• creativesoul
    11.9k
    Nope, that's still not even a valid argumentS

    That was a true statement.

    You could always offer a valid argument in support of your position. I've yet to have seen one from you. It's all gratuitous assertion, handwaving, and ad hom from you thus far.

    "'X' is moral according to person A's morality, and/or worldview"

    What is the above statement about?

    I say person A's belief. My answer is obvious. X equals some behaviour. "Is moral" represents person A's thought/belief about the behaviour.
  • creativesoul
    11.9k
    Surely you agree that pure reason consists of thought/belief.
    — creativesoul

    ....of course it consists of thought and beliefs.
    Mww

    Good. At least there's something we agree on here. I'll return to this after more paving.
  • creativesoul
    11.9k
    Your irrelevancy is misplaced. I reject the thesis because reason doesn’t think. I do. I am the thinker. By means of reason, imbued in me as a condition of being human, I do my thinking...Mww

    Poor wording on my part. Of course reason doesn't think.

    We do. Reason is a method and/or means.

    Here we have a disagreement that seems relevant.

    Reason is imbued in us as a condition of being human?

    What does that mean? "Imbued in us"?


    ...That is why I am certain there are conditions where no emotional content is involved, for the simple fact I don’t think about them.Mww

    Are you claiming that you, as a human, do not have any emotional content within your reasoning? No propositional attitude? Neither confidence nor lack thereof? Neither contentment nor discontentment. No certainty? No confusion?
  • S
    11.7k
    That was a true statement.

    You could always offer a valid argument in support of your position. I've yet to have seen one from you. It's all gratuitous assertion, handwaving, and ad hom from you thus far.

    "'X' is moral according to person A's morality, and/or worldview"

    What is the above statement about?

    I say person A's belief. My answer is obvious. X equals some behaviour. "Is moral" represents person A's thought/belief about the behaviour.
    creativesoul

    No.

    Again, you can't just assert without argument that a disputed claim is true. And trying to shift your burden on to me or change the subject is fallacious. Do you understand that? I won't tolerate that. That's not doing philosophy properly.

    So, before moving on to anything else, you have a burden to support:

    1. "If there are no conflicting statements under subjective moral relativism, then it fails miserably as a means for taking proper account of the way things actually are".

    2. "That's what tends to occur when one throws truth out the window".

    Or to explicitly concede that you're unwilling or unable to do so. And you should also address, and not rudely disregard, my criticism.

    Where have you addressed my point which disputes your claim about throwing truth out the window? You haven't.

    Once we've settled this matter, I will consider moving on to what you want to address, but not before.
  • S
    11.7k
    When, if ever, do either of you intend to attempt to support any of that? After 100 pages? 200? 500? Do you understand that there's a big difference between stating your position and supporting it? Do you understand that the former doesn't achieve anything? It's redundant. We already know your position.

    Just saying that it makes sense, or that there's a good independent of relativity, doesn't actually do anything philosophically. Nor does blowing your own trumpet by proclaiming your view to be virtuous.
  • tim wood
    9.2k
    Sorry, mere-s, you're just a waste of time. You're just a rant factory. Why not try reading my post for comprehension? A challenge for you. Try seeing if you understand it. I assure you it's not that difficult.
  • S
    11.7k
    Sorry, Tim (nice, but...) , I can think of better things to do than to try to squeeze substance out of a post which contains none.
  • Janus
    16.2k
    Morality is relative, but it is relative to what is good for community, not what is good for the individual. There is obviously an objective 'what is the case' when it comes to what is good for community, and this is all the more obvious when it comes to extreme acts such as murder, rape, torture, theft, dishonesty and so on. It would be absurd to claim that these kinds of acts and dispositions could be generally approved within a community and that general approval would result in a healthy, thriving community. Even marauding tribes don't condone murdering, raping, torturing, stealing from or deceiving their own.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    There is obviously an objective 'what is the case' when it comes to what is good for community,Janus

    There obviously isn't, rather, because there's nothing at all in the vein of a "good" assessment in the extramental world. The extramental world simply is. It has no preference for one way it can be over another way it can be. The extramental world couldn't care less if humans survive or not, if they have continuing communities in whatever state. Humans care about that, and a human caring about something is subjective, not objective.

    It would be absurd to claim that these acts could be generally approvedJanus

    If we're talking about people approving something, we're surely not talking about something objective.
  • Janus
    16.2k
    A community is obviously not an "extramental world" ( whatever that could even be!) and yet there are obviously objective facts about whether it is healthy. thrives and so on.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    A community is obviously not an "extramental world" ( whatever that could even be!)Janus

    If you don't buy that there's an extramental world, or you don't know what one would be, you have no business arguing that anything is objective.

    yet there are obviously objective facts about whether it is healthy. thrives and so on.Janus

    An objective fact is a fact that obtains extramentally.

    There are extramental facts about bodies, the states that bodies are in, etc., but as I've noted many times, if we're using a term that has a normative connotation to it (for example, "healthy" as a normative) then there's nothing objective about that. There are no shoulds or preferences in the extramental world. There only is what IS.

    And you can't get anywhere near morality if you avoid normatives.
  • Janus
    16.2k
    If you can't see it, don't worry about it. For me to explain it here would be off-topic.
  • Janus
    16.2k
    If you don't buy that there's an extramental world, or you don't know what one would be, you have no business arguing that anything is objective.Terrapin Station

    There is no objectivity in human discourse beyond our ability to inter-subjectively agree that something is the case. What else could objectivity consist in?

    And you can't get anywhere near morality if you avoid normatives.Terrapin Station

    Of course; normatives just are inter-subjective agreement; what else could they be? And by your own argument, since you reject inter-subjective agreement, "you can't get anywhere near morality".
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    There is no objectivity in human discourse beyond our ability to inter-subjectively agree that something is the case. What else could objectivity consist in?Janus

    How many times did I ask you to explain just what "intersubjectivity" amounts to in your usage? You've never done so.
  • S
    11.7k
    The great irony in what you say there is that it is itself nothing other than an expression of your own individual judgement on what morality should be. (You say "is", but you really mean "should be". There's nothing stopping me or anyone else from interpreting morality differently. So you're tacitly sending out the message that this is what morality should be for us. I happen to disagree).
  • Janus
    16.2k
    That's the stupidest thing I've heard in a while. 'Inter-subjectivity' obviously refers to agreement or disagreement between subjects.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    That's the stupidest thing I've heard in a while. 'Inter-subjectivity' obviously refers to agreement or disagreement between subjects.Janus

    Different people use that term in different ways. If you simply mean agreement that's fine.

    How in the world does agreement amout to objectivity?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Or to put it another way, say that we have 100 people. 98 say "You should do x."

    Well, so what? How does the fact that 98% of people say that make it right? And isn't the claim that that makes something right known as the argumentum ad populum fallacy?
  • Janus
    16.2k
    No, I'm saying that is what morality is as a social phenomenon; it obviously is that. Morality consists in social mores. You can interpret what you think morality is however you like, but if you don't think it consists in social mores as well as normatively mediated individual responses to those mores then you would be just plain wrong. Individuals cannot be totally separate from the communities in which they participate.
  • S
    11.7k
    Morality as herd-morality is easily lead to problems.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    No, I'm saying that is what morality is as a social phenomenon; it obviously is that.Janus

    Saying that something is a social phenomenon would exclude meaning, preference, etc. Societies don't have minds, individuals do.
  • Janus
    16.2k
    Inter-subjectively shared attitudes to murder, rape etc. are not merely a matter of 'popular opinion', they are matters of life and death for communities and the individuals who comprise them. This is just your little willfully blind fetish.
  • S
    11.7k
    You say that morality is relative to the community. I say, no, it isn't. A morality is relative to the community, and that morality is called herd-morality. But individual morality is also a morality, that is, morality which is relative to the individual. Morality is the broader concept, encompassing both, not whatever you want it to be.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Inter-subjectively shared attitudes to murder, rape etc. are not merely a matter of 'popular opinion', they are matters of life and death for communities and the individuals who comprise them.Janus

    What is that supposed to be a response to? It doesn't seem to be an answer or comment to any question I just asked you or any comment I just made in response to stuff you'd just said.
  • Janus
    16.2k
    Are you saying that social behavior has nothing to do with the mental or that cultural attitudes have no actuality?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Let's say that allowing murder, rape, etc. leads to the extinction of humans.

    Okay, now what? How do we get from that fact to anything you're attempting to claim re objectivity, etc.?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Are you saying that social behavior has nothing to do with the mental or that cultural attitudes have no actuality?Janus

    Definitely "cultural attitude" is only a very loose manner of speaking. Cultures don't literally have attitudes. Attitudes are mental phenomena, and only invidividuals have minds. Cultures do not.

    Social behavior has something to do with mental stuff in that it can both reflect and influence mental stuff. We can't identify it with mental stuff if we want to speak at all precisely, though.
  • S
    11.7k
    And I never said that individuals can be totally separate from communities in which they participate. That's the kind of straw man that I've actively been disassociating with my position. For starters, obviously if "they participate", then...
  • Janus
    16.2k
    'Herd morality' is what people believe is right because it is good for the herd. I am not claiming such attitudes are always right, but ti would seem that they are generally adapted to the flourishing of the herd, and without them there can obviously be no viable community. If a particular herd morality is to be judged to be wrong, it would be because it is detrimental to the flourishing of the herd. Then it might take an inspired individual to come up with a healthy alternative. Can you give an example of what you would think of as herd morality?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    'Herd morality' is what people believe is right because it is good for the herd. I an=m not claiming it is always right, but without it there can be no community. If herd morality is to be judged to be wrong it would be because it is detrimental to the flourishing of the herd. Then it might take an inspired individual to come up with a healthy alternative. Can you give an example of what you would think of as herd morality?Janus

    Only people care about communities continuing though, no?
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