The structure of a moral claim to truth

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I (and perhaps @Banno) recently read an unpublished professional paper in defense of a recent book of Cora Diamond's, Going on to Ethics (she was a colleague of Anscombe's). The author says Diamond is attempting to associate a sense of truth with a moral claim, that, e.g., "All People are Created Equal", is, as I would put it, a summary of a cultural roadmap (Diamond says a thought-guide) and it is true in that it was done well, as Aristotle says, rather than poorly, e.g., not seeing the claim is without an antithesis or negation; not seeing an expression does not operate like a word, not labeling some thought as "nonsense" but seeing it as unproductive, going astray; that part of epistemology is ethical.

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.

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 (our character Aristotle, Cicero, and Emerson say). 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. 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--I/we Declare (to all of you) that "all people are created equal", that it Constitutes us, who we are, say, as Americans, for all humans. You may say whatever you want, but you can be read by your claim, are defined in it: what you think, you are.

Now such a truth may not be done well, but this is not to say it is a belief or opinion as the antithesis of truth with force through justification. To say it is "political" is not to say it is "rhetorical" (empty words), though it may be dead to degenerate times, a slogan, a platitude, said as mere quotation; and not yet fully realized (as in materialized, thus I am always part hypocrite); nor may it end up as universally agreed (though that is possible).

Diamond gave an example that a slave owner might free a slave in court and give the reason that all men are created equal. The argument for the truth of the claim is the act (expression) of one person freeing another they owned, as a testament, a tangible proof. We see the aspect of it (Wittgenstein says); the way it works is that we accept it (our responsibility in it), we (all of us) are the state of its truth. So that is to say that black lives matter is not a statement corresponding to something true (or false) or real, to be argued as a theory for a conclusion; it is a claim as if to re-found a country.

tim wood

Rhetoric v. dialectic. The distinctions repeatedly lost and rediscovered, and newly rediscovered even without the realization that they're old news. 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.

Mww

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

Yep. Me too. Except.....

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? Furthermore.....

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

.....if it is my (moral) claim, how can it not be from my (moral) thought? And if that is the case, what right do I have to pledge to be responsible on behalf of everyone, for that which only expresses only my (moral) poverty or wellness?

The problem he worried on was the fear of relativism. — Antony Nickles

“He” being the author critiquing Diamond, sounds a lot like the opening comment. It looks like spreading MY moral claims, or the personal claims of individuals represented as each “my”, over everybody, is fear of moral relativism. I must say I admit to making no moral claims for anyone else, and reject the notion of anyone making any moral claims I must regard without self-counsel, which makes explicit moral relativism.

Do you think there is an intrinsic gap between moral claims and ethical claims?

Antony Nickles

↪Mww

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

It is not my claim, as in my thought or my statement (that is not the structure, the grammar). I accept its claim on me. It is my willingness to be responsible for it that is my claiming it. And the wellness and poverty is not about me, but how well it is responded for--its state in culture as truth.

...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). It is as if to speak for everyone; but not to impose or override their voice. Your acceptance of it is to see for yourself whether you would be willing to take ownership of it, be seen by it, as well.

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

When I say "my", I could as well say "our", or more technically, it is our culture's. As I said in the post, it is not the individual vs. anything--it is the individual's part in truth.

Do you think there is an intrinsic gap between moral claims and ethical claims? — Mww

The words have lost any true sense of individuation, but I take a moral or ethic in the sense of a rule, or standard (determined beforehand); whereas the moral realm, and its claim on us, is when we are lost as to what to do, or that we are necessarily a part of what is ongoing.

Antony Nickles

↪tim wood

Rhetoric v. dialectic. — tim wood

I take dialectic to be a process of arriving at a sense of truth by logical argument. It implies that we have come to a conclusion that all people are created equal, rather than it being something I (we) declare as true, and then answer for that stance. The way this works is that one takes it as their own conviction, but that does not mean that you were persuaded to my statement nor to something that is just variable or temporary, etc. There are ordinary criteria, history, context, etc., that exist already, and thus there is a structure that allows for rationale, the individual logic of such a thing, precision, specificity, etc. What makes the sense of "Truth" as certainty is the imposition of our measure of a true statement (thanks Plato). The reason why the moral realm is subject to the charge of being merely "rhetorical", or just words that are empty, is because it is up to us to fill them.

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

The idea of moral as "ought" is not just the measurement of the current state of our world compared to what we would like it to be. If the question is: what should (ought) I do? there is no general answer to that as there is no determination of what to do without a situation, but also because to decide in advance is to think we can account for every application.

The fact that every person is not currently equal is a measure of our culpability. The extent to which we are created equal is open to debate. But, structurally, the kind of claim I am discussing is not an epistemological one, nor an ideal or aspiration. We create or latch on to these dichotomies to avoid our responsibility, our part in a moral world.

tim wood

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. From a rhetorical argument you get no such thing, instead getting a best alternative from contingent possibilities.

I take "all men are created equal" to be proposition from rhetoric. If you think it's dialectic, a categorical proposition, then prove it, either that it is such a proposition, or the conclusion of such an argument. Your problem will be the "are." I do not think you have a solution for that.

And I suggest you rid yourself of the parish-pump idea of "truth" meaning anything substantive. If you think it does, please state that substantive meaning. I myself take it as an abstract noun absent substance, referring only to the possibility of some proposition's being true. And thus in discussion always best simply to refer to what is true. This in turn freeing thought to consider what might be untrue.

Banno

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

Indeed, I did, but I have not read Diamond, so I'm not in a position to be critical of her work.

My own thinking on the topic owes much to the Direction fo 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.

Having said that, there seems no prima facie reason that a moral statement cannot be considered truth-apt; After all, "it is good to feed the starving" is true if and only if it is good to feed the starving.

But then, 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. 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.

TheMadFool

I don't get it. The OP, rather vaguely and elliptically, makes truth claims about morality being not truth-apt or something like that. By what standards does the OP judge the truth of his pronouncements and why do they not apply to ethics? Double standards or something else? :chin:

Antony Nickles

↪tim wood

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

A conclusion from an argument deemed to be valid is one sense of truth, as a statement that is judgeed to be true or false. Some truth is not at the end of reasoning with a criteria imposed to ensure an outcome, mostly certainty, universality, determined application, etc. 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.

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.

This is not to ask a small concession in the face of science or logic. As I said, this is a claim made on everyone. What is it, or why is it, that we cannot, or will not, accept that everyone is created equal? Maybe there is an example I could show you, an implication that needs description, the picture of an alternative drawn, etc., but anything would be something you could see for yourself (is self-evident, as it were). A moral claim is categorical because it, say another's equality, is a claim on you, and thus your rejection defines you; who you are/will be is contingent upon it.

And so a moral truth is not a noun or a thing--the opposite of it is not a falsity or a lie. The state of its being true is held by us. Its substance is what is meaningful to us, what expresses our interests, our judgments, our possibilities.

Antony Nickles

↪TheMadFool

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.

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

That sounds like consequentialism, a full-fledged although incomplete moral theory, unless you have something else in mind when you speak of "implications".

I like sushi

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

Sounds suspiciously like fear of context rather than relativism.

'Slavery is unjust' is not a True statement as far as I can tell. By this I mean in the Master Slave dynamic there can be good and bad Masters and Slaves, much in the manner that Aristotle outlined. That said, in ancient Greece/Athens 'slavery' was not the same as elsewhere and the dynamics and laws surrounding the history of slavery have never been identical (ie. killing a slave was illegal in some societies and not in others).

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

To add, 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 or rules to guide us.

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.

Mww

...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

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?
—————

the moral realm, and its claim on us, is when we are lost as to what to do — Antony Nickles

Are you saying it would be better if moral claims did contain truths, and from that, given the general inclination to follow the law contained in truths, we’d be less lost as to what to do?
—————

Compliments on the infusion of the third critique. Can you say what percentage of your philosophy with respect to this thread is influenced by it? I mean, you did bring it up.......

SophistiCat

↪Antony Nickles

I haven't read the works to which you refer (Cora Diamond and her unnamed critic), but I like your gloss on the nature moral statements.

I wouldn't worry so much about whether moral statements are truth-apt though. Pragmatically, I would say that anything one can assert or reject is perforce truth-apt. And I think that the take on a moral assertion as a "pledge to be responsible for its state" applies somewhat to other kinds of assertions as well. Assenting to a statement is a pledge to proceed in accordance with that statement - anything else would be disingenuous or vacuous.

tim wood

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

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 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

Again, exactly so. You know, but you apparently do not know that you know.

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. 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.

Banno

'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.

Antony Nickles

↪Banno

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 believe this was discussed at the meeting. Diamond's addition to this was I believe that this was not like an empirical assessment, nor that any disparity from what is the case detracts from the truth of a moral claim. This diverges from Anscombe I'm sure but I wouldn't know how.

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

I agree that we could say that here we are simply stating something about slavery, or even, grammatically (categorically), that part of justice is freedom. But those are not to claim this as a truth in instant sense, simply that these statement are true (or claimed to be). All people are created equal is a type of claim that is not in the same category (it has a different grammar), and there is more to it than what simply follows from it as a statement.

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

I understand where you're coming from; standard moral issues amount to, what should we do? (particularly when we are in a new context or our criteria/justifications run out). I would differentiate these kind of claims because there we are discussing or judging the matter beforehand as to what is best or right (or good, at times).

[we should rid ourselves] of "truth" meaning anything substantive. If you think it does, please state that substantive meaning. — tim wood

The substance of a moral truth I do not believe will assuage the desire for a kind that fits the picture for
the criteria we wish to impose. Here, though, I think the best analogy is Wittgenstein's discussion of blurry concepts, vagary, generality, etc.--the insight that a general claim can be more meaningful than a specific one, more appropriate than limiting its senses (and here "sense" is meant in the way Wittgenstein sees that an expression, like "I know" has different options/opportunities (senses) to be meaningful--even that we might not realize until the expression, at a time and place in a context).

And so our example, that everyone is created equal, has multiple possibilities which need not be reconciled together for the claim to be meaningful (yet not whatever you'd like); in fact, it is more important to us because it, as I said, is a summary of all the depth of truth which it contains: that we are the same more than we are different; that despite our divergent paths, we started in the same place and so our differences are situational; that equality is inherent, essential to everyone, as if we were born with it in us; that everyone should be treated with equal dignity, etc. The depth and breadth here is not limited by the desire for certainty that creates the picture of the singularity of "meaning".

Antony Nickles

↪TheMadFool

That sounds like consequentialism, a full-fledged although incomplete moral theory, unless you have something else in mind when you speak of "implications". — TheMadFool

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 like sushi

Sounds suspiciously like fear of context rather than relativism. — I like sushi

Diamond proposes that a moral claim can be general, as universally claimed, but still with a context because it has a history, its possibilities of interpretation, a way that it works, which, most importantly, is that I am claiming it (as discussed above, along with an example of how it is seen as begging relativism).

'Slavery is unjust' is not a True statement as far as I can tell. — I like sushi

It is not claimed as a true statement (that's not how it works).

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

As I've discussed above, the claim is made upon us all, universally, but it is not a standard, nor does it claim any authority, as it is something you have to see for yourself. We could call it a principal, in that it is initially, fundamentally to be accepted. You need not be convinced, but you do take it as a conviction. As you must accept it, you can reject it, but, as well, then you are the person who has turned your back on it.

Antony Nickles

↪Mww

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

The claim of a moral principal and an aesthetic judgment are expressed in a similar structure, subject to the same acceptance or rejection, with the same powerlessness to resolve other than you seeing what I have drawn your attention to, within the form of each thing.

I like sushi

↪Banno

As opposed to imprisoning someone even? Nah. Sorry. The payment for one’s actions comes in one form or another. The ‘justness’ of such is dependent upon the severity of the crime/fault committed.

Also, someone could willingly become a slave. I’m sure you’ve read Aristotle on this. The situation could very well be beneficial to both but in the way we frame the picture of ‘being a slave’ today is probably skewed more toward unjust slavery not slavery as a whole.

In the sense that when we ask is slavery good or bad in the general way most people refer to it I’d say it is clearly bad. Unjust? That depends if and only if it has bee dealt out unjustly otherwise we could then find ourselves calling any punishment for any crime ‘unjust’ (which it may well be but I doubt that would gain much traction with many folk).

I like sushi

↪Antony Nickles

Okay, I’ll just stand aside then and listen. Thanks for clarifying where I had got the wrong end of the stick :)

tim wood

@Antony Nickles Questions pending. No law says you have to answer, but nice if you try.

Whatever makes you think that everyone is created equal? What evidence of that? — tim wood

TheMadFool

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

The New Wittgenstein

A few key points associated with Cora Diamond et al as regards Wittgenstein:

1.,Philosophical problems are symptoms of illusions [betwitchment by language]

2. Therapeutic philosophy [recognizing 1 and doing something about it]

I have a vague idea of what this is all about. Moral claims can't be true i.e. when someone claims everyone is equal, a moral claim, he does not do so because it is true, incidentally it isn't. Ergo, moral claims must be about something else - bewitchment by language? What that something else is...???

Antony Nickles

↪SophistiCat

I wouldn't worry so much about whether moral statements are truth-apt though. — SophistiCat

The idea of wanting something to be "truth-apt" is to have something to depend on, justify our acts, ensure agreement, etc. The sense of a statement that is true or false takes our place--which I say is the structure of a moral claim, in our having to be true to something.

Assenting to a statement is a pledge to proceed in accordance with that statement - anything else would be disingenuous or vacuous. — SophistiCat

J.L. Austin says that our word is our bond (Emerson would say we are bound to it, fated). Cavell puts it that we can be read in our expressions, that we can be asked to answer for them. Wittgenstein will say that I can see what you are going to do, even if you are not aware. I can understand what you've said, more even than you. This is part of my accepting a moral principal, though we may not necessarily have a direction (being told what to do).

I am interested in the performance of "accepting" a claim without doing anything; I've called this platitudes, slogans, quotations; but that is to put the responsibility on the speech, not the speaker. This is why Cicero claimed that who a speaker was, their character, was integral to a good speech, because we are involved. This is why Plato decried "rhetoric", because he did not want us in the picture; our partiality, limitation, lying, hypocrisy, vacuousness, propagandizing, etc.

Antony Nickles

↪tim wood

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

Yes, I'm saying Plato was wrong. The distinction between truth and rhetoric that he made was to hold knowledge to a certain standard, which involved erasing our everyday criteria, which is to say us, people, as imbedded in our culture, institutions, language, etc., but also to remove our part in our moral acts, which I am saying here is the categorical necessity for this sense of a truth, we are required; though we certainly run from that obligation (perhaps even creating a hidden world to be/do what we do not want to). The sense of rhetoric as words that mean or do nothing is because of the fact that we can mean them, as in be willing to stand by them, to have such an expression fully and completely express me just then to you about whether we will accept that all people are created equal; to express me as a person, as one who judges, as a citizen in a country founded on the principal.

You know, but you apparently do not know that you know. — tim wood

It may be a matter of my knowledge of myself, my learning of my interests, what I will answer for in having said it, as if it were what I'd die for.

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

And you might say, look: they are born into poverty, physically different, etc. which are empirical answers, but this is not an empirical claim. I don't think it, I proclaim it. This is not a claim of knowledge. Knowing what we do already, I am pronouncing that all people are created equal, say, that we each create ourselves in every moral utterance, what we say to something asked of us, in responding to which we are implicated, compromised by (comprised of), created in.

What evidence of that? — tim wood

You are as much the evidence as I, a source of finding reason in it, for it, an interest, a cause. Modern philosophy would say evidence would be how the things we say about it show us how it works to be meaningful. You may be looking for a different kind of evidence; looking for that is where Plato went wrong.

consider just what an ethical imperative is — tim wood

And now you want me to say Kant (or Hume, etc.) was wrong too. The desire for necessity, motivation, cause, power, control, force, normativity, is that then I will know how to predict you, I will be certain I am doing the right thing. But with the kind of truth I am looking at, the after is more important than the before. Not in terms of weighing consequences in making a decision, but what we set ourselves to, without being moved to, other than perhaps for who I am to be in relation.

TheMadFool

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

I thought your opinion would be the exact opposite. Morality is not observable in the real world - some ants take slaves. Morality is made up by humans like math (see :point: math is made up - your thread)

Marchesk

↪TheMadFool

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.

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.

We don't think ant slavery is unjust because ants are not creatures which take justice into consideration. But then we might say the same for the universe, which counts for justice being an idea we made up and try to apply to human interaction. But there's probably an evolutionary reason for that. Thing is that evolution does not meet the criteria for justice, but it does provide some grounding for the origination of the idea.

Humans need to cooperate, and treating each other fairly is a good way to do that. And when people don't, we get angry and wish to punish the unjust, because that usually motivates people to act fairly, which is in our survival interest. Or something along those lines.

Antony Nickles

↪I like sushi

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

Skipping over that we are not necessarily talking about a claim of how to act, my betterment (or dissolution) is part of my consideration in claiming the truth, as it involves what I become in the act.

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 am not claiming an authority or standard, nor that we must even agree on what is meaningful about it for us both to accept it in a sense that matters. But mostly to say that the exact point, the thing that makes this a moral truth, is that it is something I accept to answer for in having claimed it, open to investigation, deeper understanding.

TheMadFool

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

Indeed but...the fact remains, morality is an anthropic notion having no parallel in the rest of the living world. One might come up with some idea and attendant principles, call it morality, and deduce moral truths from them. However, like Lobachevsky and Bolyai found out with geometry, there really is no need to be stuck in any system of morality no matter how much it feels true.

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

Yes, it appears that social existence is key to the question of morality, gives it some semblance of truth and objectivity but note this is telelogical in character - morality (justice) is needed to run society in the best way possible, its truth is secondary or irrelevant.

The structure of a moral claim to truth

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