but any joy they got during that vast age was a part of something good they did. — Barkon

No, I'm sayign precisely the opposite.

if they were to perform bad in any of those endeavours, they would have produced nothing or the opposite.

Well, are our current theories wrong now, and just not understood as such? Or are they "true" now and will become false at some point in the future? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I guess it depends on the nature of the claim, right? As a rule, I don’t think things are “true” in themselves, they’re just not false. Water freezes at 0 °C (32 °F) at standard atmospheric pressure, but if the Earth were to die of heat death, that fact would become irrelevant and effectively vanish. In the meantime, we can safely accept it and it has utility. (Mind you it's a truth that's contingent on practices. Saying “water freezes at 0 °C” is true within the context of our measurement practices, definitions of temperature, and shared scientific methods. It’s not “true in itself” outside that framework. But I think you find probably this tricksy and limiting? )

Was the Earth truly flat when dominant practices and beliefs affirmed it as such? If not, the truth of the Earth's roundness cannot have been dependent upon those practices. Indeed, if the reality (truth) of things just is whatever the dominant practice/culture says they are, how could beliefs ever fail to be "pragmatic" and why would they ever change? We are always omniscient in that case, just so long as we don't disagree. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I woudl imagine our ideas change when the ways we talk about and interact with the world change, which is why beliefs shift over time. We’re never omniscient; we just get better at describing the world in ways that work for us. Truth, in that sense, isn’t about matching reality, it’s about what proves useful in our ongoing conversations. Humans are meaning-making creatures and are chronically dissatisfied with what we believe. That dissatisfaction drives us to keep revisiting and reshaping our models of reality, but I don’t think those models ever truly match reality.

But you write as if this is a vast problem: -

if the reality (truth) of things just is whatever the dominant practice/culture says they are — Count Timothy von Icarus

That frames it in a harsh light. It’s not 'whatever' the dominant practice happens to be, as if this were random or irrational. It’s generally based on our best efforts and practices and our sense making impulses.

Since there are no facts outside of practice and language, it follows that there can be no prior facts that determine practice and language themselves. And, since there are no facts outside of current belief and practice, no facts can explain how or why beliefs and practices change and evolve. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't see why we need outside facts. Practices and beliefs evolve because people try new ways of talking and acting, and some ways work better than others. Change may come from our restlessness and experimentation, not from some external truth. It’s all part of our ongoing dialogue with each other and the world.

the solution of making truth dependent on man leads to some bizarre conclusions, especially if man is considered to be contingent. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don’t think it’s bizarre. This isn’t the same as saying 'anything goes'. Our models and approaches always makes sense within the context of culture, language, and conventions, all of which evolve.

(Edited for clarity)

if they were to perform bad in any of those endeavours, they would have produced nothing or the opposite. — Barkon

The point is you said this:

You won't sell a product if it's created bad. You won't survive if you do bad to your health. You won't create paradise that lasts if you're not good by nature. — Barkon

I responded with reasoning why this is inaccurate.

it's not necessarily performing bad if you aimed to trick people into buying a false cure. If he had performed bad in that very endeavour he would have produced nothing or the opposite. It's bad for other people. If other people were aware of him they would probably revolt. Which is where a moral power play ensues.

Someone can knowingly sell cigarettes or cancer causing products and be very successful and live a very happy life. Period.

If other people were aware of him they would probably revolt — Barkon

No. Gangsters, autocrats, thugs and CEOs may continue unopposed despite everyone being aware of who they are and what they do,

We’re never omniscient; we just get better at describing the world in ways that work for us. — Tom Storm

If truth only exists inside the context of human practices—is indeed dependent on them—what truths could we possibly be missing such that we are not omniscient? Wouldn't our (collective) lack of possession of all truths itself show that all truths aren't actually dependent on us and our practices, for how could they exist without our knowing of them if our practices make them true?

You didn't answer any of the questions directly, but I think they demonstrate the problem here. Did the Earth lack a shape prior to man and his practices? Or did it have a shape but it wasn't true that it had that shape? If man once again began to believe the Earth is flat would it "become flat again?" And if it wasn't round before man decided it was round, in virtue of what did evidence suggesting the Earth was round exist?

Truth, in that sense, isn’t about matching reality, it’s about what proves useful in our ongoing conversations. — Tom Storm

So, the fact that one cannot raise livestock to live on by mating males to males or sheep to pigs is a result of our "conversations?" But why would such a conversation arise if it wasn't already the case that one cannot mate males to males or sheep to pigs (or their precursor wild ancestors)? Why would people find it "useful" to formulate such truths if they weren't already the case, and why does it seem prima facie ludicrous that it "would be true that sheeps and pigs could produce offspring just in case everyone found it 'useful' to affirm this?" This is the problem with the dependence claim.

More generally, it seems to make 'usefulness' a metaphysical primitive. If there are no facts prior to usefulness, because usefulness is what generates all facts, then in virtue of what are some things deemed useful and not others? Yet surely what seems useful has prior causes, and there are facts about those prior causes. For instance, the reason it never seemed 'useful' to mate boars to wild goats is because it was already true that they cannot produce offspring because they are different species.

Further, what is actually, truly "useful" on this account seems to be "whatever is currently said/believed to be 'useful'" since there does not seem to be any possible facts about usefulness that are external to current belief and practice. But this straightforwardly collapses any appearance/reality distinction.

And since the vast majority of people don't believe this (they don't find it useful to affirm this theory as true), wouldn't it be false according to its own definition (a sort of self-refutation through the appeal to current practice)? Rorty famously said "truth is what our peers let us get away with saying," but his own theory (which is similar) wasn't embraced by his peers, unless his "peers" are not other humans, or fellow philosophers, but just a small parochial clique of philosophers, in which case it doesn't seem to have been "true" even in its own loose terms.

but if the Earth were to die of heat death, that fact would become irrelevant and effectively vanish — Tom Storm

If all men died out it would cease to be true that man ever existed? So likewise, if we carry out a successful genocide and people come to forget about it or don't find it "useful" to bring up, it ceases to have ever occured?

f truth only exists inside the context of human practices—is indeed dependent on them—what truths could we possibly be missing such that we are not omniscient? Wouldn't our (collective) lack of possession of all truths itself show that all truths aren't actually dependent on us and our practices, for how could they exist without our knowing of them if our practices make them true? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Are you saying that if truth only depends on us, then we should already know all truths, but since we don’t, truth must exist independently of human practices?

Huh? All I’m suggesting is that we interact with our environment and build stories, models and conversations to explain things. What we call truth emerges for a process. This is in constant flux and never reaches capital-T Truth. But many different models will be useful for certain purposes.

Did the Earth lack a shape prior to man and his practices? Or did it have a shape but it wasn't true that it had that shape? If man once again began to believe the Earth is flat would it "become flat again?" And if it wasn't round before man decided it was round, in virtue of what did evidence suggesting the Earth was round exist? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Saying the world was flat made sense in the context of what we knew at the time. Now it makes sense to say it is a sphere. Today most of us obviously prefer the latter, and it's more justifiable. But where will we be in 1000 years? Will we still think of the world as a material entity, or might we come to see it as a product of consciousness, rather than a physical object? I note also that there is an emerging community of flat earthers and globe deniers. Is Trump one of these? :wink:

If all men died out it would cease to be true that man ever existed? So likewise, if we carry out a successful genocide and people come to forget about it or don't find it "useful" to bring up, it ceases to have ever occured? — Count Timothy von Icarus

If people forget, it doesn’t make events vanish from some independent reality; it just makes them irrelevant in our ongoing conversation. Saying they 'never occurred' I would say is framing this wrongly.

Why would people find it "useful" to formulate such truths if they weren't already the case, and why does it seem prima facie ludicrous that it "would be true that sheeps and pigs could produce offspring just in case everyone found it 'useful' to affirm this?" This is the problem with the dependence claim. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I’d say this misunderstands what “truth depending on humans” means. It’s not that anything could be true just because we say it is. Things in the world still constrain what we can do. Our conversations and practices are built around those constraints. We find some statements “useful” precisely because they help us navigate reality as it seems to behave. Saying that truth depends on humans doesn’t deny the existence of a world, physics, or animal copulation, it just means that what we call “true” comes from the ways we describe and make sense of our world.

Of course, I could be totally wrong about all this. It's my current preferred frame.

I will take the claim to be:

X is right = I have a positive attitude towards X.

I think this view of 'right' is incorrect (and the same for 'wrong'). When discussing ethics, that simply does not seem to be what is meant by the terms.

For instance, it makes sense to hold the thought "I think death penalty is right, but is it right?" Under the view above, this would translate to: "I think I have a positive attitude towards the death penalty, but do I have a positive attitude towards it?" This makes ethical reflection seem trivial, when it does not seem to be trivial. So that is a problem for the theory. — GazingGecko

I think emotivism can meet the open question challenge. A straightforward response would be to cache it out in terms of degrees of belief. That is to say, one can have a strong, dubious or indifferent attitude towards a moral proposition. In any event, one can be humble (as you yourself advise) and keep an open mind. "I am strongly opposed to the death penalty, but I might be persuaded to change my attitude, or perhaps some future life event could effect such a change."

If you object that this is not what the question is asking, that you want to know whether it is "really" right or wrong, then you are begging the question against the anti-realist.

It also fails to handle disagreement. If I disagreed with the previous speaker, and said: "No, the death penalty is definitely wrong", it seems like I tried to contradict them. However, this would not be the case if I'm just reporting my own attitude. To illustrate:

A:"I have a positive attitude towards the death penalty!"

B:"No, I have a negative attitude towards the death penalty!"

A and B are not making contradictory propositions. Both can be true simultaneously. But in these exchanges, we are often trying to contradict the other person. So there is something problematic with the subjectivist theory. — GazingGecko

Most moral propositions are more-or-less universalizing. When I say "I oppose the death penalty," I am not just talking about my own value judgment. To hold a moral proposition is to believe that everyone ought to hold it as well. Accordingly, an emotivist will hold concurrent attitudes towards moral agreement (positive) and disagreement (negative).

If other people were aware of him they would probably revolt. Which is where a moral power play ensues. — Barkon

Someone can knowingly sell cigarettes or cancer causing products and be very successful and live a very happy life. Period. — Tom Storm

Tom's post is eerily true. No mass revolts on the street against tobacco and cigarette when the surgeon general put the warning on the cigarette.