Is it common sense to treat moral statements as if they are truth-apt, or is it common to perceive people to be treating moral statements as truth-apt when we believe they are truth-apt? — Moliere

I tell you that eating sugar cubes is immoral.

1. You can agree or disagree, in which case, you treated my assertion as if it's truth apt.

2. You can tell me that assertions of that kind can't meaningfully be said to be true or false. So I'll assume you're a moral nihilist.

1. is pretty common. In my experience, it's more common that 2.

Surely not. Suppose astrology. A reasonable person could simultaneously believe that there are, say, statements about plumbing, some of which are true and some of which are not, while simultaneously believing that all statements about astrology (or, perhaps, within astrology, just to be careful about self-reference) are all false without falling into global skepticism.

We can treat whole classes of statements as false without thereby being a global skeptic. — Moliere

I think you said something like: assuming that moral statements are truth-apt, how do we know if any of them are true?

We basically make it up as we go.... with various fears and biases thrown in. If you want more than that, as I said... you'll have to lay out a theory of truth to work with. If you don't want to do that, I think you're stuck with the above answer.

I think we can wrap this up with agreement that Kripke left the relationship between the designator and designatum unclear. I shouldn't fill in that blank with an answer and present it as the correct way to look at it... even if my opponent doesn't have a better plan. So yea... sorry about that.

Karen is free, for sure, to conjure up new meanings for those words such that one or both of those sorts of de re necessities would be true regarding the different objects -- which may coincide in respect of all their actual properties with France and Paris in the actual world) -- that she means to designate with the words "France" and "Paris", respectively. — Pierre-Normand

Right. I assume that Kripke means to address actual utterances because he specifically mentions the speech of average people. I also assume that it's understood that context of utterance always has to be considered when discussing ordinary language use.

So the meaning of a rigid designator can't be known in any other way than by attending to how it's being used in a particular speech act. You can't just say..." well it ordinarily means X." Agree?

To imagine either "Obama" and "Willow" as blank slates names is to miss the entire point of both statements and what each person is talking about. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I agree.

It is however unable to address the legislative realities of the criminal code (such as the fact that drug addicts can be arrested and incarcerated for an unreasonably long time simply for possession or growing/selling marijuana) which give rise to a staggeringly high prison population (the highest in the world in fact, bar none). It cannot address the reality that many who spend time in a federal prison come out a more hardened criminal than when they went in, and with much less of a chance of recovering economically by legal means... — VagabondSpectre

I think there is reason to believe that the war on drugs was partly driven by racism. Trump's "law and order" agenda is covertly linked to racism, if not in Trump himself, in some of his supporters. The fact that David Duke has publicly expressed appreciation for Trump's message says it all.

This link is by no means recent. It goes back at least to the Nixon administration. I'm not sure what the solution to that is.

I wonder if it's similar to the Prohibition era, where in some areas anti-Irish sentiment piggy-backed concerns about alcohol abuse. The solution was legalization of alcohol.

Because when we are talking about the modality of the proposition -- its being necessary, possible or impossible -- and not just talking about its truth, then we are also talking about the world as it could or couldn't possibly be, and not just about the world as it is. — Pierre-Normand

Sorry.. just saw this. I think what you aren't considering is that you aren't free to choose the meaning of a statement. You have to bind yourself to the intentions of the speaker. This is why there are multiple ways to handle the same sentence:

Paris is the capital of France.

You have to consider how the speaker means "France." That's why it isn't necessarily true that the above sentence is contingently true. It could be necessarily true... if the speaker's intentions make it so.

Further, you can't make a contingent proposition necessary merely through restricting your attention to possible worlds where this proposition is true. A proposition is necessarily true iff it is true at all possible worlds. If you stipulate from the get go that you are restricting your attention to only those possible worlds where it is true, you hardly have shown that the proposition is necessarily true -- only that is is true wherever it is true! — Pierre-Normand

Ok. Maybe I totally misunderstood. But I'm failing to see how my explanation doesn't follow.

Let's look at an example Soames considers. If Saul Kripke exists, he's human. We're going to see if this statement is necessarily true. The fact that the statement starts with "if" means we can judge it across all possible worlds. It works as necessary because we consider humanity to be essential to Kripke.

Now look at:

Karen said Paris is the capital of France.

To understand any proposition, you must examine context of utterance. On examination, we determine that Karen is talking about the actual France. So Karen could be understood to be saying:

In all possible worlds that contain the actual France, the capital of France is Paris.

And that is necessarily true. Why not?

The idea that whether a property of an individual is essential or not is stipulated is not found in Kripke's works. — The Great Whatever

Read the very passage you mentioned earlier.

If you are going to stipulate that some accidental properties of France are essential to it, then it isn't France anymore that you are talking about, but, maybe, some other entity that you wish to call "France". — Pierre-Normand

Try this:

I wonder what would have happened if Napolean hadn't lost at Waterloo.

In the process of pondering this, I have conjured up some number of possible worlds, one of which is the actual world. In every one of them, the capital of France is... which ever city is was when Napolean was alive. Let's say I'm not sure. I look it up. It was Paris.

In all of my possible worlds, Paris is always the capital of France. Over the range of these possibilities, Paris being the capital of France is necessary. But Napolean's victory isn't.

But then I wonder, what if Napolean had lost two weeks later than he did. Now Napolean's victory is necessary across all my worlds, but the timing of it isn't.

See?

However, when you are talking about France not having Paris as its capital, you are contemplating a possibility, historical and/or metaphysical, that doesn't rub against any norm regarding the general concepts that France necessarily falls under. So this is a genuine and unproblematical possibility. — Pierre-Normand

More Pascal, Pierre. You're making up categories of possibility to cover over the underlying ambiguity.

In any case, Paris being its capital (either the capital of the province or the capital of the country) would still be contingent. — Pierre-Normand

Pierre. You're missing the point. Read N&N a third time. Add in another reading of the Soames.

Paris being the capital of France is contingent IFF you stipulate it as such.

. It falls under the sortal concept 'country' or 'nation state'. So, maybe, falling under such a concept is an essential property France has. — Pierre-Normand

Think so? Let's ponder a possible world in which France is, in fact, a province of a nation known as the European Union. It's not a country any more than North Carolina is. Do you want to try again or do you already see where this is headed?

However, to claim that having Paris as its capital is an essential property of France seems to do violence to our ordinary conception of what France is. — Pierre-Normand

So, again... you're using the word claim. What is a claim?

I did already in the first post from mine that you quoted. I explained where you may have gone wrong, though I may have mistargeted my comment at John. Early on in the thread you had commented that: "There is no possible world that contains the thing we've named "France" which has a capital that isn't Paris. That's Kripke's necessary aposteriori in a nutshell." This may involve the incorrect slide from one claim of de re necessity to another one, for one could maybe make the case that there isn't a possible world in which Paris is the capital of some country other than France. But your own statement (regarding France) would not follow from that, and it would still be false. — Pierre-Normand

Here's where I think you're going wrong. In contemplating a possible world, there is no claim of necessity in regard to any particular property. A claim would entail the possibility of confirmation (as through a telescope, as Kripke puts it.) The content of a possible world is stipulated.

If I stipulate a possible world that contains an object, France, an essential property of which is having Paris as it's capital, then this property is necessary (although I learned the facts of the case aposteriori.)

You also claimed that "The actual France (whose capital is Paris) can not be identical to an alternate France (whose capital is Caen). That's pretty basic. It's two different objects." This would only be true if having Paris as a capital were an essential property of France. You seemed to have been running together numerical identity and indiscernability. — Pierre-Normand

Yes. It would be true if Paris is an essential property of France.

If you disagree that the essence of France is matter of stipulation, then could you explain how you understand the essence of France (as something not stipulated) and how that fits in with N&N?

I own and have read the two volumes of his Philosophical Analysis in the 20th Century, as well as several of his papers. Although I disagree with Soames on some topics (mainly regarding the metaphysics of propositions, and his views on philosophical method), it never had seemed to me that his reading of Kripke was amiss. It's possible that you misread him too. — Pierre-Normand

Cool. Maybe you could point out where I'm wrong.

Everything TGW says about Kripke in this thread seems about right to me (and I've read N&N twice, and tons of secondary literature). Most disagreements seem to stem from John and Mongrel misreading Kripke in various ways — Pierre-Normand

My view is in keeping with Scott Soames' explanation of Kripke's views. Maybe you could add his comments to your tons. :)

I don't think Kripke meant that we work it out in advance. It happens at the very moment we stipulate a possible world. BAM...

Paris as the capital is inessential, baguettes are essential. Simple. — jamalrob

And butter?

And clearly, we can imagine Paris not being the capital of France, so I don't see what the problem is. — The Great Whatever

Yes we can. When we do that, we're using something else to identify France. Something else is being called essential.

I guess my question to you would be this: what in your view is essential about France? Do you see this as being something you learned about it aposteriori?

Regardless of all of this, it's not a matter of linguistic stipulation what properties are essential to an individual, if any. — The Great Whatever

I agree. So does Kripke. He says we identify essential properties by testing the limits of imagination.

Read Kripke's remarks about Nixon in NN. They make the same point I'm making here, contradict what you're saying, and are integral to the point he's making and the notion of rigid designation. — The Great Whatever

Yep. Kripke says "Possible worlds are stipulated, not discovered." I told you there's a duck/rabbit aspect to this. I told you that all you have to do is decide that the object you're calling "France" must have Paris as its capital. This is not an absurd thing to do. That's exactly what you might do if you're distinguishing the actual France from an alternate one.

Can we also do what you're describing, and say that having Paris as its capital is not essential? Of course. But there's no reason we have to do that.

So in regard to John's point, you should say..

"Well, if you're thinking of the actual France, then yes... it must have Paris as its capital. You're right, John." Sincerely, The Great Whatever.

Sorry dude. I don't think we're talking about the same Kripke.

Yes, it can. That is Kripke's whole point, and the point of rigid designation, that the name denotes the same individual across possible worlds. — The Great Whatever

The actual France (whose capital is Paris) can not be identical to an alternate France (whose capital is Caen). That's pretty basic. It's two different objects.

The rigid designator identifies an object across all possible worlds in which that object exists. Not all possible worlds period. Many possible worlds don't have the thing we call France (with its Paris capital.)

Except it's not, because we can say things like, 'if France's capital had been Cannes right now...' This would be literally unintelligible if it were an essential property of France to have Paris as its capital during some stretch of time. — The Great Whatever

Hopefully people who talk about alternate capitals for France know that they're talking about an alternate reality. The actual France can not be identical to the France in an alternate reality.

Kripke is not conducting philosophy by language analysis.

An empirical possibility is something that it is really possible could be an empirical actuality. — John

I think of "empirical" as a type of justification. You're talking about actuality. I think I understand what you're saying. Say I toss a die... however many possibilities I claim exist prior to its landing, there's only one possibility when it does land. Right?

I don't know what would possess someone to think that Paris being the capital of France is one of France's essential properties: this would commit you, among other things, to believing that France cannot change its capital, without being destroyed, which is false. — The Great Whatever

No. It wouldn't commit me to saying France can't change its capital. Among the essential features of what we call France is that for a period of time (including this date), Paris was its capital. Pretty simple.

I guess you're not a fan of alternate history literature.

It seems bewildering because it's clearly false, and you're defending it apparently with a misreading of Kripke. Im not sure of any reasonable way to claim that France's capital being Paris is an essential property of France. In fact it seems insane. Maybe you can explain why you think that? — The Great Whatever

It has nothing to do with misreading Kripke. It has to do with your inflexibility about essence. I think there's a lot more duck/rabbit to this than you're realizing.

Even if it were a modal possibility it certainly doesn't seem to be an empirical possibility that Paris is not the capital of France, and that is why TGW, despite his elaborate argumentation, is wrong. — John

What do you mean by "empirical possibility"?

How can a proposition that is necessary (and known to be necessary) be knowable only aposteriori? Kripke’s answer appeals to our knowledge of which properties are essential. He argues, quite plausibly, that we know apriori that properties like non-identity, being human, being not made out of clay, and being made out of molecules are essential properties of the things that have them. So we know apriori that if things have these properties, then they have them necessarily. — Soames

All you have to do is recognize that having Paris as its capital is essential to the thing we call France. And voila... it's necessary. I'm not sure why that seems bewildering. Kripke's possible worlds are just abstract objects anyway (there are no real grape growing regions in them, for instance.)

For example, the world in which the capital is Cannes instead. — The Great Whatever

That wouldn't be the thing we rigidly designated as France. How do we know that? Per Kripke, apriori. Let's read Naming and Necessity. And... get.... the... low down.

There is no possible world that contains the thing we've named "France" which has a capital that isn't Paris.

That's Kripke's necessary aposteriori in a nutshell.

Police reform is certainly something I support, but no matter how much police reform we attempt the same problems will continue to persist in high degrees. We also need economic and political reform (political reform if only to accompany the economic reform) to more directly address the prevalence of crime itself in black communities. We need judicial and punitive reform to not only better decide what we lock people up for, but also how we lock them up, and whether or not prison itself is about "punishment and deterrence" or "reform". We need to look for and confront each and every reality that comes to bear on why many black (and de-facto, why many white) communities are trapped in cycles of poverty and crime. Fair minded folks being unaware of their own prejudices in today's world is but one drop in that massive and complex causal bucket — VagabondSpectre

OK. So the OP kicked ass. This last post did. Where do you publish your writings?

The US is a multi-racial society. I know of no country on earth that has more experience with creating that on a mass scale. I believe one of the things we've learned is that calling "racist!" doesn't accomplish anything. Legislation and enforcement does. If our ability to enforce laws is crippled by a diseased police force, that will essentially render us impotent. We'll be stuck knowing what we want to be with no way to get there.

That's why the question is important.

If that's how you feel. Personally, I don't think it's a waste of time to understand other points of view. The better I understand others, the more adept I become at taking their interests into account. That might not mean as much on a forum as it does in real life though. — Benkei

I don't think its a waste of time in general to try to understand people. It's just you, dude.

Why does one preclude the other in your view? I'm safe in my own country so I have the luxury to worry about other people and I think there's an ethical duty to do something (on me, I'm not saying my ethics should apply to you). — Benkei

I think the best strategy would be this: let's not try to understand one another. It's a waste of time.

I love the Red Cross. Doctors Without Borders is also awesome.

I'm uncertain that moral statements are truth-apt, but it's not the point I wish to contend here. — Moliere

It's common to treat them as if they're truth apt. This argument is basically from common sense.

It's the demonstration that there are true moral statements that seems to be lacking -- at least if we're using mathematics as our basis of comparison. No moral calculus has the same force as actual mathematical statements when it comes to accepting their truth. So it's at least reasonable to believe in facts while not believing in moral facts, and it's fair to ask the moral realist for some sort of demonstration that there are true moral statements which is at least comparable to the amount of force other, already accepted facts. — Moliere

The structure of the argument (which isn't mine, btw) is that we treat moral statements as if they're truth apt. Concerns over whether there are true moral statements falls into the same batch of skepticism about whether there are true statements of any kind.

It comes down to your theory of truth, basically. As long as you aren't a truth skeptic, you allow that at least one statement is true and this requires no demonstration. Its just logic. Beyond that... put forward your theory of truth and we can go from there.

As for treatment of the word fact: a slippery factor is that statement can mean proposition. So there's all sorts of hidden goodness there.

If a lost group of neanderthals emerged from the forests of Siberia, how would we react? Are they Homo sapiens neanderthalensis or homo neanderthalensis? Apparently some of 'our' ancestors and some of 'their' ancestors fucked, so are 'they' 'us'? Or am I misunderstanding the boundary of a form of life? — mcdoodle

If you say we find the answer to this empirically, you're a natural kind realist (you're a realist about universals.) A naturalist might want to be allergic to natural kind realism (what is the ontological status of a kind?) But what happens to naturalism if we're antirealist about kinds?

I used to think that morality is post event... looking back. Prior to that there's nothing to judge. I thought pre event is amorality. Nietzsche changed my mind about that. It's different kinds of morality.

Normativity conjures a possible world and calls it the ideal. The actual world is weighed against this ideal. Ancients cast this story in the heavens. We find it in an inner sanctum.

Anyway. Facts are true statements. Moral statements are treated as if they are truth apt.

For all practical purposes, true moral statements are facts.

Conflation? Could be.

Just.. why worry about solving problems abroad when you couldn't defend your own home if you had to?

I'm not trying to be an ass... it's something I really don't understand.

I thought we were talking about the macro issue here of humanitarian military intervention not the specifics of how to help this particular child. In other words, solving the "underlying problem" that Benkei alluded to in the OP. — Baden

I don't think there's going to be any humanitarian military intervention.

Benkei comes from a country that is not contributing its fair share to NATO. I have no idea why he's concerned about solving underlying problems. But then, my outlook is probably skewed from years in pediatric intensive care. The underlying problems abide. Help the kid in front of you.