So if you're looking up something in philosophy, which is better - Wikipedia or Stanford Encyclopedia? It is Stanford hands-down. Why? It is written by academics - experts in their field.

I think there are or could be moral rules, but there don't have to be. But rules require a ruler just as values require a valuer. All roads point to a subject.

We don't have to agree to that at all - and I don't agree to it. You mentioned rules, I simply pointed out that rules or no you're not generating a counterexample to premise 2.

Like I say, a machine cannot know something because a machine does not have mental states and beliefs are mental states and knowledge essentially involves having them.

I still do not follow you. Like I say, the argument I gave was valid. So either you do not see this, or you take issue with a premise - which one?

Look, if I present an argument like this:

1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q

It is no good then saying that I have not proved Q. I have proved Q if there is no doubt about the truth of 1 and 2.

I said that all moral values are valuings. So, all As are Bs.
I then said that all valuings are the valuings of a subject. So, all Bs are Cs.
I concluded (not assumed, concluded) that therefore all moral values are the values of a subject - concluded that all As are Cs.

You said that moral values could have numerous subjects. But I then pointed out that this is not, in fact, possible, for nothing can be morally valuable and disvaluable in the same respect at the same time.

So, all moral values are the values of a single subject.

That's a proof.

It goes All As are Bs, all Bs are Cs, therefore all As are Cs. And then all As are Ds, therefore all As are Cs and Ds. That is, all moral values are the values of a mind and the mind is singular.

I do not see how you are challenging premise 2. Does the machine value anything? No, it is a machine.

A counter-example to premise 2 would have to be an unambiguous case of a valuing that lacks a subject who is doing the valuing.

I didn't say 'God', but 'a god'. Big difference. It's the difference between saying "someone killed Janet" and "Mr Someone killed Janet".

Anyway, I do not see why you do not see it. For the arguments I gave were valid and the premises true beyond reasonable dispute. So either you do not see that the arguments are valid, or you do not agree with a premise. But which one do you dispute?

I don't really know what you're talking about now. To know something is to have a true belief about it, whatever else it involves. And computers cannot have beliefs.

So I don't see what problem you're highlighting or why you think expert testimony counts for no more or less than the testimony of an idiot.

So, just to be clear, you think that forcing someone to have sex with you is morally indistinct from forcing someone to play tennis with you? Note, the 'other things being equal' clause covers things like amount of force involved etc.

Well, even if you think that, I think the vast bulk of people do not - their reason tells them that forcing sex on someone is far worse than forcing tennis on them, other things being equal. My evidence for that: most people I have spoken to have said so, and furthermore it is reflected in the laws of most lands, which would punish rape far more severely than forced tennis playing.

I think moral values are the values of one subject. For example, I seem unable to value something in some respect and disvalue it in that same respect at one and the same time. Valuing something in some respect precludes disvaluing it in the same respect. But nothing, of course, stops me from valuing something in some respect and someone else disvaluing it in that same respect.
Turning to moral value: something (an act, a person, a state of affairs) cannot be morally valuable in some respect and morally disvaluable in the same respect. That seems clear to the reason of most, I think. Well, that implies that moral values are the values of a single subject, then.

Needless to say, when experts start talking outside their areas of expertise - so, when a neuroscientist starts talking about free will or a biologist starts talking about metaphysics - then you are no more justified in believing what they say than your baker's opinion on these matters.

But if you want to know how to bake a loaf of bread, then listen to a baker.

If you want to know about what's up with that weird looking mole on your arm, see a medical doctor.

If you want to know if you've got free will, consult a philosopher.

Like I say, if your doctor says the mole is cancerous you are justified in believing it to be cancerous, whereas if your mate Tom says it is cancerous, you are not justified in believing it to be cancerous (even if it is).

The contemporary debate over moral value is, in my view, in a hopeless state of disrepair.

On the one hand you have moral philosophers rejecting - quite rightly - individual and collectivist subjectivist views about moral value, and rejecting them on the same grounds that I did.

But then these self-same moral philosophers then conclude - insanely - that moral values are therefore 'objective'. That is, they conclude that somehow there are just values out there, shimmering about. In other contexts we would lock people in padded cells for believing such things. If I thought my keyboard values me typing on it, then I have lost my reason have I not?

The correct conclusion - the only one a sane person who is not morally incompetent can draw - is that moral values are the values of a mind distinct from our own.

No, there are experts. If your doctor - an expert on the human body and what can go wrong with it - says that the mole on your arm looks dodgy and you should get it checked out, then you're a fool if you think his/her judgement provides you with no better justification for believing it to be dodgy than your mechanic friend's judgement that "it is fine - nothing to worry about" provides you with justification for believing that it is nothing to worry about.

And no, I realized that values need a valuer by consulting my reason. For instance, thoughts require a thinker. As I am thinking, I can now conclude that I, a thinker, exist (a point Descartes made). Likewise, values require a valuer.

We're going in circles. This argument establishes that moral values are not my values:

1. If moral values are my values, then if I value something necessarily it is morally valuable (if P, then Q)
2. If I value something it is not necessarily morally valuable (not Q)
3. Therefore moral values are not my values (therefore not P)

That argument is valid and sound. You can run it again with yourself mentioned in premise 1 and 2 rather than me and it will remain valid and sound.

You can run it for everyone.

I conclude that moral values are the values of a mind and the mind in question is who she is - which is not one of us.

Ah, I think you've been drinking. Wikipedia is written by people who like pub quizzes, not experts. For instance, consider something you know a lot about. Look up a wikipedia entry on that subject, whatever it may be. Then notice all the mistakes.

You're addressing your argument, not mine. I didn't say humans can't be the "valuators of morals". I said that a) moral values are values, b) values are subjective (meaning they exist as subjective states - states of mind), c) moral values are not my (or your) states of mind.

They are not human because if I value something that does not make it valuable.

1. If moral values are my valuings then if I value something it is necessarily morally valuable
2. If I value something it is not necessarily morally valuable.
3. Therefore moral values are not my valuings.

You can run the same argument for any human.

So moral values are not the values of any human mind.

'A god' rather than 'God' - or perhaps just 'a mind' to avoid using contentious labels. The argument implies, in other words, that there is a mind whose values are moral values.

And they exist, because moral values clearly exist.

Because the subject whose values constitute moral values would be a god. Moral values are not my values or your values, but they are someone's (as the argument demonstrates). And that someone would be a god precisely because their values constitute moral values.

It implies a god exists.

Confusion is also caused by the fact 'objective' is ambiguous and can also mean 'goal' and 'impartial'. Objective does not have those meanings here. But when we talk about 'objective methods of measurement' then 'objective' means 'impartial'.

No, because to say that something is 'subjective' is to say something about its composition.

Pain is subjective because it is made of states of a subject.

Pain cannot be true or false. Truth and falsity are properties of propositions.

The proposition "Mike is in pain" is true if Mike is in the subjective state constitutive of pain, false if he is not.

So, subjective and objective are terms that I am using to refer to something's composition.

Truth and falsity are properties of propositions.

Confusion is caused by some insisting on saying things such as "it is objectively true that Mike is in pain". They're just misusing words. What they mean is "it is true that Mike is in pain".

One can say "truth is objective" or "truth is subjective" on my usage, but when one does so one is saying something about what truth is made of.

Here's a refutation of your case:

1. If Bitter Crank is right and there is nothing ethically special about sex, then other things being equal (so equalize psychological fallout and so on), forcing someone to have sex with you is no worse, ethically speaking, than forcing someone to play tennis with you.
2. Forcing someone to have sex with you is much worse, ethically speaking, than forcing someone to play tennis with you
3. Therefore Bitter crank is wrong.

What is wrong with your argument is that you are dogmatically assuming that there is nothing special about sex and then rejecting all the evidence to the contrary on the grounds that it conflicts with your dogmatic assumption. So you are starting out with a theory rather than starting out by following evidence (our theories should follow the evidence, not the other way around).

You say, for instance, that what is responsible for the widespread intuitions that sex is ethically special is 'convention'. But it could be the other way around - it could be that we have the conventions we do because sex seems special. Now that's a more reasonable working hypothesis. Why? Because sex appears to be ethically special and it is arbitrary to just reject some appearances. We should respect the appearances - sex appears to be ethically special in the way that, say, pain is, and so we should assume that it is, not that it isn't.

Let me try and head-off some initial objections.

One might try and object to premise 1 on the grounds that for something to be morally valuable is for it to be happiness promoting, or autonomy respecting, or whatever (it really doesn't matter what you put in).

But such observations, even if correct, do not challenge premise 1. For premise 1 does not say anything about what produces moral value, yet that is what the objector is talking about. That is, all the objector is doing is pointing to features that seem to be being valued, rather than denying that what it is to be morally valuable is to be being valued.

For example, let's say I value my car because of its sleek appearance and speed. Well, it is no objection to premise 1 to say "the car is not valuable because it is being valued, but because it has a sleek appearance and can go fast", for all you are doing is pointing to those features that caused it to be being valued rather than challenging that its being valuable consists in its being valued.

One might try and object to premise 1 on the grounds that if it is true, then anything we value will be morally valuable. So, if I value being sadistic, then sadism would be morally valuable.

But this does not challenge premise 1 because premise 1 says only that being morally valuable involves being valued, it does not say that it involves being valued by me or you. So I agree that, quite obviously, if I value something that does not entail that it is morally valuable. But all this shows is that I am not the subject whose values determine what's morally valuable.

You might wonder who the subject is, then, whose values determine what's morally valuable. For clearly it is not me - as if I value something it is not necessarily morally valuable - and clearly it is not you - for if you value something it is not necessarily morally valuable either. And clearly it is not some collection of us, for the Nazis valued genocide yet that did not make genocide morally valuable.

Well, I would answer that if the subject is not me, and not you, then it is who it is. That is, moral values are the values of the subject whose values are moral values.

That seems a bit OTT to say the least.

I think your beef is with the publishers who make lots of money off peer review publications. And, perhaps, with the disney disciplines who publish each other's work without subjecting it to proper peer review.

Wikipedia is not peer reviewed and no respectable university will be happy with anyone citing wikipedia in student essays.
Wikipedia has its uses, of course - but so do chats down the pub.

This is a reply to the final bit - no, I don't 'want' antinatalism to be true. Even if I did - and I repeat, I don't - that would be irrelevant to the credibility of the argument.

Anyway, here is the argument - the Kantian argument (that you can call Terry if you prefer) - again.

1. If an act will affect another person in a significant way without their prior consent then it is default wrong
2. Procreative acts significantly affect another person without their prior consent
3. Therefore procreative acts are default wrong

Note, the conclusion is not that all procreative acts are wrong, or even that any are, for it is possible that all procreative acts are ones in which there are other morally relevant considerations in play that make the act overall morally justified or simply cancel the otherwise wrong-making quality of the feature described in 1. (If you think that is in fact the case, say and explain what those other features are).

Note too that premise 1 does not say that if an act affects another person in a significant way without their prior consent that it is therefore wrong. It says it is 'default' wrong.

Premise 1 is very weak, which is precisely why it is going to be extremely hard to deny. I mean, I just don't see how one reasonably can deny it.

Nevertheless, that does not establish that procreative acts are wrong, but it does set up a burden of proof. They are wrong 'other things being equal'.

What you need to do is describe a case taht is relevantly analogous to a case of procreation - that is, a case in which another person is significantly affected without their prior consent - but which is obviously morally fine.

If or when you present such a case I will simply look and see what the most plausible explanation is of why the consideration mentioned in 1 is not making the act wrong and see if that consideration is present in typical procreation cases.

For example, take the case of a surgeon operating on an unconscious person without their prior consent.

Well, for this to be a case in which the surgeon's actions are obviously morally fine, it would need to be a case in which failure to perform the operation would result in something significantly bad happening to the patient. Yes? I mean, let's say I am ugly and I happen to be unconscious. A surgeon decides to give me facelift without my consent. Now, obviously that's wrong and seriously so. And it is wrong even if I actually like the resulting face. It's wrong.....wait for it......because the surgeon didn't get my consent.

But in a case where I will die, or even one in which, unless the surgeon does something, my face will be scared for life, and there is no time to wait for me to regain consciousness, then I think virtually all would agree that the surgeon would be morally justified - probably obliged - to operate on me, despite the lack of consent.

Do examples of that kind suggest that procreation is morally okay? Not at all, for it is blindingly obvious why, in this case, the surgeon ought to operate - it is to prevent something incredibly bad happening to me. Yes? So, although acts that significantly affect others without their prior consent are default wrong, they are sometimes right when not performing them would result in a significant harm to the person in question.

Clearly this does not apply to procreative acts. Procreation does not prevent something bad happening to the person who otherwise would not be created - as I said in my opening post (maybe you should re-read it).

So arguing that surgeon cases like the one I described provide some kind of telling evidence that procreation is morally fine is as unreasonable as thinking that they provide some kind of telling evidence that it is fine for surgeons to go around giving unconscious people facelifts willy nilly.

What about your government cases? Well, exactly the same applies. They're simply not relevantly analogous to procreation cases. So all you're doing is pointing out that sometimes we are plausibly justified in doing things that significantly affect others without their prior consent - which isn't in dispute.

This is a reply to your second bit. Do you deny the premise? You haven't said. If you deny it, provide a case against it. If you don't deny it, why do you deny my conclusion?

This is a reply to the first bit - no, I care about accuracy and I am not misusing the term 'Kantian' in labeling the argument as such. But this thread is not about labels and I am not discussing it further because there is nothing to discuss.

I don't think your example works, but there is one that it is more difficult to deal with.
Your example doesn't work because lying has two elements - you must intentionally say something untrue. In your example what you said was true, not false. So, though you intended to mislead by what you said, you did not lie.
Similarly, if you sincerely thought it was a dog and said that it was a dog, then you did not lie either even though what you said was untrue, for this time there was no intention to say something false.

The case - or type of case - that poses more difficulty, though, is this one: what if you said "I am not telling the truth"? Is that proposition true or false? If it is true, then it would also seem to be false, and if it is false then it would also seem to be true.

What an astonishingly silly point - no, I am NOT opposed to those who have been brought into existence being educated. I am opposed to people bringing people into existence.

An example: Tim only exists because his mum was raped. Now, to be in favour of Tim being educated do we have to be in favour of rape? Er, no - Tim wouldn't be here unless rape occurred, because that's what brought him into being. So, by your irrational lights that means that being opposed to rape is to be opposed to Tim and everything we might think we'd otherwise be obliged to give Tim. But I don't think as badly as that, and it seems quite obvious to me - and to anyone else who can reason their way out of a paper-bag - that it does not follow from one being opposed to Tim's mum being raped that one is opposed to Tim or to educating Tim. Blimey!! Try again.

Total and utter nonsense. You fall far below the threshold level of competence needed for profitable debate.

Well your thoughts do not determine what's true.

And you're attacking a straw man. I am not arguing against educating children. Perhaps if you'd been made to undergo more education you'd have realized that.

What's wrong with the reasoning?

The argument is Kantian and it isn't my fault you don't know what that word means. This thread is not about a label, it is about an argument. The label is correct, but I am not debating it further here - start your own thread about Kantianism and what it has to involve if you want. But this thread was started by me - me, not you - to discuss a particular 'argument', not a 'label'. Okay?!

As for what you say about governments and surgeons - which premise are you trying to challenge with these examples? Presumably this one:

1. It is default wrong to perform an act if doing it will significantly affect another person without their prior consent.

Yes? Well, a) how does it challenge that premise given that the premise does not say that it is always and everywhere wrong? You need to show that it is not even default wrong, not just that there are a whole range of scenarios in which it is overall justified - for by definition, that is consistent with premise 1.

Of course surgeons are often going to be justified in performing operations without a person's consent. But a) it is regrettable that they have to do without it (if, for instance, a surgeon performed an operation without getting the consent of someone who was perfectly capable of giving it, then we'd all recognise that what the surgeon did was seriously wrong; and when consent is impossible its absence is still bad, it just doesn't operate to make the act overall wrong because there are countervailing moral positives that make it overall right.

b) in the case of governments you can't seriously be maintaining that consent is irrelevant to their legitimacy? I mean blimey, there's a vast, vast literature on what it takes for governments to be justified in their activities and a great, great deal of it focusses on the issue of consent. So the fact that most citizens in a community have not, in fact, given explicit consent to be governed is an age old problem - now, I am not saying that some kind of extreme anarchist position is right, I am just pointing out that it speaks to the overwhelming plausibility of premise 1 that virtually every political philosopher there has ever been recognises that there is an issue here that needs to be thought about, not just dismissed.