Indeed. Should we reveal the big secret that in any valid deductive argument, there is nothing in the conclusion that is not already entailed by the premisses — aletheist

Which, for you, means they're all question begging - right? You have such a poor grasp of how arguments actually work, that you think valid arguments are question begging by dint of being valid. That 's true isn't it - that's what you actually think. Be honest. And you're so confident you're right, you'll never be able to learn you're wrong.

Well, if you're denying that there are rational intuitions in support of claims such as "if something is morally valuable, then it is morally valuable even if no-one values it" then that's just something you believe. But your beliefs have no probative force at all. Sorry to break that to you - but reality is not in your gift.

Anyway, if you think that premise 2 has no support from our rational intuitions then, as far as you're concerned, 2 has nothing to be said for it. In which case, from your perspective anyway, the argument does not work as a refutation of my position.

So, do you think it challenges my position or not, for you're not really making much sense, to be honest.

I think it appears to be a refutation or at least something capable of raising a reasonable doubt about my conclusion's truth.

But if you think this is just a game and all you're doing is expressing your beliefs - beliefs that you can change at a moment's notice, beliefs that count for nothing in terms of evidence - then you must think that my original argument has no probative force, and that this apparent refutation doesn't either.

Can you see why I am confused by you? No, probably not. Silly question.

Look, l don't think you're in good faith. I think you're convinced I'm wrong, which - for you - constitutes my being wrong. And that's really all there is to it. There's no point in my trying to show why premise 2 is false, and why my case against it is not question begging, to someone who doesn't appreciate how arguments work or really what begging the question involves.

Oh blimey.

Oh good grief.

No. Don't tell me about it.

Two acts - A and B. They are the same in every non-moral respect. So, same intentions, same consequences, same everything. Twin acts, as it were. If one is wrong, mustn't the other one be too?

Just answer that question and resist the temptation to try and educate me.

You know I like you much more now you've dropped the wise old logician act and become just another vulgar little insulter like all the rest.

Anyway, would the new you like to address the argument?

Haha, my tongue was in my cheek just an itsy witsy bit. — Bartricks

Replied to the wrong insult.

Anyway, lovely as all this is, how about we go back to the actual argument and this apparent refutation of the position it entails:

1. If moral values are the values of a subject, then that which is morally valuable is morally valuable if and only if the subject values it.
2. That which is morally valuable is morally valuable even if no subject values it.
3. therefore moral values are not the values of a subject

Premise 1 surely can't be denied, and premise 2 enjoys powerful support from our rational intuitions. So it appears to be a refutation.

Haha, my tongue was in my cheek just an itsy witsy bit.

Aw, is you serious angry? Nice to meet the real you. You're exactly as anticipated.

Yes, all excellent points. Have you considered joining the army?

Are you actually going to address anything - anything - I have argued?

There is no way on earth that any responsible educational establishment would let you near impressionable young minds. In a country in which the national currency is the chicken you might be able to persuade the local drug lord/mayor let you have a rant at some local kids, but then only because you've agreed to take a few extra suitcases back with you.

Your example of perceptual bias causing you to 'wrongly' extrapolate my capital letter usage, would for an intelligent reader , signally illustrate those dynamic set membership issues I have suggested above, which take place in communicative exchanges. But the phrase 'intelligent reader' is of course problematic in your case — fresco

You'll need to do a lot better than that if you're going to make it as a continental philosopher. If you've got nothing to say, at least say it well.

would it interest you that I've never actually took a course in formal logic? — Happenstance

Well that made me laugh, I must admit. You don't say!!

the 12 year olds must have been very frightened. How long before security evicted you from the premises? Thank you for the offer, but in my mind you have just written 'truth' in capital letters on some tables that you are pushing around in a supermarket trolley. Thanks though Conty!

Bartricks: Janet was either killed by someone or she died of natural causes

Hugh: No, Janet also could have been killed by Mark.

Bartricks: That would be someone. Mark is a someone.

Hugh: So say you. But you've lost us a useful distinction. The distinction between someone, Mark, and natural causes.

Bartricks. Er, okay. That really doesn't seem useful to me at all. And anyway, what we're discussing here is whether Janet was killed by someone or she died of natural causes.

Hugh. No, not 'someone' or 'natural causes' but 'someone', 'Mark' or 'natural causes'. And Jim.

Bartricks: okay, thanks, but you're actually not a detective anymore are you - you were demoted for being just absolutely mind-numbingly bad. So, you know, finish the hoovering and then leave please.

No, they have the same intent. Again: imagine two acts that are identical in every way apart from spatially and or temporally. Not hard.

I mean, if I ask you to imagine a car identical to yours in every way apart from it is in another location, would you find that difficult? Would you say "er, but then it is not the same car" - yes, I know. Not the same car. But similar in every way - apart from it is over there.

Am I in a primary school? Are you 5? Imagine two acts - two, not one, two - that are identical in every non-moral way apart from spatially or temporally. Will they be morally identical as well? So, if act A is wrong, does act B have to be too.

You don't know a valid argument from an invalid one. Demonstrably. You have asked painfully pompous and disingenuous questions You are not remotely open minded. You are not a 'kumbaya' person, as you described yourself earlier. In my experience most people who describe themselves are the opposite of the description they offer - the description is an aspiration, that's all. And you confirm that. YOu are completely - 100% - convinced that my argument is invalid and absolutely nothing is going to convince you otherwise. That's your position, and you're dug in.

I am not going to explain why my argument is valid again. I am happy to leave you in your illogical little fox hole. So - lovely as it has been to take lessons from someone who doesn't know what they are talking about - this is now over and you can either take issue with a premise or go away.

Those are just statements - in each csae it is just you blankly stating something that contradicts the conclujsion - the conclusion - of my argument. This premise: "if Aletheist says something, it is so" is false.

You needed to make an argument - not just state something time and time again - and show how that statement, in conjunction with another, entails the negation of my conclusion. Furthermore, you needed to make clear that there is evidence in support of that claim - that is, that reason represents it to be true. Otherwise all you're doing is saying things. That's incredibly important. Premises need to be supported by reason - that is, they either need to be self-evident truths of reason or they need to be entailed by self-evident truths of reason. Otherwise, it is once more just you saying things. Anyone can say things, arguing is different.

Anyway, premise 2 is false and I can show why without begging the question. But I am not going to waste time explaining why unless you play by the rules. I think you are already completely convinced that anyone who rejects any premise of any argument you make has, regardless of the strength of their case, 'begged the question' .

So, do you accept that one begs the question if one assumes that the thesis under consideration is false for the purposes of refuting it? And therefore do you accept that one must entertain the possibility that it is true - not false, but true - and then see, on that assumption, how well it comports with our rational intuitions?

another possibility is that moral values are nonsense. But stop being tedious. Stop it. Stop. It.

I am using subjective in a way that covers intwrsubjectivist views. Stop being tedious.

It's not bad faith - I am going to reject that premise, and I am going to do so on non-question begging grounds. You're the one who's convinced I'm not. But I'm in a better position to know, given that I'm me and you - thank goodness - are not.

Ah, well done for changing what you're saying and then thinking I won't notice!

That argument makes no mention of objective value in its premises (hence it is not question begging). Rather, it appeals to the intuition I mentioned in brackets in my previous reply. It is not question begging, and it is not question begging precisely because you've now stopped insisting that intrinsic value and objective value mean the same and have instead appealed to something reason says about moral values.

So let's stick to that argument, because I admit that THAT argument is a good one.

I will reject premise 2 but I am not going to do so on question begging grounds. I know you're convinced - convinced - it will be. But it won't be.

You agree, I take it, that it is question begging to assume a theory is false for the purposes of refuting it?

And if you agree to that, do you agree that, to avoid begging the question against a view, we must start out by being open minded about its truth - that is, we should grant the possibility that it may be true, even if after investigation we may conclude that it is not? That is, we don't stay open minded - we can close our mind at the end - but not at the outset.

I mean, if you don't do that, then you're begging the question - you're assuming the view is false at the outset and then dismissing any potential evidence to the contrary in advance.

So, for instance, if there are only two people who could have done the crime - Jane and Jill - we should not start out assuming Jane did it. What we can do - indeed, should do - is entertain the thesis that Jane did it, and see if it fits the crime scene data, and entertain the thesis that Jill did it and see how well that fits the crime scene data. Yes?

There are only two possibilities where moral value is concerned: it is subjective or objective.

So, we should entertain the possibility that it is subjective and see how well it fits the crime scene data - in this case, how well it comports with what our rational intuitions say? Yes?

I mean, I am admitting that premise 2 of that argument is very - very - powerfully supported by both my rational intuitions and, I suspect, most other people's.

So, I admit that. But do you agree that to non-question beggingly assess a thesis, we should entertain the possibility that the theory is true and see how it fits the data?

After all, there does seem to be quite a significant miss-match in the case of my theory - so I can hardly be accused of loading the deck in my favour.

That is a question begging definition of intrinsic value. — BartricksNo more so than your definition of "valuable" as "being valued." As I keep pointing out, the debate is not about the arguments, but the premisses--in this case, the definitions of key terms in the first place. — aletheist

No, I am not going patiently to explain again why the 'intrinsic/extrinsic' distinction is quite different from the 'objective/subjective' distinction. If you don't want to engage with my explanations, that's fine - well, no it isn't, it is rude - but there's really no more I can do for you on that front.

My argument is not question begging. But you seem not to know what that means. You sometimes say things that indicate you do, but in practice you don't.

I mean, your argument - if we're generous enough to call it that - is "intrinsic moral value is objective moral value. Therefore moral value is objective.

That's question begging. Unquestionably question begging.

Contrary to what you assert (with that characteristic combination of ignorance and confidence that defines most people here), when it comes to assessing argument is it not all about the presmises. You first assess whether the argument is valid, then you assess the premises.

If you want to deny a premise, do so - but say which one you are denying and then provide a deductively valid argument that has its negation as a conclusion.

You haven't done that. You've just asserted false things about intrinsic value - you've just confidently confused it with objective value, as already explained.

But just go on asserting things. You know, you can't be wrong, can you?

It's obvious to me that the compendium of behaviours and attitudes we associate with the word 'morality' is a function of the forces which govern interelationships vital to humans as a cooperative species. — fresco

Well that's precisely why you shouldn't sniff glue. Things that are false - indeed, incoherent - will appear obviously true to you and other things (such as why no-one else is listening to what the lamppost is saying) will bemuse you and seem like just so much 'claptrap' as you put it.

I have presented a deductively valid argument that establishes an astonishing conclusion. But you're a continental wannabe and so you're already convinced you know it all and that the Enlightenment was a bad thing and that reasoning is just a tool nasty westerners use to oppress tribes and everything would be so much better if we all just found a guru - someone who's bald and wears sunglasses, or perhaps someone who sniffs glue and lives under a bridge - who knows next to nothing but who makes up for it with alarming confidence and charisma. Something like that - that's the gist, isn't it?

You think laying waste every metaethical theory with five premises is nothing?! — BartricksNo, I think that anyone who claims to have accomplished this is either joking or delusional. — aletheist

If someone did that - that is, actually did lay waste every metaethical theory bar one with five simple, self-evident premises - how would you tell?

If someone thinks they have won the lottery with 5 numbers, then the chances are very low that they have - probably a million to one or something.

Does that mean that if someone says they have won the lottery you are justified in disbelieving them?

if someone said "I am going to win the lottery tonite" then, I grant you, it is not reasonable - not remotely - to believe that they will, no matter what degree of confidence they have in the matter. For the odds are just too low.

But if someone says "I have won the lottery" and then shows you their ticket, and you can see that their ticket appears to have written on it the numbers that appear to have just been called on the lottery draw, then I think you are unreasonable if you continue to believe that they haven't just because the odds of that having happened were so low. Don't you? I mean, they appear to have won. They have all the marks of a winner.

Now, I have said that I have won the lottery. And I have outlined the five winning numbers - the five that, together, lead to something amazing (or 'trivial' if you are Happenstance). And I have asked you to check that they correspond to things reason says. And you have yet to point to any one of those numbers that does not correspond to something reason clearly says.

So at this point I think you're very unreasonable. You've rendered yourself incapable of recognising lottery winners when they come along. And, indeed, incapable of recognising when or if you've won the lottery.

That is a question begging definition of intrinsic value. (Although I agree that we have the intuition that those things that are intrinsically morally valuable are morally valuable irrespective of whether anyone values them, and I agree that that presents a challenge to my case - but that's different).

We can distinguish between subjective and objective intrinsic value. That is, the 'objective/subjective' distinction is orthogonal to the 'intrinsic' 'extrinsic' distinction. (Hence why you have begged the question).

To see this, forget moral values and focus instead on our valuing activity.

Some things are valuable as means. Money, for example. I value money, but not in and of itself (I could - some people do - but I don't). I value it because of what it can do for me. So for me money has value extrinsically.

And then there are some things that I value not as means, but just in themselves. I value them just because of what they are, rather than what they can do for me. that is, I value them in virtue of their intrinsic properties, rather than their extrinsic properties.

So, there are things I value extrinsically, and there are things I value intrinsically. And the former presupposes the latter - that is, to value anything extrinsically there would seem to need to be some things you value intrinsically that the things you value extrinsically are means to.

The distinction, then, between intrinsic value and extrinsic value is not a distinction between a valuing being objective or subjective, but between the nature of the valuing - that is, whether it is a valuing of something for its own sake, or a valuing of something for what it can achieve.

Thus, to insist that intrinsic moral value is 'objective' - to build that into the definition, when clearly we od not need to as we can distinguish between our own intrinsic and extrinsic valuings - is to beg the question.

potato, potarto.

The argument is valid, yes? Or do we have to go through this again. I don't know what a truth table is, but I do know not to trust what you say about arguments.

Now, in plain English, once more, is the argument I made valid? You have said that it is. Are you now changing that position - because I am getting fed up of having my premises either changed (and then told that the changed one means the argument is invalid) or being told a lot of technical stuff about arguments only to eventually have it turn out that my argument is valid.

You know how I test whether an argument is valid? I don't use symbols or truth tables or anything like that. I think about it. I use my reason.

Now, my argument is valid. Put brackets here there and everywhere, change where you put the word necessary - either you will be changing the meaning of my premise, in which case it is not the same argument you are assessing, or you're going to find that it is still valid. That's my bet. So far I have been winning my bet.

Premise 2 is self-evidently true.

Consider this premise: if I say something is true, it is not necessarily true.

Does that need justifying, in your view? No, it doesn't. It is obviously true - that is, its truth is manifest to reason.

imagine someone saying "ah, but what about a subset of things I say"

Okay - what subset? (And you can't invoke truth, of course, for that would be circular).

Identify the subset and let's test it.

Things you say on Saturday? Are things you say on Saturday 'necessarily' true just by dint of you saying them on Saturday? Nope.

And on and on.

Justifications have to come to an end, otherwise nothing will be justified. What is the appropriate stopping point? When you have found that your view is manifest to reason.

It is manifest to reason that this argument form is valid:

1. If P, then Q
2. Not Q
3. therefore not P.

Now, that does not mean it is valid. But it does mean that in terms of justifying our belief in its validity, its self-evidence suffices.

If someone held that that argument form is invalid, then they would have the burden of proof. They may be able to discharge it. But note, in discharging it they too would have to appeal to some self-evident truths of reason, including the self-evident truth of reason that contradictions cannot be true.

So the currency of arguments is self-evident truths of reason.

Premise 2 is self-evidently true.

You want to deny it. Be my guest. But provide an argument. That is, show me that the self-evident truth of 2 conflicts with some even more abundantly self-evident truth of reason.

You are going to say that about any argument that has any premises - so, you know, all arguments. Any argument for anything whatsoever - no matter how profound and important that argument - all you are going to do is point out that it has assumptions.

All. Arguments. Make. Assumptions. The issue is whether those assumptions can reasonably be denied.

In the case of my argument, they can't. Which is, you know, kinda significant.

You talk about intrinsic value. So, er, 'moral' value, then! My argument is about what that value is - what it is made of. I know that some things are intrinsically morally valuable. Where have I denied that? I am showing what it is made of, not denying its existence.

For something to be intrinsically morally valuable is for it to be being valued for its own sake. There still needs to be a valuer. And the valuer is demonstrably not me or you. Same argument. Same conclusion.

Imagine I have said that cheese is made of milk. You say "ah, but Edam is cheese". Yes. I know. And it is made of milk.

You then say "ah, but those who deny that cheese is made of milk will deny that it is made of milk"

Yes, but I have this evidence that it is made of milk - it is demonstrably made of milk.

You: yes, but those who deny that cheese is made of milk will deny it.

on and on.

Anyway, you don't get to speak on behalf of others. Why assume that an objectivist will reject my argument?

two points.

A) why think they will? If they're proper philosophers and they cannot refute the arguments I have presented, then why think they'll stubbornly stick to their original thesis? You're assuming they're all like you. That is, so wed to their original view that they won't give it up for love nor money. But they may not be.

I used to be an objectivist about moral value. Then I discovered the arguments I have presented above. I could not refute them. I concluded that moral value is therefore subjective and that I had quite the wrong view about it.

Why think that objectivist moral philosophers won't do that?

B) Obviously - obviously - an objectivist must deny a premise of my argument. I mean, that's why the argument disproves objectivism!

Which one and on what basis? Don't just keep telling me about what an objectivist will or will not do. Put some skin in the game. Challenge a premise.

And don't think you're doing that by just mentioning intrinsic value. Again, intrinsic value is a kind of moral value and my argument is about every kind - every kind - of moral value.

Which premise do you deny?

It isn't trivial. I have established that moral values must be the values of a subject. That is, to be morally valuable is to be being valued by someone. I have then established that the valuer is not you or I. How is that trivial?
I cannot conceive of a less trivial conclusion! I think you have no grip on what is and is not significant. You think laying waste every metaethical theory with five premises is nothing?!

Edit: which is to say the justification for premise 2 would be a matter for debate, defeating the purpose of the argument. — Echarmion

No, any and all subsets. It works for them all. Try it.

Identify a subset then - a subset of your values - and let's see if it works. I can't fight fog.

Does.

So this argument:

1. if being loved by Superman is one and the same as being loved by me, then if I love you necessarily Superman loves you
2. If I love you Superman does not necessarily love you
3. therefore being loved by Superman is not one and the same as being loved by me. — Bartricks

Is valid. Right. And that is my argument. That. Is. My. Argument. Note, to be loved is to be the object of an attitude. To be morally valuable is to be the object of a valuing attitude - that's what my first argument established. Then the thesis under consideration was whether I could be the valuer whose values constitute moral values. That is the thesis my argument was addressing - and refuting.

Here:

1. If being morally valuable is one and the same as being valued by me, then if I value something necessarily it is morally valuable
2. If I value something it is not necessarily morally valuable
3. Therefore, being morally valuable is not one and the same as being valued by me.

And that argument works for any subset of my values. And it works for your valuing attitudes too. All of them, and any subset.

Premise 1 can just as accurately be expressed this way:

1. If moral values are my values, then if I value something necessarily it is morally valuable.

That's the same exact premise.

The argument is valid, then. And it is sound. And it refutes all subjectivist views bar mine.

I'm not 'reifying' Reason. To reify something is to 'mistakenly' think of it as an object. Reason is an object - a subject, a mind. If you think not, then refute my argument. Just insisting that Reason is not a person is not good enough - that's just you expressing a conviction. it doesn't count as evidence.

Where have a denied subjecthood to humans?? That's total nonsense. You're a subject. I am a subject. We're humans. We're subjects.

No, I am not defining 'God' as I didn't mention God. And Reason is the subject whose values are moral values and whose prescriptions are the prescriptions of Reason, a subset of which are moral prescriptions. That's what the argument establishes.

To prevent further needless repetition just follow the argument.

I imagine you know a lot about bins.

They differ either temporally or spatially or both, that is true. So you are saying that two acts that differ in no non-moral way at all apart from temporally - one occurs at 3pm and the other at 4pm - can differ morally?
And/or that two acts that differ in no non-moral way at all apart from spatially - so, one happens to your left, the other to your right - can differ morally?

It is not clear to me on what basis you reject that premise, though.

I have a lot of time for Berkeley, but I don't think he subscribed to that principle. He does not say that 'to be' in general is to be perceived, only that the objects of sense are made of sensations and thus that the objects of sense cannot exist objectively (he says of them - of trees and such like - that their essence is to be perceived, but he does not claim that it is the essence of everything that exists to be perceived). For instance, he does not believe that minds themselves exist subjectively, for minds are not objects of sense.

But anyway, you are quite right that my principle is similar, namely that to be valuable is to be being valued. However, I do not see - not yet, anyway - on what rational basis you are rejecting it (or Berkeley's principle - but I put that aside).

I am a valuer. Valuing things is something I can - and do - do. Those things I value can correctly be said to be 'valuable to me'.

When we talk about something being 'morally valuable' what reason is there to think that we are not talking about something being 'valuable' in exactly the same sense in which something that is 'valuable' to me is valuable - namely, valuable by being the object of a valuing attitude?

Well, I mean they are not one and the same world. So, they differ either in terms of their spatial or temporal properties (or both).

Doesn't your reason tell you that the two acts must be morally identical?

They're numerically distinct. So, just imagine two numerically distinct acts that are, in every other physical, mental and historical way, identical. So, two acts that are performed with the same intention, have identical parallel histories leading up to them, have the same consequences in their respective worlds - will those two acts be morally identical too?