From another thread:

Imagine a tribe of smallish monkeys in a jungle environment; they have various calls of social identification, and perhaps some to do with dominance and other stuff, but in particular, they have two alarm calls, one warning of ground predators, and one warning of sky predators. One day, one rather low status monkey, who aways has to wait for the others to eat and often misses out on the best food, spots some especially tasty food on the ground, and gives the ground alarm call. The tribe all rush to climb up high, and the liar gets first dibs for once on the treat. This behaviour has been observed, but I won't trouble you myself with references.

Here, one can clearly see that dishonesty is parasitic on honesty. Overall there is a huge social advantage in a warning system, but it is crucially dependent on honesty, and is severely compromised by individual dishonesty. Hence the social mores, that become morality. Society runs on trust, and therefore needs to deter and prevent dishonesty. And this cannot be reversed because the dependence is one way, linguistically. If dishonesty were ever to prevail and be valorised, language would become non-functional. The alarm call would come to mean both 'predator on the ground', and 'tasty food on the ground'. that is, it would lose its effective warning function and its function as a lie. — unenlightened

This to me is a good example of an anti-realist account. Morality is a conventionalized system devised to punishes uncooperative behavior and reinforce cooperative behavior. If moral claims are to be considered "true", they are only true in terms of this system.

Anti-naturalists like @Michael, @Banno, @Leontiskos have to demonstrate why accounts like this fail so utterly that, ontological parsimony be damned, it is preferable to introduce a whole new category of reality.

What characterises the mindset associated with dishonesty? My first impulse is to notice that the mindset must typically include a notion that some advantage will accrue, either personally or tribally.

Consider the deceptive body of a stick insect. It (metaphorically) declares to the world and particularly to its predators "Ignore me, I am a stick." The Blind Watchmaker learns to lie, and simultaneously in the evolution of the predator, tries to learn how to detect a lie. Such is communication between species, in which morality plays no role. Nevertheless, the advantage of deception is obvious.

Imagine a tribe of smallish monkeys in a jungle environment; they have various calls of social identification, and perhaps some to do with dominance and other stuff, but in particular, they have two alarm calls, one warning of ground predators, and one warning of sky predators. One day, one rather low status monkey, who aways has to wait for the others to eat and often misses out on the best food, spots some especially tasty food on the ground, and gives the ground alarm call. The tribe all rush to climb up high, and the liar gets first dibs for once on the treat. This behaviour has been observed, but I won't trouble you myself with references.

Here, one can clearly see that dishonesty is parasitic on honesty. Overall there is a huge social advantage in a warning system, but it is crucially dependent on honesty, and is severely compromised by individual dishonesty. Hence the social mores, that become morality. Society runs on trust, and therefore needs to deter and prevent dishonesty. And this cannot be reversed because the dependence is one way, linguistically. If dishonesty were ever to prevail and be valorised, language would become non-functional. The alarm call would come to mean both 'predator on the ground', and 'tasty food on the ground'. that is, it would lose its effective warning function and its function as a lie. — unenlightened

:clap:
Great post!

How do you think this account of morality meshes with inequality?

You describe dishonesty as a tool of the low status, as a means of achieving a more equal share. Moral norms are introduced to counter the dishonesty strategy, and in general all the strategies that benefit the individual at the cost of the group (this for me is just our notion of "evil"). This moral system imposes a cost on uncooperative behavior. This cost can take the form of loss of social capital, loss of privileges, at the extreme, exclusion and death, and today loss of property and freedom.

But then, given the initial, natural state of inequality of social (therefore hierarchical) species, morality only exacerbates the inequality. The high status can well afford the social capital cost of immoral acts (and today, the financial costs as well). Moreover, to be high status means that just as benefits are disproportionally maximized, costs are disproportionally minimized. So they can very easily afford the discounted costs. Therefore, the high status are able to exploit immorality to entrench and increase their positions.

Whereas, for the low status, immoral acts become a very risky gambit. They can hardly afford the costs. Failure can easily mean exclusion, injury, and therefore death (and today, devastating financial costs and prison terms). Therefore, the low status are ill equipped to exploit immorality as a means to normalize their low status.

What do you think? Is increasing inequality an inherent feature of moral systems?

3. It would not be wrong to eat babies if everyone were to say so (subjectivism) — Michael

This feels like a narrow account of subjectivism that few would endorse.

In my view, people ultimately make moral judgements and decisions according to their own values and moral sense. These values and this sensibility are in turn informed by enculturation and group-think, but also by biologically based moral instincts (innate senses of fairness and justice, empathy), as well as individual experiences and preferences. This is "subjectivism" as none of these are objective features of the world (right?), but seems poorly captured by "if everyone were to say so".

All moral truths are true. — Banno

"You should kick puppies" is true, and "You should not kick puppies" is true. Something seems wrong here.

Yes, I notices you moving the goalposts. It doesn't help you, unless you can show how you hold a value without holding that value to be true, in which case we are entitled to conclude that you think values truth apt. — Banno

I'm not moving the goalposts, I never believed this was a moral statement. I can hold a moral value without holding that it is true in the same way I can have a taste preference without holding that the preference is true. I can believe "coffee is better than tea", it is true that "I believe coffee is better than tea", without believing "coffee is better than tea" is a true fact of the objective world.

What is it you think moral realism amounts to, if not that there are moral statements that are true or false? — Banno

"It is true that I hold this value" is not a moral statement. It is a statement about my personal values.

Just as "It is true that I believe in evolution" a not a statement about biology. It is a statement about my beliefs.

"I believe in evolutionary theory", "Evolutionary theory is true", are totally different claims, and have independent truth tables.

You can be a realist about the first sort of claim (who isn't), while being anti-realist about the second.

["It is true that I like ice cream"] would be taste realism. Taste anti-realists would say that "hypericin likes ice cream" is not truth-apt.. — Banno

Who thinks this is realism? What anti-realist would say that?

@Michael @@Leontiskos
Are you agreeing with this??

"It is true that I hold this value" is not moral realism any more than "it is true that I like ice cream" taste realism.

And the person in my analogy perceives no difference between himself and those who claim they can see. For those who can see the difference is enormous. — Leontiskos

Lol. What is this difference? Keep in mind we are talking about behavior.

Though to be fair, moral realists are the ones who have always committed the moral disgrace of imposing their values by force "because they are true".

The notion that we all act the same regardless of what we believe is a load of nonsense. — Leontiskos

There is no relevant difference in moral behavior between realists and non-realists I am aware of. Non-realists are not morally blind, as your analogy suggests. We just reject your dogma that moral values are objectively true.

Are you making the ludicrous claim that the Aztecs were all moral non-realists?

Bishops move diagonally. Sydney is in Australia. You stop on the red light. Any fact determined by convention. — Banno

Great. I agree then, morals are determined by convention.

So you think you can have a preference for foolishness without it being true that "hypericin has a preference for foolishness". Very clever. — Banno

As I pointed out.

One is only obligated to the trivial claim that "That I hold this value/taste/preference is true". — hypericin

Can you even read two sentences?

What do you think? You are responsible for your beliefs. — Banno

Yawn. You don't strike me as very clever at all.

Then I will just end the conversation with an analogy. — Leontiskos

An inapt analogy. Moral non-realists hold the same moral values, feel the same moral feelings. We just don't assign to them the meaningless honorifics "fact of the world", "objectively true". Which you can't account for, you can't deduce, you can't explain, you can't verify, not just to us, but even among yourselves. But you nonetheless insist on.

We don't discover moral truths so much as enact them. — Banno

So to be clear, the Nazis were also enacting moral truths?

If moral facts are brute facts then there is no explanation. — Michael

How do you know they are brute facts? By your inability to explain them?

If you reject moral realism, you somehow have to maintain that we should not cause suffering, and yet deny that "we should not cause suffering" is true. — Banno

It's called a "value". One can hold values, tastes, preferences, without being obligated that any of these is "true" in an objective sense. One is only obligated to the trivial claim that "That I hold this value/taste/preference is true".

It's either that or infinitism.

Brute facts seem more reasonable to me than an infinite regress. — Michael

In science, brute facts are a last resort. Scientific analysis doesn't stop, "why does an election have a negative charge" is not a brute fact, and has an explanation in terms of particle physics, afaik. Science may some day arrive at an ultimate fact that explains itself. Until then, they will keep pushing deeper.

Whereas here, the moral realists seem to use the notion of brute facts to excuse them from offering any explanations whatsoever.

You are the child playing with essentially homonyms of "true": "True likeness!" "True levelling plane!". Just because I refuse to engage with this rhetorical idiocy does not obligate me to the labor of providing a philosophical definition of truth, which is a mare's nest and really an activity you only intend as deflection and distraction from your mistake.

Double post

You're not following. A chess claim is true, but not because it follows from an arbitrary system. — Leontiskos

Then what does a chess claim follow from, if not the arbitrary system of chess?

And without the taxonomical system that makes the apple sentence seem obvious to us, it is no more comprehensible than, "Bloofas are common in ariondus." Your notion of a "system" is arbitrary, and it is supporting your question-begging. — Leontiskos

"Taxonomical system" is a puffed up way of saying, "knowing what the words mean". Every single proposition requires knowing what the words mean. So can our already devolving discussion account for two systems simultaneously? I.e., the system of chess, and the language system within which the claims are made? Or can we agree to ignore the system that is common to every claim?

Oh, I gave my definition of a moral judgment — Leontiskos

Your definition is an arbitrary assertion that flies in the face of actual usage. A verbal bolus pulled straight out of your ass, no better than if I said

"Airplanes are things that fly."
"But, birds are not airplanes."
"Well, according to my philosophical definition they are!"

You intend to assert that your moral claims are system-bound, but you are unable to understand that your intention is actually supra-systematic. — Leontiskos

Just because you come from a culture that believes its values are decrees from God doesn't mean everyone is running around thinking that way. The fact that people, including philosophers, confuse their values for objective facts hardly amounts to a conspiracy. People get this wrong about their food and music preferences. Why shouldn't they get it wrong about moral values?

Arguendo, why can't the same hold of morality? Again, your non-parity continues to struggle. — Leontiskos

Its you realists that struggle, that throw up your hands and say "whelp, its a brute fact, what else can I say! Explanation's gotta stop somewhere!". This is an anti-scientific, anti-philosophical attitude.

One could attempt to answer the question, "Why are electrons negatively charged?," but the attempt is only worthwhile if the interlocutor accepts that, in practice, there is a limit to explanation. Once it is recognized that the interlocutor will not admit this (and is not therefore not being serious), one will not attempt an answer. — Leontiskos

Total non-argument. One can attempt to answer any question, independent of what their interlocutor thinks or not. This is a powerfully weak excuse for your refusal to answer anything. How can you accuse us of asking endless "why's", when you have not answered even one?

In any case, it's nowhere near a philosophical account of truth. — Leontiskos

Why on earth would I waste time on a philosophical account of truth on someone who can't even stick to the right dictionary definition?

If you don't think moral anti-realism lost the day in this thread, then you simply don't understand the OP or the purpose of this thread. — Leontiskos

:lol: :rofl:

Can any realist name any nonmoral proposition, that is neither logically derivable nor in principle empirically verifiable, that you nonetheless are certain is true?

Does that matter? Does something need to be empirically verifiable for it to be true? Are you an antirealist about truth in general? — Michael

No, I don't think I am. But it is an awfully weak "axiom" that is neither empirically testable nor intuitively clear. I suppose something can be true in spite of these lacks, though one would never learn of it. But in this case, the question is "true of what"?

1 + 1 = 2. — Michael

In a universe consisting of nothing, would 1 + 1 = 2? It would not be empirically verifiable. It would not be intuitively obvious, since the notion of any one thing would be incomprehensible, assuming there was anything around to have notions.

Much like the counterfactual sentence "if the Tyrannosaurus rex still lived then it would be the largest living land animal on Earth" is true.

There can be objective truths about things that don't exist. — Michael

But this is merely a logical relationship.

Tyrannosaurus rex were the largest living land animals to ever exist.
Therefore, if the Tyrannosaurus rex still lived then it would be the largest living land animal on Earth.

But moral facts, to you, are special "brute facts" which cannot be derived logically. Can you name any other such brute fact about something that doesn't exist?

Okay, but I think it is somewhat confusing to call that which follows from a system "true." It is simply not the case that things are true insofar as they follow from any arbitrary system. — Leontiskos

Oh? I thought you just clarified a few days ago that claims about chess, the most arbitrary sort of system, were true?

"Do not execute that innocent man," is much like, "I have an apple in my pocket." — Leontiskos

They are not alike. The truth of the apple claim depends on knowing what the words mean, and access to my pocket. Sure, language is a system, but not the sort we are discussing here. Every proposition depends on language, so considering it as a "system" akin to a moral system just confuses the discussion.

"Do not execute that innocent man" is a command, and has no truth value. Consider rather "Innocent men ought not be executed". I know what the words mean. But to know whether it is true, I have to know: According to whom, or what? Without the implicit moral system which makes the sentence seem obvious to us, it is no more comprehensible than "Innocent eggplants ought not to be eaten." Why not? I'm hungry.

The simpler point is that everyone on this forum did get out of bed this morning, therefore everyone on this forum does make moral claims or judgments. — Leontiskos

Stop right there. We cannot expect a productive discussion if you abuse language that way. You cannot presume your own eccentric usage will be adopted by anyone else, offhand reference to the categorical imperative, or no. Moral claims, commonly understood, are about moral right and wrong. Not about surgical technique. Not generally about getting out of bed. The word "ought" is not sufficient to make a claim moral. We're not discussing claims such as "I ought to get two cheeseburgers today".

I think anyone who claims that those who intend to make a truth claim are not doing so has a very odd notion of truth, propositionality, and intention. The claim that most everyone, including some of the most competent philosophers who have ever lived, have been plagued by first-order deception at the level of their very intention, is just a weak theory. It reads like a conspiracy theory. I'm not even sure it is coherent to claim that one can be deceived about their intention. — Leontiskos

When people make moral claims, these are truth claims about actions or characters, whose truthmakers are the systems of moral values they grew up immersed in, or adoped, systems likely shared by their moral community. For most people, this is enough. Values are real, but they are mind dependent, and they cannot be true independently of those who hold them.

It is no conspiracy to point out people mistake their values for reality. It is the same error, the same parochialism that regards one's own culture as "true" and absolutely "real". Cultures are real, their artifacts are physically real, but cultures, like values (which are culturally bound) are not mind independent, and are not "true" in an absolute sense.

But as I pointed out to you early on, discursive reason/justification must end at some point. The same holds of the epistemology of natural science. — Leontiskos

There is no limit in principle where scientific explanation ends. Researchers push it as far as they can take it. By contrast, it's frankly quite pathetic to throw up one's hands at "mustn't hurt kitties".

Well, what is the notion of "true" that we are discussing? — Leontiskos

"True" as in factual. Not likeness. Not the alignment of wheels.

No, because moral claims are about the behavior of "minds" (to use your word). Similarly, a world without traffic would have no traffic laws. — Leontiskos

Presumably if traffic laws were "brute facts" they would exist with or without traffic.

Well that’s just where moral realists disagree. — Michael

So in a world without minds, would a complete taxonomy of this world included oughts and values?

I wouldn’t say that it’s internally contradictory, just that it’s factually incorrect. — Michael

:chin:
Yeah, I think you're right.

After thinking some more, here is a formulation of the problem I have with "ultimate" moral propositions:

Every "should", "ought", and value proposition, may be perfectly truth-apt, but it must explicitly or implicitly include an "according to" clause, just to be structurally correct. Because "according to" is a part of the notion of ought or values. There is just no such thing as an imperative or value according to nothing.

But an "ultimate" should, ought, or value proposition necessarily lacks an "according to", because it is ultimate. Therefore, it is necessarily ill-formed, and so is not truth-apt.

"According to Sam, ham tastes better than chicken": truth apt.
"(According to me) Ham tastes better than chicken": implicit according to, perfectly truth apt.
"Ham objectively and absolutely tastes better than chicken": taste is subjective and provisional by nature, the statement is internally contradictory and therefore not truth-apt. Or, self-falsifying.

@Leontiskos
@Michael

Do you have examples of non-moral truth claims that are true in a supra-systematic way? Is any system true or false? Does your argument prove too much? Namely, that truth itself is always system-constrained? (This is the question that my initial responses have addressed.) — Leontiskos

Fair enough.

Mundane claims: It would be too much of a stretch to claim that "I have an apple in my pocket" depends on this or that system. For our purpose lets say these are system-free claims.

Scientific claims: While this is apparently controversial, I think scientific claims offer a reasonable model of what systematic claims, where the system itself is true or truth-apt, can look like. Suppose I make a claim, say a calculation, that falls under the province of special relativity. That calculation may be true or false according to the systematic rules of special relativity. These systematic rules themselves may be true or false, to the degree that they accurately predict all the parts of empirical reality that they ought to.

Earlier I gave you an account of moral judgment, "To judge an action is to hold that it should have occurred or should not have occurred, with reference to the person acting." This can be pragmatic or psychological, but it is still moral. — Leontiskos

So a surgeon learning how she ought and ought not to wield a knife, is learning "morality"? This is not the "morality" I am familiar with.

Is "The player with the white pieces commences the game" true, false, or not truth apt? — Banno

It is true of chess. It is part of the definition of chess. But there is no sense that it is true beyond chess. Outside of chess it is false, or nonsensical/ not truth apt .

The rules of chess are not inherently propositional, though you can communicate them propositionally. You can also learn them by watching people play. Computers play perfect , rule abiding chess, knowing nothing of propositions. There the logic of the rules is encoded non-propositionally.

Are you pretending that propositions about X are the same as X?

"Moby Dick is an American novel consisting of the text 'Call me Ishmael. Some years ago...' "

Is a true proposition about Moby Dick. Moby Dick itself is neither true nor false, it is not truth apt.

This thread has degenerated to imbecility. Have fun. :roll: — Banno

Ok dude see ya

I don't look at the world in a binary way, everything is a form of gradient, statistical, or a matter of probability. You cannot be only honest or only not honest. — Christoffer

:up:

If it’s false then it’s not a brute fact. If it’s a brute fact then it’s true. — Michael

Call it a "brute proposition", then.

The point is that everyday moral propositions seeming to be truth apt carries no evidentiary weight whatsoever. They may be perfectly truth apt, and even true, in that they perfectly follow from say the categorical imperatives.

I made the earlier comparison to Catholic doctrine. Statements about Catholic doctrine seem to be truth apt, and they certainly are, in that they are doctrinally correct, or not. At the same time, you might believe that Catholic doctrine itself is false, necessarily false, or just not truth apt.

Yes, that would be moral subjectivism.

Although I would argue against moral subjectivism on the grounds that when we make moral claims we don't usually think of ourselves to be just expressing a subjective opinion. This is why there is such a strong disagreement. — Michael

There is a difference. Suppose that Kant was ultimately successful and the categorical imperative was the moral lodestone of the world. Everyday moral claims would seem to be truth-apt, and indeed they would be, as they would either follow from the categorical imperative, or not. And yet, it still may be the categorical imperative itself is false, or not truth apt. And indeed any such "brute moral fact" might necessarily be false, or not truth apt.

I agree with that. It could be that error theory of moral subjectivism are correct. — Michael

Or there could be no such true brute facts such as the categorical imperative. Or, such ultimate moral propositions may not be truth-apt, while everyday moral claims, being claims about such ultimate propositions, are perfectly truth apt.

For example, you got out of bed this morning because you believed that the proposition, "I ought to get out of bed," was true. On my reckoning that is a moral judgment, pertaining to your own behavior. — Leontiskos

Generally not. "I ought to get out of bed because otherwise I will be late for work" is not a moral judgement, it is purely pragmatic. Only something like "I ought to get out of bed because I shouldn't be lazy" approaches a moral claim.

I don't follow your point. Making moral claims seems voluntary, one is under no obligation to make them. And I don't see why voluntary/necessary is an important distinction in this discussion.

That is the key question that moral realists need to answer. Kant, for example, believed that this could be done using what he called pure practical reason, leading him to the categorical imperative. — Michael

But then it is no longer a brute fact, no? The categorical imperative explains why one ought not to X. Or are you saying the categorical imperative itself is the brute fact, for Kant.

One wins if one places one's opponents King is checkmate — Banno

Propositions about the rules of chess may be true or false. The rules of chess may not be. Try harder.

I suspect neither of our interlocutors have the background to follow this discussion. — Banno

:roll: Supercilious blowhard.

We are apt to speak about the truth of an artifact according to the goal of the artist. So if there is a horse drawing competition, the drawing that most resembles a real horse will be the winner, and will be deemed truest. Or a carpenter's square is true when it achieves an exact 90° angle. — Leontiskos

You are just playing with words. This is not the same meaning as the "true" we are discussing.

This is really the whole of your argument, and it is nothing more than an assertion. Moreover, it is an assertion I have already addressed (↪Leontiskos). Feel free to engage that post. — Leontiskos

H If moral claims aren't true by virtue of moral rules/systems/etc, what are they true by virtue of? Is "one mustn't hurt cats" a brute fact, just as "one mustn't hurt dogs"? Or is there some rule they flow from?

And is everything that follows rules a tautology? The world, being orderly, must seem be a very tautological place to you.

You are saying that all truth is formal, deriving from axioms, and where axioms are not truth-apt so conclusions are not truth-apt (in the strong sense). — Leontiskos

I never said that. Moral claims may indeed be true, but only in that they are true representations of the moral system within which they operate. Just as propositions about chess may be true representations of the rules of chess, or not.

At the end of the day you just think prescriptions cannot be true or false, no? It is not that R is systematic/doctrinal/axiomatic, but rather that it is prescriptive. If all you are saying is that prescriptions are not truth-apt, then all that talk about systems and axioms led me to misunderstand your position. — Leontiskos

My point is to challenge the idea that

* people make moral propositional claims
- therefore
*moral propositional claims are truth-apt
- or
*everyone is running around making mistakes.

My argument is that there is a third way: people make propositional moral claims, but they are claims within systems of ideas, not claims about the world. And that you can make true or false, therefore truth-apt claims within systems of ideas which themselves may be true, false, not truth apt at all, or nonsensical.

The moral rules/systems I have in mind aren't necessarily prescriptions. They may be something like, "all sentient life has value". Indeed, I believe this. But, how do I know it? What tells me it is true? If it were false, how would I know it? How do I reality test it? How did I or anyone discover this fact? These are the questions that seem to bedevil any moral proposition, and it is in this sense that they aren't truth-apt: not only do we not know they are true, we don't even know what knowing they are true, or knowing they are false, looks like.

This is about the "doctrine" of chess, which is itself a part of reality, and it is true.

So then you agree, the rules of chess themselves cannot be "true".

What would it mean for the claim "You cannot move a pawn backward" to be true "in reality"?

Either, the claim would be true without the rules of chess. This is false.
Or, the rules of chess themselves would have to be true. This is nonsensical. (this is the case where you X'ed/?. How do you make the check/X icon, btw?).

The claim, therefore, "You cannot move a pawn backward", in reality, outside the rules of chess, is false or nonsensical.

Precisely the same holds of moral claims.

A moral claim C is true, or false, in virtue of moral rules, R. (doctrines, axioms, etc.)
What would it take for C to be true in reality?
Either, it is true without R. But we just said, C is true in virtue of R. This is therefore false.
Or, R itself is true. I contend, R can no more be true than the rules of chess. You can follow R, or not, like R, or not, find R useful, and virtuous, or not. But R by its nature, cannot be true, it is not truth-apt.

What does it mean for the rules of chess to be "true"? Can a games rules be "false"?

The rules exist. The may be followed, broken, or ignored. But how exactly are they "true"?