential states of affairs do relate to what ought to be”, then I think that is perfectly compatible with P1 but affords no moral facticity: (mind-independent) potential states-of-affairs cannot be what a moral statement corresponds to such that it is true because they don’t exist. If the person insists that moral facts are grounded in potential states-of-affairs, then the real premise in contention is P2, not P1.

"Something is subjective if it is dependent on a mind (biases, perception, emotions, opinions, imagination, or conscious experience).

Something is objective if it can be confirmed independent of a mind."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjectivity_and_objectivity_(philosophy)

I think these are fairly uncontroversial and straight forward definitions, so lets start here.

More or less I would agree to these terms (notwithstanding the definitions I gave above), but I would quibble with “can be confirmed” part of the definition of ‘objectivity’: that makes it sound like we can confirm things that are completely sans any subject. I would just say that objectivity is that which exists mind(stance)-independently and we come to know it subjectively because we are subjects—what tool can we use that isn’t ultimately contingent on us observing it?

Now, is truth subjective, or objective?

Neither. It is absolute; meaning that any proposition one has, it is either true or false and that proposition is not true relative to a subject.

If there is a true moral judgement, then it must be an objective moral judgement.

No. I think you are conflating a moral judgment with what it expresses. Moral judgments are always subjective, irregardless of whether one is a moral realist or anti-realist. This is because judgments are formulated by subjects—they aren’t floating out there mind-independently in reality. Prong-2 of my thesis and the thesis of moral realism is aimed at ‘what does those moral judgments express?’. Are those moral judgments true in virtue of corresponding to some mind(stance)-independent state-of-affairs in reality? Or are they true in virtue of corresponding to some mind(stance)-dependent state-of-affairs in reality (such as our psychologies)?

A moral judgment being true just means that some state-of-affairs in reality corresponds with it such that it makes the judgment true—but this could be just a fact about one’s psychology, which is just a projection of one’s own psyche: it is a stance-dependent state-of-affairs.

"If a claim is true exclusively when considering the claim from the viewpoint of a sentient being, it is subjectively true. For example, one person may consider the weather to be pleasantly warm, and another person may consider the same weather to be too hot; both views are subjective. The word subjectivity comes from subject in a philosophical sense, meaning an individual who possesses unique conscious experiences, such as perspectives, feelings, beliefs, and desires, or who (consciously) acts upon or wields power over some other entity (an object).

If a claim is true even when considering it outside the viewpoint of a sentient being (how ?), then it is labelled objectively true. Scientific objectivity is practicing science while intentionally reducing partiality, biases, or external influences. Moral objectivity is the concept of moral or ethical codes being compared to one another through a set of universal facts or a universal perspective and not through differing conflicting perspectives. Journalistic objectivity is the reporting of facts and news with minimal personal bias or in an impartial or politically neutral manner."

I would just say that something is subjective if it exists mind(stance)-dependently and objective if it exists mind(stance)-independently.

Lets examine the idea of 'subjective truth'. Person A states, "Its hot" while person B states, "Its cool". From their perspectives, this is true. But how is it true? How is it 'in correspondence with reality" if we've claimed truth is objective?

If someone claims something “is hot” and another claims that other something “is cool” then either (1) they need to be more precise with what they are claiming and they both are right (e.g., when I say “it is hot” I really mean the proposition “it feels hot to me” which certainly can be true, given truth is absolute, while another person claims it is false since ‘me’ is indexical) or (2) one of them is wrong:

Its because we've left out the implicit information within their statements.

Person A: From my subjective experience, I feel its hot.
Person B: From my subjective experience, I feel its cold.

Exactly!

Bob Ross: From my subjective viewpoint, I believe moral judgements are based on psychology, therefore all moral judgements are based on psychology.

As we can see, this is a subjective claim, and not objective.

I am not claiming that it is subjectively true that “moral judgments are the upshot of one’s psychology”, that is a true proposition and it is absolute.

Also, in the claim “I believe moral judgments are based on psychology”, the belief does not itself make it true that “moral judgments are based on psychology” so I agree that it could be true that I believe it and it is false. This is not the case with moral judgments: I believe one ought not torture babies is the cognitive attitude (or disposition) which makes it true because it is just an upshot of my psychology. For example, by analogy, “I believe chocolate ice cream is the best ice cream flavor” is true (relative to me, but absolute statement because it refers an indexical pronoun ‘I’) in virtue of me believing it (as an upshot of my pyschology) which is very different than “I believe that 1+1 = 2” since “1 + 1 = 2” is not true in virtue of my cognitive disposition.

Your own definition of truth counters this statement. Your definition of truth indicated no necessity that a person have knowledge or justification of something being true. A true moral judgement simply needs to be in correspondence with reality. The only thing you can state with your definition of truth is:

"For there to be true moral judgments, is just to say that our moral judgement corresponds to reality."

By ‘good reasons’ I was referring to our epistemic access to ‘true moral judgments’ and not referencing truth. I was saying to epistemically claim there are true moral judgments, we must have good reasons to believe that there are true moral judgments, and I don’t see anything wrong with that.

P1: If there are no true moral judgments, then one would have to ‘lie down and starve to death’. — Bob Ross

This statement is a contradiction. If there are no moral judgements, then there is nothing one has to do. Therefore one would not have to 'lie down and starve to death'.

Not quite. I was claiming that doing something entails at a minimum the concession that it is morally permissible; so if one can’t even agree that it is permissible to do X, then they can’t do X because they don’t affirm that it is permissible. I think you would have to contend with the collapse of morals into actions to say that one can do something even if they don’t find it morally permissible.

P1: If there are true moral judgments and they are not an expression of something objective, then they must be an expression of something subjective. — Bob Ross

Except that if something is true, it is in correspondence with reality objectively. The subjective knowledge or lack of knowledge is irrelevant. Therefore if there are true moral judgements, then they are objective.

Again, I think you are conflating moral judgments with what they express. I am talking about what makes the moral judgment true: obviously, it is a state-of-affairs in reality, but are those state-of-affairs mind(stance)-independent? If they are preferences we have, then they aren’t and are thusly true in virtue of something subjective. It corresponding to reality is going to be an absolute calculation: either it does or it doesn’t, and this is not contingent on what I or you believe; but the state-of-affairs that it corresponds to certainly can be something projected by our psyches. E.g., “I believe ice cream tastes so good” is true in virtue of facts about my pyschology, which are subjective judgments themselves.

I like this, I will try and add it.

Thank you for your patience Bob. I'm back from vacation!

Absolutely no worries! I hope you had a good vacation!

Goodness is simply material existence and its expressions. It has nothing to do with culture, intention, emotions, and would be whether humanity had opinions about it or not.

Thank you for the clarification: I think I understand your claim better now. Unfortunately, I don’t see why goodness is reducible to ‘material existence and its expressions’: I don’t see why that would be the case at all. Let me see if I can elaborate on that.

It is the end result we come to when we ask the question, "Why should X exist?" This is because it all reduces to the ultimate question of "Why should anything exist?"

I would like to point out that the answer to this is subjective (by my lights) and if it isn’t then I would need to know how you know that moral properties subsist in something mind-independent and what that is. I think you are claiming that the moral properties subsist in ‘existence’ itself, but what justification do you have for that? It is a normative question to ask “why should anything exist?” and the answer is a normative claim, and if it is a moral fact that justifies the normative claim, then there is a fact out there about some mind-independent state-of-affairs that in virtue of which makes it true that ‘yes’ ‘something should exist’--I don’t see what fact you are exactly pointing to that would justify this...however, I think perhaps it is this:

This leads us with the binary of existence, or non-existence. I cannot justify non-existence as what should be without there being existence to make the justification. I cannot justify existence without there being existence to make the justification.

I think this is the underpinning of your reasoning for saying that it is a moral fact that ‘there should be something existing’. My quarrel is primarily with:

I cannot justify non-existence as what should be without there being existence to make the justification.

Two problems I see with this:

1. It is entirely possible to affirm that ‘nothing should exist’ without presupposing that anything exists, and I am not sure why you think this is false. Saying ‘nothing should exist’ entails that there shouldn’t be anything, and this certainly does not presuppose anything existing.

2. Even if, for the sake of argument, one could not affirm ‘nothing should exist’ without presupposing something exists, this doesn’t entail that one should affirm that ‘something should exist’: there’s a hidden normative premise that you are not explicating. For example, you would have to argue along these lines if you put it into a valid syllogism:

P1: One should abide by the law of noncontradiction.
P2: Affirming ‘nothing should exist’ entails a contradiction.
C: TF, one should not affirm ‘nothing should exist’.

From there, you could then use the law of excluded middle to affirm that ‘something should exist’. Notice that the normative conclusion (C) is grounded in P1 and not P2, which is another normative claim. Why is P1 expressing something objective (that is also normative)? If it isn’t, then ‘nothing should exist’ would have to be morally factually false; otherwise, you are just using moral judgments which express something subjective to ground your claim that there are moral judgments which express something objective. By my lights, both ‘nothing should exist’ and P1 are expressing something subjective. Once explicated in this manner, it is clear (at least to me) that you haven’t demonstrate any sort of normative statement which expresses something objective (even if I grant your argument). Just because we cannot claim “nothing should exist” without accepting a contradiction it does not follow that there are any moral properties which are reducible to existence nor that any exist (mind-independently) at all.

This is why I was asking you to write your argument for ‘existence is good’ in a form of a syllogism, because I would be willing to bet it doesn’t have any normative facts in it (; Of course I could be wrong though.

If it helps to see where we are going, simply see if you can justify that non-existence is preferable to no existence at all. If you cannot, then what I've stated is the only alternative, and what we have to build on.

I don’t think this is good epistemology: if you have two exhaustive options, A and B, and A cannot be justified as true, then it is not justified thereby to affirm B as true. B needs support for why it should be regarded as true or A needs to be demonstrated as false.

So, my first point, is that if I couldn’t justify ‘non-existence is good’ to you, it would not entail any support for your thesis that ‘existence is good’. From my perspective, I would say that ‘existent being good’ is subjective, so it could be good to one person and not good to another and they both would be right.

Moreover, I could just makeup a reason for saying that ‘non-existence is good’--e.g., it ends suffering, I just like the sound of it, etc.--and even if it was a convincing reason it wouldn’t explain whether or not the property of goodness is reducible to ‘non-existence’. I think you may be conflating metaethical judgments with normative judgments: the former is an analysis of the properties of morality and the latter is an assessment of what meets those standards. If I argued, let’s just say, ‘successfully’ and convince you that ‘non-existence is good’ that would be a normative claim we both agree on, but it would still be an open question whether or not that normative judgment expresses something objective (i.e., the metaethical claim is still open-ended).

I think it may be best if you give me a syllogism for your argument that ‘existence is good’ in the sense that ‘goodness’ itself is reducible to it, and then I can give a much more precise elaboration on what I am talking about here as it specifically relates to your theory.

Absolutely yes. We torture our and kill our food every day for our own survival.

The intent to torture an animal is wrong, even if we end up eating it. We can kill and eat animals in ways that give them basic respect, which would involve not unnecessarily torturing them.

I torture bugs beneath my feet that I accidently step on in the grass and leave them to slowly die from a crushed exoskeleton.

That is fair; but the intent to crush and torture a bug with no good reason behind it is wrong. Likewise, I don’t think it is analogous to the OP because we were not talking about a bug: it is a human child.

Does that mean I stop walking? No.

Imagine that in order to walk on that sidewalk, instead of crushing a bug, you had to brutally pummel and crush a human child: I think now the answer is an emphatic YES. You can’t really compare a bug or even eating pigs/cows to perpetually torturing a human being.

We throw pollution up into the air that kills thousands of animals and even people every year. Many don't die, but simply become perpetually sick. Yet this pollution saves hundreds of thousands more from death and suffering.

Yes, human society turns a blind eye to a lot of things: I don’t see why we couldn’t pollute (to some extent) without getting people sick—there has to be a way to do it that isn’t killing people. However, this also isn’t very analogous to the OP: what if you were thinking about opening a factory that you knew would kill 1,000 people a year from the pollution, do you think that’s permissible to do? Does it depend on how many people you think will be saved from whatever you are manufacturing?

I just don't have enough fleshed out yet, I am working on it and will share when it is substantive enough.

I would be interested in seeing you work this out

Once I have it fleshed out, I will create a new discussion—just like my moral subjectivism discussion board. For now, I am just inquiring other peoples’ views and contemplating them.

Myself, I think consequentialism is the answer. But, a consequentialism that takes injustice into account. You can't just examine raw outcomes, you have to also consider injustices that have been brought about. So, the 99% who live marginally better at the expense of the 1% would not be a good consequence, as the injustice done to the 1% would outweigh the benefit to the 99%.
…
I would be inclined to weigh injustice very highly. But, not so highly that the injustice done to the boy outweighs the deaths of everyone else, which themselves would be terrible injustices. I think the active/passive distinction is ultimately illusory, a choice is a choice.

It just seems wrong to be to violate someone’s rights to save other people, like in the 1 to 5 trolley example. However, depending on how you factor in ‘injustice’ I may be able to get on board.

For example, what if a doctor has 100,000 super sick patients that are going to die insufferable deaths and the doctor knows that abducting, killing, and harvesting the organs of one innocent, healthy person (to transplant parts to the 100,000) would definitely save those sick patients: should they do it? To me, it doesn’t matter how many sick patients there are: it is wrong to abduct, kill, and harvest the organs of that one person—period.

Instead, what if we modify the original example. You don't have to kill or torture the child. Just, slap him around for 10 minutes or so. He will cry, and will probably suffer a bit of long term trauma. Either commit this active violation of the child, or passively allow everyone on earth to die. Which do you choose?

Prima facie, I would say slap him around, but, I am inclined to say no because this is how torturing people gets justified: where is the line we are drawing here? Can I slap him? Yes. Can I punch him? How many times? Can I just cut a bit of his flesh off? Is that too far?

Perhaps the answer is yes to slapping him, and it is just intuited from considering the balance between other people and the rights of that particular person. To me, I am starting to think there is no equation possible that accurately calculates right and wrong for every possible situation; and that's why I am trying to work on a virtue ethical theory instead. Maybe if we have the proper virtues instilled in our characters, then we would intuit that slapping him for 10 minutes is the right thing to do, but punching him for 10 minutes is taking it too far. Not sure yet, but that is a good thought experiment!

Fair enough.

I didn't know that: interesting. Can you please elaborate?

People as a means to an end? We find it permissible to hire people as a means to an end which is making our own living as much as they make their own living by doing business with us, and some may find morally permissible even to do business over currently illegal jobs like prostitution, selling organs, dealing drugs.

That is fair. I think deontologists usually mean it in the sense of their rights, and they don’t consider those to be rights we have. So “we cannot use a person as a means to an end” is short-hand for ‘you cannot violate their rights, whatever they may be’.

How about living creatures, animals? Can you torture and kill animals as a means to people’s end? One might obviously argue that we already do this, we eat animals after all, and the food industry from start to end is a torturing experience for animals. So what makes human beings so special?

This is the main reason I reject Kantian ethics. I don’t think humans are all that special, and I think persons are objects of respect, which includes animals (or at least the vast majority of them). I just think it is permissible to kill them (as painlessly as possible and treated prior to death with respect) for the sake of our own health.

Why am I not blameworthy for the annihilation of the remaining human species, exactly? My choice to sacrifice the remaining human species as a means to save a child would still break the rule “do not sacrifice any life to save another for whatever reason in all possible scenarios”.
There is no room for distinguishing choice abstention from choosing to sacrifice (not to mention that even abstentions are often perceived as morally blameworthy).

You are not blameworthy because the reason they will all die is out of your control and is there prior to your decision: you killing the child is an intervention to try and prevent the annihilation of the human species. You did not actively violate anyones rights by refusing to kill the child.

By analogy, imagine a pyschopath serial killer walks up to you, shows you sufficient evidence that they are torturing 12 people in their basement, tells you if you stab an innocent person that is walking by they will let the 12 people go, and let’s say you know 100% they are telling the truth (so they will actually let them go if you stab that innocent person to death) and everything else is equal (so forget about calling the cops). Can you stab that innnocent person to save the 12? I say no. You are not blameworthy for what is happening to those 12 people: the serial killer is. You are, however, blameworthy if you stab that innocent person to death.

I’m reluctant to accept the distinction between consequentialism and deontology because I’m not sure to find it intelligible.

Analyzing consequences of actions or having duties to rules does not make one a consequentialist or deontologist respectively: the kernel of the view has to center around such.

Scenario 1: We may save either mother or baby during a difficult delivery, but not both. Yet we know the kid has developed a torturing and deadly disease which will make it die any time soon after birth, should we let the mother die so we are not blameworthy to kill the baby?

This is a good thought experiment: the deontologist route would be yes. We cannot violate that kid’s right to exist because we anticipate it to die (or actually know with 100% certainty it will) shortly thereafter. A person is someone which we cannot violate (in terms of their rights). I see how this seems, though, like the right answer is kill the kid.

I would say that since I know in this scenario that the kid is going to die that I would go the consequentialist route, or at least my intuition leads me that way, but in practical life where I don’t know it for certain I would say we cannot violate that person’s rights because we don’t actually know 100% they will die. Of course, that isn’t relevant to the thought experiment you said.

- Scenario 2: We may save either mother or kid, but not both, and if we do not intervene they both will die. Killing a mother/baby even to save the other is immoral, so we let both die but we wouldn’t be blameworthy for it?

This is also a good example. I would say kill one of them...so consequences win on this one.

You can at least draft arguments for why people must follow what you claim to be “moral rules”, can’t you?

I am still working on my normative ethics, and originally was going down the deontologist route; but I am now working on a virtue ethics account. I don’t want to share that yet because it is too premature.

:up:

Interesting: I am leaning towards a virtue ethical theory myself. I just always thought Aristotelian ethics was a form of moral realism.

Rephrasing my question in terms of your quoted appraisal: Of what ethical good is intending to keep one's established duties if so doing produces unethical results?

You can’t control the consequences of one’s actions but, rather, only one’s intentions. Sure, if I am negligent in my reasoning and some bad consequent becomes of it, then I may be punished for it; but the point of deontology is that analyzing the consequences of an action doesn’t relate to whether anything is good or bad: if you have a duty to not violate a person’s rights, then what does it matter what consequences one calculates in relation to violating a person’s rights to save another? It doesn’t. You just can’t do it: period.

I see your point though: shouldn’t we at least analyze the reasonable consequences of our actions? Isn’t it negligent to just focus on intentions? I sort of agree, but I don’t think the deontologist is against using consequences to make inform decisions, they just disagree with determining what is good from it. I can determine that if I perform action X it will most likely result in saving this person’s life and since I have a duty to uphold their sanctity, then I should do it. Notice that the consequence just informs the intention, but this is not the case in consequentialism.

The maintaining of duties within a community of slave-holders and slaves resulting in the lynching of those slaves that don't uphold said duties

I don’t see how this is a critique of deontology. It is perhaps a contention with a deontological theory that I haven’t heard of, but deontology in general is not contended with here in your example (as far as I can tell). Most deontologists don’t think we have a duty to just anything.

Suppose a good friend comes over, whom you know to be a strict Kantian. The Gestapo know this as well, and question him regularly. He notices a yarmulke inexplicitly lying on the couch. "Is someone staying here?" he blurts.

I completely agree that Kantianism is counter-intuitive; but I was wondering about deontology in general. On this specific point, I think a deontologists, and even a neo-Kantian, can circumvent this example by appealing to ‘rights forfeiture’.

You are taking a relaxing day off, fishing in your rowboat. Around a river bend, you come upon a drowning man. "Oh, thank God!", he cries. "Save me!"

"Sorry, friend!", you respond with a grin. "I didn't push you in, I'm afraid it's not my problem. But, best of luck!"

His final moments before submerging for the last time are spent watching you in astonishment as you row your boat down the river, whistling gaily.

Are you
a) As morally culpable as if you had pushed him in the river?
b) Less morally culpable than if you had pushed him in the river?
c) Not culpable at all?

I choose A.

I like this. My intuition is that at least B is true. I am not advocating that a person should not save someone when it is of little cost to themselves on the grounds of ‘letting it happen’ entails no culpability. I am saying that if I had to throw you over board (knowing you will drown) to free up a life vest that would save them for this other person, then I cannot violate you to save them. I am not culpable like the person who pushed that person into the water knowing they would drown: I didn’t violate their rights. Perhaps me morally blaming me for going by instead of saving them at little cost to myself is contradictory to the ‘letting’ vs ‘actively participating in’ the violation of a person...not sure.

Consequentialism comes in a very wide variety of forms: from “the proof is in the pudding” type mentality that can be used as evidence that might makes right (with its associated potential atrocities) to notions such as that of karma (which at base is about cause and consequence).

True, and they all have to contend with similar issues like this thought experiment in the OP.

Of what good is deontology if it doesn’t produce good results, i.e. good consequences? If no satisfactory answer can be given to this question other than that of affirming it to be good on account of its good consequences, then deontology (as can then be likewise said of virtue ethics and so forth) will itself be a form of consequentialism broadly defined.

Deontology is exactly not consequentialism: if a deontologist cites the consequences as the kernel of why they thought something was moral/immoral, then they are not a deontologist. Good is measured in deontology by intentions towards one’s duties and not the consequences they bring about. Consequences can help inform deontological decisions, but they are not what makes something good or bad.

At this juncture, I’ll simply object to its supposition of necessity

This is not a valid response: it is not a false dilemma—that is why it is a thought experiment. If I say “hypothetical if you had to choose A or B, which would you choose?” and you answer “neither, because I don’t have to choose A or B” then you have misunderstood the nature of hypothetical scenarios.

Would you lie to the Gestapo about Jews hiding in your house?

Yes, because they have forfeited their right to be told the truth by actively engaging in the violation of other peoples’ rights: I don’t see how this is incompatible with deontology, although certainly incompatible with Kantianism (or at least its original formulation).

But what of the rights of everyone else? Are you not maximally violating the rights of every person on earth, by making the decision to preserve the child?

I would say no. There’s a difference between violating someone’s rights (which requires active participation therein) and letting someone’s rights get violated (which is an inactive, passive, allowing of it to happen). In the latter, one is not morally blameworthy; whereas in the former they are.

If my child is about to get run over by a car and I save them by pushing you in the way, then I have actively participated in the violation of your rights, and are blameworthy for that violation. If I let my child get run over because the only way would have been to push you in the way but I refrained, then I am not, all else being equal, morally blameworthy for my child getting run over: it is the drunk driver, or what not, that is presumably at fault (all else being equal). No one would say “why didn’t you sacrifice that other person by shoving them in the way to save your child?”.

Same with not killing the child to stop the immanent death of all people: I am not blameworthy for whatever event is going to wipeout the human population—I am not killing everyone—but I am at fault if I kill that child.

Neither deontology nor consequentialism seem to fully match our intuitions, since you can construct cases where either violate them. An approach that somehow combines both would probably be needed. I think I lean towards consequentialism, while acknowledging there are cases it cannot account for.

Interesting. What problems can you construct for deontology? I lean much more towards that than consequentialism.

In unnatural situations like this one, which our intuitions weren't designed for, things are bound to fall apart.

It isn’t that unnatural, and that’s why “The One’s Who Walk Away from Omelas” is such a good, quick read. Enslaving 1% of the population would increase the well-being of the 99% (if we presuppose specifically utilitarianism), wouldn’t it? Etc.

My own intuition says, torture the child, since it doesn't really distinguish between that and killing them. Would you agree to kill the child?

Nope. Seems like we shouldn’t violate that child’s rights to me.

Why a child? What if it were middle aged, or elderly?

Good idea: what about 99 year old man that you know is going to die tomorrow anyways? I still say nah.

Fair. I typo'd it. Let me update that.

I would suggest reading it yourself: there's free PDFs online and it is only like 5 pages (if I remember correctly).

Even if you meant that in at least one scenario the child would be safe, one may wonder: how would a child even live and evolve as a psychologically and biologically sound human being if the rest of humanity would be immediately annihilated?

Fair question, but not the point of the thought experiment. It could be the case that no one is morally justified in sacrificing that child and that the child would have, if they were the sole survivor, no feasible living arrangement afterwards.

Perhaps this factors into your moral reasoning though: to you, does that reason count in favor of potentially sacrificing the child? I don’t believe so.

if we must choose, would it be permissible to have child X to be safe at the expense of the rest of the human species to be immediately annihilated?

My answer would also be no. That child nor I can use other people as a means to and end, even if that end is saving other people. I cannot throw you into a moving car to stop it from running over my child.

Because if neither killing/torturing a child is permissible even when the rest of humanity would be safe, nor having the rest of humanity safe at the expense of killing/torturing a child, and we must choose anyways (why exactly?)

You have the choice to refrain from actively violating someone’s rights in both scenarios: what you don’t have control over is the predestined stipulations of the thought-experiment. You can say no and simply not be morally blameworthy for the annihilation of the human species (by my lights).

what lesson do you wish to draw from this hypothetical predicament?

Is consequentialist normative ethical theories valid in any scenario? That’s the question.

I do wonder: what’s even the point of moral reasoning over thought experiments designed to fail in guiding choice and action exactly?

To make our moral intuitions and principles consistent and coherent.

let’s imagine that that child X whom nobody is permitted to sacrifice, is somebody who will soon develop a torturing mortal disease for natural causes and die atrociously even if the rest of the human species was immediately annihilated to save the child, or that the child a psychopathic which enjoys torturing living creatures before killing them for the rest of his life or a Hitler on steroids which will torture and exterminate the entire human species anyways and repeatedly if he only had the chance. What would be morally legitimate to do?

I like it (: and I would say an emphatic NO, you cannot violate that child’s rights, period. Doesn’t make baby hitler right in doing atrocities later in life, but we cannot violate peoples rights period; especially over ‘forseeable’ consequences of their existence (which I find really unreliable, but that’s irrelevant to my main point).

What if the lesson we draw from the thought experiment varies remarkably depending on how the thought experiment is construed?

That is anticipated and good for working out one’s normative ethical theory. Afterall, there’s no way one will magically just know that their theory works as expected in applied ethics without putting in the work to test it.

The problem is not much that there is a moral rule (where?!) that says “do not torture or kill any child ever for whatever reason” but more why would we be committed to such rule exactly? Saying because it is moral, it would shift the problem: how did this rule get the label “moral” in the first place? What is there in claiming “morality” that would me make me feel (?!) or taken (?!) to be committed to it or compelled BY DEFAULT and without consulting me first? And if it is not that what is implied, what else is exactly?

Metaethically, I would say there aren’t any moral facts. With respect to normative ethics, I would say we must treat persons with respect as objects of intrinsic respect. Admittedly, I am still working out the details.

I think you missed the point of the OP, it is not about would but should.

I don't quite follow: doesn't Aristotle believe that the good is objective?

I think the crux of our disagreement about beliefs and judgments is as follows. Let’s take the example of the proposition “Jane believes X” and call it Y.

You seem to think that X is the judgment and Y is the belief; whereas, I am saying that Y in relation to X is a judgment about X: the belief and judgment are intertwined such that one cannot have one without the other.

Likewise, you seem to be saying that Y does not entail truth about X, which is only true in the case that X is about something beyond out psychology. E.g.,:

There is a crucially significant difference. From, "Jane believes X," one cannot infer anything about what is permissible, omissible, or obligatory; just as from, "Jane believes 28^28=33.13*10^39," one cannot infer anything about mathematics

If X in “Jane believes X” was “vanilla ice cream tastes good”, then I don’t think you have a hard time seeing why your analogy to math fails. Some beliefs, which are also necessarily judgments, are not about facts out there in the world but, rather, are projections of our psychology. So I agree in the case of your math example, but disagree that it is analogous to morality because, well, that’s exactly what’s in contention in moral realism vs. anti-realism!

Likewise, if you are saying that Y is a belief which is not a judgment but X is a belief that is a judgment, then we can validly expand “Jane believes X” to “Jane believes that Jane believes X” which is either redundant or, and this one I am more inclined towards, it is now just a second order belief (i.e., a belief about beliefs) which has nothing to do with X itself.

Fair enough. I am limiting my involvement, arguing that C is false.

That’s fair enough as well. I am more than happy to discuss why you believe C to be false and perhaps you will convince me.

That’s fair. I actually edited this with my addition of an elaboration on how moral judgments express something that is subjective. — Bob Ross

Hmm, okay...

I was just noting that I adjusted it as I said I would, and just wanted to let you know that’s fixed now. However, does my refurbishment undermine my argument for moral cognitivism? I think probably for you, yes, and for me, not really (;

This is equivocal. "I believe X" usually means, "I believe that X is true." You want it to mean, "I happen to hold belief X." You want it to be parallel to, "She believes X." But in the third-person case the ambiguity disappears, because there is no implication that the speaker (the "I") also believes/judges regarding X.

I am not sure I followed this part, to be honest. I would say that “I believe X” is a belief state of the subject at hand, which is a judgment about X. When I say “I believe X” I am thereby judging that X is true...you seem to be saying that it is a belief that isn’t making a judgment but, rather, the judgment is in X.

This goes back to that equivocation and I vs. She (and, in the first-person case, belief qua belief vs. belief qua judgment).

I would say “I believe X” is a belief qua belief and qua judgment.

A moral judgment is not a statement about belief, it is a statement about what is permissible, omissible, or obligatory. It makes no difference that a belief ends up being about what is moral.

This would be true if I accepted moral realism. The belief is what makes the judgment true in moral subjectivism.

For example, let’s go back to the “Jane believes ice cream tastes good”: does this belief not in virtue of its own judgment make it true? I think so. Sure, it is an upshot of also conative aspects of one’s pysche, but the belief also factors in.

I can say, "She believes X," without myself believing X,

That’s true and expected under moral subjectivism: ‘She believes X’ is indexical.

The other thing to note is that to judge that (no)one ought torture babies, is to judge that everyone is bound to not-torture babies (and not merely myself).

Yes, so this goes back to our dispute about subjective vs objective universalization: I find nothing incoherent with “Jane believes everyone should not torture babies” even though it is only true relative to herself—I would imagine you beg to differ on that one (;

And so what is the subjective thing that a moral proposition expresses?

Cognitive approval/disapproval, which is an upshot of other cognitive and conative aspects of one’s psyche.

I agree. What normative ethical theory do you subscribe to? A form of deontology, perhaps virtue ethics?

Yes, but more precisely than (2), "P2: There are true moral judgments and they are not an expression of something objective." It is precisely the non-objectivity that I am concerned with.
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It is entirely negative. It is a disjunctive syllogism, as noted above.
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My point is that rejecting A and B is insufficient when C is also implausible. C must be supported positively.

Non-objectivity is subjectivity EDIT: (sort of); and I agree it is negative. However, my argument for moral judgments expressing something subjective is that (1) they are not expressing something objective (which was positively argued for) and (2) that there are true moral judgments (which was positively argued for): what else would be required, in terms of a positive argument, to affirm C?

In other words, affirming prong-1 and prong-3 while disaffirming prong-2 of the moral realist thesis is moral subjectivism: this entails that moral judgments are expressing something subjective because they exist, some of them are true, and they aren’t expressing something objective. You would have to contend with that even if you think we have good reasons to also reject moral judgments as expressing something subjective.

If I say either A, B, or C are true and A is false and B is false, then C must be true. If you turn around and say ‘I also think C is false’, then you are wrong about one of them being false. If you think C is false, then which of the other two do you think is true?

In your OP, in the section, "A Case for Moral Cognitivism [Prong-1]," you state something quite different. You give a moral proposition about driving drunk and claim it is truth-apt. If we are to argue about this moral proposition then it must be objectively truth-apt.

That’s fair. I actually edited this with my addition of an elaboration on how moral judgments express something that is subjective.

This is not a moral proposition, but it is truth-apt and objectively true or false. Yet the subject of cognitivism (and binding morality) is moral propositions, not belief propositions.

That’s the whole point of contention: moral subjectivism allows moral judgments to be beliefs.

‘I believe one ought not ...’ is the moral judgment under moral subjectivism and not ‘one ought not...’. It still meets my definition of ‘moral’ signification because it is still a subject-referencing normative statement which expresses ‘what one ought to find permissible, omissible, or obligatory’.

According to your own OP, mere statements about someone's beliefs are not part of moral language.

Where did I say that in the OP? I need to revise that if I did.

No. As noted in your previous thread, I reject your exclusive distinction between what is moral and what is psychological. Beliefs are always psychological, as is the mathematical belief I set out in my last post. No one believes we have non-psychological beliefs.

I am not saying that we have non-psychological beliefs, I am saying that moral judgments are not expressing something objective: the belief we have, which is always pyschological, is an upshot of our psychology (in general)...it is an upshot of other beliefs, intentions, desires, etc.

The truth of a moral statement regards the truth of a moral judgment, and statements about belief are not moral statements. The statement, "Jane believes one should not torture babies," is not a moral statement, it is only a statement about what Jane believes. Jane's statement, "One should not torture babies," is a moral statement, because it pertains to what is "permissible, omissible, or obligatory."

Hmmm…isn’t “Jane believes one should not torture babies” refer to what is ‘permissible, omissible, or obligatory’? Seems to be to me, even if it is just an expression of what jane subjectively believes.

Note that if you claim that Jane's belief is "psychological" in the sense that it is grounded by one of her values, then the exact same question applies to that value. We must then ask if the value is truth-apt, and if so, if it is true or false. Only if the value is true can the moral statement be true (and therefore binding).

In this sense of ‘value’ you are describing, I would say it is going to bottom out at something not truth-apt, although first and second principles (etc.) could be other beliefs and thusly truth-apt.

Okay, good. Again, the key here is that preferences are not judgments and judgments are not preferences.

Correct. Judgments are beliefs.

The corollary is that truth-apt judgments cannot flow from non truth-apt preferences, unless the judgment is merely about the preference/belief (as explained above)

I would say that it is the latter in my case, if I am understanding correctly. This is what I mean by the moral judgment (the belief) being an upshot of one’s pyschology and not a moral fact out there.

Yet if it is merely about the preference/belief, then it cannot be moral in the sense you set out (pertaining to what is permissible, omissible, or obligatory).

Why? “I believe one ought not ...” is expressing something pertaining to what one ought to hold as permissible, omissible, or obligatory, no?

Statements about belief cannot be binding at all because they are not moral statements

Moral judgments (which are beliefs about what one ought to be permissible, omissible, or obligatory under my view) are binding to the subject at hand. I can’t say “I believe one ought not torture babies” and then in the next breath say “but I don’t believe that it is impermissible to torture babies”: which one is it?

And do you go on to say that the moral subjectivist believes that moral propositions express something subjective?

Yes. I am not sure what the contention was here: perhaps I am misunderstanding you. So prong-2 of my thesis is that they express something subjective: a sentence expressing something non-objective is to express something subjective—they mean the same thing to me. Are you saying something could be non-objective and not subjective?...Actually, I see now: truth, under my view, would be an example of this (:

Perhaps I could revise it to expound more on how moral judgments expressing something non-objective entails it is expressing something subjective. To me, it seems like it is impossible for a statement to express something that is non-objective and non-subjective: truth, on the other hand, is an emergent property, so to speak, of statements’ relationship to reality and is beyond those bounds.

:up:

Hello Leontiskos,

I appreciate your elaborate, substantive, and thought-provoking response! Hopefully, I can adequately respond.

I think the heart of our disagreement (and correct me if I am wrong) is twofold:

1. A lack of a positive account of pronge-2 P2 of the moral subjectivist thesis; and
2. The implications of true moral judgments expressing something subjective (e.g., is that even possible?).

So, I will try to address those hereon; but, first, let me address some (perhaps) less crucial points that I think are still worth mentioning.

I am glad to see that you are trying to get away from the taste-based idea we discussed a few days ago.

I honestly haven’t (: . I think maybe my diction is just confusing to other people, because I take a ‘preference’ to be synonymous with a ‘taste’--it seems like other people think the former is a superficial instance of the latter. If there is any confusion with my use of ‘taste’, then I am more than happy to replace it with the word ‘preference’.

I think this idea that the sphere of morality encompasses all acts is absolutely correct, and you are the first TPF member I have seen to explicitly accept this view. I also think your arguments for moral cognitivism are sound.

:up:

Your ability to revise your views is laudable.

Although I am unsure as to whether I actually revised my position like you think I did; I will say again that I am only in the interest of obtaining the truth, like you, and will happily concede any point if my contender provides reasons I agree with for disbanding from that point.

Alright, with that out of the way, let me first address #1.

Logically, Prong-2.P2 is the heart of subjectivism and yet it receives no positive support or elaboration. You don't even say what a subjective, binding truth is supposed to be, or how it could work.

Firstly, I do think it is a fair critique that I didn’t expound incredibly clearly how the relation between truth and the subjective moral judgments work—I did give some examples I didn’t analyze them that thoroughly, so I will take a note to add that in later. I will likewise give an account here as well (in a little bit).

Secondly, the positive support for prong-2 P2 is the argument against prong-2 P2 of the moral realist thesis and the argument for true moral judgments in the subjection for prong-3 of the moral subjectivist thesis:

P2: There are true moral judgments and they are not an expression of something objective.
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Either something is an expression of something objective (and in virtue of that at least a candidate of being factual) or it is subjective; therefore, if prong-2 of moral realism is false and there are true moral judgments, then they must be beliefs of which are the upshot of one’s psychology.

If one accepts that there are true moral judgments (and thusly that they are propositional) and that those moral judgments do not express something objective (which is derived from the is-ought ontological argument against prong-2 of the moral realist thesis), then the only option left is that they express something objective. Sure, this is a negative argument, in a sense, but either one has to deny that there are true moral judgments (or more fundamentally that they are not propositional) or that they do not express something objective. In the case of the former, they must find something wrong with the argument I gave in prong-3 of my thesis; and in the case of the latter something with the is-ought ontological argument I gave against moral realism. If they accept them, then, by my lights, they can’t reject that moral judgments express something subjective because that is all that is left.

Your disjunctive syllogism is something like, "A or B or C. We have good reasons to reject A and B. Therefore, C." The problem is that we also have good reasons to reject C.

My point is that A, B, and C are exhaustive options; so one can’t reject all three: they must bite a bullet somewhere if they don’t want to accept C since they are accepting !A and !B.

My only point here is that if you believe that we have good reasons to reject C, then you can’t agree with me that !A and !B: I think you will then have to contend with either the is-ought ontological gap argument or the argument I gave for there being true moral judgments if you want to reject C.

In terms of what good reasons we have to reject C, I don’t think we have any; but let me respond to some that I think you were alluding to, which segues nicely into #2.

This could be the central contradiction in your system. I think this commits you to the idea that there are objective truths which are not grounded in objective realities, which seems to be a contradiction. More concisely, "subjective truth" is chimerical (i.e. it is something which may seem attainable at first, but always fades into the horizon like a mirage). More on this. . .

Your problem, and correct me if I am wrong, with moral judgments being true and expressing something subjective is that they seem to be incoherent or inconsistent with each other: if it is true, then that pertains to something objective, so it can’t be expressing something subjective, right? That’s what I got out of your various responses on that matter, so if I am misunderstanding then please correct me.

My response is that the belief is the moral judgment and our beliefs about those beliefs are the facts about our psychology. Granted, I should have been much more explicit in my elaboration of this in the OP, and I will make a note to add a section in on that.

So…

After all, what is the "truth" of moral cognitivism if not objective truth? Isn't all truth 'objective' in this relevant sense?
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This could be the central contradiction in your system. I think this commits you to the idea that there are objective truths which are not grounded in objective realities, which seems to be a contradiction. More concisely, "subjective truth" is chimerical (i.e. it is something which may seem attainable at first, but always fades into the horizon like a mirage). More on this. . .

Under moral subjectivism, when taken literally, ‘one ought not torture babies for fun’ is not true, not cognitive, and not a (valid) moral judgment but, rather, must be rewritten as ‘I believe one ought not torture babies for fun’. The latter is cognitive (being a fact about one’s psychology), is true in my case, is a valid moral judgment.

For you, I would imagine, ‘one ought not torture babies for fun’ is cognitive, is true, and is a valid moral judgment because its truth-maker is an objective feature about reality...I have no such analogous situation going on in my moral subjectivist theory: it is, afterall, at the end of the day, a moral anti-realist position.

I think this is the crux of the confusion slash debate we have about moral judgments: I think you are thinking of them in terms of a moral realist’s perspective whereas I am thinking of it totally differently (like the above).

So, to answer you question, truth is always absolute and expressing something objective, the difference between us is what the moral judgment actually is. For you it is sentences which at least validly purport facts which do not pertain to our psychology, where for me it is exactly that. Hopefully that helps clear things up, but let me if it doesn’t.

So, going back, :

When one states, "I believe one ought not torture babies for fun," I would interpret that to mean, "I believe it is objectively true that one ought not torture babies for fun."

I wouldn’t interpret it that way, I would say “I believe one ought not torture babies for fun” is a fact about their psychological state of mind such that they disapprove of torturing babies for fun. Adding in the ‘objectively true’ seems to question beg to me.

Similarly:

A non-factual moral judgment is not a preference. More, a preference is not a judgment of truth. To affirm a moral proposition is to make a judgment, not to have a preference. Preferences are not judgments and judgments are not preferences.

Admittedly, I need to spruce up my terminology on this point in the essay, because I see how I made this part a bit confusing. By non-factual moral judgment, I just meant that the disapproval, the preference, which underlies the psychological fact that “I believe one ought not torture babies”, is non-factual (which is exactly why I call it a preference). Technically, saying they are non-factual moral judgments is contradictory to what I outlined above as a moral judgment (which is the belief, not the underlying non-factual preference). So, yes, I agree that preferences are not moral judgments, but I would say that moral judgments are the upshot of those preferences. I will add this to the essay in a little while (when I have time).

For the realist a truth, such as 12*12=144, is objective and subjective, in the sense that it is objectively true and yet it is always and only ever known and appropriated by an individual subject. Objective truths are known by subjects. For the moral realist it is the same. "Do not torture babies for fun," is an objective truth, known by a subject.

True. I am saying, as a moral subjectivist, that we are not subjectively coming to know or approach the limit of knowing what is wrong or right, because moral judgments are the upshot of our psychology—not some fact-of-the-matter beyond our pyschology...not some moral fact out there.

If a truth is not universally knowable, then it cannot be universally binding;

That’s true. I should have made this more clear in the OP: the truth is the indexical belief which is universal insofar as either one does indeed have the belief or they don’t, thusly making truth absolute and expressing something objective (even though it is just a fact about one’s psychology, which is an upshot of non-factual dispositions a person has).

‘I believe one ought ...’ is universal insofar as either it is true that the person being referenced by the indexical statement does believe one ought … or they don’t. However, the belief itself, being just an upshot of one’s psychology, is not expressing something objective: it is not latching onto a moral fact out there.

Offhand I can think of two kinds of subjective truths: truths known by a subject on the basis of private information; and truths made true by a subject's intentions. For example, "I enjoy pock-marked lilies," and, "Tomorrow I am going to wear my ugly Christmas sweater." The first sort cannot function as a universally binding moral truth because it is not universally known to all.

I don’t think there is such a thing as ‘objective’ or ‘subjective’ truth: truth is absolute, and it is the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity such that thought corresponds with reality. I take it to be two different claims to say “truth is objective/subjective” vs. “this proposition expresses something objective/subjective”.

I look forward to your response,

Bob

Oh, I been in the back of the room, keeping my head down, taking notes.

:lol:

A Kantian with respect to moral subjectivism I’ll admit. Ethics is more than that, I think.

Objective moral principle is like world peace. One can wish for it, visualize it, even figure out how to do it, but understands even if he does it, there’s precious little reason to expect anybody else to follow suit.

I see: are you saying you still adhere to Kant's ethics but with modifications to accommodate to moral subjectivism? Or would you just say you agree with only Kant's metaphysics that are not about ethics?

:grin:

Where is your head at these days? I would presume a Kantian with respect to ethics as well, so probably upholding his maxim of universalizability as an objective moral principle?

I was debating on creating a new thread, but didn't see the need since this thread essentially morphed into a debate about moral realist accounts vs. moral subjectivism. But, I went ahead and reverted it and created a thread for archive purposes of this thread.