Progress is good, especially considering the very nuanced side issues concerning the ontology of thought/belief and reason we've been also contemplating here.

I cannot see how morality comes prior to cultural indoctrination. — Merkwurdichliebe

We may be misunderstanding one another slightly. Although, I don't think it's that important. Just to make sure of that:Morality, on my view, follows from the conventional definition of morality as set out by the SEP... the rules of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour.

So in that sense, morality is the tool used for cultural indoctrination. On second thought, that may be imparting intention/purpose where none exists. Initially I mean. Surely some do use morality as a tool to indoctrinate youth, for the purposes of such.

Some religions have holy books which nearly make this claim outright.

I cannot see the arrival to ethical existence prior to the ability of the individual to separate herself from the culture into which she has been indoctrinated (even if, at that point, she chose to abide with the cultural indoctrination. — Merkwurdichliebe

Is this akin to a rough criterion for moral agency?

Thinking about one's own adopted moral thought/belief?

Well, I think we've come to some agreement regarding the source of morals, haven't we?

Morals consist of thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. They are the basis for morality. They vary according to cultural and/or familial particulars.

This is true of all morals. We agree here don't we?

Ok.

So, on my view all moral thought/belief is thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. If the converse is also true, if all thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour is moral thought/belief, then we arrive at moral thought/belief prior to language. However, morals are quite a bit different than mere moral thought/belief.

The social aspect is certainly relevant.

We can agree that culture is existentially dependent upon many different individuals' thought/belief, can't we?

Individuals(some of them at least) determine what counts as the interests of the culture, no?

Anyway, let's circle back to the moral thought/belief aspect. Particularly, I think that the role of language in moral thought/belief could be set out further.

Culture is certainly an entity beyond the individual. Not everything in culture is existentially dependent upon one in the same particular individual. However, culture is existentially dependent upon individuals, not the other way around. All cultural change stems from individuals.

I'm just looking for you to set out the nuance. I do not think I understand what you're claiming.

Culture is existentially dependent upon individual pre-linguistic thought/belief.

I cannot seem to reconcile that with...

...all evaluations of primitive thought/belief are primarily acquired from culture, and not as a result of the primitive thought/belief.

I readily agree that all evaluations of primitive thought/belief are primarily acquired from culture. Evaluations of pre-linguistic thought/belief are existentially dependent upon language.

Good. I want to circle back to the skepticism/criticism that you've levied. It's worth unpacking.

The last statement seems to be claiming or at least has the consequence of claiming that all evaluations of primitive thought/belief are primarily acquired from culture, and not as a result of the primitive thought/belief. — creativesoul

Can we discuss this further?

If only thinking were not so indefinitely fluid - infinite, as it were. Perhaps, then, we could approach the topic of thinking about thought/belief in a direct manner. But, as it is, we cannot directly communicate actual thinking, and thusly, we can do nothing but approach it indirectly - as thought/belief about thought/belief. — Merkwurdichliebe

We could always be more direct, I suppose.

Do you agree that humans are capable of thinking and/or believing prior to language acquisition?

All explanations of thought/belief are themselves existentially dependent upon pre-existing thought/belief. That is to say that all explanations of thought/belief are metacognitive endeavors(they require thinking about thought/belief). Thought/belief cannot be pointed at. It does not have a spatiotemporal location. So, unlike thinking about physically perceptible things, thinking about thought/belief requires quite a bit more than just brains/nervous systems replete with physiological sensory perception and the innate ability to experience the effects/affects of basic emotion(contentment/discontentment/fear).
— creativesoul

Nice point, possibly something to build upon. I'll try not to get too excited and jump the gun.

Emotional affection, at the physiological level, corresponds directly to the behavioral disposition of desire/aversion. But, at this point, I can not say whether that the valuation of behavioral disposition marks a transition into the ethical, or, rather, stands as merely an aesthetic assessment of what seems most conducive to attaining the desirable.

Consider, that early in life, the infant begins to evaluate the desirable somewhere in the interplay of her nerve stimuli, and her emotional responses. As primitive as it is, this does constitute a valuation, despite the absence of any language skills. The primitive level in which value is imposed on emotional affection does not constitute a proper ethical judgement - it is more like an observation of what seems pleasing to me, rather than a moral choice about what I ought to do.

Then we can think about the toddler who has begun to acquire language. At this point, he is being linguistically conditioned (with some corporal conditioning) so that he can be assimilated into the culture to which he belongs. It is somewhere in this process that the evaluation of his primitive valuations commences; most importantly any evaluations of his primitive valuations are primarily acquired externally from culture, and not internally as a result of primitive valuation.

I hope this takes us one step closer to adequately understanding the source of morals. I could be mistaken, it's a terrible tragedy. — Merkwurdichliebe

That's not a bad summary of pre linguistic thought/belief as it pertains to morals.

The last statement seems to be claiming or at least has the consequence of claiming that all evaluations of primitive thought/belief are primarily acquired from culture, and not as a result of the primitive thought/belief.

Do I understand you correctly?

I'll not get into the negation. Thanks for taking the time to set it out.

How can we avert the Notion of: man as the measure of all things? — Merkwurdichliebe

By not saying it?

Relevance?

However, I don't see how we can avoid beginning at an unverifiable metaphysical premise. The necessary abstraction of concepts inevitably places us on metaphysical ground. I don't know how it is possible to nullify this problem (in totality) through any methodology.

As I see it, we are left with two choices: to keep trying to metholologically locate a non-metaphysical premise from which we can proceed with absolute certaity; or to simply accept a metaphysical premise as self-evident, and proceed methodologically to investigate its consequence. The latter is obviously naive; but the former requires blind faith in a methodology that will only have proved itself, once it has indisputably proven itself. The only other way to validate a methodology is to test it by another method. What independent method could we use to determine the effectiveness of our methodology here (not that we actually have one)? It would seem to require another method to determine that methodology . . . ad infinitum. — Merkwurdichliebe

Let us, for the sake of novelty, momentarily set aside the notions of metaphysical and non-metaphysical. Those categories are a consequence of inadequate dichotomy. As such, they are contaminated in the same way that logical notation/transcription/translation is. The lack of explanatory power inherently within dichotomy has been transmitted/transferred into the categories.

That's step one, and it makes perfect sense given what's been argued for thus far, particularly the bits about the shortcomings of all dichotomies. They quite simply cannot take into account anything that consists of both sides of the dichotomy.

Conventionally, we know that metaphysics is the branch of philosophy whose adherents concern themselves with what exists and/or the nature thereof. There are virtually countless different stances all of which revolve around two basic categories. That which is dependent upon the mind, and that which is not. This places the notion of mind dependence and/or mind independence front and center. It is of utmost importance for it is the measure of all things further considered when one is using a framework resting it's laurels upon that dichotomy. So, what counts as a mind is paramount to such subsequent thinking. That is also where the dichotomy of subjective/objective arises from. The former being all things that are mind dependent and the latter being all things that are not.

Let's pause here for second...

If all minds are existentially dependent upon thought/belief, then we better make sure that we have thought/belief right.

So... it's the method of approach that matters. What steps do we take, which things ought we consider, what can we know and how can we know it when it comes to thought and belief itself? Are thought and belief things? What sorts of things could they be? Do they exist? Are they real? In what way do they exist. How can we establish some sound foundation?

I chose to first look towards statements.

I don't believe any philosophical framework aptly takes into account any of those metaphysical dichotomies which "consist of both, and are thus... neither". — Merkwurdichliebe

I'm not claiming that any dichotomy consists of both and is thus neither, although I would not disagree with such a claim... strictly and quite literally speaking.

What I'm pointing out is that all dichotomies are inherently lacking in explanatory power in the very same way. None can take account of that which consists of both sides of the dichotomy.

The only framework that comes close, is the dialectical one, which includes movement/transition into its logic, allowing it to essentially negate the law of contradiction. — Merkwurdichliebe

I don't follow you here.

Just to be clear though. I've no issue with judicious use of the true/false dichotomy. The important thing by my lights is having a good grasp upon the sort of things that can be true/false in addition to what makes them so. One's use of true/false shows one's grasp of that.


It's an aside, but I'm dying to know...

Can you demonstrate such a negation of the law of contradiction?

Just recently Janus and I were involved in a discussion about whether or not a promise could be true/false at the time of utterance. I learned something from that exchange. Promises consist of more than one thought/belief(proposition). Janus argues from a position that led to saying that one promise could be both true and false at the same time. On my view, promises are not the sort of thing that can be true/false.

P.S.

You've extracted a couple of the key points, and expressed some fairly well-grounded concerns regarding the project itself. I'm neither ignoring nor wanting to distract our attention from those by this post. Rather, I've been methodically replying to snippets in the order that they came after having read them all a few times in their entirety. So... the next post is one I'm looking forward to.

The a priori/a posterior distinction has its merits in explaining some things... — Merkwurdichliebe

I'm certainly not sold. For that matter, I'm even less sold on the idea that the same correlations are currently being drawn between many instances of it's use on this forum and what it was meant to refer to by Kant himself.

If use of "a priori" denotes that which is necessarily presupposed for experience to even happen(the necessary and sufficient pre-conditions claimed to give rise to all experience), then we're doing nothing more than describing our own notion of "experience" in greater detail. If that notion does not include drawing a distinction between nonlinguistic thought/belief and linguistic thought/belief, then it will inevitably conflate the two.

There's no way for us to know how a bat experiences the world, if we attempt to do so by shoehorning a kind of experience that only humans can have, into a bat's world.

Would a ban on all public religious representations and displays ease religious hatreds and violence? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Violence against the religious?

Maybe?

Typically, aside from Columbine, violence against the religious is performed by the religious. If those prone to such violence had less opportunity to think about it, then it would seem to follow that they would also have less opportunity to do it. They would definitely have less time spent thinking about it... aside from those already possessed.

Banning all religious representation would definitely reduce the sheer quantity of times one could think/believe that they didn't really have a choice in the matter. Such is fertile ground for cultivating discontent.

Banning all public religious representations would increase the amount of hatred and violence coming from within the religious community.

In moral foundations theory (Jonathan Haidt, Craig Joseph, Jesse Graham), it's proposed that moral judgment is primarily given rise to by intuition, with reasoning playing a smaller role in most of our moral decision-making. Conscious thought-processes serve as a kind of post hoc justification of our decisions. — praxis

This sounds about right, in general, for most people in most situations. However, I do find the notion of intuition to be without a common referent that existed in it's entirety prior to our accounts of it. It's use - without delineation - leaves me wondering what the speaker is talking about. Given that it is being claimed to give rise to moral judgment, I wonder if that is indicative of a claim regarding initial emergence/source/origen of all moral judgment or if it simply points out that some moral judgment happens automatically after one has a basis of moral thought/belief from which to judge. I'm probably being a bit too picky...

If by "moral judgment" we are talking about situations when one is voicing approval/disapproval in terms of whether or not something is acceptable/unacceptable, what morally right/wrong, or even what ought and/or ought not be done, then I would agree with the underlying sentiment.

Voicing approval/disapproval is almost always grounded upon pre-existing moral thought/belief(prior to the specific situation). In non reflective situations I might even be able to argue that it is always. However, we can - and we do - sometimes change our minds about which behaviours are acceptable/unacceptable. Those situations - where we are carefully considering our own pre-existing thought/belief - can yield moral judgments that are not so unreflective. They are arrived at via reasoning(thinking about our own pre-existing thought/belief). Of course, this takes another human - in some way, shape, or form, because it takes thinking about the same things in different terms. Roughly, one must admit being mistaken, and none of us are capable of recognizing our own mistakes when left entirely to our own devices. It takes another.

The theory suggests that we have unconscious intuitive heuristics which generate our reactions to morally charged-situations, and underlie our moral behavior. When people explain their moral positions, they often miss, if not hide, the core premises and processes that actually led to those conclusions.

I don't know about the 'heuristics' part, but aside from that I wouldn't disagree at all. I mean, that's very often the case regarding people's reactions in any emotionally charged situation regardless of the moral aspect(regardless whether or not it's about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour). I would even take that quite a bit farther and say that that's true in most everyday situations regarding almost all people's explanations regarding their own underlying 'operative' thought/belief.

The main evidence for the theory comes from studies of "moral dumbfounding" where people have strong moral reactions but fail to establish any kind of rational principle to explain their reaction.

Again I agree that these things happen, but I'm quite hesitant about the narrow scope of application. So, as far as evidence is concerned, it seems questionable for being used in such a specific way regarding only moral judgments as compared/contrasted to all sorts of judgments.

I think that most people in most situations can have strong reactions without knowing why and/or how they've come to have such unconscious emotional 'triggers'. All people have them at some point in time or another. I mean, that must take place prior to our taking account of it and/or ourselves.

Some people seem to be in a perpetual emotionally charged angry state; others a perpetual happy go lucky one; others are more even keeled. None of these general attitudes are always indicative of the amount of self-reflection and/or actual deliberate self-improvement work, and it is almost always difficult, that the individual has been involving in.

One has to want to do that. It does not always end well.

Not everyone is willing to or capable of doing what it takes to understand themselves. The remarkable thing, to me at least, is that the better you understand others the better you can understand yourself as well, and vice -versa. It's a self perpetuating process(pun intended).

Edited to be clear...

That's a hypothetical use of "you"... That nuance would have been much better understood had I used "one" instead of "you".

Don't let me get off topic. Let's experiment.

If we establish (not really) an incontestable premise in thought/belief, then let's just pretend, how would we begin to flesh out a method?

Perhaps you can enlighten me here with a hypothetical test run. And then, perhaps, run the "source of morals" through it. — Merkwurdichliebe

A method for what?

Establishing a minimal criterion for what counts as being a case of thought/belief, such that all known examples of thought/belief also satisfy this criterion?

Have you come up with a coherent account of shared meaning yet?
— creativesoul

I've had a coherent account of how meaning works for decades. I don't know if I explained it to you in any detail or not in the past.

We need to clarify, by the way, just how you're using "shared" there. We'd not be talking about different instances of the same (exact, logically identical) thing, because there are no such things in general (I'm a nominalist). — Terrapin Station

Nevermind.

Look in the cupboard for a red cup. Inside it you will find coffee. You cannot dip your finger into that red cup of coffee.

All things are identical to themselves...

WTF was wrong with those guys?

I would agree with you that economic activity in China, India, SE Asia, Korea, and elsewhere has indeed lifted many people out of destitution over the last few decades. Trade has helped, internal consumption has helped. — Bitter Crank

A much bigger class of people who are just comfortable enough to not want to riot. Keep them fed clothed and housed...

The questions you raise are so complex and multi-faceted that I'll have to be a bit overly simplistic.

What brought us to this state is the triumph of the American Empire (let's call it AE). AE became the dominant global power in the aftermath of WW2. And following the collapse of the USSR, AE's global supremacy was basically unquestioned. However, America doesn't like to think of itself as an empire. AE doesn't conquer nations or set up colonies. Rather, it rules by trade. AE dominates other countries by giving them no other option than to business with it. And when you do business with AE, you do business on AE's terms. — Dusty of Sky

When you sign the agreement you are agreeing with the terms/conditions set out within the agreement.

The sheer size of some multinational corporations lends their board of directors and/or ceos a tremendous amount of power, including but not limited to free speech; the power to influence an entire electorate during what are supposed to be free and fair elections; the power to appoint specific people in charge of lobbying on the corporations own behalf by virtue of helping write and/or actually writing legislation that has a direct effect upon the profit margin of the corporation. Interest of employees and/or workers(everyday citizens) are always in conflict with corporate profits.

Of the people, for the people, by the people? What bullshit.

There is nothing illegal about a citizen of a foreign nation who sits on a multinational corporation's committee/board directly influencing how American laws are written. There's nothing illegal about the same people having the power to govern the discourse, even when it is a deliberate attempt to divert attention from what ought be the focus.

Collusion? Pffft. That shit's legal.

Thanks Scalia.

You modest sunavabitch! :grin: — Merkwurdichliebe

Surely you jest.

We must take care and not confuse our reports with what they are reporting upon. The former is existentially dependent upon language. The latter is not always. Some thought/belief exists in it's entirety prior to it's being reported upon.

Everything ever spoken, written, and/or otherwise uttered originates in/from pre-linguistic, non-linguistic thought/belief. Thought/belief autonomously emerges in simple 'form' and gains in it's complexity. Human knowledge, let us not forget, provides the strongest possible justificatory ground for our saying so, because it is an empirical manifestation of human thought/belief.

All thought/belief is meaningful to the thinking believing creature. Some thought/belief are prior to language. Some meaning is prior to language. Not all meaning is existentially dependent upon language. All thought/belief(all correlation) presupposes the existence of it's own content(regardless of subsequent further qualification). The presupposition of correspondence to actual events happens prior to language.

If the presupposition of truth(as correspondence to actual events) happens prior to language, then any and all philosophical positions arriving at and/or relying upon the contrary are wrong in a very specific sort of way.

If the attribution of meaning happens prior to language, then any and all positions arriving at and/or relying upon the contrary are wrong in a very specific sort of way.

All meaning consists of correlations drawn between that which becomes sign and that which becomes significant, that which becomes symbol, and that which becomes symbolic. A creature drawing mental correlations, associations, and/or connections between different things. That is what meaning consists of... all of it. Multiply the creatures by any number. So long as they are drawing correlations between the same things, they're attributing meaning in the same way.

Both a dog and a human can learn that touching fire causes pain. That is how 'shared' meaning emerges, in the sense that it is the same thought/belief being formed by different creatures. Thought/belief that is commonly formed and/or held by more than one capable creature. Typically, talk of shared meaning denotes linguistic meaning and as such it involves people drawing the same or similar enough correlations between language use and something else.

Have you come up with a coherent account of shared meaning yet? That's where we left off long ago.

No.

You never will as long as you mistakenly believe that everything that exists has a quantifiable spatiotemporal location. Truth(correspondence to actual events) doesn't. Relationships don't. The attribution of meaning doesn't. Thought/belief doesn't.

An adequate account of shared meaning depends upon knowing that.

So it is a more primitive morality, more closely related to the autonomic processes of the nervous system, whereas a more sophisticated mode of morality would render the autonomic process so insignificant as to bypass any potential effect it may have on subsequent behavior or disposition. — Merkwurdichliebe

I wouldn't call the common core of all thought/belief 'primitive morality'. Primitive thought/belief? Sure. Not all thought/belief is rightfully called "morality". Rather, morality is codified thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour(thought/belief that is moral in kind).

Morality is codified moral belief. Laws.

You and I both know that the position I'm arguing for rings true in a multitude of ways and has the broadest possible scope of rightful application(s). Don't we?

:wink:

If anything we are discussing can be accused of having a priori significance, it is the notion of thought/belief. 8n relation to the tabula rasa of thought/belief, any cosmological or neurobiological explanation are as much a matter of a posterior understanding as any explanation concerning the ethical or its source. — Merkwurdichliebe

I would not object to concluding/assuming that at the moment of a creatures' biological conception there is no such thing as thought/belief. However, Tabula Rasa is not a notion I would endorse. A blank slate overstates the case.

If we must speak in terms of a priori and a posteriori, then I suppose the above makes a fair point. However, I personally reject that framework as a result of it's inherent inadequacy. In fact, I reject all historical philosophical metaphysical frameworks for the very same reason. They are all based upon dichotomies such as subject/object, mental/physical, internal/external, subjective/objective, and others. None of these dichotomies can coherently arrive at a framework capable of taking proper account of that which consists of both, and is thus... neither. Thought/belief is one such thing.



Expanding upon the commonality between all explanations of thought/belief...

All explanations of thought/belief are themselves existentially dependent upon pre-existing thought/belief. That is to say that all explanations of thought/belief are metacognitive endeavors(they require thinking about thought/belief). Thought/belief cannot be pointed at. It does not have a spatiotemporal location. So, unlike thinking about physically perceptible things, thinking about thought/belief requires quite a bit more than just brains/nervous systems replete with physiological sensory perception and the innate ability to experience the effects/affects of basic emotion(contentment/discontentment/fear).

Here's my question...

Can anyone here offer an example of any philosopher from any time period throughout human history who has drawn and maintained the actual distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief?

No. But why? I mean we all know that we do this. We're doing it now!

Because some humans - especially the Ivory Towered and religious ones - want to think of themselves as 'higher' than the 'dumb' animals. As a result, they've went to great extremes providing proof of this by arguing how animals do not think like us - cannot possibly think like us. It makes perfect sense to say such things. I mean, animals cannot think about their own pre-existing thought/belief. Animals cannot deliberately reason, suspend their judgment, conceive of novelty, etc. We can. That's just a small part of what language has helped facilitate.

But there's a big problem with this line of thinking. It does not draw and maintain the actual distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief. If it did, and it did it rightly, then we would still be able to hold superiority and do so without being dead wrong about whether or not animals form thought/belief and/or the extent of which they can be said to have/hold thought/belief.

Word is born my man. I can learn a lot from you. :up: — Merkwurdichliebe

We'll see about that. Ideally, we'll all be learning...

I understand what you are saying. The cosmological and neurological are type of thought belief too, as in they have zero a priori significance — Merkwurdichliebe

I'm not at all concerned with a priori significance.

Although each would be unique in its content, all would share a basic conceptual framework... — Merkwurdichliebe

Elemental constituency is shared. A common core. The same process.

Conceptual frameworks are existentially dependent upon language. Outlines of thought/belief are always existentially dependent upon language. That which is being taken account of is not.

Can you give me an example? — Merkwurdichliebe

No non and/or pre-linguistic human likes being physically harmed by another. All of us find it unacceptable. We all draw correlations between the perpetrator's behavior and the autonomous emotional discontent that follows. We know that we do not like it. It is the attribution and/or recognition of causality. Similar to learning that touching fire causes pain.

Btw, great job reframing the issue! — Merkwurdichliebe

Still in process.

Is that Spock logic: "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth" — Merkwurdichliebe

Can't be coming from me. Prefixing the term "truth" with the term "the" is not a practice of mine.

At this point, we are far removed from any cosmological or neurological explanation, as they have previously been synthesized into the notion of thought/belief, of which morality represents one type.) — Merkwurdichliebe

That last claim is spot on. I don't like the notion of 'synthesized into'.

If all thought/belief share a common core, and cosmological and neurological explanations are kinds of thought/belief, then they too share a common core.

Morality(rules of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour;thought, belief, and behaviour in more complex moralities) is always first adopted. Not all thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour is existentially dependent upon language acquisition. All codes of conduct are. All thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour are moral - in kind. That is precisely what they all have in common that makes them what they are as opposed to other kinds of thought/belief.

Some moral thought/belief is prior to language acquisition.

Morals consist entirely of thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. They are one kind of thought/belief. All thought/belief share a common basic core. They all have the same basic elemental constituency, so to speak. As a result of having knowledge of the basic minimalist criterion of all thought/belief, there is ground to talk of the origen of one particular kind. Some would agree that there is no stronger justificatory ground than a conceptual scheme following from and/or built upon uncontentious true premisses that has no actual nor conceivable/imaginable examples to the contrary.
— creativesoul

I would agree. This would represent the bedrock upon which all manner of conceptual edifice could be constructed. But it seems a bit idealistic. — Merkwurdichliebe

Interesting. If there are no actual examples to the contrary, that's falsifiable/verifiable.

In the creativesoul sense, I might argue that socio-cultural factors stand as the primary ethical influences on the thinking/believing individual. In effect, ethics are primarily apprehended from an external source, yet it appears as though the ethical only becomes existentially charged in the thinking/believing individual. I feel that it is somewhere in the internalization of morality tha the source of morals lies. (At this point, we are far removed from any cosmological or neurological explanation, as they have previously been synthesized into the notion of thought/belief, of which morality represents one type.)

But, maybe I'm jumping the gun. — Merkwurdichliebe

A bit regarding a couple of key points.

I can agree with the utility of assuming everything up to this point... — Merkwurdichliebe

I cannot.

Can we take proper account of the origen of morals without taking proper account of the origen of thought/belief?

Can we take proper account of the basic adopted morals without taking proper account of thought/belief?

Can we take proper account of the "principles" that some say help to govern our behavior without taking proper account of thought/belief?

Can we take proper account of the rules of behaviour without taking proper account of thought/belief?

Can we take proper account of certain habits of behaviour without taking proper account of thought/belief?

Can we take proper account of certain habits of thought/belief if we do not take proper account of all thought/belief itself?

The only answer to all these questions is "no".

Morals consist entirely of thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. They are one kind of thought/belief. All thought/belief share a common basic core. They all have the same basic elemental constituency, so to speak. As a result of having knowledge of the basic minimalist criterion of all thought/belief, there is ground to talk of the origen of one particular kind. Some would agree that there is no stronger justificatory ground than a conceptual scheme following from and/or built upon uncontentious true premisses.

An adequate conception(a basic outline) of all human thought/belief is needed here.

That is a bit of the ground.

You ought be glad I like you.

What is the most dependable method of approach to this topic? I mean, ought we not put good reason to good use here - sound - if at all possible. There's no disagreement concerning whether or not we have morals. There's no disagreement concerning how we come to adopt our first morals(original language acquisition). I assume that we all agree that morals must begin simply and grow in complexity along with our understandings/worldviews. I assume that none of us are going to argue that a zygote has morals. In general, human thought/belief about morals has grown in complexity along with our knowledge regarding the history of morals/morality throughout the world. A robust account/theory of the origen of morals ought be able to take proper sensible account of all of these considerations and more.

Methodology seems to be the contentious issue.

Like some of you, I also agree that the approach needs to be multi-faceted. Empiricism looks towards physical observation. Morals aren't just physical. Thoughts aren't just physical. Beliefs aren't just physical. Rationalism looks towards pure(a priori) reason alone. There is no such thing. Methodological naturalism requires quantification. Does existential quantification count? There's some sense of verifiability/falsifiability possible if we're careful how we frame our line of thinking/vein of thought. Conceptual scheme(linguistic framework) is paramount here.

I disagree with Witt on this matter. The ladder cannot be kicked out from beneath us - unless it is utterly inadequate for justificatory support to begin with. Not all metaphysics shares the inadequacies of metaphysics based upon historical dichotomies unless it is also based upon them.

Even then, we're not kicking it out by virtue of taking it into logical notation - contrary to Quine. Taking inadequate common language use into proper logical account transmits the inadequate explanatory power of the common language use.

Subject/object. Internal/External. Mental/physical. Material/immaterial.

None of the above dichotomies are capable of taking proper account of that which consists of both, and is thus... neither.

All thought/belief is one example of a plurality of different things that consist of both, and are thus neither. The presupposition of truth(as correspondence) inherent to all thought/belief somewhere along the line is another. All attribution of meaning is yet one more.

Connections. Associations. Correlations.

Thought/belief is formed when a creature draws a mental correlation between different things. All thought/belief consists of mental correlations drawn between different things. All correlation presupposes the existence of it's own content regardless of subsequent further qualification.

All meaning consists entirely of drawing mental correlations, associations, and/or connections between that which becomes sign/symbol and that which becomes significant/symbolized. All correlation presupposes the existence of it's own content, regardless of further subsequent qualification as 'real', 'imagined', and/or otherwise.

Rather, we're systematically replacing the faulty rungs, until - in the end - they're all based upon, agree with, and/or effectively supplant parts of the current knowledge base.

Paradigm shift.