Was it our intellectually piercing dialectic, or were they just bored with what they were doing?
the goodness or badness of the will is a direct reflection on the worthiness of being content with one’s subjective condition, which is commonly called being happy, which is itself the prime condition for moral integrity
The one willing an act in defiance of his principles would post hoc evaluate his will as bad, earning himself the title of immoral.
No. I don't think you are following. I don't accept there are objective goods (your term). Society engages in an ongoing conversation about a 'code of conduct' and who counts as a citizen - this evolves and is subject to changes over time. Hence gay people are now citizens (in the West), whereas some years ago they were criminals.
Our conversation became so spectacular, that they couldn’t help themselves — Bob Ross
I am asking what makes a will good? — Bob Ross
Then, you are a moral anti-realist; and no one should take your view seriously; because all you are saying is that what is right or wrong is stance-dependent. So if, e.g., I want to do something you consider wrong, or others consider wrong, then there is absolutely no fact-of-the-matter that makes me wrong: I am just as right as you are (objectively speaking). — Bob Ross
One can accept that there are objective goods AND that society is a power-related structure. The idea that some people are exalted as heroes and those very same people criminals by others just highlights that humans are creating laws; and does not negate the fact that humans should be creating laws which abide by facticity. Under your view, those laws are non-factual; because there are no moral facts. — Bob Ross
We don't need 'true' or objective morality to build a useful system.
Who mentioned power-related structures?
Collectively we arrive at right and wrong through an intersubjective agreement. In other words cultures arrive at values, from a myriad sources. And we know there will always be outliers. We know that the idea for who counts is a full citizen has varied over time, as culture and values change. In the West, slavery is no longer acceptable, but it is acceptable to exploit and underpay workers to keep the rich person's housework and maintenance done. We no longer criminalise and imprison gay people or trans people. Although some elements of society seem to want to punish them again. Our agreements are not necessarily permanent.
There are no facts we can access about values
I don't go looking for absolute truth or foundational guarantees in the world because I am not convinced such things exist.
If the answer is that we cannot say, then you have no reason to believe that a will can be good. — Bob Ross
We don't need 'true' or objective morality to build a useful system.
To whom? To the slaves? To the masters? — Bob Ross
What you are noting is correct, insofar as it outlines how human social structures work, which are inherently power-structures, but the problem is that you gutted out the part where we are actually developing better social structures because they are ethically superior to previous ones. — Bob Ross
I addressed that very concern: the evidence that humanity in general determines good acts, is sufficient reason to think the will as good.
Depends on the society. Obviously in 1830's America, to the masters. But the conversation changed. There's a general thrust in the West for egalitarianism and greater solidarity. We all seem to agree with this except when we don't
when perhaps it involves people of colour, Muslims, or women or trans folk, we might not consider solidarity relevant and call any consideration of such people 'woke'.
But we all need to agree that this is the best way to achieve human flourishing or wellbeing or whatever you consider your foundational value to be
Are there objective ways to reach a goal once you have arbitrarily chosen one? Perhaps. Is this what you are arguing for?
This is a equivocation between ontology and epistemology…. — Bob Ross
Here’s another gigantic issue with moral anti-realism: there’s no way to resolve these disagreements. — Bob Ross
But according to you we don’t agree that it is actually better: we just subjectively like it more, whereas the masters subjectively liked their society more. — Bob Ross
Those don’t work for what’s going on here. Ontology, insofar as for that Nature is causality, and the human subject is the intelligence that knows only what Nature provides.
For what’s going on here, the subject himself is the causality, and of those of which he is the cause it isn’t that he knows of them, but rather that he reasons to them. It makes no sense to say he knows, of that which fully and immediately belongs to him alone.
Thanks for this discussion, by the way. I've found it useful.
There is no agreement on how morality works right now and yet we have morality and it mostly works. Cultures argue about morality all the time and have ongoing conversations about what they beleive and how to live better. So morality already functions the way I am suggesting.
Western societies usually seem to set wellbeing or flourishing as a goal. What is best for people and culture. But there will never be agreement on how to get there or indeed what precisely flourishing entails. But it's close enough.
No, it's more than a mere like/dislike. Just because there are no moral truths, doesn't mean there's no reasoning involved.
My current belief is that there are no moral facts but I believe morality is useful pragmatically - people (mostly) feel empathy for others and they generally want a predictable, safe society. They want to be able to raise families, pursue interests, have relationships and achieve goals. They want codes of conduct that allow for this. That's what morality is
Like traffic lights. There's nothing inherently true about road rules but they provide us with systems of safety and allow for the possibility of effective road use
So, why should anyone who disagrees care? Is Hitler wrong, then? Under your view, he has no reason, other than his own subjective dispositions, to change his mind. — Bob Ross
According to you, again, well-being isn’t actually good: it’s just, at best, what everyone mostly wants to be the case. So, why should anyone who disagrees care? — Bob Ross
In the case of the latter, there may be legitimate disagreement if they subjectively agree on some maxim(s); but there’s not true disagreements because there are no facts. I say “I like vanilla ice cream”, you say “I don’t like vanilla ice cream”—who’s wrong? Neither. — Bob Ross
Why should anyone care even if there are moral facts?
Religious believers still commit crimes/sins even while they believe god is watching and will judge them.
In the absence of moral facts morality shifts from being about discovering "truths" to constructing frameworks that work for individuals and communities
What magic do you suppose a 'moral fact' has to compel anyone to do anything?
It sounds to me like you want to identify moral facts so you can dismiss any ethical positions you disagree with by appealing to 'truth' as the ultimate criterion
I'm curious - do you also wish to criminalize behaviors that don’t align with your truth criteria? What’s your end goal here?
We support behaviors which support such human dispositions.
…..you don’t think there is anything about how reality is that can dictate out it ought to be. — Bob Ross
…..the moral anti-realist has to note that the ontology of morality is really just grounded in the projections of subjects….. — Bob Ross
…..and this is exactly what I understand you to be saying by noting that the wills of subjects are introduce new chains of causality into the world and are not themselves causal. — Bob Ross
Because it enables us to enact what is actually good; and anyone who doesn’t want to enact what is good must be either evil, ignorant, or a lunatic. Don’t you agree? — Bob Ross
So, then, if we by-at-large hate the jews; then we would be correct to extinguish them under your view. It’s the same glaring issue over and over again. — Bob Ross
We are not isolated nomads, indifferent to the fates of others. Just consider what it is to be a person. We are all invoked in webs of affinity and webs of sympathy and acquaintance. We are connected to others. We don’t (generally) want others to suffer. We are a social species. We support behaviors which support such human dispositions. — Tom Storm
You appear to be an absolutist.
I have consistently argued that morality functions pragmatically and aims to provide a safe, predictable community that minimizes suffering
The fact that you keep arguing that I might just as well advocate anti-social or violent behaviour is absurd.
Your argument is similar to those religious apologists who maintain that if there wasn't a god there would be no moralityand people would steal and lie and murder all over because only god can guarantee morality.Looks like you have just substituted god for the abstraction, truth.
and people would steal and lie and murder all over because onlygod can guarantee morality[what is factually wrong is really wrong].
Can we explore an example of a moral truth?
What objective truth underpins the notion that stealing is wrong?
History doesn’t corroborate your position: rather, it tends to function as a tendency towards flourishing for an in-group. There have been tons of societies that do not generally care about the suffering of other people outside of their own group. — Bob Ross
What we can see here, is that we have a form of moral objectivism which is a form of moral relativism; whereof each objective good is relativistic to some teleological structure such that what is good is fundamentally about what best suits and sizes up to the teleology of it. — Bob Ross
We see here that this view inherently admits of evolutionary teleology, which is a hot take these days, so let me speak a few words on that real quick. The idea that biology supplies us with teleology has lost all credence nowadays, but it is easily recoverable by understanding that we behave as if it does provide a telos. — Bob Ross
Back to the good human. In order to understand what a good human is, we must understand (1) the nature, teleologically, of a human and (2) how a human can behave so as to align themselves with it. There is a ton I could say here but to be brief, human’s have rational capacities with a sufficiently free will (that can will in strict accordance to reason—to cognition—over conative dispositions); and this marks them out, traditionally, as persons. A person—viz., a being which has a rational nature—must size up properly to what a rational nature is designed to do. Some of which are the intellectual virtues like the pursuit of truth, pursuit of knowledge, being open-minded, being intellectual curious, being impartial, being objective, etc. The one important right now, for your question about stealing, is Justice. — Bob Ross
I think history may have demonstrated that moral facts don't exist and societies can turn to killing people indiscriminately fairly quickly.
This is how Sam Harris seems to arrive at wellbeing as a moral foundation.
What we can see here, is that we have a form of moral objectivism which is a form of moral relativism; whereof each objective good is relativistic to some teleological structure such that what is good is fundamentally about what best suits and sizes up to the teleology of it. — Bob Ross
Agree. And I have already alluded to this approach myself that we can set a goal and reach this objectively, but the goal itself is subjective.
As you suggest this is a contested idea and I have no way of determining whether you are correct about this.
I see no good reasons to endorse essentialist accounts of human behavior,
I believe our use of reason is directed and shaped by affective responses, with reason often serving as a post hoc justification for emotional responses. I tend to hold that reason follows emotion, so what is often described as a 'rational nature' is better understood as rationalization rather than an innate rationality.
I don't think it is worth us taking any more time on this (for now) since we do not share enough presuppositions to continue and we are bound to stick to our guns no matter what the other person says.
I am more than willing to change my mind if someone gives me good reasons to. — Bob Ross
Let’s parse this argument. You are saying:
P1: If moral facts exist then societies could not turn to killing people indiscriminately.
P2: Societies have turned to killing people indiscriminately.
C: Therefore, moral facts do not exist. — Bob Ross
Sam Harris just blanketly asserts that wellbeing is objectively good: his approach to metaethics is to avoid it….. — Bob Ross
Many times that is the case, but don’t you agree that it is possible for a human to completely go against their nature qua animal in accordance with only reasons they have for it? — Bob Ross
What do you mean by “essentialism”? — Bob Ross
What you are describing here and with Harris’ “approach”, which is really a form of moral anti-realism, is that subject’s set out for themselves, cognitively or conatively, ends for themselves which are subjective (or non-objective to be exact); and somehow because of this there are no objective goods—just hypothetical goods. Viz., a hypothetical good for basketball would be, under this view, something like “if you want to be good at basketball, then you need to practice it” or “if we want to have fun, then let’s invent a game called basketball”; but, importantly, the examples I gave are NOT convertible to hypotheticals. “Lebron is a good basketball player” is not convertible to a hypothetical: it is a categorical statement which is normative, because it speaks of goodness which is about what ought to be. E.g., the good farmer is not hypothetically good at farming. — Bob Ross
That's what people say, of course. But somehow no one ever provides good reasons, right? :razz:
Why is it that no matter what the moral system or moral facts people are convinced of at any given time, the killing continues. Could it be that morality is chimerical?
Well yes, as I say he has decided, not without precedent, that wellbeing should be the foundation of morality because harm to wellbeing appears to be a good indicator of what is bad.
How would we demonstrate when this happens?
I take this to mean that there are essential characteristics of what it is to be human.
I forget, are you borrowing from Aristotle's notion of teleology here? The purpose/functioning of a thing?
I'm not sure I understand this argument very well. Might be me or the wording used. If you can keep it simpler and briefer it might assist.
If basketball is about skill and winning, then Lebron is a good basketball player (I don't know who this is but I can make inferences)?
You believe human life can be assessed similarly and has a telos? We can agree as to what constitutes good - based on teleological grounds, which you believe are objective?
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