I don't think that this is at all what people mean by "objective". I think Sapientia, and now you, are trying to create a new definition of "objective", one that suits the purpose of the claim that science is more objective than ethics. "Objective" generally means of the object, the external, as opposed to of the subjective, the internal. Ethics deals with how we ought to behave in relation to others, within the community, so it is clearly something external to the individual subject, and therefore objective. — Metaphysician Undercover

It can mean different things in different contexts. I'm not trying to create a new definition of "objective". I am using it in a similar way to you. But you haven't provided any good reason to conclude that ethics is objective, because how we ought to behave in relation to others is arguably a subjective matter, and you're merely begging the question.

In that absence of an agreed moral framework, like that provided by the Judeo-Christian tradition, then that is about the best we can do. — Wayfarer

Even when there's an agreed moral framework, there is still much disagreement about whether given behaviors are moral or immoral, as well-knowm divides between certain fundamentalist groups and more liberal groups reveals. We can readily see this in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

Of course. Hence this discussion. But if I were to refer to any kind of 'objective morality' or 'moral absolute', then that is generally interpreted to mean 'oh you must be religious then'. Actually I remember distinctly from years back on philosophyforums, having that exact discussion with Death Monkey - me saying that I think there is an objective moral order, and the reply being how absurd it was to say such a thing.

But now I understand why he said that a little better. Death Monkey was a physicist, and as far as he was concerned whatever is real consists of the fundamental particles, forces, and so on, as described by physics. So ultimately they're the only things we can be objective about! And they have no intrinsic value, the universe is simply an aggregation of those forces and things - that's 'reality' according to physics.

But I think this is also an historically-conditioned attitude rather than a scientific judgement, as such. It's not a religion, in the sense that it eschews religious ideas, but it is normative in the same sense as what Steve Pinker says upthread, it 'hems the possibilities' - so it acts in the place formerly assigned to religion.

You are mindlessly contradicting yourself over and over. In effect you are saying without any supporting reason at all that what is acausal is causal and that what is causal is acausal, thus dissolving any useful distinction. What you present here is essentially meaningless philosobabble.

It is an amorphous mass of mere assertions that don't actually assert anything. It is a verbal ratatouille which just allows your little mantric nuggets of dogma to glisten suggestively for a few brief moments before they sink back into the stew of incoherence.

I did not dissolve the distinction. My claim was not that the causal was a a casual, but that the casual expressed the acausal. Extension (casual) expresses thought (acasual). States of the world cause each other, but they are always logically given in themselves. Causality is deterministic (X causes has Y effect), but never constraining (X and Y are defined in-themslves, not by an outside realm or state).

Indeed, the entire point here is the acasual is not the casual. An acausal force cannot do anything in the world. The logic discintion: "The disease is cured" doesn't make it so. The world needs to actually do it if it is to happen.

Logic cannot act to define the 'miracle" because that would amount to pre(determinism). The account you gave had the acasual (God/supernatural) acting to force what would occur in the world, constrain it to the "miracle cure," as if it were of (pre)deterministic causality. Rather than the world-- the emergence of a cured state out of possibility-- the cure is said to be necessary and really a result of this acausal force.

This is a contradiction and violates the possibility of emergence. If a hidden realm was always going to act to (intentionally?) constrain the world to a cure, there is no freedom in the cure. It's predetermined: caused (supposedly) by the acasual.

By and large, religious beliefs presuppose moral realism, but moral realism does not entail religious belief. So, It is certainly possible to be a moral realist, but not religious.

The moral realist, though, seems at a loss about how to resolve dispute about whether a given behavior really is moral or immoral. At a loss about how to resolve dispute about whether or not a given claim is a moral fact or not. If there allegedly are moral facts of some kind somewhere, but we cannot actually access them to resolve such dispute, then the notion of moral fact is useless, if not vacuous. And then, of course, there's always Mackie's "queerness" argument about the alleged reality of moral facts.

The normal boiling point for various substances has been scientifically tested to such a high standard that we can objectively predict at what temperature a particular substance, under normal conditions, will boil. We know, for example, that the normal boiling point of water is 100°C. It is objective because it doesn't depend on how you feel about it or what you think about it and so on. — Sapientia

We can predict what temperature water boils at, because the scale is built around that. When water boils, this is one hundred degrees, by definition. So it is true by definition, just like it is true by definition that murder and theft are wrong. That murder is wrong does not depend on how you feel about it, it is defined as wrongfully killing, just like one hundred degrees is defined as the temperature water boils at.

I agree that objective refers to the external vs. internal, and this is consistent with what I said about the scientific argument and data being put on the table so that any independent observer can judge for themselves.

People's behavior is indeed external, but any claim that behavior is or is not ethical is a value judgment. And value judgments are decidedly internal. We can express our value judgments in language and share them with others, but we cannot show them any entity that they can observe for themselves. They can only observe the behavior and make their own internal value judgement about whether that behavior is ethical or not. — Brainglitch

Your argument doesn't make sense. Scientific judgements are "internal", and value judgements just as much as ethical judgements are. The difference is in the value system used. Scientific judgements use numerical values, reducing qualities to quantities. Ethical judgement judges quality directly without converting the quality to quantity. This extra step, of conversion, whereby quality is converted to quantity, is an extra internal judgement process. Therefore scientific judgement is likely less objective than ethical judgement because it requires a twofold internal judgement system. The more internal judgements required to decide something should make that decision more subjective.

Everybody understands how much counts as a cm, or a volt, or a newton, etc. And any dispute about whether or not a given object, say, weighs 50 kilos, is objectively resolvable. But there is no way even in principle to resolve dispute about whether or not a given behavior really is ethical, because there is no universal agreement about the criteria, or about mitigating factors, or exceptions, or degrees, and the like — Brainglitch

All these scientific terms you refer to, volt, newton, etc., are true by definition. There are many acts such as murder and theft, which are wrong by definition. To argue against the fact that these acts are wrong is to go against the convention, just like arguing that an object which everyone says weighs 50 kilos, does not weigh 50 kilos.

Scientific judgements use numerical values, reducing qualities to quantities. Ethical judgement judges quality directly without converting the quality to quantity. This extra step, of conversion, whereby quality is converted to quantity, is an extra internal judgement process. — Metaphysician Undercover

It isn't a matter of reducing qualities to quantities, but of quantitative measurement. Whenever you wish to subject a question to scientific analysis, you need to be able to quantify it. 'Show me the data', will be the response from a scientist. Whatever is going to be studied or analysed must be amenable to quantification in that sense. What quality has been reduced to quantity in that step?

'That killing is wrong' is a completely different kind of question. Certainly every culture thinks that murder is wrong - but what about killing in self-defense? As an act of war? To prevent someone kllling someone else? What about all the legally prohibited acts other than killing? There are countless ethical and moral judgement that need to be made in law and other non-scientific subjects. It is the basis of those judgements which are problematical nowadays, insofar as if cultural norms are deprecated for various reasons, and only science remains authoritative, then it does inevitably entail some form of moral relativism, it seems to me.

So I have to agree with your opponents on this score. I think there really is a 'fact-value' dichotomy, that is deeply part of modern cultural discourse, but you're not going to come to terms with it by saying there's 'no real difference' between quantitive and qualitative judgement. Making a scientific observation and an ethical judgement are very different kinds of acts.

The moral realist, though, seems at a loss about how to resolve dispute about whether a given behavior really is moral or immoral. — BrainGlitch

At a certain point you have to nail your colours to the mast, you have to declare what you believe is moral or immoral. As you've said you're meta-ethical nihilist, presumably this doesn't come up for you.

. My claim was not that the causal was a a casual, but that the casual expressed the acausal. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But that is just what I said, and yet you sounded as if you wanted to disagree. :s

The causal can be thought to express (in the sense of being an expression that emerges out of) the acausal thought of either as the virtual or as the spiritual.

In the former case it is a meaningless emergence, and hence you have nihilism. In the latter case you have the order of nature understood as being meaningfully symbolic of a spiritual order.

Discursive rationality, either alone or working with empirical observation, can never tell you which is the case, so you must find some other way to decide or else sit on the fence.

It isn't a matter of reducing qualities to quantities, but of quantitative measurement. Whenever you wish to subject a question to scientific analysis, you need to be able to quantify it. 'Show me the data', will be the response from a scientist. Whatever is going to be studied or analysed must be amenable to quantification in that sense. What quality has been reduced to quantity in that step? — Wayfarer

The thing being measured is a quality of the physical world. The act of measuring is to represent that quality as a quantity. The size of an object is a sensible quality of that object, it appears to be either big or small. To measure it is to represent the size in an intelligible form, as a quantity

'That killing is wrong' is a completely different kind of question. Certainly every culture thinks that murder is wrong - but what about killing in self-defense? As an act of war? To prevent someone kllling someone else? What about all the legally prohibited acts other than killing? There are countless ethical and moral judgement that need to be made in law and other non-scientific subjects. It is the basis of those judgements which are problematical nowadays, insofar as if cultural norms are deprecated for various reasons, and only science remains authoritative, then it does inevitably entail some form of moral relativism, it seems to me. — Wayfarer

But I didn't say "killing", I said "murder". That's the point. To assign a word to an act, is to represent that act in an intelligible form, just like assigning a number to an object in measurement. To say "murder" is to indicate that the act being described has been judged, (or "measured") as wrong, just like to say the object is 25 centimeters is to indicate that the object has been measured. If the act is murder, it is by definition, wrong.

So I have to agree with your opponents on this score. I think there really is a 'fact-value' dichotomy, that is deeply part of modern cultural discourse, but you're not going to come to terms with it by saying there's 'no real difference' between quantitive and qualitative judgement. Making a scientific observation and an ethical judgement are very different kinds of acts. — Wayfarer

The point is, that any act of judgement is an act of applying a value system, whether that value system is numerical or ethical. There is no "fact-value dichotomy", because whether or not a fact is produced is dependent upon the method by which the value system is applied. If I make a faulty measurement, then the measurement which I give is not fact. If I incorrectly judge a killing as a murder, then it is not a fact that the act was murder. But if I carry out those judgements correctly, then the measurement can be said to be a fact, and that the killing is a murder can be said to be a fact.

Producing a fact is to use the proper symbols or signification to represent the object, or act. What makes the application of numbers to measure the object more "objective" than the application of ethical words "wrong and right", or "good and bad", as a form of measurement?

I think that this can be criticized in the same way willow criticized the notion of "supernatural explanation". The same way the supernatural explanation is, in fact, always a natural explanation, albeit a different (weird, irregular, less common) one, the same way the content of your experience was not beyond human conception or unrelated to your senses. It could be a form of synesthesia or something like that. At any rate, I agree that such experiences can be utterly transformative.

Yes I agree the Willow's point about the supernatural. The grey area here is in the word"natural", or nature. Nature can be a catch all phrase for the supernatural, the empirical and the scientifically understood and an infinity of the unknown. So it should be specified how it is being used. Also the divine, or spiritual in all its glory need not be supernatural, it's just nature.

I don't think you covered the point I made about the transformative nature of epiphany, or perhaps I should say revelation here. My point is that the experience includes phenomena beyond the capacity, and conception of the human mind and body, it is an intervention from something else(a superior mind and body), so cannot be generated by the body or mind, even though such effects may appear to be replicated through the use of hallucinogenic substances, or in mental disorder.

Let me explain, in the experience I had which I discribed in which I transcended time. This is not the only thing that happened. In the vision, I was lifted up by a being who I interpreted as the Christ. This is the key to my point. I was lifted up in reality(not my physical body, it was in a dream), metaphorically, subjectively. So was taken out of my/this world and hosted by this being, in his/her world, this world, or phenomenological reality was transcendent in time and space. So I was a witness to a greater, transcendent, but also orthogonal reality for the duration of the hosting in the world of this other being.

So what this illustrates is;
I experienced something beyond what my body and mind is equipped to experience.

I was a witness to something which I could not conceive of, or conceptualise with my intellectual mind.

I had a vivid experience of being lifted out of this world in the presence of a being.

I experienced the presence and phenomenological world of this being.

Materialistic naturalistic explanations of what happened are inadequate to explain this, or to consider it as evidence, because, it can't be understood external to the experience itself.


Yes, Robbie Basho was a deeply spiritual artist. For me his music is transcendent similarly to my experience of this being I mention above. He has channeled, or revealed a deeper sense of being in this piece of music.

(I will link it again, if anyone else want to hear it, http://youtu.be/83GgOhBhxqI)

I like the other piece you linked to, this kind of country music is new to me, an exiting new direction to explore.

My point is that the experience includes phenomena beyond the capacity, and conception of the human mind and body, — Punshhh

Apologies if you explained this already, but I don't see how one could conclude that one is having an experience that is beyond the capacity and conception of the human mind and body. In fact, "beyond the capacity of" I'd say is contradictory; otherwise, you wouldn't be capable of having that experience.

At a certain point you have to nail your colours to the mast, you have to declare what you believe is moral or immoral. As you've said you're meta-ethical nihilist, presumably this doesn't come up for you. — Wayfarer

But a moral realist is not just declaring that you believe a given behavior to be moral or immoral. A moral relativist does this too. (As for that matter, does a moral irrealist, in the sense of expressing approval or disapproval of the behavior and/or supporting condemnation, punishment or reward.)

A moral realist holds that there is a moral fact about the matter that's indepemdent of his, or anyone else's, belief one way or the other. Presumably, his belief is informed by this fact. But the problem, as I've noted, is that he cannot produce this fact, cannot even intelligibly explain what kind of thing this independently existing moral fact thingy is, and cannot even use it to resolve dispute that challenges the alleged factuality that a given behavior is moral or immoral.

I understand your point, but what I am suggesting that it I didn't experience the content of the revelation, but witnessed it(which was bolded). I know this doesn't make sense either. But what I am suggesting here is that my mind (and body) was temporarily enabled by the mind of the other being to increase its capacity and enable it to witness what it can't witness on its own. Actually one could say that I did experience what the being experienced by being a part of him. This is why it is called revelation, because something inaccessible is revealed, through this process.

That's the exact problem

Yes, I agree, well apart from the assumption that god does not exist, for these reasons. We cannot say this, we just don't know. Also yes the atheists may be right, while naive.

Anyway, this is irrelevant if one is considering what actually exists, rather than what we can say exists, or conceive of as existing. What actually exists and what form it takes may be entirely unknown to us, or inconceivable to us. Thus, we cannot determine what difference God makes, or not, from our limited position. It doesn't follow that because we can't find a difference, that it is not there.

Your argument doesn't make sense. Scientific judgements are "internal", and value judgements just as much as ethical judgements are. The difference is in the value system used. Scientific judgements use numerical values, reducing qualities to quantities. Ethical judgement judges quality directly without converting the quality to quantity. This extra step, of conversion, whereby quality is converted to quantity, is an extra internal judgement process. Therefore scientific judgement is likely less objective than ethical judgement because it requires a twofold internal judgement system. The more internal judgements required to decide something should make that decision more subjective.

All these scientific terms you refer to, volt, newton, etc., are true by definition. There are many acts such as murder and theft, which are wrong by definition. To argue against the fact that these acts are wrong is to go against the convention, just like arguing that an object which everyone says weighs 50 kilos, does not weigh 50 kilos. — Metaphysician Undercover

The difference is that scientific "judgments" are based on clearly defined, universally agreed upon criteria, and are publicly observable. This includes the various units of measurement, and whether or not the instrument readings are consistent with the claim at issue, as well as more straightforward, uncontroversial observation, such as after introduction of the new compound, the microbes in the dish rapidly died off, or after following the exercise protocol, subjects were able to run the distance faster than the control group, or when you refrigerate the food, it lasts longer than unrefrigerated food. etc.

Whereas, in the case of moral/ethical judgments, there may or may not be agreement about the criteria for judging the begavior as moral or immoral, there may or may not be agreement that the behavior at issue is an instance of the behavior covered by the criteria, and there is no way to publically demonstrate that the behavior really is moral or immoral. The behavior itself may be public, but the judgment that it is moral or immoral is not based on publically observable and agreed upon criteria.

In science, dispute about whether or not the item at issue weighs 50 kilos, or that the test subjects run faster than the controls, or that the microbes died is resolved "objectively" by observation. But there is no "objective" way to resolve dispute about whether or not a given behavior is moral. Note that dispute about whether or not the behavior is considered moral or immoral according to the conventions of a given society can be objectively resolved, but not dispute about whether or not it really is moral or immoral in some sense that transcends a particular sdociety's conventions and applies to all societies. Determination that a given behavior is considered moral or immoral in a given society is an observable sociological fact, not an observable moral fact.

I understand your point, but what I am suggesting that it I didn't experience the content of the revelation, but witnessed it(which was bolded). I know this doesn't make sense either. But what I am suggesting here is that my mind (and body) was temporarily enabled by the mind of the other being to increase its capacity and enable it to witness what it can't witness on its own. Actually one could say that I did experience what the being experienced by being a part of him. This is why it is called revelation, because something inaccessible is revealed, through this process. — Punshhh

Ah, I can see that making some sense from a much different ontological perspective than my own (well, and as long as I ignore thinking about details of how it could work). You see it as kind of being (at least temporarily) gifted capacities you don't normally possess.

We can predict what temperature water boils at, because the scale is built around that. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, we can predict what temperature water boils at, but not because the scale is built around that. It is because it has been successfully tested. It is possible that if you go to boil water under normal conditions, it will boil at 30°C. But that is extremely unlikely.

When water boils, this is one hundred degrees, by definition. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, it isn't. It would then be impossible for water to boil at any other temperature. But that isn't impossible.

Water was discovered to boil at a precise moment under certain conditions, and these conditions can be recreated and tested, and it is possible, but extremely unlikely, that the outcome will be different. We know what does and doesn't effect the outcome, and we know that subjective qualities like how you feel or what you think are included in the list of factors which do not effect the outcome. That's why it is objective.

...it is true by definition that murder and theft are wrong. That murder is wrong does not depend on how you feel about it, it is defined as wrongfully killing, just like one hundred degrees is defined as the temperature water boils at. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a bad argument, because there are other definitions for murder and theft, and they don't have to be defined that way. (And to rule out one possible interpretation, I'll note that we are talking about science vs. ethics, not science vs. the law). So, that you have chosen to define them that way is trivial. And even if murder and theft were immoral by definition, that in itself would trivialise the ethics of it, as we would just need to learn the meaning of the words to know that murder and theft are immoral - irrespective of anything else, which misses out the whole importance of ethics. And you yourself have said that ethics is about consequences, so this would lead you once again into contradiction.

And, like I said, 100°C is the temperature at which water boils under normal conditions, but it isn't defined as the temperature at which water boils under normal conditions, unless you are defining it that way, but then that'd be your problem, not mine.

Yes, you are lifted out of your normal self and hosted by another being, thus being as you say gifted other capacities.

I know this doesn't make sense either. But what I am suggesting here is that my mind (and body) was temporarily enabled by the mind of the other being to increase its capacity and enable it to witness what it can't witness on its own. — Punshhh

>:O

Yes, you are lifted out of your normal self and hosted by another being, thus being as you say gifted other capacities. — Punshhh

Are we talking about science fiction now?

No, it happened. I wasn't expecting you to believe me though.

that piece Rock Thrush linked to is a traditional American gospel song called Wayfaring Stranger, I think it was a reference to my screen name. I have been listening to a rather up-market acapalla version https://youtu.be/GaJ3adMgsbY

@Metaphysician Undercover - I am going to create a separate thread on the topic we're discussing, it's a subject in its own right.

But we know it doesn't make sense by the nature of God.

If God were the cause or presence behind the curtain, an existing state of some realm, they would be sullied. God would not be the Real and unchanging infinite. In existing, God would just be another illusion of the world, which comes and goes on a whim.

To suggest God might or might not exist is to insult God. It is to ignore that God is logically necesary and treat them like a finite illusion.

The difference is that scientific "judgments" are based on clearly defined, universally agreed upon criteria, and are publicly observable.

...

Whereas, in the case of moral/ethical judgments, there may or may not be agreement about the criteria for judging the begavior as moral or immoral, there may or may not be agreement that the behavior at issue is an instance of the behavior covered by the criteria, and there is no way to publically demonstrate that the behavior really is moral or immoral. — Brainglitch

So objectivity is defined by agreement?

No, we can predict what temperature water boils at, but not because the scale is built around that. It is because it has been successfully tested. It is possible that if you go to boil water under normal conditions, it will boil at 30°C. But that is extremely unlikely. — Sapientia

I disagree. I think it has been demonstrated and learnt, that water boils under similar conditions. These conditions are described as the same temperature at the same pressure. That temperature is designated as 100 degrees Celsius at average sea level pressure. We could designate something else as the temperature which water boils at, like 212 degrees. So the reason why we can say what temperature water boils at is because we have designated specific numbers to represent the temperature which water boils and freezes at, and built a scale around it. We could take something like alcohol, and determine what temperature it boils at, and this would be an act of comparing it to the temperature which water boils and freezes at, placing it within that scale.

This is a bad argument, because there are other definitions for murder and theft, and they don't have to be defined that way. (And to rule out one possible interpretation, I'll note that we are talking about science vs. ethics, not science vs. the law). So, that you have chosen to define them that way is trivial. — Sapientia

Actually, it's yours, which is the bad argument. By the same principle that you can define "murder" in another way, which is according to some other convention, I can say that according to some other convention, water doesn't boil at a hundred degrees, it boils at two hundred and twelve. All you are doing is saying that I'm going to define "murder" according to another convention, in which murder is not necessarily wrong, then you provide your convention, your definition, just like I would say that according to the Fahrenheit convention, water does not boil; at one hundred degrees. So, to match your claim, that my defining murder as wrong, is trivial, I would likewise have to say that the fact you've chosen to say that water boils at 100 Celsius is just as trivial. One difference though, unlike you I don't believe these choices to be trivial. One might just as well define the boiling point of water in another way, like you would define murder in another way, but that doesn't mean that these choices are trivial. I think such choices have great consequences.

And even if murder and theft were immoral by definition, that in itself would trivialise the ethics of it, as we would just need to learn the meaning of the words to know that murder and theft are immoral - irrespective of anything else, which misses out the whole importance of ethics. And you yourself have said that ethics is about consequences, so this would lead you once again into contradiction. — Sapientia

Yes, this is exactly the case, we learn the meaning of these words, "murder" and "theft", what it means to murder and to steal, and in doing so we learn that these are wrong. That's how we learn ethics. Why do you think that this is trivial and misses the importance of ethics? We must learn which behaviours are wrong, so we have words for them, and meanings for those words, which indicate not only what the behaviour is, but also that it is wrong. The meaning of the moral word does two things for us, describes the action and tells us whether it is a virtue or a vice. So we have other words like temperance, honesty, courage, etc., which refer to good character, and these are likely to lead to good actions. Many ethicists would argue that we should focus on the words which have meanings that are understood as good character, rather than the bad, as this will encourage good behaviour. Why does this lead me into contradiction, with respect to consequences? The consequence of learning these words is that we avoid doing the things which are defined as being bad and move toward doing things which are defined as being good.

OK, I should have something to contribute. Sorry, I guess I got bored of the op topic and went off track.

So objectivity is defined by agreement? — Metaphysician Undercover

If the truth or falsity of a claim can be determined objectively, I think this means that it'ds available for indpendent inspection and judgement.

The claims of established science are either presented as logically rigorous arguments (including the data and math) and/or as empirically observable. The criteria for someone's judgment of the truth or falsdity of such claims are explicitly defined and universally agreed upon.

This is not the case in judgments about the truth or falsity of moral claims.

But why do you relegate God, or it's equivalent(which we can't conceive) to beyond existence? We can't make this presumption.

I think it's important to realize that there isn't universal agreement on the vast majority of claims about objective, factual matters.

"Objective" doesn't imply agreement, and "subjective" doesn't imply disagreement, even though that's a common misconception.