If I, in a counter-factual, was born with blonde hair but basically lived the same life as I've lived up until now then I'd say that my personal identity wasn't different -- the unique description of my life has a different fact in the counter-factual but I still lived my life basically as I do, except I was born with blonde hair so I'd say my personal identity is the same.

That is there has to be some difference in the counter-factual that makes sense as having an effect upon our personal identity, not just any difference at all. And DNA is certainly closer to the causes we'd consider in thinking about personal identity than, say, what color the nurses' eyes were who helped deliver me (though I think that this is just as much a fact of my history as the unique code). But claims to necessity are a bit hard for me to accept, at least.

Similarly our fingerprints may be unique to us, but if I was born with a different unique finger-print pattern I don't think my personal identity has shifted. The particulars of the finger-print pattern have not been a significant source of identity, even if they are a unique pattern inscribed upon my palm. And this is exactly the sort of thing that comes to mind with DNA for myself: the specific and unique pattern clearly can have effects, but I'm not so certain that those effects are related to personal identity in a necessary relationship.

But you've already admitted as much so my best guess at your claim now is that there is a unique description of who we are, and any change in that description in a counter-factual would yield a different unique description, and that unique description is one's personal identity. Is that right? Also, do you believe we're sharing the same notion of necessity, or the same notion of personal identity, or is there something else that I'm missing?

The argument is about necessity, not sufficiency. — schopenhauer1

Maybe our understanding of necessity differs? To my mind if you can switch a part of the code and have the same results then there is not a necessary relationship between code and an organism's identity. Since you can do that -- not in science fiction but in science -- it just doesn't strike me as something I'd call necessary for personal identity. That is I can see it plausible that if I had a different code I could still be the same person in a counter-factual scenario because I don't think identity is necessitated by code. It would depend upon which part of the code was switched -- I could also have a genetic disease due to this, for instance, and I'd say I'm a different person then. But if one base got switched out in an intron then that is a scenario that seems plausible to me to possibly make no difference in the course of my life, and in relation to the topic, for my personal identity.

Is our identity the same as our experiences? Either way, OK, identity here is a relationship between DNA and experience -- however, would that we could know something like differences in experience! How would we know something like this to be able to assert that DNA yields a difference in experience?

I should have started with this but didn't think of it until this morning, but something that throws a wrench in this idea is the existence of introns and exons. DNA is the stable chemical but RNA is the chemical which codes for proteins. The organism is more than their DNA, and because of introns you can switch out whole parts of some organisms DNA and have it be the same organism: That is, sometimes you can switch out an A for a T or a G and have nothing happen other than this replacement, but the organism will continue to function even though the code is slightly different.

But this is to speak functionally. It's the motives of a court which give DNA priority, but surely our identity is more than what the law sees?

This is the argument from queerness. I googled "argument from queerness" and found only responses and an old archived SEP article.

I think that "queerness" is not easy to establish -- or, at least, is as hard to establish as "not-queer". I don't know how we get to a place where we know, or are even able to judge, what queerness is.

Just to make sure I read over your OP again. I think the disconnect is between:

And then, that body or mind is subject to changing experiences that could alter the course of their outlook, life, personality, etc. At that point, you can argue identity. But in no way, a person born of different gametes, even given the same set of experiences, would be "you". — schopenhauer1

these two sentences. In a way this reminds me of the free will debate: determinism vs. free will and so forth.

I think that what differs between these two sentences is the notion that if, at the time I was conceived, a different set of DNA, like the sperm nearby, would have started the process of birth then I'd be a different person. But in the second part you're acknowledging that there are processes after conception that can change twins to explain the initial idea that our gametes are necessary parts of our identity.

What I'm saying is that twin studies suggest that gametes aren't up to the level of necessity. So the scenario you're positing is if in the past when I was conceived I was conceived with different gametes, and you're saying that's absurd and I'm saying "Why?"

I am making a claim that if the gametes are different than the one that was your set of gametes, whatever the case may be (whether they are similar to you or not), THAT person who was conceived a second before or after with different gametes is NOT you. I really want to establish THIS point, at the least. That THIS point is not a matter of debate or interpretation, but just a fact that that person born from a different set of gametes is not you. — schopenhauer1

That may be the claim -- but why believe it?

I think far too much emphasis is put upon DNA when it comes to identity. DNA doesn't relate to who you are in some kind of easily explicable relationship. Just imagine that your own DNA has been mapped, as can be done, and you look at the map: a series of letters consisting of A G T and C. Which part of them causes you to type what you type here? None, of course. But if you cannot establish a relationship between the genetic code of an individual and what they do then I'd say you're mistaken that the genetic code is a necessary identifier. At least existentially what we do is who we are. And @unenlightened has already pointed out how identical twins have identical DNA, but not identical identities. (though it's worth noting here that DNA morphs, too -- so just how identical the DNA is is up for dispute -- 99.99% matching between code is very similar, but not identical identical, and biological processes have a way of finding difference)

I think the real reason DNA is highlighted is because it helped courts. Finally, a marker of identity to prove beyond reasonable doubt that this blood was theirs!

But surely we are more than our legal identities, and that those are certainly up for interpretation.

There are many apologies for Abraham's behaviour. Seen at face value, he was morally culpable. — Banno

Yup, I agree. I also do not agree with the apologies -- when I say that Fear and Trembling doesn't end in aporia for me, I side with the conclusion that Abraham was a moral monster.

(↪Moliere, hence "faith", especially in some authority, is morally questionable.) — Banno

I agree that faith in an authority is questionable. The Euthyphro demonstrates the difficulty there -- faith in an authority can serve as a kind of way of passing the moral buck to someone else when you're always responsible for how you act regardless of the faith you place: faith soothes, but does it justify?

The Binding of Isaac is such a good moral story to me because I grew up with it. Johannes de silentio's doubt doesn't end in aporia for me but it's still a very popular story with enough valances of meaning to keep it alive and contemplate. I suppose it comes to mind because I'd say that the commitment to non-violence strikes me as something of a heavenly belief, whereas the acceptance of violence in this world, when necessary, strikes me as an earthly belief. In metaphor The Binding of Isaac can be read as this tension between heavenly and earthly commitments: the first born son inherits the wealth and guarantees that you have a legacy, so to sacrifice your first-born is to put faith back in God that your legacy is greater because of him and that he will keep his promise to you -- that is, the ethics of today, which Kierkegaard clearly felt, were so alien then that killing your son wasn't even something morally worth considering. Instead: There are the goods of this world and then the goods of the higher world that God knows, and only he knows, and it's only through faith that you can reach them even when you do not understand him.

I reach for faith because it seems right, and rhetorically at least it seems to imply anti-realism. So it fits how I feel, at least. Further I wonder if there may be points of consonance here between what are usually competing worldviews or ethical considerations -- if it's all faith then perhaps this is a path to talking.

These are the considerations that lead to virtue ethics, to working on oneself rather than grand moral schemes. — Banno

That makes sense -- it's a sort of literature for this purpose of working on myself, and surely all this is real.

But you have your foundational principles - that is, you take them to be true. Hence you are a moral realist. — Banno

I've rewritten this several times, just to say that up front. Pick away.

This could be a way of introducing what's important rather than what is true. It's that we have foundational principles at all that makes us count as a moral realist -- but note how this is different from whether or not they are true foundational principles. I'm fine with moral realism as a kind of default position so that one must raise doubts, especially in philosophy (and especially given the unpopularity of ethics). But doubts can be raised, and I hope I've done enough to show that my doubts are not based in a scientism, but rather are what I'd call a rather old fashioned moral doubt: the kind that people refer to when they speak in terms of faith. If Jesus is coming back, then shouldn't he have come here by now? If moral realism is true, then shouldn't we know something about what's good?

I think your division between truth and justification holds with respect to claims on knowledge. So insofar that ethics is a knowledge my doubt would deflate. It's that claim to knowledge which I doubt anyone possesses: if no one knows then we are all ignorant, which would mean that we're all functionally nihilists. In that case morality may sound reasonable, but that doesn't mean it's rational or known.

Maybe someday. But now, while we kill each other for all the various reasons printed in our newspapers? Faith is the only response I can think of as reasonable in such a world as this. The other is that killing is good (sometimes) which is the very claim that causes my doubt. If killing is good (sometimes) then I am the one who knows nothing about goodness, and what I want is to know how it is that killing is good (sometimes). I want a moral justification for violence, given that our entire way of life is based upon violence.

But what I doubt is that our way of life is actually good. Any way of life that depends upon killing others to perpetuate itself seems to have missed the moral lesson, to misunderstand, to be ignorant -- and all presently lived ways of life are ignorant in this exact way.

So, as I said, I'm the one that's the odd-ball out. It's an odd case to think killing is bad, simpliciter. I can make way for necessary evils or some such, but I can never really understand how killing is good, actually or really. I'm no pacifist because that's an unrealistic standard -- but I cannot deny that the pacifist has a handle on moral goodness better than most, if anything true about goodness can be said at all. Most would make excuses, and understandably so given how much we rely upon violence since we live in nation-states, a most violent social-organism -- and note how the instinct to point out how the past is bad kicks up here, as if that would excuse us rather than point out how we're all still the same as we've always been: excusing violence with the language of goodness. And if that's all we do with morality, in its actual effects rather than in the philosophy room, then what worth is there in speaking this way? Why is it important?

The Aristotelian tradition is not at all will-centered in my opinion. Of course that doesn't mean that it might not involve a greater emphasis on the will than Epicureanism. — Leontiskos

Well, which is it, do you think? Are they the same or are they different?

I am saying that the person who doesn't go to the doctor will never be cured, and no one who sees a doctor has a total inability. In the general case I think there needs to be some baseline of willpower in order to seek the cure in the first place. I want to say that the doctor-patient relation is synergistic. — Leontiskos

And I am saying I don't believe there must be willpower in place for someone to desire change. I'd go so far as to say a person has to want change, but that there are those without willpower and those are the cases in the most need of help.

Willpower is an odd concept -- what is it to act against an inclination other than to be inclined this way? And I'd say some people are so abled, so inclined, and some are not. But the doctor doesn't just say "Well, that guy was born to be sick", but acknowledges difference and gets to work. If they don't go see the doctor, for instance, the doctor can go see them.

Does it have to be one characteristic?

One could be honest because telling the truth gives you blessings in the afterlife. It's not that that honesty, right now, is what matters but because there is a judge after death who will look at your life and be able to tell that you lied or not that you tell the truth.

But I have to say that I think this is one of the worst ways to be honest: it works, but that person is saddled with so many bad feelings just to ensure something that is more easily recognized as worthwhile without anxiety or guilt -- I am committed to honesty, but honestly, the only reason I am so committed is I've come to see how stupid I am. It's because I trust others that I think honesty is a good policy, and in so doing it seems to mostly work out even though there are times where I've been betrayed.

So I'd say there is no one thing that characterized the mindset of honesty. It could be anxious, it could be self-interest, and it could be out of a simple desire to be good.

Or, if we are like Kant, it could be due to an obsession with universality :D -- but I don't think that's usual.

I think you are describing Aristotelian continence. The value of continence does not reside in the idea that willpower suffices for happiness. — Leontiskos

Fair enough -- if what I'm describing is, in fact, Aristotelian then the distinction between the thinkers isn't as important to me as the line of thought itself.

Let's say that this emphasis on willpower is a common belief, that I have heard it attributed it Aristotle's psychology (in the sense of having authority due to Aristotelian roots), and that I believe this is a bad way of thinking about how human beings change their behaviors. It seems what you're saying is that this is an incorrect way of understanding Aristotle, so fair enough -- then I misunderstand Aristotle.

The overemphasis on willpower is presumably a descendant of Puritanism. — Leontiskos

Now that's very plausible to me. A misreading of Aristotle through a popular ethic is probably what I'm contending with in my little mental games in thinking the difference between them. But here I still think there's a point to be made, in spite of all this.

The only thing I disagree with is "total inability." They must be able and willing to undergo the painful cure, and this requires willpower. More than willpower is needed, but without willpower they cannot be cured. Those with a total inability would not commit to the cure, attend the AA meetings, etc. Again, temperance is the goal, not continence, and temperance is not a matter of willpower. For Aristotle continence is not even a virtue, because it is not good in itself. — Leontiskos

Why would you disagree with "total inability"? Isn't that the actual problem case that I'm talking about? From the perspective of the doctor, at least, the one who gets themselves to the AA meetings and undergoes change because they realize they have a problem and they need help -- that's the case that's already solved itself. From the perspective of the Epicurean doctor the person who doesn't attend the meetings, that cannot stop themselves from pursuing anxious desire -- those are the cases that need the most help.

To be fair to you and anyone who has a more charitable read on astrology: I don't find astrology very significant, so my rendition of it is inadequate. While I agree with Feyerabend that my judgment of astrology isn't based in science, for instance, I'm OK with having beliefs that are not-scientific. In fact I think most of my beliefs are not-scientific, really. With astrology the entire enterprise was just so "out there" that I didn't feel the need to explore it at a scientific or philosophic level, to get at the best rendition of the belief and see how I could make it work. It, along with so many other beliefs, is a collection of thoughts I've come across that I don't believe for no real specific reason other than it just sounds incorrect, though I understand that such justification is weak and so I'm not deeply committed to its falsity either. (think here of just how many religions exist, and how many of their beliefs exist -- well maybe you have, but I certainly haven't bothered to go through *all* of them, or even a majority of them, at the most rigorous level)

But among rationalists, at least, astrology is generally viewed as not-scientific. And even those who practice will make caveats with respect to science or some such if pressed, that it's "just fun" or they don't take it that seriously -- so it's not as much a true magical incantation but the words are still worth engaging in for them. (Not for me. I'm on team disappointment, or at least disenchantment if we have to like how the world is going)

And even among non-rationalists they'll understand what I mean when I say "OK, but compare astrology to astronomy. There's a difference there, yes?" -- the important part is that we agree that there are at least some times that when we speak the literal, referential truth isn't what's important -- something else is. That's enough for the worry of error theory to at least get off the ground as a possibility worth considering: since we sometimes believe everything we say is false, so it could be that we've done it again.

But I have to admit that this is a bit afar from incommensurability. Still, I use the example of astrology enough I felt I ought say something.

Thank you for expressing so much more adroitly the view I had attempted to set out previously. — Banno

It always pleases me that I manage to set out something which actually manages to capture some sort of agreement, so thanks for letting me know.

I've re-read Feyerabend - Against Method and Science in a Free Society - with a view to tying down his notion of commensurable and incommensurable, and decided that his view changed over time. I think he started with something like Wittgenstein's language games in mind - he had gone to England with the intent of studying with Wittgenstein, but the latter's illness and death led him to Popper. I think he carried something of "language games", or perhaps a "forms of life", into his dealings with Lakatos. In Against Method Feyerabend emphasises incommensurability, but plays it down in later writings, even I racal, denying that incommensurability meant that there could be no comparison. — Banno

I honestly should do the same. My reading on Feyerabend, and Kuhn too for that matter, is old and probably missed some points he made. No promises here yet, because projects are too easy to want to take on relative to how hard they are to actually complete while maintaining employment :D

Seems to me that, that we understand dolphins to be social and communicative shows us that they inhabit the same world we do. If their songs are showing rather then saying, then they are not subject to Davidson's considerations of sentential language. — Banno

Here we might be talking past a bit -- speaks of worlds as language games or forms of life, for instance. But I take your point; same world, due to showing.

And I think it correct, too. I think that if the lion could speak English to us, for instance, I'd simply accept that speech while feeling it's a bit strange rather than saying "Oh, they're a lion, they don't know what they are saying"

Contrary to ↪Joshs, if we commence by assuming that there is no possibility of communication on important issues, then we are throwing out the possibility of "ameliorating" the "violent breakdown in communication".

Again, we can come to understand that the rabbit is a duck-rabbit, and hence to see the point of view of those who only see the duck. Only where there is some potential for agreement is there also potential to avoid violence.

On the other hand I think there is something to be said for an insistence upon an answer as being a problem in finding ways of communicating. At least some of the time. Sometimes, though it is hard to set out when in words (for that is the very problem, so it seems), it's the insistence upon finding out who is wrong and who is right, what is true and what is not -- if we'd just concede this or that or give up on this or that then perhaps we could find ways to talk again. If we're particularly committed to consistency, which I share that fault, then we might make note upon realizing this new way of talking how I was wrong and they were wrong in certain respects, but then we'd be talking about meaningful disagreement instead of... whatever the yes/no assertion disagreement is.

But the metaphor I'd reach for here is...well, Hegel I guess. There's the duck, the rabbit, the duck-rabbit, and whatever that comes after which actually manages to make us click. No guarantees on how that works at present -- Hegel already tried, and was forced, even as a rationalist philosopher, to accept contradiction as the engine, which surely already shows how difficult it is to understand, from a rational perspective, when we create something new that happens to work.

For what evidence is there empirically for "conceptual schema" to be a "thing" as applied to language use itself (not necessarily as a meta-theory of differences in scientific frameworks aka "incommensurability"). — schopenhauer1

That question reads a bit convoluted to me. Can you rephrase the question?

I am tempted to say that any notion of conceptual scheme would claim that putting empirical evidence prior to determining the scheme is the wrong way about: in the strong version the scheme determines evidence, in the weak version the scheme is part-and-parcel to the evidence. At the very least there are beliefs around empirical evidence which can be questioned from a non-evidential standpoint -- there's a certain sense in which we have to delimit what evidence even is.

For example: there are beliefs about how temperature is measured, but those beliefs are different from empirical evidence of temperature, which is just the measurement itself. But in order to be able to measure we already understand temperature conceptually to be a measure of heat, that heat transfers to the thermometer and equilibrates at the same temperature as the object it's surrounded by, and that this effects the density of mercury such that if we put regular marks on the thermometer we can see just how hot or cold it is in accord with some standards, like the boiling and freezing point of water, and because it's equal in temperature to what's being measured after such and such a time, how hot or cold some other object is is the same as what the thermometer's temperature is. These beliefs coincide with but aren't identical to evidence.

At least this is what seems to be meant by the notion of conceptual schemes. The Underdetermination of a theory by evidence is frequently cited in favor of conceptual schema, for instance. They are what's posited as an explanation for our understanding a theory at all. Given this underdetermination schema or the conceptual frame is that which evidence is situated within and made intelligible by. The "raw, unmediated empirical" is sort of the very thing being questioned: concepts, though unarticulated, are there from the first observation, rather than something we come to construct from non-conceptual empirical reals separate from conceptual articulation.

So, given that, I'm wondering what would even be in the domain of possible evidence? Either people talking to one another is support for the idea, or it's not. We're sort of at a level of generality where appeals to evidence aren't going to be easy to even understand as being in favor of or against schemata, much less be persuasive.
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EDIT: Question 2 seems a bit too off the beaten path to me -- I think the question between science and philosophy and their merits deserves at least a thread of its own, unless I can see how it'd relate to incommensurability.

There are lots of degrees and levels of agreement within science, and just as many degrees and levels of incommensurability. Among participants in a scientific paradigmatic community, there need mot be unanimous agreement on conceptual definitions in order to work
productively together. I do think it can be helpful to conceive of normative discursive communities in terms of shared worlds, as long as we treat the idea of world as something like form of life or language game. In a shared world, my behaviors and your responses are mutually intelligible enough to allow for each of us to anticipate the other’s next moves in the game. Now let us say my scientific community undergoes a paradigm shift. Is our new shared world incommensurable with our old one, and if so, how are we then able to go back and forth between the old and new paradigm? I suggest what happens here is that in formulating the new way of thinking, at the same time we subtly reconstrue the sense of meaning of the old concepts such that we now see that old vocabulary in a different light. It is not as if we are able to make the old theory and the new one logically commensurable, but our redefining of the old terms in themselves makes it possible to form a bridge between the old and the new concepts. The old scheme becomes an inadequate or incomplete version of the new one as we retrospectively look back at it. Much the same thing happens in religious conversion. When look back at our old thinking, we implicitly reshape what the old notions were through the filter of the new ones.

Now let’s say we encounter someone who remains within the old way of thinking. We can share their world with them, maybe even consciously taking into account that we no longer conceive of the particulars of that old
world exactly in the way that we used to and the other still
does. But the bridge we created between the old and new doesnt exist for the other. Our new world is mostly invisible to them, at least as evidenced by the impossibility of sharing practices based on that new thinking.

But there are many other ‘worlds’ of practices that we CAN share with the other. We can participate with them in shared recreational activities, for instance. We can do the same with ‘alien’ species like dogs, when we play fetch with them. Whether we are ‘really’ understanding each other is not a question that need be asked as long as the game is flowing smoothly. Given that astrology makes use of concepts that are loose enough to be amenable to a wide variety of interpretations producing different practices among disparate communities, one can find those who consider themselves to have undergone a ‘conversion’ form astrological belief to astronomy, where for others astrology and astronomy can happily co-exist as distinct but not incommensurable worlds. — Joshs

I like this exposition. I think it surprisingly gets along better than I would have predicted with the Davidsonian picture -- perhaps we could treat Davidson's notion of incommensurability as a kind of high-standard, truly alien incommensurability, but that this is a bit off from the sort of incommensurability which Kuhn and Feyerabend are talking about, or what we ourselves may distinguish.

In a way we could read Davidson as providing some hurdles to the notion of incommensurability such that we have to be able to understand how it is we come to understand designating a scheme as such, and in so doing how it is it's not just something mundane, like disagreement or ignorance, when we do come to understand that.

It seems you and I have some agreement that it comes down to how people interact together, their practices and such , and I can get along with conceiving of normative discursive communities as participating in differing worlds when we understand these worlds as language games or forms of life, since I try to understand incommensurability in terms of what people are doing and noting how sometimes they are acting at cross-purposes.

And I think your description of changing beliefs makes a good deal of sense -- how the bridge beliefs between beliefs are mostly invisible to someone who still believes such and such makes a lot of sense. Isn't it this difference in beliefs, and the ability to understand someone else's beliefs, that gives rise to the notion that we have the ability to distinguish between concepts, or at least competing beliefs, such that we'd be able to make the claim to a schematism?

But also I think you're on point to say that as we move from a previous belief to a new one the old belief "morphs" to some extent. It's no longer the same belief, but a new one as defined by the web within which it sits. One thing here, then, might be that while there's a schematism it can never be articulated because the very act of articulation changes it. We come to understand that there's a scheme behind our belief formation, but in so understanding we also cut ourselves off from its constancy such that we can call it a scheme -- it becomes a bundle of beliefs that are ever-changing instead.

I think it’s important to take seriously the reality of radically incommensurable conceptual schemes, worlds, forms of life. The often violent breakdown in communication that incommensurability between ethico-political communities produces cannot be adequately ameliorated by consultation of a presumed single real world, even Davidson’s indirect one One needs to recognize that these multiple worlds of practices cannot be reduced to a single correct one., even if we believe such reduction is only an asymptotic goal never to be reached. — Joshs

I agree! But also note that this is why it's important that we get it correctly -- breakdown in communication and incommensurability can have some of the worst consequences for us. I agree that the temptation to reduce everything to a single way of speaking, My Way Which is Right, gets in the way of finding real strategies for understanding one another and coming to live together.

I think that we could be tempted to use Davidson to skip over what was ever meant by "incommensurable" -- but I think that it's better for understanding when we might go "off the rails" with the idea and become either incoherent or dogmatic.

What, then, do we want to say is the relationship between astrology and astronomy? “Asymmetrical” doesn’t seem to cover it. Any ideas? — J

Some thinking out loud:

Incommensurable is the word I'm tempted by :D

But then it seems to be too convenient, in a way. It depends upon just how radical is radical incommensurability, I think -- taking Kuhn's book sometimes it seems a matter of harsh disagreement, and sometimes it seems they inhabit different experiential worlds which in turn give the theories meaning which in turn explains their radical incommensurability.

Feyerabend made the claim that astrology could be a kind of research program, and it's for this reason that I often think through it as an example. It seems to me that one could, if they wanted, perform a scientific examination of astrology, but that this is not how we relate to astrology at present, be we believers or skeptics in its truth. They are at cross-purposes, and so rather than being incommensurable due to experiential difference they are simply trying to do different things entirely while having a superficial resemblance to one another. Astronomy, as practiced by science, is trying to do science with respect to the stars and planets and such, while astrology is trying to soothe people's fears about the future or their place within the world or what it is they ought to do with their life today: one is descriptive of the universe, and the other is therapeutic. And what Feyerabend would point out is that when astronomer's attempt to debunk astrology they end up looking like one another rather than looking like a proper scientific enterprise; appeals to authority and a general belief in progress from the primitive to the modern frequently substitute for a proper scientific or philosophical analysis of the concepts, where you can find some cases of the stars influencing life -- Feyerabend points to plants responding to solar flares, and oysters responding to the waves which in turn is the result of the moon. It's not what the astrologists say, but that's no excuse for the philosophical examination of astrology.

So minimally I think I'd say they are at cross-purposes, and so this gives a kind of incommensurability that's not conceptual, exactly -- if someone is trying to dance on a floor and another person is trying to tile that floor at the same time then they are incommensurable in the sense that they are working at cross-purposes within the same space.

If we have people working at cross-purposes does that then give us a reason to believe they are conceptually incommensurable? In a way it makes sense of Davidsonian charity as a requisite for intertranslatability --if we want different things then we have less of a reason to extend charity and then speech becomes interpreted in a manner which it's not being employed for, and if we aren't even aware that we're speaking at cross-purposes then we are in a kind of defunct communicative relationship. That at least gives some grounds for judging whether or not our respective "camps" are incommensurable. But it's not exactly conceptual anymore -- it's practical, in the sense of praxis, which seems to me to be a bit more mundane.

But perhaps this is just the result of finding an explanation: when we understand things they seem a bit more mundane. Wasn't that the point of explaining, to make it less surprising? To make it more understandable? So there's a sense in which this explanation dispells the belief in in principle incommensurability.

Though there's still @Banno's example of Dolphins, which I think it is a good example to think through with respect to intertranslatability too. Rather than martians we can just look to our large-brained ocean mammals as a kind of alien which is clearly social and communicating, but seemingly we are unable to translate theirs into our language.

The part that I'd still be uncertain about, at least, is whether or not they inhabit a different world or not. In fact it seems that we could set this as an aside entirely: insofar that we're able to tell that other humans inhabit different worlds so we'd be able to do the same if we are able to communicate with dolphins. But the Davidsonian argument against conceptual schemes -- insofar that conceptual schemes are what lead to different experiential worlds -- presents a difficulty in that by understanding incommensurable worlds we make them no longer incommensurable: what appeared to be radical difference was no more than simple human ignorance. But that does not then mean the Dolphins are in an entirely different world from us as much as it means they experience the world differently, just as you'd expect for any creature which has different capacities but is also social and needing to collectively understand in order to accomplish species-level goals. So in a way, due to this, here we are understanding the Dolphins even if we cannot talk to the dolphins (since we are not dolphins) in the sense that we see they are a species which relies upon other members, like ourselves, and so we interpret their songs and movements as a kind of language -- that is, we're already crossing the in principle level of incommensurability which Davidson speaks against as impossible.

The question sort of becomes: is this what was ever meant by incommensurable theories? Probably not, given how little dolphins feature in Kuhn's or Feyerabend's work ,at least to my knowledge. But, all the same, it's a good point to bring up about truly alien conceptual thinking: if it were, then we don't understand it, by the very notion of "alien"; however, this might be a bit of a bulldozer in the face of the seemingly incommensurable between human beings, which requires a bit more nuance to see in what way it's not incommensurable.

But aren't cures almost always painful? And won't patients need to accept and tolerate pain if they want to be cured? I don't track your idea that the cure will be painless, or that a doctor treats a patient without any cooperation on the part of the patient. I mostly think that Epicurus will require Aristotle's continence, unless perhaps he has a cure the likes of which the world has never seen! — Leontiskos

Hrmm, not painless, I agree with that -- Lucretius' poem talks about how the cure is painful, and the reason to put it into poetry was to sweeten it in the same way that you sweeten medicine for children when they don't want to take it; so the literature supports that the cure is painful, but is more pleasurable in the long term given that the anxious mind is what is being cured. And I think one has to want a cure in order for it to work its magic -- you have to agree that the pain you feel now is worth getting rid of, and it's this point that I think most would pass over an Epicurean ethic: "you mean that this exciting life is painful? Sign me up for more pain!" would be a common refrain.

But such a person isn't expected to just act on themselves, for instance -- Alcoholics Anonymous is similar in this regard. The community is what provides support for people to change their behavior for the better, after having acknowledged that there is a problem. And here this is important because it's not an individual's willpower which is at fault for alcoholism, as if they could only conjure more willpower then they'd be able to resist the urge; if anything that image is exactly what's in the way of finding a realistic path to changing one's behavior, by all accounts!

Rather there must be some way that a community can help an individual who is lacking in this capacity, and the failure of the individual is a failure on the part of the community to provide enough support. The question becomes: How do we help this person become happy, given that they are unable?

This gets along with the notion that ought implies can, but while acknowledging psychological or behavioral limits of individuals; it's not a lack of willpower, though a presence of willpower would surely make the doctor's task easier, it's that this person requires something more than willpower (given their total inability in that regard).

Okay, so in our culture we would think a lot about consent. So if you are an Epicurean doctor and I submit myself to your care then you can work your magic on me, but as soon as I withdraw my consent then it is no longer permissible for you to operate on me. If the "medicine" is onerous then I will be liable to withdraw consent, and thus continence will be necessary, no? — Leontiskos

Hrmm, not if the cure is making you happier, I'd imagine.

Or here we are -- if you withdraw consent then this is just a failure on the part of the doctor to administer the cure. "Fault" here not in an ethical sense, but rather in an exploratory sense -- if we find a person who is resistant to the cure then we have more to overcome.

What have the Epicurean doctors been doing for these millennia? Have they found ways to operate on and transform souls without any effort or difficulty on the part of the soul? This is where my skepticism swells. — Leontiskos

Well, first I'd say that there no longer exist Epicureans in this manner where there were schools and such. This way of life is a dead way of life, and so asking after their practices is something of an academic exercise already. At most today we have people who are inspired by the writings, but nothing so organized as it was.

It seems to me that they operated on similar principles that other churches do: forming communities which reinforce and teaches norms and sets the people who are within that community outside of the social milieu to which they originally belonged such that the social organism comes to influence the person to adopt the way of life. It's a church, more or less, and they were like priests.

But then we're left with an ancient record to piece these things together, and I'm certain that just like any church there were people who did not get along with the cure. That is I share your skepticism that they had such a cure. But the philosophy around how to treat a sick soul is still quite different: it's not their lack of willpower, but a lack of knowledge on the part of the administrator of the cure. In a way the person who is not cured is morally ignorant -- you cannot expect them to behave in accord with right living because they're still attached to wrong living.

I don’t see it: can you elaborate? That’s just a hypothetical imperative being used to with modus ponens to derive the consequent. Or are you saying it is world-to-word direction of fit because it is hypothetical, since it is subjective? I could get on board with that, but I don’t see how there’s such a thing as a fact which has a world-to-word direction of fit. ‘You ought to bring an umbrella’ (P2) is non-factual (to me). — Bob Ross

Hrmm, not sure. Sometimes I use the boards to think out loud and sometimes it's more piffle than substance. I'm going with that now. I was thinking how the verb shouldn't matter when translating sentences into a logic, and so it would also go with facts. But in that spirit I was just using silly examples that follow the form, in the same way that we use silly examples to demonstrate validity (like "if the moon was made of green cheese" etc.)

In another logic, though, you would track the predicates. So... meh. Just some fluff in trying to lay out a way of thinking.

The only potential way out of it is to deny word-to-world direction of fit, but I as of yet to hear a fully fleshed out concept of a fact with world-to-word direction of fit. — Bob Ross

One truth that is no fact are the logical truths, I think. There's no fact that makes "A = A" true. It's not a state of affairs, and I'm not using this "is" statement to set out how the world is as much as I'm setting out how we're going to talk about the world at all.

That is, here is a truth without a direction of fit at all, and since we have to accommodate truth to at least allow for logical truth we must accept that sometimes there are true sentences which do not set out how the world is, that are true regardless of the states of affairs.

I think this is largely in line with the analogy to mathematical reasoning for moral thinking.

Now we note that in a logic the verb is limited to "is", and it's noted that we need some kind of implicature to connect one to the other, such as "if it is raining then you ought bring an umbrella"

Consider "If you ought bring an umbrella you ought to sing a song; You ought to bring an umbrella, and therefore..." : if we render this into a sentential logic then "ought" disappears and you have modus ponens with sentences which at least appear to have a world-to-word direction of fit (since these are actually just examples in a reflection on the question, though, they do not -- that is, I think I'd tie the pragmatics to determining direction of fit)

Which is to note that we need not even derive an ought from an is or an is from an ought; that in terms of our logic or language, at least, that these are metaphysical theses. Consider the verb "to have" in relation here -- if facts are statements with a word-to-world direction of fit then "to have" is, logically speaking, a modification of the copula and fits just fine within sentential logic. So it would go with "ought" -- this is a modification of the One Big Logical Copula, you could say, which includes variations of useage between people, be it setting out a definition, setting out states of affairs, or setting out what we ought to do.


I think that this account is relying upon a deflationary view of truth, as opposed to a correspondence theory of truth, though. So it could very well be considered an anti-realism on that account, if the target is a belief in moral facts to which moral statements correspond.

In trying to relate the logical, propositional view with a psychological perspective, I start from the thought that ‘ought’ and ‘should’ arise where there is an indeterminate situation, with at least two outcomes being possible. In science, when we say a certain outcome ought to ensue, we mean that it is statistically likely given our knowledge of the facts involved. When we say a moral outcome ought to ensue, we dont mean one outcome is more likely than the alternatives, but that we prefer one outcome over the others. Where things get tricky from a psychological perspective is when we compare the grounds for our moral preference with the grounds for considering one empirical outcome more likely than another. Even if we believe that moral preferences can be justified on the basis of something more than whim, the social realities we might argue bind our moral preferences ( people shouldn’t happily torture dogs) would seem to be a different category than the empirical realities binding our scientific oughts. But is this distinction justified? If we say the direction of fit for empirical oughts is from the word to the world, aren’t we forgetting that the world we are relying on is already defined on the basis of the social reality of a discursive paradigmatic scheme? So it seems in both the case of the empirical ‘is’ and the moral ‘ought’ , we are relying on a grounding in a social reality that is itself the product of a pragmatic, contingent coordination of values. — Joshs

That's interesting.

I'm with you that we rely upon the social, and that we're embedded in a world with others. But is the social a product, when considered ethically? I think a product is a relation between entities and how they interact, a kind of description of process from one entity to another. Descriptively our empirical "is" and our moral "ought" come from the same space -- and this would be true if we emphasize the social in our description of a psychology or some kind of description of its structure -- but does this explain why we differ in our judgments on particular ethical problems that seem intractable and without answer? Is it simply that we are part of a different tribe which presently enacting values at odds?

That would seem to follow along with there not exactly being an answer here as much as a preference, no? It's like the values we're coordinating with others are the basis upon which we can make a distinction between empirical 'is' and moral 'ought', but does that recognition give us an entry into understanding a path out of seemingly intractable ethical problems?

Whether or not it’s persuasive is a separate matter. Flat Earthers often aren’t persuaded.

I’m only trying to explain moral realism, not argue that it’s correct. — Michael

Oh. Well... I think I understand the explanation of moral realism you've supplied. I can understand that it can be defended, which is why I noted I'm not going for necessity. That's too high a bar, and it's not even interesting to the problem that I see because maybe we could, at some point, find agreement on intractable questions in which case my entire argument would evaporate.

OK, now it's fixed. :D Oof. Thanks :) True.

And why can’t it be that one such state of affairs is that we ought not harm another? — Michael

You can, it's just not persuasive to the person who believes we ought to harm another, so our differences remain even as you call it a state of affairs.

That someone assigned the property of truth to an uttered sentence is detectable. What does that mean, though? Is there supposed to be come correspondence between the so called true statement and the world? Or does truth just have a social function, as a deflationist might say? — frank

I'd say that it means the speaker believes it ought to be true, in the case of moral propositions. So "One ought not kick puppies for fun" is true means that I believe one ought not kick puppies for fun.

But in terms of the metaphysics of morals... well, yeah, there'd be some disagreements there. And we could appeal to taste in making a case for one or another metaphysic. Though that doesn't preclude a kind of real ethic in the sense that actions are real, and metaphysics can be seen as kind of literature rather than our real actions, that it is about our actions, and so taste comes about because we're evaluating literature rather than actions, and in the case of action we might make the case that there's more to it than taste, that goodness -- and not just beauty -- is important too.

The only difference is that some sentences use "is" and some use "ought", and that this verb indicates how we are using the word: the statements which use "is" have a direction of fit from the words to the world. What we say is made true or false because of the states of affairs of the world. It doesn't get much more specific than "states of affairs", I believe, unless we want a metaphysical exposition of facts. Here the reliance is upon language-use as opposed to metaphysics: we use the words in a manner where we want them to set out states of affairs, and this is the whole of it.

With an ought-statement, however, we use it in the reverse: We want the states of affairs to fit with our words rather than our words to set out states of affairs. So "You ought not eat the baby" is about what you ought-not do rather than what you are doing: One describes, the other proscribes, and this difference in use seems to cause some problems in thinking through ethics.

We can call it a fact, being this is a free world and we're setting out how it's best to talk, but the ethical differences seem to remain.

Hrmm... not can't. I wouldn't reach for necessity. More just noting that this is not how we normally use the word "fact", at least -- usually we mean word-to-world, where the words are meant to set out how the world is. But we can, of course, adopt other expressions -- just they become subtle or uncertain at some level when so doing. Immediately after what you quote I note how volitions and actions are clearly real, right? And I've also said that this could just be a feature of things now, that we may find some way of dealing with ethics in the same manner that we deal with other bodies of knowledge.

The closest to "can't" might be the argument from queerness, but I have to admit that I think that argument only follows with a greater degree of certainty about how the world is. Or, also, one might contend that "truths", in the above sense as distinct from facts, are queer, and so the argument is overcome.

Well, there's a subtly here that I'm now not certain about -- between truths and facts, to give a name to the distinction, where truths might include more than features of the world or how it is and so can include statements like "One ought such and such", which then can be true, and understanding the difference between them and facts is through its direction-of-fit. But that doesn't disqualify them from being real, per se, because surely our actions and volitions are real? It only disqualifies them from being facts to the extent that we understand facts to only include statements with word-to-world direction of fit.

Whereas before I think I've been treating these as lumped together in thinking through intractable problems in ethics, and wondering, in that ambiguity, if this is more a matter of faith than reason, or at least a kind of faith within the bounds of reason.

We might say that the hermit on the mountain tells the emporer a truth about the world at the end of the story of the Doestevsky'sDostoevsky'sTolstoy's three questions even though it does not rely upon facts. There's a sense in which the story gives credence to the notion through on over-arching providence, but I think that's understandable in the context of a story trying to deal with what seem like reasonable questions that don't have specific, factual answers.

That's a pretty cool map!

Oh. Well, now I see it.
 
Read this morning. It's definitely more soothing than the Dane's :D

It seems right, though.

Hrmm, I'd say we've already covered this point a bit, and the account laid by is sufficient for me to see a difference between claiming those as moral facts, and claiming Biblical moral facts as moral facts. I like the Book of Moral Propositions because I don't want to get sidetracked into discussions about why the Bible is true, given all the possible avenues that can go. Instead it's The Good Book because we defined it as so, in this thought experiment. In it the Book of Moral Propositions has one that you happen to disagree with. Do you change your mind?

But this is different from

...ethical truth does not set out how the world is, but how we are to act in the world. It's centrally about volition and action. SO it's not about how the world is, but what we might do in it.

So of course no fact about the world will demonstrate it's truth.

So we get a T-sentence such as
"one ought not kick puppies for fun" is true IFF one ought not kick puppies for fun
Now there are all sorts of ways to unpack this, or extend it...
"one ought not kick puppies for fun" is true IFF Kicking puppies for fun decreases the total happiness of the world
or
"one ought not kick puppies for fun" is true IFF one can will that puppies never get kicked for fun
or even
"one ought kick puppies for fun" is true IFF kicking puppies for fun increases my personal autonomy

And each of these the direction of fit is reversed by the antecedent. — Banno

Which puts volition and action at the center, rather than the propositions in a book.

I didn't make this connection, though I ought to have before -- but a reread of Fear and Trembling might be due.

Yes, there are nuances and flavours, but I do believe the essence of the reasoning holds. I agree, if you see your offspring as a continuation. I'd argue that is a form of transcendentalism. I think the only form of transcendentalism that would be responsibility-immune would be some kind of crazy-Calvinistic notion that salvation is pre-ordained. If you keep it simple, to the belief in an "ongoing," it is hard to escape the burdens and benefits of accepting full responsibility for the ultimate consequences of your behaviours. — Pantagruel

I can see how the story goes. That makes sense in a way, but let's consider another case of a materialist below.

From a practical perspective, whose ethic is the more trustworthy? Materialists seem to lose interest in the consequences of their actions, inasmuch as they will ultimately not be around to see them. So present measurability governs their imperatives. While Transcendentalists, who think of themselves as ongoing, commit to the idea of themselves as being around to reap the consequences of their actions. All things being equal, would you rather trust the ethic of someone whose actions are premised around the belief that, when you're dead you're gone. Or someone who believes in the idea of an ongoing responsibility for deeds? — Pantagruel

In answering the question directly I'm saying that I don't have a strong preference either way with respect to their metaphysical beliefs.

Some materialists are just naturally inclined towards doing good things because that's what you do -- it's simple. Some transcendentalists, in spite of believing in eternity, are fairly selfishly involved, as human beings tend to be, and the metaphysical beliefs don't matter too much to what they'll do.

So my preference has to do with the sort of person they are, ethically, and not the beliefs they hold about metaphysical reality, and having met too many good people on either side of that spectrum of belief, at least if self-report is to be believed. If transcendentalism gets a person to see the ethical then that's the belief for them, and if materialism gets a person to see the ethical then that's the belief for them, but it's the ethical that matters and is what I would base my preference on.

I realized this morning I kind of hijacked your thread @Bob Ross, so apologies for that. What can I say other than this has been something that's been bugging me and I've been thinking about, and none too clearly given how I'm jumping between points. Thanks for providing the opportunity to work out some thoughts, and forgive my excesses.

I think what you say here gets at the doubts that I'm trying to express in philosophical form:

P2-A*2*1: If one does not know something is true, then they have no reason to belief that something is true. — Bob Ross

It's whether or not we should call this knowledge that makes me doubt. In some sense if we don't have a knowledge of ethics then we are functionally nihilists, even if we believe there are true moral statements, because then what makes the decision is sentiment and attachment to this or that principle rather than a process of deliberation or a cadre of experts who know.

So the astrology analogue doesn't work.

That's a bit of a ramble, but it's after a heavy lunch. — Banno

Oh I've been rambling myself in trying to pick through the thoughts. I appreciate you taking the time to continue your side of the conversation. Perhaps I'll come to some better way of putting things through this talking.

Good points. I suppose the question would be is that if this difference is enough to warrant our belief in a knowledge of the ethical, since this is the doubt. Or, at least, is sometimes the doubt. Because you're right here:

But especially in this area, it's the disagreement that gets the attention. — Banno

I recognize there's agreement. But the depth of disagreement still gives rise to a belief that we're no longer talking about true things, at least sometimes, in spite of agreement. The desire is to avoid a conclusion like this:

Reject ethical truth values and all there is, is violence. — Banno

Because I certainly don't believe that all there is is violence. I want to say that even from an anti-realist perspective that wouldn't follow, else I wouldn't explore anti-realism! But that is certainly a belief we share that we ought to avoid in our reasoning that, at bottom, it's all violence.

I think we can use our words to come to resolutions without resorting to violence, and that this is a desirable thing. The appeal to heart is to note how there's no proof to be had, that is, no war to be fought in the name of a true cause. That is there's this use of moral realism which also yields the conclusion "it's all violence". This way of talking ethically where people want violence because they are in the right strikes me as a backwards ethics, but the language is the same. So we get some odd duck who persuades others

"one ought kick puppies for fun" is true IFF kicking puppies for fun increases my personal autonomy

And you begin to wonder where the truth in it all is when the odd duck is persuasive.
 

Is there really much disagreement on things like, "One should not kill their newborn infant," or, "One should not lie without reason"? — Leontiskos

I think there are times when such propositions come to seem empty or at least people begin to redefine who counts as a person and who doesn't. But since it's our actions, rather than the words, which matter to me this is the sort of thinking that seems to want truth and violence and goodness. Perhaps it's this trifecta that bugs me. I can't square away that we ought to kill and call this a good and say it is true that we ought to kill. I can understand living in a world where violence is necessary, but I cannot then say that this world is a good one because my sentiments are largely peace-loving. And I think it's this intuition which gets along with @Bob Ross's use of the Guillotine -- in some sense I am committed to non-violence, and that's the sentiment what underpins my reasoning here. But not everyone is, and some people even think this is a poor way to go about things because it's not realistic in our world. So which is right, in accord with ethical knowledge?

It seems like something of a judgment call to me that has no truth to it. In a way it's where my ability to reason on the situation breaks.

And I suppose this is why I find statements like ""One ought not kick puppies for fun" is true" as unpersuasive. Sure, but It's the hard questions that give me pause, not the points of agreement. And our love of puppies does nothing to speak to our, what appears to me, thirst for violence.

You seem to want to say, "Well, not enough people agree with me, so it probably isn't true." — Leontiskos

Heh. I think this is to be avoided. My doubt can be put in reverse form, for my purposes, because I'm doubtful of a knowledge, at least at times: I am unable to agree with others and so I wonder on what basis I have to think that this is a knowledge I possess at all? What could change my mind on the matter to conform with others? Perhaps this is also why I see it as faith -- it seems like I'm the odd man out, and yet I cannot change my belief in spite of this.

Now sometimes I have changed my mind. The question of violence is one I tend to go back and forth on, but the at-bottom sentiment is what drives me to think "No, it's pretty much wrong". One thing that moral realism explains is that people do, at times, change from one perspective to another because they think it's true. In fact I'd say this is why, early on, I had realist inclinations because I've changed over time in the same way I've changed my beliefs about facts in the world. It seemed to me that because I had changed my mind on this or that moral position that there must be some truth to the matter. But I notice many prefer to stay where they are -- so it does really seem to come to seem less like a knowledge than I had previously thought. I'm still open to looking at various articulations, but most of the time I see people setting up camps rather than exploring the various ways of thinking through the ethical.

Or, at least, the desire is to find a way to express ethics in a way that it's not just "Well, not enough people agree with me, so it probably isn't true" -- because that seems to be where we're at on some issues.

But I must admit that these desires and doubts are not arguments. The argument for me, more than the Guillotine (because I think sentiment is perfectly compatible with rationality, and there could be interesting ways of working sentiment into logical form) is from difference, in the form "If morals were real then we would agree to such and such a standard. We do not agree to that standard, therefore morals are not real" -- but I can see it needs delimiting from the way this expresses, and some of my doubt is based in an inability to articulate a standard. It's too broad and gives the impression that I'm arguing that morals are necessarily not real, where the actual doubt is: here are some issues where reasoning seems to stop working, and so I have some doubts about whether truth is part of our discussion here or whether this is a body of knowledge or whether it's an art, and how to go about thinking here.

We can write from the point of view of those who see the rabbit, or those who see the duck. That's being "situated" because we are able to contrast the two . But we can also from the view of those who see the duck-rabbit. With what is this to be contrasted?

Or if you prefer, being "situated" is always post-hoc. — Banno

Yes, I think that's the idea: that there's no real way to get around the post hoc choice of a situation to write a history from so the best one can do is specify it. You pick duck, you pick rabbit, or you pick duck-rabbit and organize the documents to tell your story accordingly. There's a pluralism here: they're all good for something, and a fuller understanding of history arises by including all of the perspectives. They're still bound by the documents and such to demonstrate their case, too: it can't just be making shit up.

Again, we cannot reason about ethics unless we acknowledge that ethical statements have truth values. — Banno

Right. We agree this far. The fear, let's say, is that they are all of them false.

We are repeating an argument that occurred after the war in Oxford and Cambridge, notably between Ayer and his intellectual children, and the "four women", Anscombe, Foot, Midgley and Murdoch. In the wake of the war, many philosophers could not accept the view that morals were no more than expressions of disquiet or preference. There was a renewed insistence on treating ethical themes rationally. This was part of the rejection of Positivism.

It's not so much a matter of faith as of grammar. — Banno

M'kay. Then all I can claim is it feels like faith because I'm uncertain, then.

But also I don't think I'd reduce ethics to expressions of disquiet or preference. Philosophy and rationality go hand in hand, and I think ethical philosophy a good thing to pursue, so I'm certainly not opposed to insisting on treating ethical themes rationally. I hold the same for the arts -- we can reason about the arts, but there even in our knowledge of these things we have to acknowledge it's not all truth and inference and deduction. But then I'm not sure what the role of truth is in evaluating art. I know it's important because this is how we think about things, but also there is something to be said for the performance or the heart in such matters too, and to note how artists have different movements which disagree with one another and we don't really think of Cubism, say, as true.

Ethics is the philosophy of the art of living, perhaps, though it covers more than that too in its course because we are concerned about many things as we deliberate on that question of how best to live or the right thing to do.

there are statements that we think of as true or as false, that say how folk ought behave; and we make use of these statements in deductions. — Banno

This is why astrology is a persuasive example to me. The astrologists think of the statements as true or false, and make use of the statements in deductions: it's at least possible for us to talk this way and believe it and it be false.

Now I believe astrology to have reasons for why it's false, and I think it differs from ethics so this is just to make the case against using arguments as a demonstration of truth.

It's just the sniggling suspicion that if there were real ethical principles then we'd probably agree a little more on some of the intractable problems. But that could just be a problem with us at the moment rather than something that will always be, so I don't argue to the point that there must not be moral facts or some such. Rather it's just that it seems like an art at this point.

So this might be the better way of putting things -- the anti-realist position sets doubts which a realist position may attempt to overcome, but I haven't been able to figure out how it is that you do that while accomplishing the goal of making a body of ethical knowledge (not producing it, just in a big-picture, philosophy kind of way). Rather it seems we have many different ways of life, many different possibilities which work for some and don't work for others. We can list a few things we agree upon but this agreement does not overcome the disagreement elsewhere. The direction of fit is important for the purposes of persuading people. Usually, by "fact", we mean world-to-word, rather than word-to-world. So how is it that the ought statements can be persuasive as they are in other disciplines which we count as knowledge?

I wouldn't want to foreclose the possibility of moral realism. I'm not so sure it's necessarily wrong. But I think it worthwhile to either accept that it's a matter of faith -- a faith which we can then reason about, and even seem to benefit some from doing that -- or be able to articulate how it isn't a matter of faith.

I think the important part you highlight is that we ought to take stewardship for future generations. I can imagine a Transcendentalist who doesn't care about the future because we reap our benefits in heaven, and a materialist who does because they realize that those are their family members and they are committed to family.

But the important part is whether or not they believe they are responsible for the future or not. The metaphysics is just a dressing to that.

Why pay this any heed, when it is clear that there are moral facts, and that we can and do use them to make inferences? Mackie's argument from queerness just confuses being objective and direction of fit. We all agree that one ought not kick puppies for fun, and so objectivity is irrelevant.
...we're not just asserting our convictions...
— Moliere
But isn't "asserting our convictions" what we do in physics as well as morality? We engineer planes from what we believe to be true. Why shouldn't we do the same thing in Ethics? — Banno

The argument from difference gets me more than the argument from queerness. It strikes me that there would be more agreement if ethics were real. (not scientific, here, or even empirical or anything of that sort -- I've been trying to be careful in laying out the case).

I don't think it's as much of a "shouldn't" as a suspicion that it's not going to work the same way. The direction of fit is what marks the difference between physics and ethics while still using facts in our reasoning. But how would you demonstrate to someone that "One ought not kick puppies for fun" is different from "One ought to take the sacrament"? Direction of fit takes care of ought-statements. Which of all the moral propositions are the ones which should be considered?

Suppose there was a book of all the moral propositions which disagrees with our commitment. I don't think any of us would change our minds on how we should treat puppies just because we have the book of moral propositions. In fact I'd say we already have such a book in our culture and we call it The Bible yet we clearly don't interact with that book in the same way. So given that how is it that we make ethics work as a discipline based in fact, or at least makes us able to make cases and demonstrate their truths?

It's in the weeds that my doubts grow. Error theory is just a challenge to the notion that because we make demonstrations we can conclude that there are facts to the matter since there are other such ways of talking which do the same but which we wouldn't say are really factual. We're able to fool ourselves into thinking we're speaking about real things. How is it that we know ethical talk isn't just an important game of astrology?

And this is important because it could be why it is we disagree so deeply on ethical matters: if it's not factual then we're not going to be able to prove to someone else that they are wrong. And here I just mean demonstrable in a way other than merely agreeing that something is true. This turns ethics into a kind of race for ears or as a kind of game where we can prove our point; but I'd suggest that reading all the viewpoints is what makes one more capable of judging ethically. It's not truth and agreement as much as being willing to listen to another's viewpoint and finding what works that marks the path to a working ethic -- but in so doing that, and seeing how much disagreement there is, I feel doubt that there are truths as much as we're emotionally connected to some propositions. It's a matter of heart, so it seems to me.

But what's more this actually makes room for philosophy. It's because we cannot form a discipline where we have experts which generate knowledge of the ethical that the practice of philosophy remains relevant. We care about ethics, and reason about it, and even more so I think we like to be able to reason about it. Why else would there be so many tracts on right living if it weren't a concern of ours? But philosophy is that discipline which allows us to reflect upon the complicated things in life, and train our judgment.

I know it's counter-intuitive, but in a lot of ways anti-realism actually seems better for ethical talk than realism. The path of realism just has people trying to prove to one another that they are the better ones, and they were right all along, and its this impulse which anti-realism is good at taking the wind out of.

What part of this did Nietzsche not understand? Was J. L. Mackie unfamiliar with the linguistic practices of his community? — J

:D

It's kind of funny to me because my interpretation of N is in conflict with Mackie. But they are also a bit disparate, in terms of time and place, so it's more notional. I'd say that N is the uber-anti-nihilist rather than a nihilist. The way I read him is as a heroic attempt to overcome nihilism in light of the death of God.