• Leontiskos
    2.9k
    You are confusing something being rationally justified for me in the sense that it wouldn’t rationally justify you in the same circumstances with my position that indexically it is rationally for everyone. But since it is indexical, it can rationally justify me without justifying you if you aren’t in the same circumstances.Bob Ross

    Is rationality different for me and for you? When you provide an argument you are assuming a common standard of rationality, and you are assuming that validity and soundness are the same for you and your interlocutor. Rational justification is similar.

    The point here is, "Because I believe it," is not a rational justification (for you or for anyone else). If you think moral claims are truth-apt and some moral claims are true, then you will have to do better than "Because I believe it" to justify the truth of these claims.

    Which premise are you contending with?Bob Ross

    I have explained multiple times that I am contending the conclusion of your disjunctive syllogism.

    For example, if you said, "I have reason to believe the car is not black, and I have reason to believe that the car is not not-black, therefore I have reason to believe that the car is neither," I would point to your conclusion and give arguments for why it is incoherent.
  • boagie
    385
    All meanings are subjective. Meaning is the property of a conscious subject, and it is never the property of the object, unless a conscious subject bestows meaning upon it giving it subjective meaning. Thus, morality like all meaning is subjective.
  • Bob Ross
    1.7k


    Is rationality different for me and for you? When you provide an argument you are assuming a common standard of rationality, and you are assuming that validity and soundness are the same for you and your interlocutor. Rational justification is similar.

    I would say it is the same.

    The point here is, "Because I believe it," is not a rational justification (for you or for anyone else).

    This is does not follow from what was said above, and simply begs the question.

    I have explained multiple times that I am contending the conclusion of your disjunctive syllogism.

    Ok, either you must argue that the disjunctive syllogism, in form, is invalid (such as it isn’t actually exhaustive or something) or one of the arguments I gave are invalid (and in that case you would have to tell me which premise or premises you are contending with).

    So far you seem to just be saying that you think there are reasons to deny that moral judgments express something subjective without actually demonstrating what is wrong with the disjunctive syllogism that would, in principle, make that claim true.

    For example, if you said, "I have reason to believe the car is not black, and I have reason to believe that the car is not not-black, therefore I have reason to believe that the car is neither," I would point to your conclusion and give arguments for why it is incoherent.

    That is disanalogous. Here’s a better example:

    I say “The car must either be white or black; and I have reasons sufficient to prove it is not black; therefore it is white”; and you say “but we have reasons sufficient to prove it is not white”.

    What’s wrong with the reasons I gave for it not being black? Or is it that you think the reasons are valid but are outweighed by the reasons proving it is not white? Or that it could be a different color than white or black?
  • Leontiskos
    2.9k
    That is disanalogous.Bob Ross

    No, it is analogous. Your disjunctive syllogism has saddled you with a square circle.

    I am not going to have time to engage this much going forward, but let me say one last thing. The point here is that if you possess moral truths, and these truths are susceptible to reason, then you should be able to convince others that they are true. Yet to convince someone of something, properly speaking, involves utilizing supra-subjective rationality. If a proposition were not susceptible to supra-subjective rationality, then one subjective individual would not be able to convince another that it is true. Perhaps they could convince another who fortuitously shared their non-truth-apt axioms, but they would not be able to convince someone without this good fortune. Further, if something is not rationally demonstrable, then it is not universally knowable and thence not universally binding. Shorter: if your position is not rationally knowable, then it is not binding.
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