That in itself is laughable, because you could just as well be looking at your own reflection. — S

I'm not someone who thinks that their preferences are correct just because they have them.

Your ego leads you to your free speech fundamentalism. — S

Why would that be in favor of my ego? Be a free speech absolutist means that I'm endorsing that people be allowed to call for my death, to commit slander/libel against me, etc. How is that in service to one's ego?

Do you still maintain that you don't know whether or not I believe I'm on the moon? — S

As I explained during that discussion, it depends on just what you're claiming, the context, etc. But in general, yes, anyone could potentially believe anything.

Do you still maintain that the meaning of words is entirely subjective? — S

Yes, of course. Meaning is something that brains functioning mentally do. It's not something that's done by the world outside of brains functioning mentally.

We have not yet observed an undamaged brain morally valuing a pile of sick — Isaac

Why are you introducing words like "healthy" or "undamaged"? I'm not saying anything like that. Are you saying that for "unhealthy" or "damaged" brains, there's nothing that would be physically impossible to positively or negatively value?

The laughter is at your ego.

Must. Not. Be. Too. Different.

Yes, but we also know something about human brains (the source of value). For some reason you're treating what we know about physics as being unequivocal fact and yet treating what we know about human brains as being irrelevant, and I don't understand why. — Isaac

So you're arguing that there are things it's physically impossible to positively or negatively value?

Your objection amounts to either an endorsement of conformism or an ego-oriented fiat, depending on where the pendulum is.

But there are no other standards — Isaac

You can invent them all day long. "Standard" doesn't imply a widespread consensus (ignoring the sorites problem there). But at any rate, to avoid quibbling over that, since it's not the point, that's why I added "definition."

Did you miss all of my comments about normatives, re how it's not correct to conform to the norm, etc.? We're not disagreeing over whether there's a norm or what it is. We're disagreeing that the norm is correct or that it implies a normative a la what anyone should do, etc.

f that's the standard you're going by, then in that context it's the correct answer, — S

That's fine, as the measurement is an objective fact and you can match or fail to match an objective fact. Moral stances are not objective facts.

How do you know it's not physically possible? — Isaac

Because we know something about neutrinos and how they interact with bodies.

Other dimensions? That's incoherent nonsense stemming from the reification of mathematics by mathematical platonists.

Re the comment about valuing similar things, you're confusing contingency with physical possibility.

Re the neutrino comment, you're confusing physical and logical possibility, by the way, although the logical possibility there relies on loose, vague, fantastical nonsense.

Parliament need not have debates because there are no facts of the matter to be discussed — Isaac

There are no moral or normative facts. But that's irrelevant to persuasion via rhetoric at any rate. There, you're appealing to what and how particular individuals think, with the aim of moving things closer to your preferences. Facts need not apply for that.

The correct answer is that it's 7”, regardless, because that's the standard determining the answer in this case, and you both agreed to that. — S

I said that per that standard, it's 7" , but the standard isn't correct. Per other standards, other definitions of "inch," it's a different number.

There would be no way to make sense out of saying that someone could "ride a neutrino," because it's not physically possible. But an individual could positively or negatively value anything. It's not physically impossible to positively or negatively value anything. We don't need to do incomprehensible (or very vague and fantastical) things to the term "value" for that.

Yes, this is the point that aletheist was trying to make above (and having about as much luck as the rest of us in getting through to the OP). That something can be valuable is a judgement about how it is possible to have a subject relate to it, not about any subject actually relating to it. A bike is ride-able even without anyone riding it - this absolutely has to be the case otherwise no-one would ever be able to have invented the bike because no-one would have been able to conceive of it as being ride-able without someone first having ridden it. — Isaac

If we're just saying that something is "able to be valued," nothing would be excluded from that. And everything would be able to be both positively and negatively valued.

At any rate, Bartricks wasn't saying anything about it being a possibility that someone might value something when he used the term "valuable."

I'm not sure that that's really a problem. Compare for example commercial value. Something is commercially valuable, in an intransitive way, if there are people out there willing to pay a lot for it. — Pfhorrest

That's not intransitive. It's only valuable to the people who value it. It's not universally valuable or valuable independently of the particular individuals who value it. (And being valuable intransitively especially wouldn't follow from the supposition of value only being an individual phenomenon.)

That is a good point, but if I may be charitable to Bartricks again, I think perhaps what they're aiming for is something along the lines of "if and only if anyone values something, it is morally valuable", and therefore that if he values something, and he is someone, then someone values it, and it is therefore morally valuable. The antecedent "moral values are my values" would have to be changed to "moral values are someone's (such as my) values", and then it would follow necessarily that "if I (or anyone) value something, is is morally valuable". — Pfhorrest

Yeah, but just to the same someone. That's not what he's saying though. He wants the consequent to be the claim that it's morally valuable in general, universally, not just to the people who value it. Because this is all just an ad hoc argument designed to "prove" that morality can't be only a matter of individuals valuing whatever they do.

Also, re all of these comments about his argument re predicate logic, etc., those only matter if we focus on the natural language semantics of the argument. . . which is an issue that Bartricks apparently doesn't understand (hence why he ignored my question about semantics and its relation to validity). He's simply reducing things to propositional logic, a la modus ponens, modus tollens, etc. in a manner where the natural language sentences he's typing might as well simply be really long variable names (substituting for P, Q, etc.).

Even with his nested conditionals (P-->(Q-->R)), he's reducing Q-->R simply to Q in his mind, so that it's just a simple, not a nested conditional, for modus tollens etc. purposes. So in other words, what reads as if it's a conditional he's basically thinking of as if it's just a long-string variable name for Q.

"if I value something, necessarily it is morally valuable" would be a valid inference from that antecedent — Pfhorrest

The problem is that the clause after the modal only follows if we're saying morally valuable to me, but he's not saying that, he's saying morally valuable intransitively.

By your own admission, you're not really familiar with predicate logic, modal logic, etc.--even though your arguments rely on these things (modal logic, for example, is logic centered on things like necessity and possibility). But whenever anyone brings up issues with predicate or modal logic, instead of going, "Geez, let me spend some time trying to learn about that stuff"--even if you were to just quietly think that to yourself -- you basically ignore it and try to "start over," essentially by restating your argument and telling people that they really need to learn logic better, so they can someday achieve your level of knowledge about it.

Yes, thats how the standard is created/adopted, subjectively. Im not talking about that.
Once that is done, it isnt our feelings that we reference, its the standard. If we feel like its 5”, that feeling is incorrect. The measuring tape is what tells us the length of the stick in inches, not our feelings. We are not making a reference to how we feel (subjective). — DingoJones

That a standard is created doesn't make the standard correct. It's the case that 5" per one idea of an inch isn't the same as 7" per a different idea of inch, but there's not a correct idea of an inch. In order for there to be a correct idea of an inch, there has to be an objective normative, a normative fact, but there are no normative facts, and we can't create any.

I addressed this above with S on the previous page. If we're claiming that all we're saying by "incorrect" is that someone isn't using some standard, some conventional approach or stance, then it would just be met with a response of, "And?"--in other words, what would the relevance of it being unusual be? "Correct" has a normative connotation. But there's no factual normative with respect to conforming to any particular standard. It's not wrong to be unusual. It's just unusual. It's not as if there's a fact that one should be usual.

It's not equivocating. — S

Yeah, it is. It's taking a term I was applying to one idea, one reference, and applying the same term to a different idea, a different reference instead.

Ok, so we get 7” not from a reference to anything subjective, but rather from referencing the agreed upon standard. Right? — DingoJones

??

It's from something subjective. The standard is simply something we make up by thinking about it and making decisions about what we're going to name the measurement, what we're going to count as the measurement, etc. It's not like you discover standards under rocks.

The measurement isn't subjective, but the standard certainly is.

Right, because we are referencing a standard of what an inch is, that we’ve agreed upon.
So 7” inches is what the length is in inches, and 5” is not what the length in inches. Right?
So if a person agrees to the standard of measurement of an “inch”, their feeling about 5” can be shown not to be the case as it doesnt match the standard being used. (The measuring tape will show that 7” is the length in inches).
The subjective feeling, in other words, of 5” inches is not correct according to the standard being used. — DingoJones

Per the particular standard it would be 7" , sure.

That's equivocating the sense of "feeling" or disposition I was using, however. Because in this case we're rather trying to get an objective fact correct. When we're talking about moral stances, there is no objective fact to get correct.

Ordinary language wins out because it causes less problems. — S

Not the case, because you wind up telling people that their moral stances are incorrect, where you're not simply saying that they're very unusual (relative to commonly-expressed moral stances).

And pointing out that they're very unusual should be met with a response of, "And?"--in other words, what would the relevance to anything be? It would be as pointless as saying that the stance was expressed in English, or consisted of 10 words or whatever.

So I was interested in what your reasoning would be for believing that moral stances can be correct/incorrect, that reason somehow transcends individuals, and that argumentum ad populums can be non-fallacious . . . but you're not providing much info. You're just claiming that all of that is so.

Ok, so if I measure a stick and it comes to 7”, what do I say to you when you look at it by eye and say “no, its 5” long”. Are you using the standard we agreed upon? — DingoJones

Especially if we've agreed on using the same definition of "inch," you're simply going to think that my estimate is off.

The length of the stick in inches (your other question) is whatever the measurement turns out to be per the definition of inch (or whatever unit) used. So in the example, it's going to be 7"

I didn't say it did. Im just saying that here is a standard (inches), and if we both agree to use that standard then we can use it to measure things in inches and you agree, right? — DingoJones

I was just nipping the "correct" stuff in the bud.

But again, sure re all of that.

(I'm just about to start a session, by the way, so I'll be back in a few hours.)

Sure. Objects have whatever lengths they do in particular circumstances. This does nothing to make the standard correct/incorrect, or to make it correct to use it or anything like that.

the nature of reason . . . it's objective. — S

So would you posit some sort of real (extramental) abstract for it?

Maybe I'm remembering this wrong, but I thought you didn't buy the idea of nonphysical existents.

Well, call it a standard then. Do you believe in those? — DingoJones

There are personal and agreed-upon standards, sure. They just don't have any normative weight aside from an individual personally wanting to follow something because it's the norm or because they decided on some credo or whatever.

Problematic in semblance and inherently problematic aren't mutually exclusive — Shamshir

I have no idea what that's even saying. What's the distinction you're making there?

No it doesn't, it means only that you're choosing to go by an interpretation which leads to that conclusion. You're the cause of your own problem, namely the problem that you reach the wrong conclusion, because it flies in the face of what we see and hear and feel and behave all around us. If you were an extraterrestrial and you observed a society of humans, you would conclude that there are rights and wrongs. You would observe that people who say outlandish things are told that they're wrong, mistaken. Your metaethical theory fails in terms of explanatory power. Your theories often do, generally speaking. You really need to work on that. — S

So you're arguing that argumentum ad populums are not fallacious because? (Maybe because they're commonly accepted? But that itself is an argumentum ad populum.)

Re explaining things, by the way, what I'm concerned with is ultimately explaining what's really going on, which is often different than what people believe (is going on). For example, I'm not about to explain religious activities in terms of a God really existing, even though that's what religious folks believe/how they behave in that context. I'm going to explain their behavior in the context of the fact that there are no gods.

Please stop doing that. Again, it's not helping. — S

I'd not do it if you'd give what I consider to be straightforward answers to questions, with some detail to them, when I ask something like "anything goes in what regard?"

What you typically do is respond with something in the vein of, "You (should) know what regard."

To get to the right conclusion, you need to work backwards. That's something that you should do more often. That's something that a lot of members of this forum should do more often.

We know that, ordinarily, we call things like this right and wrong. Then you just think of a way to fit that in with your metaethics. If your metaethics can't do that, then your metaethics is inferior.

I don't need a single, rigid way of counting something as right or wrong with regard to the kind of statements we've been talking about. With the example I gave earlier, that it's wrong could be explained in light of the consequences. If all you have in response to that is, "But someone might have a different opinion about that!", then that's no argument, or if it is, it's got to be one of the weakest arguments imaginable, so my point stands. — S

The whole point is this:

Say that Joe claims, "There should be no crimes about actions normally named by words beginning with the letter 'm.'"

Someone chimes in, "But that would make murder legal!" (we can, as we often do, Ignore the conventional definition of murder being illegal killing for this.)

Joe says, "Yes, obviously. That shouldn't be a crime in my view."

So Joe knows something about the consequences. Joe is expressing his view that that situation--where murder is legal--should be the case.

So for Joe, it does no good for anyone else to simply say, "You're wrong! You're incorrect!" Joe is aware of the consequences and it's something he doesn't have a problem with. Presumably he has a problem with the alternate situation instead.

The "crowd" has got this one right (again), — S

So are you using my (1) or my (3) for how something can be "correct"/"incorrect" in this realm, or are you appealing to something I wasn't able to imagine?

Well, for example you're bringing up "objective standards." I don't agree that there are such things first off. Standards are not objective, and if we're referring to standards in the sense of those that obtain via consensus in some population, if we're suggesting that it's correct to follow them, we're asserting an argumentum ad populum.

I'm not disagreeing that there are standard that are agreed upon. But there is nothing normative about them, factually.

There is though, — DingoJones

I mean (and this should be clear from context) there is nothing else to talk about that aren't confused fictions.

Yes, that's more or the less a problem we've been having. I'm saying, sure, metaethical subjectivism, but let's be sensible. He's basically saying, no, that's not metaethical subjectivism, metaethical subjectivism must not be sensible. Some people aren't sensible, and a test fit for purpose should pass those views, not reject them as sensible people would. — S

"Sensible" is simply "something not too far removed from my own or from the consensus view" --that is, something not too different. Where the only thing motivating that is whether it matches oneself or the norm (which are more or less the same thing if one tempers one's views to the norm).

There's nothing else to talk about, though. Again, there are no factual normatives.

This means that it is not correct/incorrect to not have (seemingly) inconsistent dispositions, feelings, etc.

You're talking past me again, — S

I addressed different senses you might have had in mind, because I wasn't sure. Again, it's being charitable. If I were to just ask you what sense you have in mind, I'm guessing you'd not just straightforwardly answer, because that keeps happening. So I addressed multiple senses to avoid having to ask you.

You would need to successfully argue the point that those terms can't apply in the way that I think they can. — S

I'm not sure how you think they can. The only things I can imagine are that you're either (1) egotistically asserting your view as correct and anything too different from it as incorrect, (2) appealing to common or consensus opinion and equating that with "correct," which is the argumentum ad populum fallacy, or (3) saying that it either matches or fails to match what the world is like, but factually, the extramental world (extramental because otherwise then we either have (1) or (2) above) doesn't contain moral stances--hence why objectivism is wrong (it fails to match what the extramental world is like).

Based on proper conduct — S

Seriously? You think that I'm going to go, "Proper conduct? Alrighty then" ?

That's not true. — S

Then support it better.

We call things problems if they're generally considered problematic based on a number of things a large enough number of people have in common. You're doing that thing again where you act as though you haven't a clue about ordinary language use. — S

So yeah, you are just kowtowing to the crowd again. ಠ_ಠ

That's suggests that anyone who is a metaethical subjectivist or noncognitivist must adhere to the senseless 'anything goes' version which you yourself adhere to. — S

Descriptively, at least potentially anything could go. In other words, someone could have just about any imaginable stance.

Evaluatively, no one thinks "anything goes," because people always have preferences. Our preferences can't serve as a test of correctness for other people unless we're unbelievably egotistical/self-centered.

In terms of correct/incorrect, we could say "anything goes," but the realm of "correct/incorrect" is the wrong realm for this stuff. That's the whole idea of noncognitivism.

You have a burden to either argue against that or concede, — S

Based on . . . .?

No, that's a fundamental misunderstanding on your part. I've already made it crystal clear that I understand and accept that there are different stances, including those which are really, really different. — S

The test you proposed above has no motivation or support behind it aside from the fact that you find the idea of that stance too different.

because it's a problem beyond the disagreement you're pointing to. It doesn't even have to be objective — S

So what's the beyond? Is this just you kowtowing to the crowd again?

I don’t think either of them are referencing an objective world with desires/subjective feeling, but rather an objective standard that makes sense from a premise or axiom.
So you are focused on how one values or feels about, say, not dying. They are talking about what makes sense (regardless of feeling) with the subjective value as the premise or axiom. Once you (subjectively) determine the value of not dying, certain things either make sense to that end or do not, and can be correct or incorrect on whether it leads to dying.
In moral terms, replace “not dying” with something like “flourishing well being of mankind” or “maximum happiness”. Even if you think those terms are nebulous, what is meant by each can be refined case by case and what it means to achieve or service that premise either makes sense or it doesnt. — DingoJones

There are two problems there: one, the fact (if it is one, more on this in a moment) that one would only see drowning as a problem if one does not want to die makes "drowning is a problem" subjective.

Two, if someone says, "I value living," but also says, "I don't see drowning as a problem," this is no way implies that they're incorrect. Because there's no objective fact that says that one either has to have dispositional/feeling-oriented stances that are consistent or that at least seem consistent to other people. (A fortiori because there are no objective normatives period.)

Things desire to move. That's obvious. — Shamshir

So desire isn't a mental phenomenon in your view, or are you asserting something like panpsychism?