I agree with Diamond in that the structure of a moral claim is not a statement (known to be true), but that it is a claim that expresses my/our poverty or wellness — Antony Nickles
My claim is not a theory but my pledge to be responsible for its state (its life or death), ready to act in its defense, to explicate what is summarized. — Antony Nickles
And the claim is not my individual thought, but in the terms of, and in it's place in, our history, our culture, our means of judgment, (all) our interests embodied in life, etc. It is not made just (only) for myself, but on behalf of everyone — Antony Nickles
The problem he worried on was the fear of relativism. — Antony Nickles
My claim is not a theory but my pledge to be responsible for its state (its life or death), ready to act in its defense, to explicate what is summarized.
— Antony Nickles
......if it is my claim, and expresses that pledge, why isn’t it only my poverty or wellness my claim expresses? ...if it is my (moral) claim, how can it not be from my (moral) thought? — Mww
...what right do I have to pledge to be responsible on behalf of everyone? — Mww
The problem he worried on was the fear of relativism.
— Antony Nickles
It looks like spreading MY moral claims, or the personal claims of individuals represented as each “my”, over everybody, is fear of moral relativism. — Mww
Do you think there is an intrinsic gap between moral claims and ethical claims? — Mww
Rhetoric v. dialectic. — tim wood
The what-is v. the what-ought. Two logics that overlap in some of their methods, but are in themselves different things about different kinds of topics. — tim wood
I take dialectic to be a process of arriving at a sense of truth by logical argument. — Antony Nickles
I (and perhaps Banno) recently read an unpublished professional paper in defense of a recent book of Cora Diamond's, Going on to Ethics (she was a colleague of Anscombe's). — Antony Nickles
I take dialectic to be a process of arriving at a sense of truth by logical argument.
— Antony Nickles
No, not a sense of, but a true conclusion from valid argument — tim wood
By what standards does the OP judge the truth of his pronouncements and why do they not apply to ethics? — TheMadFool
A moral claim is not gauged by generalized criteria. Our lives have specific histories of judgments and interests and what matters, but the difference in this question is not a matter of judging its adequacy, but accepting its implications for you, for the other. — Antony Nickles
The author was unfortunately so concerned with an ethical claim having the same value as a true/false statement (ensuring certainty) or having correspondence to reality (completeness, without any need for me), that he just tried to make moral truths fit those pictures, meet those standards, rather than see how they work in themselves--despite their ability to be justified, not seeing they go beyond knowledge. The problem he worried on was the fear of relativism. That, even with a best-case claim like "slavery is unjust" (much less something controversial, like "Black Lives Matter") is subject to the criticism that it is either unjustifiable as a true statement (just an opinion or "belief"), or is simply an individual thought, or worse, a feeling--so you, or another culture, may think, judge, feel entirely differently, however you like. — Antony Nickles
...what right do I have to pledge to be responsible on behalf of everyone?
— Mww
It is, as Kant would say, expressed in a universal voice (the 3rd critique) — Antony Nickles
the moral realm, and its claim on us, is when we are lost as to what to do — Antony Nickles
Translation into English, please. What I'm hearing is a refusal to acknowledge rhetoric as a distinctly different kind of logic about things that dialectic cannot properly cover, although many people in ignorance think it does, or should. And that the distinctions were substantailly understood and laid out more than 2300 years ago.The dichotomy that anything else is rhetoric is forced by the abstraction from ordinary means of assessing value, determining identity, acting appropriately, etc., which criteria comes from the thing itself; here, the form of a moral claim, which I am saying is categorical. — Antony Nickles
Again, exactly so. You know, but you apparently do not know that you know.The possibilities of a moral claim are only contingent on us, our willingness to stand for what is meaningful in it. But the history and criteria of the truth that all people are created equally are not irrational, various, insubstantial. But it is powerless as an argument to independently explain or logically force you, as if it were proposed to you as a hypothesis. It is not a proof of what was or is, to be solved; it is a demand, an insistence, brought alive, to be witnessed, accepted. — Antony Nickles
Because they are not. Your problem, with which you're being slapped in the face, is the "is." And perhaps the only way you will realize it is to take it head-on. So. Whatever makes you think that everyone is created equal? What evidence of that? Ans., none. And when you're done with that, then you can consider just what an ethical imperative is, because for as long as you attempt to ground it in some apodeictic stuff, or argument, you're not going to find it or get it.What is it, or why is it, that we cannot, or will not, accept that everyone is created equal? — Antony Nickles
'Slavery is unjust' is not a True statement as far as I can tell. — I like sushi
My own thinking on the topic owes much to the Direction of Fit stuff from Anscombe, which I am finding quite useful. Moral claims differ from, say, physicist's claims in that the physicist seeks to match their words to the world, while the moralist seeks to match the world to their words. — Banno
I wonder if something like "Slavery is unjust" is a moral statement. After all, that slavey is unjust simply follows from what slavery is, in conjunction with what justice is. — Banno
Further, moral statements imply an action. "Slavery is unjust" does not of itself imply an action. To get there we need another rule, something like, "reject injustice!" - and that is where morality enters the discussion. — Banno
[we should rid ourselves] of "truth" meaning anything substantive. If you think it does, please state that substantive meaning. — tim wood
That sounds like consequentialism, a full-fledged although incomplete moral theory, unless you have something else in mind when you speak of "implications". — TheMadFool
Sounds suspiciously like fear of context rather than relativism. — I like sushi
'Slavery is unjust' is not a True statement as far as I can tell. — I like sushi
The question I would have is if the author is tending towards some form of moral absolutism or not? If they are I cannot see how they would convince me. — I like sushi
It is, as Kant would say, expressed in a universal voice (the 3rd critique)
— Antony Nickles
At first glance, that’s a confusion of aesthetic judgements with strictly moral judgements. Are you saying the willingness to be responsible is an aesthetic quality? — Mww
I'm not discussing a moral theory. I mean implications here as like Wittgenstein's grammar. Not that we are considering the consequences in making a decision before taking action, but that there are categorical ways in which we must take action for it to be such a thing. When we make a claim such as this, we commit ourselves, etc. That is what it means, what is implied, in the doing of it, being said to have done it. This is the structure I am discussing — Antony Nickles
I wouldn't worry so much about whether moral statements are truth-apt though. — SophistiCat
Assenting to a statement is a pledge to proceed in accordance with that statement - anything else would be disingenuous or vacuous. — SophistiCat
What I'm hearing is a refusal to acknowledge rhetoric as a distinctly different kind of logic about things that dialectic cannot properly cover, although many people in ignorance think it does, or should. And that the distinctions were substantially understood and laid out more than 2300 years ago. — tim wood
You know, but you apparently do not know that you know. — tim wood
What is it, or why is it, that we cannot, or will not, accept that everyone is created equal?
— Antony Nickles
Because they are not... Whatever makes you think that everyone is created equal? — tim wood
What evidence of that? — tim wood
consider just what an ethical imperative is — tim wood
Slavery is unjust' is not a True statement as far as I can tell.
— I like sushi
Why not?
'Slavery is unjust' is true IFF slavery is unjust.
Slave: A person who is the legal property of anther and forced to obey them
Justice: Being fair and reasonable
One person being the legal property of anther, especially after an act of kidnap, is not fair and reasonable.
All this before looking to see if one ought be fair and reasonable. — Banno
when it comes to morals and such we are likely better served to look as 'betterment' than 'truth' as dictating the best course of action. — I like sushi
Saying something is a moral truth just makes itself out to be a subtler way of claiming a moral absolute that even refuses to be held up to enquiry. — I like sushi
I think Banno means if we have a concept of justice, then we can make a truth-apt statement about slavery regarding it's lack of justice, based on whether slavery meets the criteria for something being just. — Marchesk
That doesn't say anything about whether justice is some objective feature of the world. My concern would begin with whether justice was real or just a social construct. I suspect the latter, but tend to live life as if the former were true. — Marchesk
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