You'll never guess what's in Greenland. — Isaac

Maddie McCann?

Not at all, Bordeaux is huge (plus the fact that that's its in Burgundy... as well you know)... Damn... No, wait, it was a double bluff, its not in Burgundy at all. Phew, philosophy is hard isn't it. — Isaac

I love the idea of a blue Tuesday being located in Burgundy of all places. :lol:

Or is it yellow? And in Croydon? Who knows? Thank goodness we have philosophy to work these things out.

Damn, you spoiled it. We could have gone for pages on that question before we reveal the answer that everyone obviously knows. — Isaac

It's alright. Don't worry. There's still the question of where it's located.

It's in Bordeaux, France, obviously.

Ah shit, I've just ruined it again, haven't I?

Yes, I briefly paid a visit. "If I define everything to mean exactly what I say it does, does {insert thing here} mean exactly what I say it does?" seems to be about the jist of it, I just left him to it. — Isaac

No, no, no. It's serious philosophy. (Don't ruin the illusion with your blasted logical analysis!).

I agree. If we are to make any progress at all on those moral matters where there is widespread agreement (but significant disagreement), those of us who agree are not going to make much inroads by first positing that our agreement is somehow objectively right, having it shown that no single moral statements conforms to that standard and so being sent away muttering.

I'd much rather turn up and say "we prefer things to be this way, and there's more of us than there are of you (and we've got guns)". At least it's honest. — Isaac

We very much see eye-to-eye.

I belive the question regarding the colour of Tuesday was mentioned... — Isaac

:rofl:

"With luck, the last thread on the colour of Tuesday".

It's blue, obviously.

Anyway, enough jokes and throwing shade. — S

(That itself was a joke. There's never enough jokes and throwing shade. Even this is itself a joke. But the biggest joke of all is philosophy. Or am I just joking? I can't even tell anymore, and neither can you. Just cave in to the absurdity and everything will work out just fine. Either that or it will be our biggest downfall. It's one of the two, anyway).

And I stopped believing something just because some old dead fart said it when I was 14. — Herg

And now you're fourteen-and-a-half and brimming with wisdom. Step aside, Hume. Behold, Herg!

The explanation is that pleasure is good and pain is bad, and this fact is understood by everyone
— Herg

Right, that's that one nailed. Move on shall we everyone? — Isaac

Yes, let's. We've had the last thread on abortion, and now we've got morality sorted. What next, Tim Wood? :lol:

I think the question of whether there exist objective morals is a pseudo question. It depends entirely on what criteria we are going to allow to constitute existence. — Isaac

One of many pseudo-questions in philosophy. Have you checked out the discussion on ancient texts? If we apply the criteria of moral objectivism, it results in error theory. How pragmatic is error theory? Not as pragmatic as moral relativism in my assessment.

whether it is my inability to state it clearly or your lack of understanding it correctly- but that reply has nothing at all to do with the point I was trying to make. — Rank Amateur

Odd. It certainly looks otherwise. Are you sure you're not just in denial?

Thanks, I’ll do a few hours of research today. It would have been easier if you just directly pointed to the lack of logic. Understand how demeaning it might make you feel to engage the point directly to such an ignorant person as myself. I will crawl back down the mountain master S. — Rank Amateur

I try to help. You can reproach me for not being all nice and cuddly about it, but I do try to help. That I'm arrogant and insensitive doesn't make me any less right or logical.

I thought that pointing out the logical error seemed appropriate. Must I construct a logical argument for you as well? What would I need you for in that case? The way I see it, it's on you to put forward an argument for whatever it is that you're claiming, and I will then analyse it and inform you of any problems I detect, and then we can either work on them or you can just close it down as you sometimes do when it gets a bit too much for you.

You have tried. I will give you that much. But I'm not going to lie and call it a big success.

The foundation is the continuation of society, further founded in our nature as social creatures.
— Noah Te Stroete

That is meaningless without any moral feeling about it. Why should anyone care? The caring is why it matters. This is basic and obvious. — S

"'Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger" - Hume.

The old rationalist conception of morality is as dead as God.

I disagree with your repeated return to the idea that you can 'objectively' pick any activity you personally approve of (such as vaccination) and claim it to be such an argument, purely on the grounds that it is the model most scientists in the field currently agree on. That is not anywhere near a good enough reason to consider that model to be so far above the others. — Isaac

Amen.

Exactly. And you think it's obvious enough that one should vaccinate their child, and you think it's obvious enough that we should brush our teeth, and you think it's obvious enough... — Isaac

Yes, and Tim Wood thinks that it's obvious enough that there's an absolute moral standard. We had better follow suit, I suppose, even if that means throwing reason out of the window.

Dogmatism is the order of the day.

So you are definitely a descriptive moral relativist. So am I. Are you also a meta-ethical moral relativist? I am not. — Noah Te Stroete

Yeah, I'm both.

Oops, too many consecutive posts. Sir2u is going to have a field day. Still, I'm closer to getting that prized 10k and becoming the new Agustino, only funnier, wiser, better looking, more humble, and less ironic.

I just don’t have the stomach to harm a baby. — Noah Te Stroete

But they taste great with mashed potato and vegetables. They taste heavenly, in fact. Just be careful not to overcook them. :ok:

So you are definitely a descriptive moral relativist. So am I. Are you also a meta-ethical moral relativist? I am not. — Noah Te Stroete

Shit. You've caught me out. Now I'll have to look up the philosophical jargon. I'm a little rusty on that one. I think I'm both, but await my confirmation. :grin:

So you believe in moral truths? If so, then I have nothing to argue about. — Noah Te Stroete

Yes, I am a moral relativist. I have made that known. Look that up if you don't know what that entails.

They suffice for a moral truth. — Noah Te Stroete

Moral feelings and what they're about suffice for moral truth. Harm to society is just one particular thing which a moral truth could be about, depending on how you morally feel about it.

Moral feeling is a necessary condition. Harm to society is a necessary condition. I think both of them together is sufficient. — Noah Te Stroete

Sufficient for what? What are you talking about? Are you agreeing with me or disagreeing with me? Be clearer. :brow:

I should say that I believe that some moral sentiments are relative. Others are knowable moral truths. Child raping is wrong is a moral truth. Kosher diet is morally relative. — Noah Te Stroete

Moral truths in what sense? In a meaningless sense? I reject that way of thinking for obvious reasons. But yes, it is a moral truth in a sensible sense.

The foundation is the continuation of society, further founded in our nature as social creatures. — Noah Te Stroete

That is meaningless without any moral feeling about it. Why should anyone care? The caring is why it matters. This is basic and obvious.

Does your idea of what is morally wrong have anything to do with anything other than personal disgust? If so, then enlighten me please. Perhaps you can persuade me to your way of thinking? — Noah Te Stroete

Anyway, enough jokes and throwing shade. Back to business.

How can you explain morality in a sensible way without a foundation in moral feelings? I doubt that you can.

When did I ever say anything about Heaven? — Noah Te Stroete

I don't know. I wasn't listening to a word you were saying. :grin:

I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I just wasn’t aware you had any. — Noah Te Stroete

It's alright, I forgive you, because I'm a good little Christian and I want to get into made-up Heaven.

I will take a page from S’s playbook. Anyone who says “that boiling babies is wrong” just means “Ew, I don’t like boiling babies, boo” is a moron. — Noah Te Stroete

Your bias is showing. I haven't resorted to simplistic name calling like that. I did call him a dogmatist, but that's in another league from calling him a moron. I wasn't calling him that to insult him, I was calling him that because it seems to me to be an accurate term to describe his position here. It is dogmatic. We must simply accept that there is an absolute moral standard, because Tim Wood says so.

I acknowledge that I have said things which didn't need to be said, but that was very clearly a response to Tim Wood's playbook. He set out to make moral relativists look bad from the very beginning, but you seem to be blind to that because of your antagonism towards me and towards moral relativists in general. You're as bad as him, if not worse.

And these childish attempts to trivialise moral relativism and make it superficially appear to be so obviously wrong are frankly pathetic. And yes, in a sense, I don't need to point out that I think that it is childish and pathetic, and perhaps I shouldn't, but fuck it. I've said it, and I don't regret doing so.

So, it turns out that it is "just toxic" to point out logical errors in an argument. That is news to me.

When someone says that it will rain tomorrow, because I like custard, it is "just toxic" to reply that that's a non sequitur.

This is just more silliness from the estimable Tim Wood. He is quoting me out of context to make me look bad. That's another fallacy. Go ahead: quote me saying, "This is just more silliness from the estimable Tim Wood", as if your silliness has nothing to do with it.

I dismissed Tim Wood bringing up the categorical imperative because he merely asserted that it had answered relativism. Hitchen's razor.

You are muddying the waters by trying to draw an analogy, which is inevitably simplistic and inadequate, between moral values and culinary tastes. — Janus

It didn't muddy the waters for me. You could say a similar thing about my analogy with meaning and an orange, but that would be to massively miss the point. In fact, this actually happened. It is what Banno did. He thought that I was suggesting that meaning is a thing like an orange. "Darling, grab me an orange from the fruit bowl. And whilst you're at it, could you pick me up a meaning? It's in the cupboard on the left". :lol:

Which both bob and joe can make individually relative to how they individually feel. They just can't make any value judgments on what anyone else values and still believe in relative food judgments

This point I am trying to communicate is not that hard to grasp. lf you want to have relative morality for yourself, you have to allow relative morality for others.

I can't see how such a thing as that is possible. — Rank Amateur

Indeed, it is not hard to grasp. Anyone familiar enough with common objections to moral relativism will recognise this. And it is easily refuted. You're making the illogical argument that if you're a moral relativist, then you must be an amoralist. I pointed that out ages out. Sorry, but you're not doing fine. You're still not getting it.

Because all value judgments imply against some standard, and if you are applying them against a standard they are now objective. — Rank Amateur

Lol. Unless that standard is subjective, which it is. How about you demonstrate an objective standard? Then I'll begin to take you seriously.

You’re doing fine. — Mww

Encouragement can be good, but he's not doing fine. He's struggling with fundamental flaws in understanding and in reasoning.

I get what you're saying, but I think amoral isn't the right word. Essentially you're saying that everything is amoral (right?) but that would render the term "moral" useless. I would use the term amoral to describe decisions that fall outside the realm of moral decision making entirely (which do not concern, or consider, extant moral values). — VagabondSpectre

Yes, strictly speaking, in a very literal sense, everything is amoral, just like everything is meaningless. But switching back to the ordinary way of speaking, there are things which are moral and immoral, and there are things which are meaningful. A strict interpretation leads to nihilism, but that's not the end point. Nihilism is why you should interpret things pragmatically, like I do. This pragmatic interpretation is why "moral" and "meaningful" are not useless.

Brushing has sound moral utility given the moral value of dental health. This reflects a major part of the point I have been trying to make. — VagabondSpectre

The issue is not about "moral utility", so your point misses the point. You're just saying that it's useful to brush your teeth every day if you value your dental health. Lots of people value their dental health, so generally, brushing your teeth is useful. Who cares? No one is going to disagree with that, and it doesn't effect the wider issue.

I guess so. I just happen to also think that more often than not it is the matters of fact which drive moral disagreement, not disparate or competing values. — VagabondSpectre

If you're a subjective moral relativist, you kind of sound like you're weirdly in denial or something. Morality is subjective and relative, but... !

Cleaning your teeth is objective and matters! It's useful if you value your dental health!

(There's no need for the "but").

I have no problem stating it that way as long as we recognize that "collective (social) preference" is not a simple thing. It involves a complex interaction of societal, governmental, religious, and cultural institutions. — T Clark

You should have a problem stating it that way, unless you're okay with being wrong. My morality need not involve any "complex interaction" with "religious institutions". It need not be about "collective preference". I have no intention of "recognising" your flawed view of what morality is.

You're simply talking about something else and calling that morality. Morality is broader than what would better be called something like social or cultural morality. That Christianity is prominent in the morality of my society is not that it is prominent in my morality. I don't judge right and wrong by thinking about the ethical lessons in the Bible.

Someone else's example. But, "extremely immoral"? Why not just immoral? Or maybe for you it's not immoral, but rather only just "extremely immoral," which could be a way of saying it could be moral. — tim wood

Lol. Do you believe your own bullshit?

My only point is that there are absolutes in every moral question. Most aren't worth the trouble of articulating. Some are, and in some cases it can be hard to get to the bone of the matter, for the fat. And sometimes it approaches an art. — tim wood

That's not an argument. You don't have one, do you?

Relativism for the sake of convenience no virtue. — tim wood

I bet you thought that that sounded clever, but it is just an uncharitable and irrelevant attack on a person's presumed motive and their character, rather than any reasonable and substantive criticism of moral relativism.

Do you argue that if I or anyone else tried we could not come up with something you would agree is wrong by any standard? No limits? No boundaries? — tim wood

That doesn't even make sense when properly analysed. You know that I'm a moral relativist. Why on earth would you expect me to agree to that? Why don't you just admit that you have no real argument? You don't have to put on a show.

I say "chooses" because while moral relativism may appeal to thirteen-years-old boys, nearly all grow out of it as they approach adulthood; that is, it's a choice for the post-pubescent crowd. — tim wood

I will award a point to whoever can correctly name this fallacy.

For most things, it is mostly reflex, but not all things. Someone above mentioned boiling babies. Any one care to argue that's just an exercise in relativity? — tim wood

Are you trying to goad moral relativists into defending your own strawmen? Is there a moral relativist here who would say that? That makes it sound trivial, but you know that already, don't you? You're doing that on purpose. Again. It's another example of loaded language. They would much more likely say that it is extremely immoral.

There's my outrage and your complete lack of it. — tim wood

This is getting sillier and sillier. You show very little awareness of your own fallacies.

I don't think it's a good way of explaining it at all. Culinary and moral preferences are not at all of equal consequence to human life. Aesthetic tastes are somewhere in between. — Janus

I am certain that that is not at all what he was doing with the analogy. He has even explicitly stated that moral preferences aren't trivial in the way that other preferences are.

He was showing why it is unreasonable to reach the conclusion from an outside perspective that the one guy thinks - or should think - that his own preference is just as good as the other guy's. It makes no sense.

Implicit here are the absolute standards that... — tim wood

...are a figment of your imagination as far as I can reasonably tell. You're not a philosopher, you're a dogmatist.

Didn't Kant decry dogmatism, by the way?

Aztecs are known for cutting the living hearts out of their human sacrifices. Thuggees, in India, as a matter of faith felt they ought to strangle strangers. Anyone willing to dismiss these as mere exercises of a relative morality themselves neither right nor wrong probably should be excused from this thread. — tim wood

Anyone who obstinately persists in their own misunderstanding of what the other side is arguing should take a time out and consider the principle of charity.

Now go and sit on the naughty step.

Look at it this way, with something that's less controversially a matter of preferences:

Say that Joe prefers the taste of pizza to the taste of horseradish.

Bob, though, prefers horseradish to pizza.

Is Joe going to say, "From my perspective, Bob's preference is just as good as mine"?

Wouldn't that imply that Joe doesn't actually have a preference between pizza and horseradish? If one preference is just as good to Joe as another from his perspective, then he shouldn't have a preference in the first place. This is pretty wrapped up in how preferences work/what they are. — Terrapin Station

That's a good way of explaining it. Hopefully those who make the error you're explaining will see why it is an error, and why it makes no sense whatsoever.

Accept it how? Accept that they have a different judgment? Or accept it in the sense of saying, "Well, that's as good as my own judgment"? — Terrapin Station

Exactly. That's what I meant in my reply to him about what he said being too ambiguous.

no issue with that - if as equal moral relativists we accept each others relative moral judgments. If that is what you are saying. — Rank Amateur

What you just said is too ambiguous for me to say whether or not I agree with it. I don't morally accept someone else's moral judgement if it doesn't accord with my own. I don't accept that murdering children is okay. And that's what matters. Some people seem to be blind to this. Again, I'm not an amoralist just because I'm a moral relativist. That connection is illogical.

Ok - and I then can have the same view back at you. That you are then equally wrong and different, and I am of course right about that relative to me. — Rank Amateur

What's your point? That is indeed how it works and how we think. You think you're right and I'm wrong, I think I'm right and you're wrong. To you, you're right and I'm wrong, and I accept that to you, you're right and I'm wrong. To me, it is otherwise.

As soon as you demonstrate that morality is anything other than subjective and relative, I will concede. Good luck with that.