Not according to the Bible. — frank

Okay?

You have
"One ought do X" is true when everyone believes it's true.
And yet you seem to deny
"You ought to do what everyone believes you should" — Banno

I haven't said this. I have said that one of these is true:

a) no moral sentence is truth-apt
c) no moral sentence is true
e) some moral sentence is true if everyone believes so
f) some moral sentence is true even if nobody believes so

And I've also said that I won't (always) do what I ought to do.

Even if you want to pick a certain point where there was a mutation, this choice for where we draw the moral line is going to be arbitrary. For instance, we know that Homo Sapiens and all our close relatives have a mutation that makes our jaw muscles weak. That would be an objective separating line between us and the other animals. But why would having a weak jaw make us subject to moral rules? — frank

I mentioned an example. Morality applies to any species (or rather, person) with the intelligence to understand morality. I certainly don't think this arbitrary.

Again, for the third or fourth time, your purpose here is obscure. It's not clear where your reasoning leads, or where it comes from. What's your point? Are you supporting subjectivism, or just positing it for the sake of discussion? — Banno

It was a discussion from several years ago that I mentioned in passing. I didn't mean to bring it into this discussion.

The question is: is morality only for humans? The idea is that if morality is only for homo sapiens, then morality is artificial because there's an ancestral continuum between humans and their forebears.

If morality is artificial, then moral realism fails. — frank

Even if it were only for humans it doesn't then follow that it's artificial. Humans are biologically distinct from non-humans yet human biology isn't artificial; it's an objective and natural fact. It may be that humans are morally distinct from non-humans even though morality isn't artificial; it may be an objective fact (whether natural or non-natural) that only obtains for a species that reaches a sufficient level of intelligence, e.g. intelligent enough to conceive of morality.

Taxation is not a just acquisition or transfer. — NOS4A2

It is if Rawls' (or some other) theory is correct. See distributive justice for a more in-depth account.

The problem is that "contracts" aren't aimed at reaching morally just outcomes; they are generally not included at all. So the idea people have an extra-legal moral right to pre-tax income is fundamentally flawed. — Benkei

Why is it flawed? It could be that one has a moral right to some X but no legal right to it. Case in point: abortion in some countries.

Certainly not descriptive ethics. If you don't like my instinct example, go with your version of moral subjectivism:

"One ought do X" is true when everyone believes it's true.

It is not a valid objection to say "Why ought I do something just because everyone believes I should?".
Because it is not an ethical theory that says "You ought to do what everyone believes you should".
It is a metaethical theory that says "The truth of ethical propositions arises from everyone's belief in them".

Raising an ethical objection to a metaethical theory is a mistake. Because it is an is theory, not an ought theory, even though its subject is ought statements.
an hour ago — hypericin

I misunderstood you then. I agree with this.

So we apparently take as true that one ought not eat babies. — Banno

I was saying that I wouldn't eat babies even if I ought to. I am not (only) motivated by moral considerations. I am (more) motivated by self-interest and my "passions" (as Hume would put it).

Human psychology isn't a slave to some supposed duty.

So long as they are just in their transfers there is no reason to prevent someone from becoming wealthy. To do so would be to engage in the unjust transfer of wealth, for instance through theft, exploitation, and forced labor like taxation. — NOS4A2

If Rawls' theory of justice is correct in concluding that "economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged" then this maximin principle may entail that taxation is just.

Although I suspect you agree more with Nozick.

The challenge to moral realism is in asking about what's moral for homo habilis, or homo erectus. — frank

That's a challenge for some theory on normative ethics (e.g. utilitarianism, hedonism, etc.). Moral realism is a theory on meta-ethics and so it doesn't need to answer this question.

But why is it a response to my post? — hypericin

Because your post was saying that Banno and Leontiskos are making a mistake in asking about obligations, whereas I think obligations are the very thing we're discussing.

Are sentences like "one ought not X" true and if so are they true even if we all believe otherwise?

This discussion is on meta-ethics, not descriptive ethics, and your post seems to be discussing the latter.

One would treat this as a reductio, that shows the supposed argument to have gone astray. That one ought not eat babies takes precedence over the argument. — Banno

I think it's worth looking at this

Use of this Latin terminology traces back to the Greek expression hê eis to adunaton apagôgê, reduction to the impossible, found repeatedly in Aristotle’s Prior Analytics. In its most general construal, reductio ad absurdum – reductio for short – is a process of refutation on grounds that absurd – and patently untenable consequences would ensue from accepting the item at issue. This takes three principal forms according as that untenable consequence is:

1) a self-contradiction (ad absurdum)
2) a falsehood (ad falsum or even ad impossible)
3) an implausibility or anomaly (ad ridiculum or ad incommodum)

The first of these is reductio ad absurdum in its strictest construction and the other two cases involve a rather wider and looser sense of the term.

It would be wrong to assert (1) and begging the question to assert (2) in this case. So I take it that you are asserting (3)?

Even if (3) were true it doesn't then follow that one ought not eat babies. Something can be true and implausible.

I think we're primarily considering the notion of moral obligation in this discussion. Are there moral obligations and if so then what is their ontological status?

Assuming that a moral sentence is a sentence of the form "one ought (not) X":

a) no moral sentence is truth-apt
b) some moral sentence is truth-apt

Either (a) or (b) is true.

c) no moral sentence is true
d) some moral sentence is true

If (b) is true then either (c) or (d) is true.

e) no moral sentence is true if nobody believes so
f) some moral sentence is true even if nobody believes so

If (d) is true then either (e) or (f) is true.

Therefore, one of these is true:

a) no moral sentence is truth-apt (non-cognitivism)
c) no moral sentence is true (error theory)
e) no moral sentence is true if nobody believes so (non-objectivism)
f) some moral sentence is true even if nobody believes so (robust realism)

So given that a moral sentence is a sentence of the form "one ought (not) X", which of (a), (c), (e), or (f) is true?

They're not incompatible. — Leontiskos

1. Some "one ought not X" is true
2. "one ought not X" doesn't mean "according to some rule-giver Y, one ought not X"
3. There are no obligations without a rule-giver

These cannot all be true. It seems to me that non-cognitivists and error theorists must reject (1), subjectivists must reject (2), and realists must reject (3).

If (1) is true then subjectivism allows for obligations. Everyone here seems to be in agreement that (1) is false, including you. This seems about right to me. This is the case that I would call obviously false but not incoherent. — Leontiskos

Well that’s the issue. I think that (1) is false, I think that some moral sentences are true, and I think that obligations without a rule-giver are nonsensical. Yet these three positions are incompatible.

Perhaps I’m a fictionalist.

Two self-proclaimed subjectivists in this thread have already disagreed with (1), and none have agreed with it. — Leontiskos

Yes, subjectivism covers a variety of different positions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_subjectivism

There is some debate among philosophers around the use of the term "ethical subjectivism" as this term has historically referred to the more specific position that ethical statements are merely reports of one's own mental states (saying that killing is wrong just means you disapprove of killing). While this is an ethically subjective position (the truth of your statement does depend on your mental states), it is not the only one.

https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/moral-anti-realism/

According to John Rawls (1971), fairness is determined by the results of an imaginary collective decision, wherein self-interested agents negotiate principles of distribution behind a veil of ignorance. Decision-making, negotiation, and agency all require mental activity.

…

According to Frank Jackson (1998), ethical terms pick out properties that play a certain role in the conceptual network determined by mature folk morality. “The folk” necessarily have minds, and the relevant process of “maturing” is presumably one that implicates a variety of psychological events.

I was simply using an example that better fits my breakdown here.

Yes, but (1) is false. — Leontiskos

That’s where realists and subjectivists disagree.

Subjectivism claims that (1) is true, and if (1) is true then the conclusion follows. Subjectivism allows for obligations. It just doesn’t allow for realist obligations, which is obvious given that it’s anti-realist.

Valid and coherent, but it erroneously divorces morality from oughtness, as noted above. — Leontiskos

If the argument is valid and if the premises are true then the conclusion that one ought not harm another iff society says one ought not ham another is true.

Society saying something does not intrinsically obligate anyone to obey. — Leontiskos

What exactly do you mean by “intrinsic”? Isn’t this the very thing that realists and subjectivists disagree over? Realists say that moral rules and obligations are “intrinsic” (i.e objective) and subjectivists say that they aren’t.

If so then it’s begging the question to argue that moral subjectivism is false (or incoherent) if it entails that moral rules and obligations are not intrinsic.

You appear to just be saying that subjectivism fails because it isn’t realism.

For sure. I wrestle with it a lot - I guess i see society as an arbitrary rule-giver. Assenting to just plum majority rule does not sit well. — AmadeusD

Is there such a thing as a non-arbitrary rule giver?

This is the reason for my discomfort with the idea of moral truth. — AmadeusD

Perhaps there are moral truths because there is a rule-giver, e.g. society.

I'll set it out as a syllogism.

1. "one ought not harm another" means "society says one ought not harm another"
2. "society says one ought not harm another" is true iff society says one ought not harm another
3. Therefore, "one ought not harm another" is true iff society says one ought not harm another

The argument is valid.

Moral realists (and error theorists) believe that (1) is false, whereas (some) moral subjectivists believe that (1) is true.

You're not just saying, "Morality is just the laws we pass;" you are saying, "Morality is the laws we pass and we ought to obey those laws." — Leontiskos

Not exactly. I'm saying that society says "you ought not kill babies" and then we either obey or we don't, and if we don't then we're doing what society says we ought not do. Moral subjectivists claim that there is nothing more to morality than this. According to them, when we say "you ought not kill babies" we are implicitly (or explicitly) saying "according to society you ought not kill babies."

Moral realists, on the other hand, think that "you ought not kill babies" is never prefixed with some "according to X". Moral subjectivists think this nonsensical as they believe one cannot have a rule without a rule-giver.

We can never manufacture binding rules for ourselves. Self-legislation does not bind — Leontiskos

Well, I know lawmakers like to think themselves above the law, but they're not.

I think it an indisputable fact that society does in fact dictate rules that each member must follow.

Whether or not these are the rules that we refer to when we talk about morality is the very issue that (robust) moral realists and moral subjectivists disagree on. Realists think that moral rules are something other than the rules society manufactures for itself, subjectivists don't.

And error theorists agree with the realist that when we talk about morality we intend to talk about something other than the rules society manufactures for itself, but agree with the subjectivist that there are no such other rules.

And yet sometimes we ought not obey the law. It's never simple. — Banno

Yes, sometimes some other rule demands us to break the law. And perhaps this other rule is yet another manufactured rule. I can understand the moral subjectivist taking issue with the claim that there are rules that are simply "built in" to the world (or whatever it is that (robust) moral realists believe).

Rules without a rule-giver does seem spurious.

Again, it's not clear to me what it is you are suggesting, both in that post and in your recent line of thought. — Banno

When playing chess one ought follow the rules and when going about your everyday life one ought obey the law, even though the rules of chess and the law are manufactured by us.

Perhaps there's nothing more to morality than those socially manufactured rules that we impose on one another.

But morality is not conceived of as a voluntary activity, whereas chess is. — Leontiskos

We can choose to abandon society.

But rather than chess, perhaps laws a good example. We ought to obey the law, and not just for practical reasons.

The interesting part for me in the ought business is the justification. — Tom Storm

The interesting part for me is the very meaning of obligation. I think Anscombe said it best when she described "ought" as "a word of mere mesmeric force".

Yet it remains open as to whether we ought cooperate. — Banno

Is it open as to whether we ought not move a pawn backwards in chess when playing chess?

For others it is incoherent because in being a response to moral issues it pretends to tell us what we ought to do, and yet it only tells us what most people do. — Banno

See my second paragraph above.

My problem with this is that morality is a normative affair. If someone is making purely descriptive claims, then they are not engaged in, or committing themselves to, any kind of morality. — Leontiskos

1. X is wrong
2. One ought not X

Do these mean the same thing?

If someone claims that morality is reducible to descriptive facts, then they are explaining away morality. — Leontiskos

I don't think that this is necessarily the case. There is a normative component to the rules of chess and to laws even though these are manufactured. I don't see a problem with claiming that society has manufactured (organically over time) a set of rules that each member must abide by, and that these are the rules we talk about when we talk about morality.

Are you committed to the proposition that, on the version of moral subjectivism you are examining, the consensus has moral weight but the votes have none? — Leontiskos

What I am saying is that there are certain behaviours that society has deemed acceptable and certain behaviours that society has deemed unacceptable. According to some moral subjectivists when we talk about morality we are talking about these socially acceptable and unacceptable behaviours. The sentence "murder is immoral" is true iff society deems murder unacceptable because "murder is immoral" just means "murder is deemed socially unacceptable."

This may be factually incorrect (e.g. if Moore's open argument is sound), but that doesn't make it incoherent. It's an internally consistent theory even if it mistakes the meaning of moral sentences.

And on a similar vein, the same is true for the subjectivists who claim that "murder is immoral" is true (for me) if I disapprove of murder because "murder is immoral" just means "I disapprove of murder". It's internally consistent even if factually incorrect.

You are assuming that (3a) is coherent, but when presented with the incoherencies of (3a) — Leontiskos

I don't think you have presented any incoherencies.

I think I might have already mentioned once or twice that my interest here was no more than to show that there are moral truths. — Banno

And as I have already mentioned, the rest of us are interested in further considerations. We want to know if moral truths are expressions of individual attitudes, or if they describe conventions of social behaviour, or if they report on facts about the world that obtain even if everyone were to believe otherwise. We want to know whether or not moral truths are reducible to natural phenomena.

If you're not interested in these further considerations then you don't need to engage with the rest of us who are.

Of course. Are you expecting mere philosophical considerations will decide what you ought to do? They might help you phrase the issues, but they will no more solve all your moral quandaries than they will tell you the value of the gravitational constant. — Banno

I'm expecting philosophical considerations to help me determine what "one ought not" means and whether or not moral truths are determined to any extent by human attitudes and decisions.

You seem to be confusing metaethics and normative ethics. I have no questions for normative ethics. I already know what I ought to (not) do. Don't eat babies, for example.

Banno's point is that the common element in moral realism is that there are true moral statements. It turns out to be important that the SEP article on moral realism stops there, noting that "...some accounts of moral realism see it as involving additional commitments", while the SEP article on Moral Antirealism - the one you repeatedly refer to - needs these "additional commitments' in order to implement a critique of "moral realism".

Could it be that without these "additional commitments" moral realism stands firm? I think so. — Banno

You seem to view the distinction as:

1. Moral non-cognitivism
2. Error theory
3. Moral realism

Others view the distinction as:

1. Moral non-cognitivism
2. Error theory
3a. Moral subjectivism
3b. Moral realism

When others argue against moral realism they are arguing against their (3b), not your (3). Your (3) also allows for their (3a).

So you're just talking past each other.

So what.

Agreement is not a criteria here. The open question argument shows that.

I am not following whatever it is you are doing. — Banno

You said that "if the consequence of an argument is unacceptable, it is open to us to reject the argument."

So you offer an argument for some morality with a consequence that I find unacceptable, so I reject it.

I offer an argument for some morality with a consequence that you find unacceptable, so you reject it.

We've gotten nowhere. How do we determine which of us is, if either, is right? Is moral philosophy simply a futile endeavour?

On this account, our moral beliefs and intuitions are an expression of this cooperative system. To ask, "but what if they are *wrong*?", independently of the system, is to reintroduce moral realism, which this account leaves no room for. — hypericin

If moral realism is correct then it is perfectly appropriate to ask "what if they're wrong?"

So to simply use this example of socially advantageous behaviour as a refutation of realism is to beg the question.

If the consequence of an argument is unacceptable, it is open to us to reject the argument. That's how reductio works. — Banno

Unacceptable to who? You and I might disagree over whether or not abortion, eating meat, and the death penalty are unacceptable.

If the nature of chess is dictated by an authority, then it is not the result of a consensus. A vote and an appeal to an authority are two different things. Thus your chess case, as presented, is not a matter of consensus. — Leontiskos

I think you're being overly pedantic here. In the case of chess there was a majority consensus amongst the group authorized to decide the laws. In the case of laws there is a majority consensus amongst the legislature. In the case of morality it may be that there is a majority consensus amongst the general population.

There's nothing inherently contradictory about these positions.