if it helps, note that nothing stops me from valuing universally - indeed, I do. I value everyone being kind. So my valuing is universal. It mentions no names. And I can issue universal prescriptions as well. here: everyone be kind!!

But nevertheless, my values and prescriptions, whether they are applied universally or not, are not - not, not, not - moral values and prescriptions.

They do share features in common with moral values and prescriptions though. For one, they are values and prescriptions. For another, they are being born by a subject.

Hence why I conclude that moral values and prescriptions - regardless of their universality - are the values and prescriptions of a subject.

And so what you are doing, so far as I can tell, is focussing on a feature of moral values that is orthogonal to the issue at hand. The issue at hand is whether they are subjective or not.

First, I am going to stipulate what 'objective' and 'subjective' will mean in this thread. Something is 'subjective' when it exists as subjective states - that is, as states of mind. If you don't agree, that's fine -but that's how the word is being used here.
So 'pain' would be a classic example of something that is subjective in this sense of the term. Pain is a feeling and feelings are subjective states - they exist in subjects and nowhere else. So, if you feel in pain, then necessarily you are in pain.
Saying that something is 'subjective' does not mean denying its existence (or affirming it). It is to say something about its mode of existence. So, when I say that "pain is subjective" I am neither affirming nor denying the reality of pain. I am saying that what it would take for some pain to exist is for some subjective states - the ones constitutive of pain - to exist (which in turn requires that there exists a subject - a mind - whose states they are). — Bartricks

Well, may I at least raise an issue?

Assume that a subjective state is a state of mind.

How could we possibly know that your mind and my mind are in the same state?

Yep. Humour me.

I've thought about it a lot and am unclear why you assume I haven't. — Bartricks

I haven't made such an assumption. I assure you, if I did not think your opinion worthy, I would not be having this discussion.

The same way we know anything - if Reason represents the content of my mental state to be the same as yours, then I have evidence that we are in the same mental state. Not numerically the same, of course, but the same content-wise.

I am unclear of the relevance

You told me to think on it some more. That assumes that there is some mysterious knowledge that you possess and that I do not, and that if only I think as much as you do it will become apparent to me. That's how I took it anyway.

But even if that's true, it is a remarkably inefficient way of getting it - why not just tell me what you think I don't know, rather than hoping my own fumbling thinking will eventually reveal it to me?

So Fred is in mental state A; how does Reason help us to conclude that Fiona is also in mental state A?

I like the word represents in "...Reason represents the content of my mental state to be the same as yours". Do you mean that Reason (...do we need the capital?) permits or encourages us to use the same word?

Basically because telling you will just get your back up. I want you to feel the pull of the argument.

That is, I want to do philosophy with you, and not just tell you what I think.

I am now using a capital because she's a person and that's her name, or the one we've given to her.

I like that you like the word 'represents', for its presence serves to underscore that this is a person we are talking about, as only subjects - persons, minds - can represent things to be the case.

To answer your question then, by 'represents' I meant 'represents'.

For an attempt to grasp morality, other people, or rather any account of relations between people - the very stuff of morality - seems conspicuously absent. This ought to be disqualifying from the start. This is one of the things that happens when morality is made a matter of a 'mind': as if minds have moral relations. Another victim of Cartesianism.

Okay oh wise one.

Incidentally master, earlier I could not help but notice what seemed to me to be a mistake, though of course it is much more likely I am mistaken, so ignorant am I. But you mentioned Moore and said that a point of mine was Moorean, yet the point in question was Kantian, not Moorean, though certainly other points I made were Moorean.

But Descartes was right about almost everything.

:vomit:

@Bartricks

So if Fred is in pain, writhing and crying, and we see Fiona writhing and crying, we conclude that Fiona is also in pain? Something along those lines?

But of course, we might also be mistaken, and Fiona gets an Oscar for her performance.

The relevance? Let's do some more work on what sort of thing a mental state is - after all, they are the foundation of what you call subjective, so we ought give them some attention.

Yeah - I am going there a bit more slowly, but that's where I am headed.

We are not doing moral stuff if we are not talking about how we ought treat others.

Why won't you drop this bad analogy between a situation in which someone unknown may be discovered, and a situation in which we are speculating about the existence of an absolute entity or subject?

The attributes of an absolute entity, as in what is logically entailed by the idea, insofar as the idea is intelligible at all, has been comprehensively treated in philosophy and theology. You don't need to, and you cannot, reinvent the wheel from scratch.

If you are talking about an absolute subject you are talking about the "philosophers' God" as somewhat variously conceived by, among many other philosophers, Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz.

Okay oh wise one. — Bartricks

No need for you to take on a subservient role here. Don't be so hard on yourself.

You set your ideas out for critique, didn't you? That's what I am doing.

You are not doing moral stuff if you are not talking about how you ought treat others. — Banno

Yep. Also others as people: with bodies, capacities, life histories, social situations, desires, and the rest of it. Minds? The least of it.

No, along the lines I said - I know, if I know, that I am in the same mental state as someone else when Reason represents me to be.

Knowledge, whatever it involves, must involve a belief being endorsed by Reason, no?

I am not sure why I need to do this work of figuring out what a mental state is given that my argument seems to be in fine working order as it is and this seems to be another of those orthogonal issues.

For example, let's say you mistakenly believe that mental states are physical states. Okay, how will that affect my argument? Not in the least, it'll just mean that the subject - the one whom we call Reason - is a physical thing.

Indeed.

I know, if I know, that I am in the same mental state as someone else when Reason represents me to be. — Bartricks

OK. I'll let that go, since I don't really see what you mean by "Reason represents me to be"; that does not sit well as an explanation.

I have not mentioned an 'absolute entity' and I don't know what one of those is when it is at home.

You don't need to, and you cannot, reinvent the wheel from scratch. — Janus

Yes you can. I mean, I am not, But you can. Tim invented the wheel. Then he forgot. Then he reinvented it. So that's wrong.

Here: "there is a door to my left". That is a representation. It is a representation I made. I, a subject.

Reason makes representations. She represents the arguments I have been making in this thread to be valid and sound, for instance.

1. If moral values are made of my valuings, then if I value something necessarily it is morally valuable
2. If I value something it is not necessarily morally valuable
3. Therefore moral values are not made of my valuings — Bartricks

Suppose I accept this.

Then suppose that I take moral values to be, not my valuings, but our valuings (using your somewhat uncomfortable wording).

What would you say?

So there can't be a moral obligation not to destroy a forest, then? That someone who thinks there is a moral obligation not to destroy a forest is conceptually confused?

Regardless of whether we think we actually have obligations not to destroy forests, the fact is a person who believes we do is not thereby demonstrating conceptual incompetence.

I would say this:

1. If moral values are our values, then if we value something necessarily it is morally valuable.
2. if we value something it is not necessarily morally valuable
3.Therefore, moral values are not our values.

And if I were to say that (2) is plainly false...? Since what is morally valuable IS what we say is morally valuable?

(Edit: I'm not sure what the word "necessarily" adds here - is this a modal argument?)

I would point out that if we all say, right now, 'rape each other!' rape would remain wrong and bad.

And I would also point out that we test the credibility of a moral position not by doing surveys of what others are thinking, but by consulting our reason.