The cure!
The way I understand it -- if the Epicurean master had a brain surgery he could perform on people that would be effective that'd be acceptable. In a way this is, for the Epicurean, a question for medical science. It's not just telling people what to do, but more or less manipulating them for their own good. It's not just a spiritual practice, it's a cure that must be performed on the human soul for their benefit.
This is what I'd say is the most uncomfortable aspect of the philosophy from my perspective -- but we do practice like this in some circumstances in our society, we just limit it to whether a person can be rightly judged to have agency. The way I'd hodge-podge these two concepts would be to say from the perspective of the Epicurean doctor you don't have agency until you've been cured because people resist the cure. It's just not their will which is being taken into consideration, but rather their happiness. (at least, in accord with the Epicurean notion of happiness) — Moliere
could you provide some examples (so I can research them)? — Bob Ross
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. — Moliere
"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" — Moliere
Somewhat relatedly, a lot of people seem to think, “Because they can be ignored or argued against, therefore duties do not exist.” I would respond, “If duties could not be ignored or argued against, then they would not exist.” — Leontiskos
P1: If we do not know of any moral facts, then we have no reason to believe them.
P2: We do not know of any moral facts.
C: Therefore, we have no reason to believe them. — Bob Ross
I think I agree, but with one caveat. It's not the believing that "one ought not kick puppies for fun" that renders it true. — 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. — Moliere
I added an Updated 2 section to the OP. Let me know what you think. — Bob Ross
P2-A*2*2: There are no known subject-referencing prescriptive statements which are facts. — Bob Ross
That one ought not kick puppies for fun is a moral statement.
It is a true statement that one ought not kick puppies for fun.
Facts are true statements.
Therefore there are moral facts. — Banno
technically “one ought not kick puppies for fun” is non-factual — Bob Ross
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
I'd say that it's error theory which demonstrates how ethical propositions can be truth-apt, but false. — Moliere
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? — Banno
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
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
P2-A* (fucksake!) is not an argument, it is an assertion. As has already been explained. — Banno
P1: If Hume’s Guillotine is true, then ‘what one ought to do’ is determined by a set of non-factual prescriptions.
P2: Hume’s Guillotine is true.
C1: Therefore, ‘what one ought to do’ is determined by a set of non-factual prescriptions.
P3: ‘What one ought to do’ is the subject matter of morality.
P4: ‘what one ought to do’ is determined by a set of non-factual prescriptions.
C2: Therefore, morality is determined by a set of non-factual prescriptions. — Bob Ross
I think I see what you mean: technically, I did not provide an argument for my conclusion (in a valid syllogistic form) but, rather, just explained it in english. So I amended my OP with the full argument at the bottom. Please let me know which premise you disagree with. — Bob Ross
Oh, OK, so you meant that "T is a normative fact" is a non-normative fact. — J
S1: Walking the dog is a normative fact.
S2: All normative facts are volitional.
S3: Therefore, walking the dog is volitional.
H1: One ought to walk their dog.
H2: Fred is Hanover's dog.
H3: Therefore, Hanover ought to walk Fred. — Leontiskos
I'm repeating myself, but I don't see how what you have set out addresses what I have set out. — Banno
This implies, even if it is conceded that normative facts exist, that what informs the individual of ‘what they ought to do’ is a taste: not a normative fact. — Bob Ross
So we could, following this idea, quantify either over the universe of space/time objects, or over a different set, in this case the set of statements, or facts. — J
I think the example often given of this (I’m taking it from Copi & Gould’s Readings on Logic) is: “Sentences having ‛ghosts’ as a subject-term are not really about ghosts . . . but about some people’s statements about ghosts, or perhaps certain ideas about ghosts.” — J
No ambiguity. If it is a fact, it is true. If it is not true, it is not a fact. — Banno
"One ought not pick one's nose" has six words... not morally binding.
"One ought not pick one's nose" is true... then you ought not pick your nose. — Banno
Edit: part of that error may be the antirealist thesis that normative statements do not have a truth value. But if that were so then they would have no place in a truth-functional syllogism. — Banno
No, it makes sense. The claim would be that the statement "T is a normative fact" states something non-normative, something factual, because it's a claim about a statement, not the reality the statement refers to. It's about normativity, not itself normative. — J
To say of some normative statement, that it is true, is itself to make a normative statement, isn't it? — Banno
Thoughts? — Bob Ross
"You shouldn't pick your nose" and "It is true that you shouldn't pick your nose" arguably do say two different things. — J
But just as there are many difference between things and phenomena, there are also similarities.
The coin has two sides. — Benj96
On a deeper level, surely the 'corruption of the intellect' due to man's fallen nature is a factor? There's an interesting scholar, Peter Harrison, who's book The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science, 'shows how the approaches to the study of nature that emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were directly informed by theological discussions about the Fall of Man and the extent to which the mind and the senses had been damaged by that primeval event. Scientific methods, he suggests, were originally devised as techniques for ameliorating the cognitive damage wrought by human sin.' — Wayfarer
'Scientism' would recognise no such thing, as it's plainly a theological rather than scientific conception. — Wayfarer
But it's also the sense in which 'revealed truth' has epistemic as well as simply moral implications. 'Fallen man' does not 'see truly' so to speak, because of that corruption. (In Eastern religions, the term is 'avidya' rather than 'sin' and has a rather different connotation, in that it's associated with the corruption of the intellect rather than the will, which is especially the case in Reformed theology. But there are overlaps.) — Wayfarer
I'm with Nagel on this -- moral thinking is sui generis, contentful, and argues from reasons rather than "desires" in the Humean sense. By appealing to reasons, it situates itself in the objective world, or perhaps something a bit more Peircean and intersubjective. — J
It's also interesting to see the distinction Aquinas makes between "faith" and "articles of faith." If I'm reading him rightly, he says that objections to faith itself can be replied to argumentatively -- they are "difficulties that can be answered." Whereas any particular article of faith is precisely that -- a belief held on faith -- and the only way to reply to the doubter here relies on first finding an agreement that faith is even possible, and then pointing out inconsistencies in the doubter's position using other articles of faith. This is quite subtle. — J
Does it generalize to other overarching world-views? I think it might, though Aquinas seems to be saying that "metaphysics" is in a unique position in this regard. — J
But wouldn't scientism, for instance, also be able to speak about a similar distinction between "whether scientific knowledge is possible" and "the truths of science"? No one who denied the former could be convinced by the latter. But once scientific knowledge is granted, the specific truths -- the articles of faith, by analogy -- can be argued pro and con, using some truths to demonstrate or refute others. — J
I don’t know if you’ve read Walker Percy. He makes an interesting distinction between “knowledge” and “news.” Knowledge would be the sort of thing that, broadly, science investigates. News, on the other hand, is information that you can’t deduce or discover for yourself; someone has to tell you. This would include religious revelation, for Percy. And he says that the “credentials of the news-bearer” are important evidence for whether to trust the news.
This may be too black-and-white, but I see what he’s getting at and I think it’s a valuable insight. I wonder what Aquinas would say, getting back to the OP. He made a distinction between natural and revealed religion, didn’t he? And I'm sure Kierkegaard, that champion of subjectivity, would agree. — J
Christianity believes, that is to say, not in the doctrines of philosophy, which are nothing
but an alphabetic scribbling of human speculation, and subject to the fluctuating cycles of
moon and fashion! – not in images and the worship of images! – not in the worship of
animals and heroes! – not in symbolic elements and passwords or in some black figures
obscurely painted by the invisible hand on the white wall! – not in Pythagorean-Platonic
numbers!!! – not in the passing shadows of actions and ceremonies that will not remain
and not endure, which are thought to possess a secret power and inexplicable magic! – –
not in any laws, which must be followed even without faith, as the theorist somewhere
says, notwithstanding his Epicurean-Stoic hairsplitting about faith and knowledge! – –
No, Christianity knows of and recognizes no other bonds of faith than the sure prophetic
Word as recorded in the most ancient documents of the human race and in the holy scrip-
tures of authentic Judaism, without Samaritan segregation and apocryphal Mishnah. — After Enlightenment: Hamann as Post-Secular Visionary, by John R. Betz, p. 283
I wonder what Aquinas would say, getting back to the OP. He made a distinction between natural and revealed religion, didn’t he? — J
As other sciences do not argue in proof of their principles, but argue from their principles to demonstrate other truths in these sciences: so [sacred doctrine] does not argue in proof of its principles, which are the articles of faith, but from them it goes on to prove something else [...] . However, it is to be borne in mind, in regard to the philosophical sciences, that the inferior sciences neither prove their principles nor dispute with those who deny them, but leave this to a higher science; whereas the highest of them, viz. metaphysics, can dispute with one who denies its principles, if only the opponent will make some concession; but if he concede nothing, it can have no dispute with him, though it can answer his objections. Hence Sacred Scripture, since it has no science above itself, can dispute with one who denies its principles only if the opponent admits some at least of the truths obtained through divine revelation; thus we can argue with heretics from texts in Holy Writ, and against those who deny one article of faith, we can argue from another. If our opponent believes nothing of divine revelation, there is no longer any means of proving the articles of faith by reasoning, but only of answering his objections — if he has any — against faith. Since faith rests upon infallible truth, and since the contrary of a truth can never be demonstrated, it is clear that the arguments brought against faith cannot be demonstrations, but are difficulties that can be answered. — Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, Q. 1, A. 8
Because this won’t work for almost all of our uses of “objective”. It’s objectively true, I presume, that water is composed of H2O. Do we want to describe this statement as a “bias shared among a normative community” -- of scientists, presumably? What would motivate us to call this a bias?
What we want in moral realism, then, is a sense of “objective” that at least resembles what we find in science – or daily life, for that matter. And those who deny moral facts are indeed saying that the best we can do is “biases more or less shared.” But I don’t think that’s a reasonable synonym for “objective.” — J
Maybe? Can you think of an example which isn't culpable? — fdrake
What do you think? — fdrake