:roll:

Repeating yourself three times, while ignoring my responses, does not help further the conversation.

That is fair: a moral subjectivist could get out of this internal inconsistency by positing that moral judgments are propositions because they are just propositions about beliefs; but then moral propositions do not exist, which seems pretty absurd.

Likewise, in this version of the position, one can't say that the moral proposition "one ought not torture babies" is true for them: they would have to say that "I believe one ought not torture babies" is true for them. I think most moral subjectivists do not realize this, and fall into the (internally inconsistent) trap that I outlined in the OP.

They would no longer be discussing ethics, essentially.

P1: A stance taken on the trueness or falseness of something, is independent of the trueness or falseness of that something.

Well, the whole idea behind moral subjectivism being internally inconsistent is that they take (1) beliefs (which are stances) to make propositions true or false, while conceding, in their own rewriting of the propositions, that (2) propositions cannot be made true or false by beliefs; which is self-evident when they rewrite "one ought not torture babies" as "I believe one ought not torture babies".

I don't think that begs the question, but I see why you would think that.

I'm only saying that "I believe that aliens exist" is true iff I believe that aliens exist.

This is correct.

Therefore your conclusion that "a belief cannot make a proposition true or false" is false.

This is false; and does not follow from the former claim you made. I already explained this in great detail, so let's try a different way.

I would ask you: "what belief makes the proposition 'I believe that aliens exist' true or false?"
You would say: "that I believe that aliens exist".
I would say: "that you believe that aliens exist, is not a belief about the proposition: that "I believe that aliens exist" is not dependent on what we believe about it, so you have failed to demonstrate what belief makes the proposition true or false."

I am (obviously) not denying that a proposition can be about a belief but, rather, am denying that a proposition is true or false relative to a belief. That a proposition cannot be evaluated as true or false without determining a belief (or lack thereof) that one has, it does not follow that the proposition's truth is relative to that belief. E.g., I believe "aliens exist" != "I believe aliens exist": the former is invalid and a proposition that has its truth relative to a belief, the latter is valid and a proposition that is about a belief.

:up:

Does it follow from A not being dependent on B, that A is not distinctdependent fromon B?

The answer is "yes".

I just meant that whether or not a thing is true or false, is independent of the stance one has of whether it is true or false. That's all.

(@Count Timothy von Icarus)

Correct, but no need for “Tarski’s T-schema”: it plainly and obviously follows that p ↔ p.

You are also correct that “I believe that aliens exist” is true iff I believe that aliens exist. However, this does not entail that the truth of the proposition is contingent on beliefs.

There’s a couple ways to explicate this to you, which I have done already (but let me try again).

The first way, is to note that if “I believe that aliens exist” has its truth-value relative to a belief, then it is true iff I believe that I believe that aliens exist. This plainly follows, because one would be literally evaluating whether or not the proposition, which is “I believe that aliens exist”, is true or false relative to another belief.

The second way, is to abstract it out: let’s call the proposition “I believe X” Y. If Y’s truth-value is relative to a belief, then Y is true iff I, or some group of people, believe, or believes, that Y is true. Y is, though, NOT X. So let’s apply this to your example. If you were to argue that “aliens exist” has a truth-value that is relative to beliefs, then “aliens exist” is true iff I believe “aliens exist”. What you are trying to do, is express this with “I believe aliens exist”; but this is not the same proposition: you have went from X to Y in an equivocating fashion. If “aliens exist” is true iff I believe “aliens exist”, it does NOT follow that “I believe aliens exist” is true iff I believe that “I believe aliens exist”: the latter is a separate proposition, which does not have its truth-value necessarily relative to beliefs. I merely recognize, in my argument, that, in fact, propositions cannot be true or false relative to a belief: “I believe aliens exist”, like any other proposition, is true or false irregardless of what you or I believe about “I believe aliens exist”.

What you are doing, is confusing X with Y: you are thinking that "aliens exist" is true or false relative to a belief when really you are working with the separate proposition "I believe aliens exist". You have to re-write it this way for your idea to be a valid proposition, but that contradicts your idea: it transforms it into a different proposition that does not demonstrate that "aliens exist" is true or false relative to a belief.

:up:

I would add, that a proposition can never actually be true or false relative to a belief; and this is the real, underlying problem.

Many people are inclined to say "it is wrong to torture babies" is a (1) proposition and (2) its truth is relative to beliefs; however, they then proceed to re-write it, to make it valid, as "I believe it is wrong to torture babies" which is not the original proposition. What they have done is NOT the demonstration of a proposition that has its trueness or falseness relative to beliefs but, rather, have demonstrated that there are certain kinds of propositions, of which their truth is still not relative to beliefs, that is about beliefs.

(@Michael, @Count Timothy von Icarus) The proposition "I believe <...>" is NOT true or false relative to a belief. I can't say "oh, well, 'I believe X' is true because I believe that 'I believe X' is true".

Yes that is a proposition, and whether or not it is true or false is independent of any belief about it: that's what you keep missing, because you keep conflating a proposition referencing something about a belief with a proposition having its trueness or falseness being relative to a belief (e.g., the difference between claiming "aliens exist" is true relative to a belief one has and "I believe aliens exist" being true).

Fair enough! However, I do not mean truth-aptness by truthity: I to the assessment of the truth of the thing or lack thereof and not its capacity for truth---it is the 'lack thereof' that disbars me from simply saying 'truth' instead of 'truthity'. I went ahead and changed the OP to use 'trueness or falseness' instead of 'truthity'.

Does it follow from A not being dependent on B, that A is not distinct from B?

I apologize: I was using “distinct” and “independent” interchangeably: reread my response as using “independent” instead of “distinct”.

Your definition of moral subjectivism misses the mark because it rests on two questionable assumptions:

1. That moral beliefs are adequately addressed in terms of propositions.
2. What makes a moral claim true or false is whether or not it is believed.

#1 sounds like this form of “moral subjectivism” denies moral cognitivism; which is a contradiction in terms.

#2 is absolutely a required, essential aspect of moral subjectivism. By moral subjectivism, I am not merely referring to any “subjective morality”: I am referring to a specific moral anti-realist position.

I don't disagree with a premise. I simply prove the conclusion false, and therefore prove that one of the premises is false or that the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. I'll leave it to you to determine where you've gone wrong.

That doesn’t help at all: I provided an argument, which outlines a certain way of thinking about it, to demonstrate the conclusion; and all you have done is taking a claim that I am obviously going to deny, which is the very thing under contention, and posited it as true to negate my conclusion.

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here

I gave examples and an elaboration here, which you seem to have ignored. If there is anything in there that requires further elaboration or clarification, then please let me know!

I go for a job interview. For whatever reason, I am confident that I am going to get the job. As a result, I am very relaxed and personable, and this in turn is what helps me beat out another candidate. But suppose that if I thought I was unlikely to get the job I would have been much more nervous and flubbed the interview, in which case I wouldn't have gotten the job.

In this case, my belief that I would get the job is not independent of my getting the job. It is a determinate factor.

I have no problem with this; again, I refer you back to my response: a proposition referencing something about a belief does not make the proposition itself true or false relative to a belief…I cannot stress this enough. It is the difference between, e.g., saying that “1 + 1 = 2” is true because one believes it and saying that “I believe 1 + 1 = 2” is true because they do, in fact, have that belief (that 1 + 1 = 2). This is the distinction which you are currently overlooking.

The only thing I can say, that is not a reiteration of my response (linked above), is that this is a bad example, although I understand why you would use it, to give to counter my points in the response; because you didn’t specify what the proposition is that you are claiming has a truth-value relative to a belief. I am assuming you don’t mean to say that the proposition “I got the job” is relative to a belief (even if your subjective disposition contributed to you getting the job) (:

I think you've both highlighted the initial problem though, which is P1 here
↪Bob Ross
. It seems entirely possible that a belief could be related to the truth value of some proposition.

Do you think that a stance about the trueness or falseness of something, is independent of the trueness or falseness of something?

I think we have to be very careful here, because I don’t disagree that a “belief could be related to the truth-value of a proposition” in the sense that I think you mean it. “I believe tacos taste good” is a proposition and part of what it references relates to a belief (in this case, a belief about tacos), but this is not the same thing as saying that a proposition’s truth-value is relative to a belief.

For example, “1 + 1 = 2” is a mathematical proposition of which its truth-value is clearly not relative to a belief; however, the same is the case for the non-mathematical proposition “I believe 1 + 1 = 2”...it is just harder to spot. The truth-value of “I believe 1 + 1 = 2” is not relative to any stance: either the subject believes it or they do not—irregardless of their stance on the proposition “I believe 1 + 1 = 2”. The “truthity” of “I believe 1 + 1 = 2” is stance-independent.

Why, then, do so many people, including yourself, say it is not? Because, of course, to evaluate the truth-value of the proposition “I believe 1 + 1 = 2” one must evaluate the belief of some subject; and, in this sense, one wants to say “the ‘truthity’ of <...> is stance-dependent”.

It is imperative, then, to pinpoint what the proposition is: when someone, like yourself, says the above, they are thinking of the truth of whether or not what the belief references is true or false (e.g., “1 + 1 = 2”, “tacos taste good”, etc.) and not the actual proposition at-hand (e.g., “I believe 1 + 1 = 2”, “I believe tacos taste good”, etc.). They then conflate them, and say that the proposition at-hand is stance-dependent (in terms of its “truthity”) when, really, the part of the content, which may or may not itself be a proposition, has its “truthity” relative to a stance.

We have to dissect this with razor-sharp knives and as elegantly and precisely as a surgeon to avoid this conflation (which I think you are making).

Why is this a big deal, you may say? Because what was originally being accounted for as propositional by way of relativity to beliefs dissipates with this transformation—e.g., one that argues that “1 + 1 = 2” does not express something objective but is propositional because it is relative to a belief, will have to transform it into “I believe 1 + 1 = 2” which loses its original meaning (viz., it is no longer the same proposition, and the one which was denied as objective is not actually propositional: it is, rather, the indexical statement that is).

See what I mean?

When it comes the sort of self-reference at work in the OP though

What self-reference? A stance about something is independent of that something; which does not negate, to your point, that some statements reference subjective dispositions which, in turn, require one to evaluate to determine the truth-value of it (which, again, is not the same thing as the truth-value itself being relative to a subjective disposition: I am cutting ever-so precisely here, or at least trying to, in order to convey the point).

That I have to evaluate the subjective dispositions of a person to determine the truth of something, does not entail that the truth of that something is subjectively determined.

1. "Torturing babies is wrong," is propisitional. It has "truthity"; i.e. it is either true or false. (Do I understand your use of "truthity" correctly here?)

Yes, by “truthity” I just mean the trueness of falseness of something. “torturing babies is wrong” is truth-apt.

5. a) Is that I believe torturing babies is wrong dependent on torturing babies being wrong?
5. b) Is torturing babies being wrong dependent on me believing that torturing babies is wrong?

5A is about whether or not your belief was in any way constructed based off of the fact that torturing babies are wrong; whereas 5B is about whether it is fact, or even capable of being a fact, that torturing babies are wrong. It is in the 5B sense that my OP is addressing.

It is entirely possible that you arrived at the belief that torturing babies are wrong without ever even contemplating the possibility of it being morally factually wrong.

How do you arrive at that conclusion? You have shown that the belief is independent of the truth(ity). You have not shown that the truthity is independent of the belief.

Those are both the same. If a belief is independent of the trueness or falseness of a proposition; then the proposition’s trueness or falseness is independent of the belief: those are two ways of saying the same thing.

P1: A stance taken on the truthity of something, is independent of the truthity of that something.
P2: A belief is a (cognitive) stance taken on the truthity of a proposition.
C1: Therefore, a belief cannot make a proposition true or false.

However:

P3: "I believe that aliens exist" is true iff I believe that aliens exist

This is just a re-iteration of your previous post, which does not address which premise you disagree with.

In terms of your “P3”, I responded here.

If A is distinct from B, then B is distinct from A. But if A is independent from B, it does not follow that B is independent from A.

This seems to be the crux of your argument, and I am not following this distinction you are making.

All I meant, was that the truth-value of something is completely independent of any stance taken on it.

There seems to be a desire to go from uncontroversial to "absolutely true" or "objectively true"?

This is a non-sequitur: although I agree that most people are inclined to do so.

If “torturing babies is wrong” is propositional, then it is true or false independently of what anyone believes about it. For a moral subjectivist, they would have to rephrase it to “I believe torturing babies is wrong” and evaluate that instead.

The issue is more that "truthity" is a word that quite literally doesn't exist.

That’s fair. I could have sworn it was a technical term for it but, upon re-searching, I do not find it anywhere. All I mean by it, is the trueness or falseness of something (and not necessarily that it is true).

I see you used “truth-value”, which is fine as well.

P1: A stance taken on the truthity of something, is independent of the truthity of that something.

P1: A stance taken on the truth-value of something is independent of the truth-value of that something.

I interpret these to mean the same exact thing: am I missing something you are trying to convey? How have I changed it?

If the stance is distinct from what the stance is about, then the truth-value of ‘what its is about is independent of the stance itself—that’s what makes it a stance.

Of course, a moral subjectivist will disagree with this; but it is the root of the issue with their position.

The moral subjectivist will reject that.
A moral proposition is true if and only if I believe it is true.

If it is truly a proposition, then your belief that it is true is independent of the truth-value of the proposition itself; otherwise, you have to concede that the proposition is not distinct from the belief.

You’ve stipulated conditions under moral subjectivism, but you haven’t stipulated moral subjectivism itself. What if moral subjectivism, as a self-consistent doctrine, has nothing to do with mere belief?

Correct. I was contending with the prominent understanding of moral subjectivism—of course there may be nuanced versions.

I would say, though, that there is no other foreseeable way that a moral judgment could express (1) something subjective AND (2) be cognitive if one is not grounding the moral judgment in beliefs. Humans don’t have any other aspect of cognition that is subjective (stance-dependent) that could make moral judgments true or false.

deontological moral doctrine predicated on necessity of law alone, which makes the contingency of mere belief irrelevant?

How is that not a form of moral realism?

What makes subjectivism “moral” anyway?

It merely denotes a metaethical position: that’s all.

What it is that makes subjectivism in general reducible to a particular instance of it?

Again, I can’t think of a single version of moral subjectivism that contends with the idea that beliefs make moral propositions true or false: that’s a core aspect of the theory. If not, then perhaps the view is a form of moral non-cognitivism or something...not sure but I would be interested to hear it.

Would any of that matter with respect to your thesis?

It is definitely relevant, but my focus in the OP is the contemporary, standard view called moral subjectivism; and I wholly concede that there may be a very nuanced version of it that escapes these issues...but I have never heard of it (yet) and it seems pretty conclusive that it will have to revolve around beliefs.

My example of "I believe that aliens exist" being true iff I believe that aliens exist is proof that a belief can make a proposition true or false.

I think it may be better if you elaborated on which premise you disagree with, because this is false and I demonstrated it in the proof.

“I believe that aliens exist” is NOT a proposition that has its “truthity” relative to a belief: irregardless of what you believe about your beliefs, if you have the belief then the proposition is true. The proposition itself is objective and absolute.

The conflation you are making is that the proposition containing a reference to a belief DOES NOT make the proposition true or false relative to a belief. I would challenge you to explicate what the “proposition” is in your claim “that a belief can make a proposition true or false”: I can guarantee you that you think it is “I believe that aliens exist” while implicitly assuming it is “aliens exist”.

In the more abstract, “I believe X” is a valid proposition and is NOT relative to a belief; whereas claiming “X” is true because I believe it is true is incoherent. See my section on the rejoinder to the moral subjectivist’s response for more details.

As such you are left with this:

You cannot just cross out a conclusion in a syllogism without crossing out a premise; unless you are noting something illogical with its form.

Unfortunately, I did not understand this at all: can you please try to elaborate in a manner that ties it to the OP's thesis?

"I believe one ought not torture babies" is NOT a moral proposition: the moral proposition is that "one ought not torture babies". All you have noted is that one can take a stance on the truthity of a proposition, while simultaneously rejecting that there actually is a proposition to take a stance on.

In your example, it would be like denying that "aliens exist" is propositional in its own right while claiming that "I believe aliens exist" somehow makes "aliens exist" true or false.

Initially, I would change truthity for just truth.

Truthity is whether or not something has truth, and not that it has truth.

So it seems to me the argument begs the question by rejecting the challenged view from the start.

P1 is not the claim that beliefs cannot make something true or false (which would beg the question): it is an uncontroversial claim that the stance taken on something is distinct from that something.

If I take a stance of how delicious pineapples are, then my stance about it is distinct from the deliciousness of the pineapples...that’s what makes it a stance about the deliciousness of pineapples. Otherwise, one is making no distinction between a stance about something and that something itself. Along the same lines, the truthity is separate.

Believing X makes it true (subjectivism strictly defined).

This is internally inconsistent, unless you deny the basic nature of a belief: to make it consistent, you would have to transform moral judgments from “one ought to X” to “I believe one ought to X”.

Then you end up in the rejoinder section (in terms of issues with that kind of transformation).

When it comes to the rejoinder, I am not sure, I haven't wrapped my hand around it yet. A rewording in simpler terms would be welcome.

A moral judgment is of the form “one ought to X”, “one should do X”, etc. and NOT “I believe one ought to X”, “I believe one should do X”, etc.; but this sort of transformation is required in order to avoid the original concern of the position being inconsistent: one has to say that the moral judgment is enveloped in an indexical statement. BUT THEN, the indexical statement is the proposition, and not the moral judgment.

I would agree with Lionino here, that this isn't capturing the position very well.

See above.

One's belief in what one 'ought' to do is true in vitue of the fact that one believes it. This does, as Lionino point out, make it entirely arbitrary.

Then, there are no moral judgments which are propositional: all you noted is that our beliefs about, according to you, NONEXISTENT moral propositions are made true by our beliefs...of course! That’s a tautology.

The original American Dream was not about becoming rich: it was about manifest destiny, second chances, and acquiring sufficient wealth to provide and protect one's family.

After all the land was conquered and inhabited, the American Dream died; and was replaced with a new 'American Dream': greed. Now, the capitalism found in the US is, inevitably, slowly moving the wealth into a minority few--fewer and fewer people are able to acquire that baseline wealth. I wonder how long until we sublimate it with a better system.

See:



:up:

My biggest complaint, is that your argument doesn't actually attempt to demonstrate that atheism is illogical...even if I were to grant everything you said.

Another complaint, is that you seem to believe that doing anything non-egoistically is irrational.

I see. So all you are claiming is "informative" about this science of morality is IF one has goals aligned with it (viz., IF one finds it instrumentally useful). This is just of no significant use for morality/ethics; and is no different, at its core, than what Sam Harris does with his "moral landscape": IF one finds well-being good, then there is lots we can scientifically investigate about it.

God has nothing to do with it: if one doesn't believe in any kind of free will, then the use of a concept such as responsibility is absurd and irrational: they might as well say "you aren't actually responsible, but we are going to treat it as if you were". Do you see the issue?

Shockingly, all one needs to remedy this issue, at worst, is to accept a form of compatibilistic free will (;

That one is determined, does not entail that they have no free will: determinism does not preclude free will.

However, if one does go the hard determinist route, then, yes, moral responsibility does go out the window: ought implies can. Imagine you are going for a walk and two people crash into each other in a fatal car accident; imagine the cops detain you, although you were not involved in the accident whatsoever, and hold you morally responsible: would that make sense? Of course not! You didn't make any choices which related meaningfully to the car accident. If you are a hard determinist, however, then making a choice isn't a choice at all: it is like this car example. If you don't choose to rape someone and rape them, how would this be different than you walking by a car accident? It wouldn't. If you abandon free will, you abandon moral responsibility.

Fatalism does seem like a suitable position for a hard determinist though, as they do not believe in free will (in any form).

The problem is that, on the one hand, you are claiming that this "science of morality" does not inform us what we ought to do, and then, on the other, you say that this science is a perfectly adequate informant of "moral guidence" (i.e., what one ought to do).

Please define what you mean by “morality”, because so far you are just using the term, which for you is distinct from ethics, without giving a clear definition.

First, the definition is for the science of morality, not morality itself. Is it circular? No.

Agreed.

Ask the most philosophically ignorant person you can find “what is right and wrong”. They will cheerfully tell you what is right and wrong by their moral sense and cultural moral norms. No more of a ‘definition’ of morality is required. My definition generates no “circularity” issues.

???

Nothing about this gives a viable definition of morality: all you described here is anthropological analysis of people’s moral convictions.

Further, defining morality beyond what is “right and wrong”

So, is your definition of morality ~”the study of what is right and wrong”?

for example as Kant’s categorical imperatives, would make the definition nonsense. You could have the scientific study of cultural Kantian norms or Kantian sense motivations - incoherent nonsense.

Whether or not there are categorical imperatives, has no bearing on what morality is; so I am not following your point here.

What is your basis for claiming that what descriptively moral behavior ‘is’ has zero relevance for what morality imperatively ‘ought’ to be?

Because what ought to be, in a moral sense, is derived from what is intrinsically good; and NOT in any way what people happen to believe is moral or immoral. You saying that, what is moral or immoral is itself contingent on what people believe it is; which makes this squarely a form of moral anti-realism.

Any proposed imperative moral system that is not harmonious with the principles encoded into our moral sense will be rejected as “not what morality is about”.

Even if this is true, it wouldn’t entail in the slightest anything about what is morally good or bad; nor what morality, the study, actually is about. That’s like saying physics as a study depends on our intuitional sense of it—not at all: it is a specific study.

Also, remember there is no agreement and there may never be agreement on what morality imperatively ought to be.

There’s been a consensus on what morality is, at least in the sense of a general account, for a long time; and it has nothing to do with anthropology.

Do you have a better suggestion for moral guidance?

I would suggest studying morality, and not how people behave.

Bob

I appreciate the elaboration!

I understand you separate ‘morality’ from ‘ethics’, but this is superficial and nonsensical. What you really conveyed in your response (here), was that the difference between a science of morality and morality itself: you are distinguishing a psychological, sociological, etc. analysis of moral dispositions from morality itself, and trying to claim that the former is “morality” and the latter is “ethics” when this distinction, in fact, affords no such distinction—rather it is a distinction between a science of morality as opposed to morality itself.

“The science of morality studies the psychological, neurological, and cultural foundations of moral judgment and behavior”.
…
No, it is not circular. What our “moral sense” is and “cultural moral norms” are is established in all societies independent of how anyone defines or does not define morality.

If you are attempting to define morality, which you seem to be still doing, then this is absolutely circular—although I understand what you are trying to convey, it is not being conveyed properly by defining this science as morality.

If you define morality with any terms that refers to morality, then you are have defined it circularly because one has to understand first what morality is to parse the definition of morality of which you have presented.

Instead, I think what you are defining is the “science of morality” and not morality, and this is certainly not circular; and makes sense with your definition. BUT, it makes no difference if you call it “science of ethics”, because this would just be, by your own definition, “the study of why our ethical sense and cultural ethical norms exist”. Your distinction between ethics and morality is superfluous, and confuses things.

Would saying “The science of morality studies why descriptively moral behaviors exist” help clarify why there is no consideration for what morally ought to be done?

Yes, but it is important to note that you are in no way engaging in morality, even with respect to your own definitions, with this “science of morality”. The science you describe, would be distinct from morality itself and would amount to a psychological and sociological account of morality—which is useless for the actual study of morality.

One could argue “The study of descriptively moral behaviors has nothing to do with ethics”. However, arguing that “our moral sense and cultural moral norms have nothing to do with morality” would require some truly tortured definitions.

It has nothing to do with morality, insofar as it isn’t relevant to the study of morality itself; but, obviously, it is related to morality insofar as you are trying to give a psychological account of it, as opposed to diving into the moral discourse about it.

Bob

:fire:

Bob, Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Absolutely! I appreciate you taking the time to respond (:

I see Sam Harris as an embarrassment to the Science of Morality field. His science is minimal...

:up:

Are you interpreting the “Science of Morality” to refer to something like the “Science of Ethics”?

I do not recognize any valid difference between morality and ethics.

My goal in this post is to argue for defining the Science of Morality as firmly within science’s domain. I have said nothing about what arguments should or should not be part of ethics. I advocate removing moral ought claims only from science, not from ethics. A clear boundary between the scientific and moral philosophy domains would benefit both.

Perhaps it would be helpful, if you defined what you mean by “morality”. I thought you meant:

“The study of why our moral sense and cultural moral norms exist".

P.S.: this definition is circular (see underlined).

By including moral ought claims, Wikipedia’s definition of the Science of Morality either removes the field from the domain of science or proposes that moral ought claims are a part of science. Neither seems sensible. It is a poorly thought-out definition.

I don’t see how one can validly call it a study of ‘morality’ if there is no consideration of what ought to be: again, it sounds like you are falling into the same trap—in stripping out morality from morality.

Right, I have described how understanding why our moral sense and cultural moral norms exist can be culturally useful in terms of instrumental oughts for achieving goals. How is that a facade?

Is this all you mean by “morality”? Because this is just a study of the pyschology and sociology of a person—and has nothing to do with morality.

“Philosophers” like Sam Harris are not engaging in ethics whatsoever in their suggested strategies of cooperation (e.g., “moral landscapes” as he puts it). Sadly, you are right that the mainstream influencers (such as Sam Harris) view morality as (essentially) the study of behavior, but, in doing so, they have stripped out ethics and swapped it for a science (which already exists): psychology and sociology.

To remove “moral ought claims” is to remove the fundamental aspect of the study of ethics: an investigation of what is intrinsically valuable, and subsequently how to act in accordance with it. You have removed, in your definition, any study of what is good from ethics; and thereby are no longer in ethical discourse. A description of how people generally behave is not an ethical judgment, nor is such a study ethics.

All you have described, is how best people can pragmatically achieve goals; and not what goals actually align with what is (morally) good. Thusly, your “ethics” is a phantom, withered and malnourished, of the study—it is a facade.

If you think that what one ought to do is not related to anything which is intrinsically good, then you are talking about a form of moral anti-realism which is the negation of ethics proper (e.g., moral nihilism).

Science cannot tell us what is ethical: morality is supervenient on physical properties.

Hi Bob, sorry for the delay on this reply. I've started a new job and been much busier lately. Lets go ahead and wrap this one up as I think we're nearing the end. Feel free to take the last reply.

No worries and sounds good!

From my view a syllogism is a tool to formalize an argument, but it is not the argument itself, especially on an informal philosophy board. The argument is what I'm addressing.

I don’t know what you mean by ‘argument’: it seems like you are just using it as a catch-all term for whatever a position entails.

I'm not claiming you need an infinite set of validation. I've noted your argument is not complete enough for me to understand the logic that you're undertaking, and I'm not trying to needle in on any gotchas.

That you need more information to understand it, does not make it incomplete—that’s all I was noting before.

If there’s more from me that you require, then I am more than happy to give it: just ask!

But from my point, what I do see is subjective to me, and I'm not seeing clear arguments that show otherwise.

That’s because, with all due respect, you don’t have a clear understanding of what an argument is. You have just been using it as a vague term for “what the position is expounding”.

Because you are using the term so vacuously, I cannot respond adequately to the critique. If there’s something specifically subjective about my “argument”, then please elaborate on it.

If it is spoken about objectively, yes. If we would say, "Hate feels like this objectively," it would be wrong. If we say, "Hate is intense feeling of wanting to destroy something without remorse," then it can be seen as objective. We aren't describing the personal intensity or feeling of experiencing hate, but describing hate in terms of actions that a person will take.

Do you now see how a study of the natures of emotion is objective, then?

The "nature" of a thing is a bit outdated of a term, and again, something I would want fully detailed in a good conversation.

By “nature”, I mean the essence of a thing; and this is surely not outdated at all.

. How you define value is through other people's emotional evaluation of something.

Are you claiming this, or thinking I am claiming this?

Stating, "Value is an indefinable concept, we just know it innately" means its a subjectively defined word.

Another issue I think you are having, is that you are not grasping the difference between a concept and its use. Determining whether or not something has value, and to what degree, has no relevance to whether or not we can verbally explicate the concept of value.

Moreover, that a concept is indefinable (in the sense of properly, verbally, explicating its meaning) does not entail it has no meaning; nor that that meaning is subjective. You are using “subjective” way too liberally (and vaguely) here.

True, but to get to flourishing you first need the steps of defining value, then intrinsic value, and showing how we can objectively determine it

Value is to have worth. Subjects assign value (worth) to things. Intrinsic value is value assigned to a thing in proportion to how intrinsically motivating it is. The state of flourishing is intrinsically valuable, because it motivates, as per its nature, towards its acquisition and preservation. We can determine this through (1) experience of the state (or similar ones) and (2) observance of other people in different states: we observe, based off of our knowledge of beings, how likely it is that the said ‘thing’ is motivational independently of any subjective disposition about it and which are not. Other than expounding more how to differentiate the two, I cannot be any clearer; because it cannot possibly be any clearer than this.

What you are reading are the leftovers, the failures. They are fantastic references to see where humanity has already explored and found to be a dead end

You are right insofar as there are always improvements to be made to any position, and wrong insofar as most of the most influential (and long-lastingly true) ideas were written long ago. It is a mistake to think that everything done in the past is a failure.

You've seen this as well in your past posts. You reference one part of an older philosopher's work, and suddenly everyone has their opinion of that philosopher's end work, when you just want to talk about the part.

True.

Not explicitly telling people that these are often old, outdated, and ultimately philosophies that could not take the step to science, is in my opinion, philosophies' greatest failure as a study.

I don’t think it is possible to turn most of philosophy into a science, because it is that which is predicated for science in the first place. Scientism never worked, nor will it ever work. Most of the fundamental studies are by necessity non-scientific.

Bob

I just wanted to note something that I don't see getting addressed in here.

Things don't pop up for no reason, in fact, that is an assertion that implies a cause(in this case, 'no reason')

That something does not have a cause is not itself a cause. You are saying here, that something which does not have a cause has a cause---which is patently false.

I think we have exhausted our conversation. There's only one last question I have (that won't circle us back to our pre-existing disagreements): am I right in thinking that, for you, that the study of intrinsic goodness (i.e., actual goodness) is outside of the sphere of morality? That is certainly NOT what the SEP is intending, nor does the commoner agree with that. If so, what is that study called to you?

Besides that, I want to say, again, I appreciated the conversation; and I look forward to ones in the future! (:

Bob