"Taking candy from a baby is wrong." has the grammar of a proposition, but it does not have the meaning of a proposition. It has the meaning of a command: 'don't do it!' Commands are not true or false, they are obeyed or disobeyed. — unenlightened

How is "taking candy from a baby is wrong" a command? It is implicit in such a statement that one shouldn't do it ("you shouldn't take candy from a baby because it is wrong"), which is a command, but if the proposition isn't true, why ought we obey the command at all (disregarding that we would additionally have to derive an "ought" from an "is", something you would have to do to have a command that ought be obeyed)?

If the command has reason to be obeyed, the proposition "taking candy from a baby is wrong" would have to be true. You purport that it is impossible for the proposition to true. Well, then, we don't have a true proposition and thus no reason to obey the extrinsic moral claim "you shouldn't take candy from a baby because it is wrong". You are committing to (1) from the OP, and that results in an implosion of morality, as there are no longer any grounds for disagreement to be resolved.

"moral realism" is incoherent (re: assumption that moral statements are empirical propositions) — 180 Proof

That assumption does not lead to incoherence. You might argue, however, that we cannot verify if moral statements are true, as we have no effective means of discovering if they are true. This is a problem for moral realists.

But incoherence does not follow. Is the fact that biology is invented by people, is useful, and is used to certain ends, a reason to doubt the truth-aptness of biological facts? Biology is an edifice like morality, even if biological facts exist independent of the mind. Moral realists and error-theorists say that morality functions like that. No incoherence whatsoever.

edit: not saying morality functions exactly like biology, but rather that it has the similarities mentioned and reports facts like biology, even if not naturalistic ones

Once again, familiarize yourself with the relevant literature - something I should have done a while ago. And I don't know why you are here either, Smith.

My position is that if there is insufficient evidence to support a theory other than that there might be a motive by some people to commit a certain act, the theory fails for lack of evidence — Hanover

Shit. I misunderstood you. My bad.

perceived self-serving or malicious motives — Hanover

That seems too nebulous. We have to really know if they are malicious or self-serving according to some criteria. An interpretation of your comment towards Tzeentch could be that you think he is malicious and are intentionally undermining his theory based upon his perceived intentions, but I wouldn't make that judgement because I can't read your mind.

Such is a conspiracy theory in itself. — Hanover

I think what Tzeentch said can be said without it being a conspiracy theory: people are denounced because they are perceived to be conspiracy theorists, even if it isn't only to maliciously undermine them.

But isn't calling out a conspiracy theory of any kind an attempt to undermine? Isn't that the purpose of calling it out? And how does Tzeentch's supposed conspiracy theory actually constitute a conspiracy theory according to your definition? Are Tzeentch's motives actually malicious or self-serving here?

Look up "moral realism" and "error theory".

And what's the truth-maker? — 180 Proof

Okay, you obviously didn't bother to read and understand the OP. "Torture is wrong because it harms", for example, is an extrinsic moral claim that could be true or false based on a moral axiom such as "it is wrong to harm sentient creatures". The extrinsic moral claim is true if the axiom it is tied to is correct. The correctness of the axiom is the "truth-maker" for the moral claim.

I hope that is clear.

I know enough now to know that you don't. — 180 Proof

:100: :up:

That would just shift the power to whoever appoints the advisors. — Tzeentch

Probably, yes. But we do trust the mods of this site by and large, don't we? They have opinions, but when they get out of line they are reprimanded or even banned.

edit: and they are 100% essential, too

Some sort of advisory board like the mods of this website, apparently. Logistically unfeasible unless it is only applied to public figures.

For you to mention the Nazis.

I like what Karl Jaspers said of censorship. He knew a little about it, having lived under a Nazi publication ban. — NOS4A2

Took a little under two hours this time.

The alternative is to put the power to limit free speech in undeserving hands - those of the government. And rights were enshrined into constitutions and human rights declarations exactly because governments could not be trusted with protecting them. — Tzeentch

Hanover says he doesn't think the government should necessarily enforce the ethical standards he proposes.

Do you know what meta-ethics is?

They are norms or rules not propositions, so what do you propose any such "true moral claims" would even be like? :chin: — 180 Proof

"Murder is wrong" would be an example of a moral claim that could be objectively true (a proposition). "You shouldn't murder" would be normative. "Don't murder" would be a rule.

I would say that the discourse that develops with less limits on speech is somewhat stochastic, insofar as trends can be recognized - but you cannot always point directly to the cause of a bad outcome as it relates to the speech of someone specific. So, it makes little sense to go on a banning spree to reduce far-right extremism, but it makes sense to directly address speech found to be problematic, as it operates against that which is problematic from within the discourse, which is desirable.

free speech absolutism (a title Elon Musk has given himself) is not an ideal, but places the considerable power of the press in undeserving hands, whose objective isn't to seek higher truths and dispense with ignorance, but is for their own personal gain and self-promotion. — Hanover

Can we really evaluate intention so easily as to actually say that with any confidence? Musk would have Twitter open to anyone. He might remove the restrictions, but I don't see how that equates to giving power to anyone in particular, even if the worst oftentimes rises to the surface. It is not so predictable who will be heard over the din, and intent is not always apparent.

You advocated for relativism, even if you said that you would argue your ethics are superior, which makes no sense.

But Hanover, where does the censorship end? What about the greased precipice?

Seriously, though, I think the argument in favor of free speech absolutism is more often that it is binary - either free speech exists and all speech is allowed, or speech is limited and it doesn't exist - and you definitely should want it to exist, whether because it advances knowledge through dialogue or censorship is a slippery slope.

But I don't know about applying the same kind of scrutiny we apply to journalists to regular people. I think most people qualify as unethical journalists, honestly. I mean, who on this forum actually abides by those principles all that consistently?

Not to mention it would be a tremendous pain in the ass to actually sift through shitty far-right and far-left memes all day looking for people not acting like ethical journalists. It only even works on this forum because you guys shut off the inflow of shit-posters and trolls - some of which still get through.

You're making a classic error if you hold that that reason only supports views you like. — Tom Storm

It generally supports things I find much less problematic than those things that would be allowed under relativism. Selective infanticide for babies that will live short lives in agony? Unpleasant. But the systematic mutilation and oppression of millions of women in the Middle East? Evil.

Sometimes intuition has to take a hit for the team. And yes, no matter how much you reason you still derive your ethics from values. I state as much in the OP. But some values make more or less sense when evaluating if they will cause or reduce suffering.

Are you going to capitulate to your self-doubt, or will you at least try to support something that makes sense given some common goals?

Those are not adequate answers, as they just assume things. And while those assumptions are commonly held, and perhaps even reasonable, they do not address the claims in the OP.

Btw, I don't see why you added in the criticism of relativity. I criticize relativity in the OP. And I also agree that morality doesn't need justifications to exist. But assuming some - admittedly - basic things about morality, while practical, doesn't get us true moral claims.

Meta ethics has supplanted Ethics it is just that people are slow to realise this. — I like sushi

I think the vast majority of people have no idea what meta-ethics is, and I have honestly never heard any regular people talk about anything even related to meta-ethics.

In a few hundred years it will likely be viewed as laughable ad phrenology is. — I like sushi

I have no emotional attachment to meta-ethics and wouldn't really care if that were to happen.

I can justify killing someone but justification is just as likely an ‘excuse’ as a ‘reason’. — I like sushi

I'm not sure why you think this is relevant. Yes, people sometimes retroactively justify their shitty actions, but that's not really salient.

Honestly, I'm not sure if you are being serious here.

I don't think it's irrelevant. It explains that, and why, murder is wrong but war is right, why there are the moral strictures there are and how they are not arbitrary in the main but sometimes they are, and why different environments produce different moralities in the same species. — unenlightened

It addresses why people believe those things are wrong and right but doesn't address at all whether or not moral claims can be objectively true. I have made this argument about ten times in this thread.

The justification of any morality is 'group interest' - nature demands it, the ancestors say it, God says it, everyone says it except the individual, who insists on asking "why should I?" as though they are not part of a larger whole. — unenlightened

That is a practical justification, not a moral justification. You are committing a fallacy - that something is right because it is natural. Again, group interest might give rise to morality but that doesn't tell us if something is objectively right or wrong.

Dilemma questions such as this (if I understood you) arise out of consideration of group conflict - ie conflict of scale. Family, tribe, nation, species, ecosystem, all have a claim on the individual's loyalty and self-sacrifice. We are seeing the result of the failure of traditional moralities to consider the interests of the environment. We have not been taught to make that identification in particular by Capitalist economics, which is founded on the merciless exploitation of environmental resources as slaves, as ancestor fossils, and as the living environment. 'Why should I not burn fossil fuels?' has a very clear, very cogent answer, that we need to learn to internalise as a species. Antisemitism, racism, the persecution of any sub-group, corrodes the cooperative functioning of society and prevents us from acting together to address global issues. — unenlightened

I agree with this, but my point was more so that not bowing to the will of others doesn't make right.

my good friend Hume — unenlightened

You have either read a lot of Hume or are really old.

my good friend Hume did not deny morality, He merely denied the authority of reason. Thus you cannot get an ought from an is, nor a will be from a has been, nor an object from a sensation by any reasoned argument. But he was no more against morality than he was against science. — unenlightened

I didn't say Hume was against morality, but rather that the is/ought issue is unresolved as far as I can tell.

look up "Hume's Fork"

What metaphysical process do you have access to that can demonstrate why my values are better than theirs, other than already agreeing to my suppositions about wellbeing? As Hanover says you need to believe in some transcendent guarantor of morality to do this definitively and then you also need to demonstrate that your version of transcendent is in agreement with your version of morality. How is that done? — Tom Storm

Would you rather throw your lot in with an ethic reached with reason and some basic assumptions that reduces suffering, or one that could allow all of the worst things imaginable? It seems likely that logic and reason will get us closer to said transcendental good than a denial of moral facts gets us to truth. Not to mention, many relativistic arguments are confused because they make multiple claims including (1), (2), and (3), which are not always compatible.

The only ‘right’ thing we can do is acting as we see fit rather than bending to the will of others mindlessly. — I like sushi

Would antisemites be doing a good thing if they refused to bow to the will of people who aren't assholes?

we can hardly ever judge what we do as being right or wrong but we are always unable to escape from the idea that what we have done, or do, is a defining part of how we navigate through life. — I like sushi

Okay, you seem to be assuming (2), which would need some sort of justification.

Morality and ethics are social apparatus. We are not bound by pure subjectivity yet we are enchanted by the idea that we choose as an individual for ourselves and independent of others’ views. — I like sushi

That morality can be viewed as a social apparatus relates not a bit to whether or not we can justify our morals. And yes, people largely operate under the illusion that they are coming up with original, carefully considered positions, that might not actually be so original and carefully considered.

It is a sea of hidden nuances and dead ends. I this respect it has more in common with the general outline of science being a constant riling against convention for the sake of seeking ‘better’ pathways to fuller understanding. — I like sushi

Finding better ways of applying our morals does not concern whether or not those morals are justified, and I don't think anyone has really physically verified that any morals are true, even if it is possible to do so. So, you seem to claim (2) is true, yet that we verify and falsify our morals in a scientific manner.

I haven't read any Hume. I know of his fork, however.

If murder is bad - as the very meaning of murder is that of a certain kind of killing that is bad - then murder is bad. — I like sushi

Murder is bad because it is defined as bad? Really? I guess on a local level it is bad, but something doesn't become objectively true just because it is defined as bad, and I'm concerned with objectively true claims.

I could define the sky as being turquoise, but that doesn't mean the sky isn't still blue.

Nuance in language and interpretations of events and circumstances does not take away from the general meaning of the term ‘murder’ being bad. — I like sushi

I would not argue against that.

Not everyone likes the taste of strawberries but that does not mean that strawberries are considered to taste bad, yet no doubt there is someone out there who thinks something most consider to taste awful to taste bad. The experience of tasting something nice and something bad exists. The variance of experiences does not detract from the existence of such experiences. — I like sushi

The important point is not that variance of experience does or does not exist and does or does not detract from the existence of experience, but rather that emotional responses to experience are subjective.

Morality is as meaningless as ethics. There is meta ethics and we are never within its reach yet constantly craving its presumed judgement our lives even if that means said ‘craving’ is non-existent. What we do is what we do. How we interpret what we do is merely that … an interpretation of NOT a complete understanding of. — I like sushi

I agree, we don't entirely understand what we do, but that doesn't mean we can't be doing something right.

The "is" of morality doesn't address justifications for morality, which is the point of this thread. I know evolutionary psychology is great and all, but it is kind of irrelevant to this discussion.

The monkey video is great, though.

This is where one might be mistaking an axiom with reasonableness. An injunction against murder is reasonable and ethical, though we might find that there is not an axiom that specifically calls out that murder is false. — L'éléphant

This is not an axiom. This is an example of harm principle. Oh yeah, Mill's harm principle is not an axiom -- it is a moral assumption with strong, reasonable backing such as the golden rule. — L'éléphant

I'm using it as an example of something that could be logically true based on some axiom, not claiming that it is axiomatic that murder is wrong. Reasonableness doesn't enter.

And yes, the moral claim "murder is wrong" has a strong backing in reason, but you acknowledge that that which justifies the claim is an assumption. Honestly, I think you and I agree more than we disagree on this: morals are possible and can be reached via reason and minimal assumptions.

I'd rephrase it: correct (what is right) is good; incorrect (what is wrong) is bad. Don't know, but am thinking this might make significant differences to your question. — javra

It makes no difference.

I'm working with the presumption, if one can call it that, that everyone is fallible. — javra

Yes, but it remains that if correct means good and incorrect means bad, there would be contradictions, even if people are fallible.

If one wants to assume some infallible proclamation of truth, correct proposition, etc. — javra

I don't see anything outlandish about "correct propositions" existing.

edit: you literally just based your entire thing on correct propositions existing

Could you clarify this question? — javra

If one says that good is to be associated with correct, then wouldn't wrong be associated with false? And if that is so, then how does falsifying things tie into your assertion that we consider correct answers to be good regardless of their actual correctness? You could have a claim that is believed to be true that may actually be false, and then the values "wrong" and "good" are assigned to the same answer, even if it is unbeknownst to the people reaching the answer. That is, if you believe that perceived correctness actually makes something good.

edit: and even if you don't believe that perceived correctness makes something good, there could still be a contradiction if two or more people disagree on the correctness of an answer.

As do I, as I believe I previously expressed via "verification and falsification". — javra

You shoe-horned that in. Your claims about the reality of people equating good and correct mentioned nothing about people falsifying things. I don't see how your statement about an apple being added to an apple constitutes any serious account of the fact that people often times recognize that they are wrong, and do not just assume that anything they have determined to be correct (whether or not it is actually correct) is good.

So, you acknowledge that people falsify things. But what value does a false thing have if not wrong if good is assumed if a thing is correct?

Perhaps god needs to host a show on Fox News. — Tom Storm

I would hang on every word.

I have some sympathy for Frankenstein's monster, even if he was grotesque. Kind of relatable, I think.

All the same, do you find that appraisal discordant to the way thing are in the world? — javra

Yes, I think people pursue correct answers and acknowledge when they don't find them. And no one just equates "good" and "correct". That would be like saying that 2 + 2 = 4 could be a moral principle because it is correct.

The problem with theistic morality is that it provides no objective basis for right and wrong. — Tom Storm

It could if God made himself apparent. But that probably won't happen.

I wasn't speaking ill of such a project.

Yes, your phrasing was so confusing I couldn't even comprehend what I was writing as I was writing it.

In simplistic terms — javra

Yes, I am a simpleton.

when one appraises if 1 + 1 = 2 is correct, one's judgment will be fully relative to that concerned in one's appraisal (differing from, say, if it is correct that 236 - 45 = 6) but in all such cases the notion of correctness remains constant irrespective of that addressed. — javra

So I was right: if something is correct it is correct only with respect to a certain object if it is not related to other things. And things can still be correct despite this.

We furthermore universally deem correct answers good - so that we all seek correct answers to questions, irrespective of what we may deem to be the correct answer in concrete terms (e.g., if we deem it the correct answer that 1 +1 = 1 we will then abide by that answer on account of deeming it correct). — javra

So, we blindly pursue correct answers because they are considered "good", and we may not reach correct answers but still call them correct, and also inevitably go with our account of what is correct because we deem it correct (and, thus, "good").

That doesn't seem circular to you? And that seems as much a sociological claim as a philosophical one.

I hear you, but I rule them out anyway since there is no way we can demonstrate 1) what they are or 2) if they exist. We have no choice but to be pragmatic - for me humans create morality to facilitate social cooperation in order to achieve our preferred forms of order. — Tom Storm

Honestly, Sam Harris is the best on this one, imo. If we do what Javra says and try to form some sort of Frankenstein's monster of psychology, ethics, and neuroscience, we could come the closest to having some sort of objective moral project short of throwing our lot in with God.

I actually appreciated your contributions. That verse is apt, although I appear to be on the wrong side of it.